Recycled sheet Celestial Dress and the less than a dollar dress

Here is my less than a dollar to make dress. Well, technically the dress cost more than a dollar to make if you include the pattern purchase and all the sewing goodies. However, the fabric was less than a dollar. I found the 100% cotton plaid sheet at the local thrift store for a dollar and tax. I used about half of the sheet to make the dress so the fabric cost qualifies as less than a dollar. A little about the sewing pattern. It is the Celestial Dress from Pattern Fantastique. I made the size 8 and it fits perfect. The dress comes in different length options from top to maxi. I made the midi length and added a band. I am so happy with how it turned out and I matched the plaid so that is a bonus. I love the pattern. It is really comfy and also modern. The directions are great and the bag pocket detail is a clever and unique design addition. The whole pattern is actually very creative and well designed. I plan to make more in different lengths which will reduce my cost point even more. I can wait to make the sleeveless version in the maxi length.  So much fun for the summer and really cost effective. Who says sewing has to expensive. Happy stitching!

Dresses from recycled sheets

I decided to use a few sheets I have laying around the house to make dresses for both me and little sweets. I figure if they are comfortable for sleeping then they are going to be awesome for clothing. Also, they are free and what is better than free fabric. I did take a trip to the local thrift store and found a few more cotton sheets to add to my stash. They were $2 a piece so I can make a dress for about $1 if I stick to the sheet fabric only. If I add in a quilting cotton for contrast then it is still really inexpensive.

I used pattern from Tina Givens for my dresses including the Sugar Slip and the free Bloom Dress. I love her style. It is so romantic and really comfortable for summer. I did make a few adjustments to the patterns since everything is over sized to start. For the Sugar Slip the only thing I did differently was shorten the straps by a few inches and raised the back yoke. With the Bloom dress I wound up removing 2 inches from the the middle of the dress and then resizing the neckline. I also curved the sleeves a bit to make it easier to sew with the serger and bound the edges. I really like both dresses and I plan to use the use the patterns a lot this summer. For fun and also for practical reasons I made the free Pilka pants to go under the dresses. I did make adjustments to this pattern. I took off a 2 inches from the bottom and the top. I also made the back a little wider than the front. I added a frilly border and now I have some sweet bloomers peeking out from my dresses.

For sweets I made her a sheet dress using Fresh Stitch Patterns Playground Dress in size 2 and the remainder of the blue sheet from my dress. The bodice is from a button down shirt. The dress is a little big for her so the next version will be a size down. The second dress is made with Too Sweets Baja Dress. It is also a bit big for her so I will need to size it down a bit with the next version. The floral sheet is from the thrift store and great find. I really love the flowers and butterflies. She looks so cute in her comfy dresses. I have plenty of the floral fabric to make more. I will likely combine it with a cotton print in the next version. I also need to make her a few pairs of matching bloomers. Great start though for her summer wardrobe.

Start of Summer and Alice Dress

I am finally back to posting again about my sewing adventures. One more week left before summer vacation starts for the little guy so maybe this will be my one and only summer post. It has been a long time since my last post so probably best to not make any promises. I do have an excuse though. I have been sewing a lot for Jouby. Since I last posted I made over 150 pairs of baby shoes. Crazy I know. Well, it will come as no surprise that I have decided to stop making baby shoes. I am having a hard time motivating myself to sew another pair. I still have a few pairs to complete and It is taking a lot of will power to finish those so on to new projects. My son is also going to be on summer vacation soon. His little sister and I am really miss him a lot during the day and it will be nice to have him home for the summer. I am of course feeling pressure about keeping them both busy and having fun so we will see what great adventures come our way.

My focus this summer is sewing for the family. I am well on my way to making a new wardrobe for both me and the kids. I am a bit addicted to buying pdf patterns. They are so convenient and instant gratification. Before I buy a bunch more I really need to use the ones I have already purchased. I also need to post about patterns I used during my no post on the blog hiatus. First up is one of my favorites so far, the Alice Top and Dress from Tessuti Patterns. I have made several versions of this dress and I love it. The fit is loose and comfy but not too big. I wound up making the size XXS. This size fits really well in both the dress and top even though I am still nursing my daughter. So on to the pictures. We bought a fantastic new camera so my pictures will be a lot better or at least they will be once I figure out how to use the camera.

 


The first dress is made with a lightweight grey chambray from Fashion Fabric Club online. The second one is made with Bethany Reynolds Stack and Whack cotton print. The third version is a top and it is made from a recycled button down shirt and Cynthia Rowley Paintbox. The final version is made from a recycled cotton spandex maxi dress and Tina Givens Opal Owl Bark. Happy sewing!

Quilted duvet cover

In addition to KWC sewing, I managed a little selfish sewing this weekend. I made a quilted cover for my duvet. When I was pregnant with R I went through a big nesting phase at the end where I decided I was going to redo all of the bedroom linens. I did manage to make pillow cases before she was born which by the way are a real treat. I don't think I will ever want regular pillow cases again. I also made pillow cases and a duvet cover for J's room. I wound up placing  the snaps on the wrong way when I tried to finish it up when R was just a newborn so after that point I gave up for a while on decorating. I am back to it and I finally fixed the snaps. His room looks awesome almost a year later. I also made a duvet cover for my room. I didn't use a particular pattern. I kept the design simple and added a bunch of color cotton fabrics. I bought all of the fabrics for the covers and pillow cases on Fabric.com. I love buying fabrics there. The customer service is awesome and the prices are great. I love the selection also. So here are a few photos of my decorating attempts. I am really happy with how everything turned out. I need to take a better photo of J's room. He decided to be a part of the photos of my room. Little did I know he was just waiting to jump on the bed. Well, it looked nice for a few minutes anyway.

Peasant tops from mens shirts and baby sleeve pants

I found after little sweetie was born that I wished I had made more nursing friendly clothes for myself. In the winter time I wore a tank top under most of the shirts but it was really hot in the summer time. I had a few cotton men's dress shirts left over from from last year and decided to make peasant shirts. I wasn't sure what to do with the leftover sleeves so I made baby pants. Here is my little sweetie modeling the pants at around 3 months. I modified several shirts and have been wearing them all summer. I need to add photos of the shirts I made for myself, but here are photos of my sweetie in her cute sleeve pants.You may also recognize the t-shirt she is wearing. I made newborn baby gowns for her out of recycled t-shirts before she was born. I decided to cut them off and make t-shirts.

Happy Halloween!

I am a little late in posting our Halloween costumes. We had a great time trick or treating at the UVA lawn and also passing out goodies at our house. This year we went with the family star wars theme. I made J a jedi costume from a few extra cotton curtains we had in the linen closet. The pattern is based on a karate outfit. I improvised the belt by looking online at jedi costumes. He really liked the costume and wore it to preschool on Halloween. I reused my Princess Leia costume from two year ago. I had a few wardrobe malfunctions. I couldn't find my knitted hair buns and the belt that just fit me the week before no longer fit. I added ties to the belt and improvised on the hair buns. I cut long tubes of black knit fabric and stuffed those with bamboo fill. I attached the buns to the headband since I couldn't figure out a way to attach them to my hair as I did with the knitted buns. All it all it turned good and was comfy to wear on my 26 week preggo body. For C I also reused the cape from wizard costume I made two years ago. I made a similar belt for him to wear of the cape so it was easy to get together. It was a lot of fun dressing up as a family again.

Baby girl on the way!

So the exciting news in our family is that baby number two is on the way and doing well. I am due January 31, 2013. I am currently 19 weeks and we just found out last week that we are having a little girl. I finally started taking belly shots like I did for him. It is really fun to see the belly blossom. It is also super fun this time since he likes to be in the photos and we are using the his chalk board to record the weeks. I am sewing a lot these days and planning to make more cloth diapers. I have a few newborn diapers but they have been through two other babies in addition to him so probably time for new ones. I am also making really cute maternity tops and skirts for myself. The orange top is my latest creations. I made both the top and skirt out of thrift store t-shirts and came up with the patterns from other clothing. I am having fun adding the flowers and trying new designs. I made this top a bit snug though but it will work great next year. I have made a lot of other fun skirts and tops that I will post soon.

Cap sleeve shirts

I have a cap sleeve shirt that I bought a while back that I love to wear. I decided to use the shirt as a pattern to make a few more for myself. I have also been playing with adding texture to my shirts with ruffles and flowers. I used recycled XL shirts from my favorite shopping place Goodwill. The shirts turned out really comfy. The lovely flowers are from Bellair Farm CSA where we get a lot of our produce. They have a huge field of flowers where you can pick your own each week.

Cowl neck warmer from a sweater and t-shirt

I am really excited that cowl necks are back in style. I loved my pink fluffy cowl neck sweater that I got for Christmas when I was a preteen. I am selling on Saturdays at a local outdoor city holiday market and it is really cold so I figure cowl neck warmers are good addition. I made this one out of a cotton sweater and t-shirt that I got at the local thrift store. I marked off the section I wanted to cut with a pen and then sewed along the line prior to cutting to make sure the edges do not unravel. I added a t-shirt circle and quilted a spiral through all the layers. Pretty cute and fun to make. By the way I have finally uploaded all my items to my etsy shop so please head over a check out all the fun items.

Fold over clutches from recycled pants

I just made a few of the fold over clutch purses using a really cute pattern from keykalou. The pattern is easy to follow and comes in three sizes. The bags are made from recycled pants and cotton prints. I made the medium and small size. I added a d ring to the medium size and plan to add a strap to turn it into a wristlet. The pattern is available for use by home crafters which is really sweet. Fun to be back to sewing again. Speaking of sewing, I finally caved and bought a new sewing machine. I bought a Juki 98qe quilting machine. I am so excited. I will post a review as soon as it gets here. I can't wait to start quilting again. Fun!

Make your own undies

I finally made underwear for myself. I am a bit picky when it comes to underwear and decided to make some for myself since I can't seem to find comfortable ones in the stores. Plus it is really inexpensive to make your own undies and you can make them in fun colors. I got the idea from amy a la mode. She has a copy your own undies tutorial on her blog. I used recycled t-shirts and a pair of comfy undies for my pattern. The edging is fold over elastic though I would really like to try using stretch lace for future pairs. I made the yellow undies first and didn't pull the top foe very tight so it is a bit loose. I adjusted the foe on the second purple pair and they fit great. I love the photo of Jonas and Ginger on the yellow undies. The photo quality is poor, however, it really is a wonder that I get any photos taken since I typically have someone stepping on my crafty stuff right about the time I am ready to take the photo. I do miss our old hardwood floors. They provided such a nice back drop to all the photos. Actually what I really need is a photography class.

Free form flower hair clips

I decided to make something fun with all the circular scraps of fabric I have left over from making baby bibs. I have stacks of both cotton prints and dyed hemp/organic cotton fleece scraps from cutting out the inside portion of the bibs. The scrap shape is perfect for making free form flowers. I originally thought to make pins, but decided hair clips would be more fun. Here are pictures of all the fun flowers I made to sell at a recent holiday show. I sewed the flowers together using the free motion quilting attachment. I covered pin curl clips with grosgrain ribbon using glue gun and then attached the fabric flowers to the clips also using a glue gun. I plan to post a tutorial on how to make the hair clips soon. As you know I am not so good on posting on a regular basis, but I really would like to get back to posting actual tutorials. I love sharing fun projects.

Happy Halloween

We had a really fun Halloween. Jonas got a little candy and was introduced to trick or treat. He definitely liked the treats. I made new costumes for Chris and me. I have always wanted to be Princess Leia. I found a pattern for a knitted hat from Bleu Arts with the classic cinnamon buns that Leia had in her hair for Star Wars. I actually found the pattern last year and decided to try it out this year. I only made the hair buns and attached them with pins. I used black acrylic yarn and stuffed it with bamboo fiber. The dress pattern is from Simplicity 4443 and the fabric is from an old recycled duvet cover. My hubby's costume is a wizard and the pattern is Simplicity 9887. I used a set of old sheets for fabric. The sheet set was originally teal and I used New Black Procion dye to make it a wonderful blue gray. Little guy was dragon to complete the family Halloween costumes. We had a dragon, wizard and a princess. Lots of fun!

Japanese sewing book

The Japanese sewing book I ordered last week came in the mail today and I am super excited. I ordered the pattern book through Pomadour's Craft Cafe on etsy. Great place to buy the sewing books. I received the pattern book from Japan in a little over a week so great customer service. I am so excited to get sewing. The pattern book I bought is One Day Sewing Summer Clothes. I ordered a fairly simple pattern book to start out since it is all in Japanese. The diagrams are very detailed though so I don't think I will have any problems. I am off to cut out my first pattern while the little guy naps. Exciting!

Hemp linen dress

I recently dyed hemp linen fabric in a light Jade Green using the fiber reactive dyes from Dharma Trading Company. I love hemp linen in the summer time. It is so comfortable to wear when it is hot. It drapes really nicely and creates wonderful flowing skirts and dresses. It is a real treat to wear and makes me feel a little less sticky in the humid summertime. I used two patterns to make this dress including Style 2914 and New Look 6953. I started out making a long skirt and made it too tight in the hips so I decided to add a bodice and turn it into a dress. I made it knee length originally and then added the bottom ruffle since I had a bit of fabric left over. It is perfect to wear to the park with my little guy.

Ruffled hemp skirt

I finally made a skirt this summer. I love wearing skirts. They are so comfortable when it gets hot outside. I made this one out of hemp material that I dyed with a Procion dye in wedgewood blue. I didn't use a pattern. I used my own formula to come up with the pattern pieces. I basically wanted an a-line skirt with a ruffle so pretty simple to construct. I actually made the skirt first and then dyed it after. I also threw in a few white t-shirts along with a few old towels that I used to make the reusable facial puffs in the previous post. I forgot how fun it is to dye and a great way to spruce up old towels. I am already planning my next dye adventure.

Ruffle skirt formula

Round measurements to the nearest half inch.

Hip measurement at the widest point + 2 inches divided by 2 = A
Length of skirt desired minus ruffle + 2 inches = B
Length of ruffle + 1 inch = C

Cut two trapezoids that measure A on the top, (A*1/3 + A) on the bottom and B height.
Cut two rectangles that are C height and 2*(A*1/3 + A) length.

Zig zag the edges of all of the pieces. Sew the sides of the skirt together. Make a casing on the top that is 1.5 inches and add elastic for your waist. Sew the sides of the ruffle together and gather to fit the bottom of the skirt. Attach the ruffle to the skirt. Sew the hem.

Reusable facial puffs

I typically use a wash cloth for cleaning my face, but thought it would be very nice to have something smaller that was also washable. When I was a graduate student I made my own facial puffs out of old towels and scraps of polar fleece. I was making recycled fleece hats at the time and had a lot of fleece scraps. I was also in the mode of being frugal and reusing as much as possible so from that came the idea for making reusuable cotton balls. I currently have a lot of little scraps of micro fleece left over from making the diapers so perfect for making the puffs. I like using the polar fleece for the inside of the puffs since it doesn't absorb the water and stays fluffy when wet. I dyed an old bath towel using a Procion dye in wedgewood blue. I also dyed a few shirts for the little guy a and a cute little hemp skirt that I will post about soon. I didn't need to dye the towel, but I was doing a dye batch anyway and thought it would be fun to have nicely colored puffs. I use the puffs the same way as I would cotton balls. After I use one, I put it in a bag and then throw them all in the regular laundry load.

Reusable facial puffs

Materials: Scraps of polar fleece and cotton terry cloth. The puffs can be any size or shape. I make mine circular with a 3 inch diameter.

1. Cut two circular pieces of terry cloth. Cut two pieces of micro fleece or one piece of 200 or higher weight polar fleece.


2. Sandwich the layers together with the terry cloth on the outside and the micro fleece on the inside. Sew the layers together using a zig zag or decorative stitch.

Fun summer top

I finished the Spring ruffle top that I made using the pattern and tutorial from Made by Rae. It turned out really cute and it fits great thanks to the custom tutorial. I started the top during spring top week and of course planned to get it done that week, but obviously that did not happen. I seem to be a bit behind on my sewing projects. However, I now have a sweet new top for summer. Thanks so much Rae for posting the pattern and tutorial!