Firehouse Raglan Tee for Little Man-- tutorial

Oh, man... have I missed posting tutorials!  I'm serious, folks.  I really have.
Have Fall illnesses been kicking anyone else's butts?  Or is it just our little clan.

But speaking of Fall, here's a great little number for your little guy (or girl, really... it's gender-neutral) that's soft and comfy for those brisk days!

Materials:
shirt that fits your tyke
knit fabric
double needle (though it's not necessary!)
sewing gear

Instructions:
Grab a shirt that fits your little one and fold it in half.  Place it on the fold of your main fabric, making sure that it stretches from side-to-side.

You're going to cut a straight line from about halfway to the neckline to the armpit.  Use your shirt for the width measurement.  Also follow your shirt's collar as a template.  Cut two of these.
**FYI-- I cut my neckline way too high... I thought about fixing it here, but I wanted to show you how forgiving this shirt is.  So if you're looks like the neckhole is going to be too small, don't sweat it for now.

For the sleeves, you want that same angle that you had for your main piece.  However, cut them (again, on the fold) slightly skinnier and angle them in a little to where the cuff will be.  Use your shirt to determine the length of sleeve.  Cut two.

Here are your pieces, shown on the fold and opened up.

Place one body piece right sides together to the sleeve pieces and sew up.  Then sew the other body piece to one sleeve, but leave one seam open.  Here you can see how small my head hole would be.  If you have a pinhead baby, cool.  But if you have a child with a human head, you'll want to adjust this.

I just fold in half like this and trim away.  It's really that simple.

Whew.  That's better! :)

Cut a 2-inch wide piece of stretchy knit fabric (I used the same that I had for the sleeves... ribbed knit is good for this, too!).  You want it slightly shorter than the measurement of your neckhole.  Eyeballing mine, it was about 12 inches, so I cut my strip 10.5 inches by 2 inches.   (Sorry... not super detailed...  Again, this is pretty forgiving!)

Fold the strip in half and press.

Find the halfway mark of that strip and pin it halfway in between your two open edges, lining up the raw edge of the strip with the neckline edge.  You'll also want to pin the ends of the strip to the edges of the openings (not shown).

Using a stitch that stretches (zig-zag works), stretch your strip as you sew it to the neckline.  When you finish, it should start rounding out on its own, like this:

Pin that last seam together and, making sure your new collar strip is UP, sew up that side.

Here's what you've got!

If you have a double needle, here's a nice place to use it.  (A tip on threading a double needle that I haven't really seen many places: If you don't have a separate thread holder, make sure your two spools have the thread coming off of them in opposite directions; it keeps them from getting as wound up).  Sew the collar down, with one line of stitches on each side of the seam.  You can also zig-zag or just do nothing.

Since I have my double needle on, I press the sleeves over and hem them.  Again, you can use a zig-zag stitch.

Now fold your shirt in half, right sides together, and sew up the sides and under the sleeves. 

To hem, I pressed my seams out (you could finish them with a zig-zag, but with three small kids, I have to use my time wisely and "make it work").  Then I pressed my hem up and, again, used my double needle to stitch it.

I used red and blue thread for that because, well, I'm crazy like that.  I kind of wish I had used the red on the sleeves and neckline, too!

Last but not least, I like to press my seams of the collar strip and sleeves open and secure them with two straight stitches, like so...

There you have it!  A nice little raglan tee for Little Man!  He'll be thrilled... see? ;)

Vintage-y Modern Striped "Tennis Dress"

Riley's taking tennis lessons, which I'm pretty thrilled about.  I'm not going to pressure her into a life of tennis, but I really really really do hope she loves it.  :)

She has one tennis outfit that Nana and Granddad bought for her, but-- you know me-- I'm always looking for a project, so I decided I'd make her a couple tennis dresses.  The first one I made is in the wash, but here's the second one, which she wore to class yesterday.

 Okay, so she actually could wear it as a regular dress, too, but it works pretty darn well for tennis. 
It's made from (I think) dancewear fabric-- the slick, super stretchy stuff.

 I'm calling it a vintage-y dress because, clearly, tennis players these days do not wear skirts this long.  But she's four, and she has a tendency to bounce around and sit on the ground and not worry about her underwear showing, so we went with a longer skirt.  And then there's the high neckline.

 But the stripes are nice and modern (I'm a sucker for stripes).  I switched up their directionality on the front and back of the bodice, and I LOVE how a circle skirt makes the stripes look.  So fun!

 So there she is, a tennis dress for my little tennis star!  Keep your eyes peeled for the other one soon (which you got a sneak peek, if you recall...).

80's Style Comfy Top (Huzzah for Ruching!)

Can I tell you how excited I am that Fall is coming.  I cannot WAIT to don my sweaters and jeans!  And yesterday, with no other clear project in mind, I thought I'd make Riley a more Autumn-y top.  It's made of a super stretchy and soft knit that is so beyond comfy.

It has an 80's flair with a wide neckline and a little ruching.  (The neckline is actually wider than I wanted, but it still worked out ok.)

And there's some ruching on the nice, wide sleeves, too.  

Perfect for play, preschool, and layering!  I think she'll be getting some good use out of it!  I'll post a pattern later this week! :)

Give Us a Wave Skirt Tutorial

This skirt is so quick to whip up that I got both the skirt and the tutorial finished in one naptime.  Boom!

It's bouncy; it's fun; it's flattering.  Seriously, it looks good, even on my (still) post-baby body.  And it's great for the year round.  Wear it in the summer on its own, or layer it over tights or leggings. 


Here's the how-to:


Materials:
lightweight knit fabric
2-inch elastic
basic sewing stuff

Instructions:
Cut three strips of your knit, selvage to selvage. (NOTE: for toddler sizes, you should decrease the width or gather the skirt more when you get to that step.)  Your skirt will end up being roughly 1.5" longer than your longest strip.  The other strips should be 2 and 4" shorter than the longest one.  Mine are 17", 15" and 13".

Once you have them cut, place each right sides together and sew short ends.

Turn your three loops right side out and layer them.  Pin them together at the top.

Run a gathering stitch along the top edge of your three pieces and gather SLIGHTLY.  I only do this because, otherwise, your elastic will be nearly impossible to stretch to the width of your skirt.  This step makes your life easier. 

Cut your elastic to your desired waist size.

Sew right sides together then sew down the seams of the elastic.

 

Pin both the top of your skirt and your elastic in 1/8ths.

Then match up the pins, pinning your skirt under your elastic.  It will fall a little, like so.

Sew the skirt to your elastic, stretching the elastic as you go.  I used a 3/8" seam allowance.  Then pull out those gathering threads.  The backside will look like this.

I like to run a sew a second line of stitches close to the edge of the elastic.  You'll have to pull it again as you go.

Now do a lettuce edge on all three of your layers, like I explain in this tutorial.  The harder you pull, the wavier it will be!

Then you're finished and have a skirt like this!  Congrats! :)

Fun, no? :)

Pinwheel White Dress

 We are really blessed to have much of Mike's extended family living very close to us.  For the kids, it's great to have Grandma and Papa close-by, and they love having their cousins within driving distance.  Now that there are six cousins in the mix, and the two littlest ones are (by picture day) sitting up, we're taking advantage of living so close by having a photoshoot with all six kids.  It promises to be a hilarious event.  Have I mentioned how much I love group shots of small children?  Cracks me up every time. :) 


I think we've settled on a colorscheme, too: white.  Yep, we're going "Modern Family" style.  Girls in white dresses and boys in white shirts and jeans.  It should be cute!  I want to make my girls' dresses, and I just happened to have some soft and stretchy white knit fabric in my stash.  Here's what I whipped up for Noelle, this morning.  It's kind of shabby chic and oh-so-comfy.

It has this big pinwheel embellishment which screams "summer", right?

And I put some uneven ruffles on the bottom for that shabby chic flair, leaving them unhemmed.   

It's cute and casual and perfect for pictures, the park or any kind of play!  (Alliteration... holla!)

Hubba-Wha?? A Late Entry?

Well, who woulda thunk.  I finished enough pieces NOT to feel just silly submitting an entry for the Project Run&Play Sew-Along.  It's my All-American Girls Upcycle! :)

 

It all started with the French braid.  I just started French braiding Noelle's hair, having never done it (ever!) before.  I quickly got very enamored with braids.  There's inspiration 1.

Then I found some old t-shirts that just happened to be red, white and blue.   Inspiration 2.

And I remembered what Noelle looked like after the Independence Day parade, last year.  Inspiration 3.

Ha!  The girl clearly needs attire that is rough-and-tumble.  But I'd also prefer it to be cute.  So I made her a firework flair dress, using all three shirts.  It's a one-shoulder number (ow!ow!) with a braided strap and a cute flower embellisment.  I did a lettuce edge on the blue and red tiers, too.  A white ruffle extends above the other tiers.

 Riley's sporting reversible attire!  She has on the reversible braided piggies tank (tutorial here!) and the reversible fly-away vest, which I made from the same white shirt and a gray shirt, so it's a little more versatile (neutral).

I like how the braid peeks through the separating portion of the vest.

But mostly I just love these two little girls! :)