Just one more

Had to add a quick photo of E in the dress without the PJs underneath. Ok, maybe two more photos.

Ta-da!!

Or as E would say, "Duh-daaaaa!" My first real homesewn dress!! I'm so proud of myself. Although to be technical, it's actually my second effort at sewing a dress. The first one...well, let's just say it didn't turn out quite like I'd hoped. But I'll get to that later. Let's start with the good, shall we?

So you may recall that I recently made this dress and this dress from material that was already pre-shirred (for all you non-sewing types, that means it was already all gathered up and elasticized). It was super easy, and I really wanted to make more, but there's a pretty slim selection of fabric, especially fabric that isn't 4 feet long, meaning that I'd be wasting about half of it. Not to mention that depending on where you buy it, it's not exactly cheap. And almost everything I found was a 65/35 - poly/cotton blend - which I personally don't care for. I couldn't find any that was 100% cotton.

Then I happened across this fabulous tutorial on how to do the shirring myself! Aha! So I headed over to my local fabric store (conveniently located about 5 minutes from my house) and found some super cute, summery cotton seersucker on sale and decided to give it a whirl. It actually was not all that hard to do. But it was pretty time-consuming.

So here's a pic of E in the dress - I pulled it on over her jammies this morning. Hee. I'm really quite proud of how it turned out. I'm even thinking about making a matching top for myself. Or maybe not. But I do love the fabric. Having a pattern with lines to follow made sewing with the elastic thread a LOT easier.

Back to my real first dress effort. Well...this is what I get for trying to sew something that not only have I never ever done before, but also to do it without a real pattern. I've been wanting to do a pillowcase dress for a while now, but the pillowcase shape is a bit boring to me. A friend of mine made one that she modified by making into more of a real dress with a gathered skirt. I also saw some cute halter dresses on Etsy that didn't look too hard. You can see where this is headed.

So I worked it out in my head, cut out a paper pattern first, and then just went for it. It's actually not totally terrible, and it looks way better laid out on the table than it does on, but I think my overall construction method was a bit flawed. I realize now that I did some steps backwards, so the top part is too big, and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to fix it without taking the whole dang thing apart.

Here's some pics of when I tried it on E yesterday (again, over jammies):


From the front, it looks a lot like just a kitchen apron. But I think the back turned out pretty well, all things considered. My first try using elastic. I take some comfort in the fact that I knew this was an experiment and used pretty much the cheapest fabric I had lying around (a $2 remnant from Ikea). I think the next one will be better.

Hello New Hobby!

I went to a Mom's Night In tonight where I learned how to do appliqués! It was actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, but then, I picked something pretty simple, and I also did a tote bag instead of a t-shirt, so I got to skip a few steps. I did a Hello Kitty face on a black tote bag. It turned out pretty darn cute! I can't wait to make more stuff. I see lots of HK in my future. In fact, I may have to make a shirt for myself!

I'm definitely making another run to the fabric store tomorrow for supplies - only my 3rd trip this week. Hee!

Here's a closeup.

Action shot

Here's a quick pic of Sofia wearing the dress. It fit her perfectly! Hooray!

Late night madness

T went to bed early last night, so I took advantage of the time alone to go a little crazy with the craftiness. First off, I finished a sundress for my friend's daughter, Sofia. We like to joke that she and E are BFFs, and I love having other people to make stuff for.

I went a slightly different route with this one and actually cut the top instead of just folding it down, which I'm not sure if I like as much. But I thought that adding a seam would take away some of the stretchiness. I also used ribbon for the straps, so that I wouldn't have do any measuring. But I think they may be a little short. We'll see when I give it to her later today. I may have to make some adjustments.

I also made my very first hair clippies last night. I've had all the stuff to make bows & clips for a long time now, but I've just been too lazy to bust out the hot glue gun. Somehow, having a baby (well now I guess she's actually a toddler) roaming around is not very conducive to working with hot glue.

I have to say though, making these things was really not as easy as I thought it was going to be. I mean, glue ribbon to metal. Done, right? Well, I don't know if I have the wrong kind of glue gun (low temp vs. high temp), but it was really hard to get the ribbon on there before the glue hardened up and dried. So I spent a lot of time picking off gobs of dried glue. Bleh. Not the neatest job in the world (wow, I'm really noticing now how crooked the ribbon is), but for a first effort, I'm not going to beat myself up over it. They actually look better in the in person since they're teeny and farther away. Ha!


I figure I'll get better at it if I ever decide to make more. As it turns out, E's just not really a hairbow kind of girl. She needs something to keep the hair out of her face, so we'll see if these will fly. Oh, the white fuzzy stuff peeking out is the fuzzy part of a strip of velcro. I thought it might help them hold better since E's hair is a bit fine and a lot of clips just slide out.

Last, but no least, I also used my fancy new iron to give fusing plastic bags another go-round. My first effort (with the old, crappy iron) was...well terrible. I don't know if it was the iron or the type of bags I used, but it was all ugly and wrinkly and not very "fabric-y," if you know what I mean. This time, I decided to use all Target bags and it came out much better. Of course, I have no idea what I'm going to do with this just yet - maybe sew some kind of bag or pouch to put wet swimsuits in.


I am totally on a roll now! I'm going to try my hand at another type of dress tonight. And tomorrow I'm going to learn how to applique! Woohoo!

Gotta show off a little bit

Here's a pic of E in the dress. It was a wee bit cool for sleeveless, so I put a white tee underneath.

I finally got to finish it up this morning after she got up and I was able to measure how long the shoulder straps needed to be. I think it turned out pretty much super cute. I can't wait to make more now.

On hiatus

Between playdates and travel, the last few weeks have been very very busy, so I've been on a bit of a crafting hiatus. But T was out of town this weekend which actually gave me the opportunity to haul the sewing machine again after I put E to bed. I started off with some more babylegs, made by request for a mom from local mom's board. I love the patterns - they're so cute. Now that E is walking, I'm actually a little bummed that I don't have an excuse to put any babylegs on her until the weather gets cold again. (Forgive the crappy quality of the picture. I was in a bit of a hurry.)

I also finally got around to working on a sundress for E. It's a pretty easy project because the material is already smocked when you buy it, so all you have to do is sew a seam up the back and add straps. I'm still pretty proud of myself though, since it's the first garment that I've ever sewn for E.

Next up, I'm going to try to make a pillowcase dress, or some version of one. I'm also going to a sewing night next weekend where I'm (hopefully) going to learn how to make an appliquéd tee.