Refashioned Baby Pants

Hello.

When my oldest daughter cleared out her wardrobe a while ago, she gave me a bag of clothes to give to the Salvos. I quickly looked through it and found a lovely peach coloured "chic-a-booti" dress. It had a beautiful lace layer covering a plain peach dress.

I thought I would use it to make my first refashioned item.

I had purchased the Big Butt Baby Pants pattern from Made By Rae and turned my daughters dress into these cute pants.

I used the lace layer over the plain peach fabric to give a soft, delicate touch.

On the bum panel I put two lace strips over the plain fabric.

Overall I'm pretty happy how they turned out.

I love a bargain and these pants cost nothing but an hour of my time.

:-)

Peasant Costume

Hello.

My 9 year old daughter had a choir performance and she needed a costume. She was a villager child in medievil times. I made her this skirt and top.



The top was made with the Pink Fig Lily Top pattern and was made to hang out over her skirt with a thin belt that tied around her waist. But my girl has a habit of tucking all of her tops in so we adapted the design slightly.

I made a belt twice the thickness of the original and that hid the waist band of the skirt. The skirt was actually made from a valance I bought from the op shop. This was super easy to make because all I had to do was sew a side seam and add a waistband.

To finish the outfit I made a head scarf which was just a triangle with the original belt sewn onto it for the tie.

And now she was ready to "march to the top, to the top, to the top, marching to the top of dragon mountain"

(that was the song she sung at the performance)

Summer Outfit For Baby

Hello.

I just finished a cute little dress with matching bloomers for my little baby girl.

I chose this cute summer spotted anglaise fabric and teamed it with a lightweight pink linen.

I used this New Look 6903 pattern.

I have made the romper before but decided to make the dress this time.

I made the Medium which suits 8-9.5kgs (18-21lb) I really don't like patterns that have weight measurements. I would rather them have 000, 00, 0 etc because I know what size my baby wears.

Anyway the dress is really big on my girl. Luckily I still have 2 months before Summer and then 3 months of Summer so I am sure she will fit it by then :-)

The dress has a ruffle at bottom which is supposed to be doubled over. I tried it this way but I had a suspicion it would be too thick, being made from linen, so I cut it in half and hemmed the bottom. This solved that problem.

I finished the dress with some cute loveheart buttons.

I put in a casing for some elastic just above the cuff on the pants to create more of a bloomer than shorts.

I think they look cute this way.

I had some labels made up from World Wide Label on Etsy. They are the cheapest I have found for this style of label. I am very happy with the result.

I chose black writing on a grey background so I could use it for boys, girls and adult items. I just sew it on with a thread that matches the item I am sewing it onto. This gives each label a different look and suits each item.

Now I just have to wait for summer so my little girl can wear it :-)

A Pink Coat

Hello.

I was really prepared for Winter this year. I made heaps of coats and jackets before the cold weather hit. This is one of them.

It was made using the New Look 6927 pattern.

I must be quite attracted to this style of jacket because I also bought this pattern.

I admit the top pattern is for 6 months to 4 years and the bottom one is for 3 - 8 years so I am sure to have at least one of these coats in my girls wardrobe for many years to come.

The fabric I used was thick stretchy ribbed material bought on special for less than $5 a metre.

It's great for keeing my girl warm, not so good for sewing buttonholes in though. Because I struggled so much getting the buttonholes to work, I opted for a press stud covered with a large matching pink button.

I added a little bow to the edge of the seam at the cuff.

This is a quick, easy pattern and worth a go if you're looking for a smart Winter coat.

  

Baby Leggings

Hello.

I saw this tutorial for leggings at Make It & Love It and thought I really want to make some. I have only attempted to sew with knit fabric a couple of times before and I'm still not very comfortable with it.

Apart from that I am usually useless without a pattern but I actually made my own pattern too.

I took this pair of legging and made my pattern as directed in the tutorial.

And ended up with these.

I actually didn't take too much care with these thinking to myself that I probably wouldn't even use them. But they actually turned out ok. One thing I didn't do was to use a zig zag stitch to allow for stretch, but it is not an issue with these pants as they go over my babys nappy with ease. 

I made this little hairclip a while ago which complimented the outfit nicely.

I have collected quite a lot of knit fabric that I am now inspired to use, so stay tuned and see my next knit creation soon :-)

A New Dress

Hello.

I bought some new fabric on Friday. It was this lovely Japanese fabric, black with bright flowers. I didn't quite know what I was going to make out of it so I went through my pattern stash and decided on New Look 6879

I had previously made "D", the dress with the green collar and hem. This time I chose "A" which is the dress the little girl is modelling. I didn't use on overlay because that would defeat the purpose of choosing a lovely printed fabric.

I broke up the bold print using a pretty pink waist band with a matching pink lining for the bodice. This dress has a super dooper tie at the back which really dresses it up and makes it totally girly.

I co-ordinated the front bow with the dress fabric which ties it altogether nicely.

I love New Look patterns. They are usually very easy to understand and make.

I did however struggle with inserting the zip at the back. I had almost completely sewn it in when I noticed that I was going to have quite a bit of fabric extra when I got to the end of the zip.

I'm not sure why this happened.

If anyone has any tips on how to insert a zip (evenly) I'd love to hear it.

After I unpicked almost the entire zip (grrrrr) I ended up just pulling the fabric slightly from behind and I managed to fix it adaquately.

Overall I am very happy with the results.

I might just have to go to church this Sabbath so my girl can wear her fancy little dress.

Actually she was just as happy to wear it to the local shops tonight to grab some food for tea.

Oh and before I go I just want to show you something.

I bought some size labels the other day. They are from Pink Nellie on Etsy. I LOVE them! They only cost $7.50 AU including postage for 100 labels and I chose the sizes.

This is going to save me some confusion at trying to remember what size I made.

It makes it look a little more professional too :-)

Cheap Summer Halter Dress

Hello,

Last weekend was such a beautiful weekend. The sun was shining and the weather was warm. A perfect occasion for wearing a summer dress. This was my second attempt of making this New Look 6694 pattern.

My daughter just loved the "C" option with the yellow and white gingham and the lace lace edging. I think I pulled it off pretty well.

Gigham is so cheap. I only paid $1.99p/m on special. The lace around the bottom cost more, $2.49p/m.

I completely lined the dress for modesty as the fabric was quite sheer.

I love the pintuck pleats running around the waist.

I don't know if you can notice but I had a little trouble with the ribbon at the center of the bust.

I couldn't work out how to do it easily the first time and still struggled the second time.

The back tie and halter neck makes it a cool dress for the summer.

I think I will give it another go this summer and see if I can master the front ribbon.

I'll let you know how I go!

:-)

Polka Skirt

Hello,

I purchased the pattern for this cute little skirt a little while ago. It is called the Polka Skirt by Jess Goldman. You can see why it soon became one of my favourite skirt patterns. It is just so cute, and very easy to make I might add.

It suits age 12 months to 3 years although it would be quite easy to adapt to a larger size. There is actually a larger size pattern now available if you prefer.

I purchased this fabric and found the extra large ric rac to match, just as the pattern suggests. Gee, ric rac is expensive. Isn't it funny how we are willing to pay so much extra for the embellishments but it is worth it. It really does make such a difference.

When I made the belt, the pattern called for 2 D rings which I hadn't purchased so I thought I would just make a tie belt. This worked fine except I didn't allow extra length so it was too short to tie. I ended up just adding an extra piece to the belt and that fixed the problem.

A great little skirt for work or play!

Boys Shorts from My Japanese Pattern Book

Hey everyone.

Last night I made my boy a new pair of shorts. They have back and side pockets and a fake fly. I made the shorts out of large black and white gingham with small black and white gingham for the pockets and fly.

They were very quick and easy. I did have one issue though and that was with the fly. I looked and looked at the diagram and couldn't work out how I was supposed to make a cut in the fabric underneath the fly as it had already been sewn down.



Note the red circle.

If anyone can read Japanese you may be able to shed some light on what it says to do.

Anyway, I had to ignore the diagram for this little bit and just do it the way I thought it would work. And I'm pleased to say that it all worked out.  I was supposed to add 5cm to the pattern for the hem but I like shorts a little longer on my boy so I added 8cm for the extra length.

I had them all finished but my boy was already asleep so I put the elastic in and waited until morning to get the perfect fit. When the elastic was sewn up, they were ready to be worn to school.

He was happy and so was I.

:-)