Pajama Party!!

SURPRISE!! It' s a Pajama Party!! 

I signed up for Karen of Did You Make That's Pajama Party. While I didn't manage to make myself any new pj pants I did make four pairs for my wonderful not-nieces and nephew. You asked for jumping photos Karen so here you go!

Wild Little Man Jumps! I think some of these were his ninja moves.

Best hair action of the day!

Everybody catch some air. In case you couldn't figure it out, there was no bed big enough for us to jump on so we had
a pretend slumber party on the trampoline.

Every slumber party needs a good dog pile!

If you aren't sick of pants and kids yet, I've got a few more photos!! hehehe

Yes I did make my pajama pants, about 4 years ago. Hey look! You can even see the kids pants
in this shot too!

We're all worn out now so excuse us while we snore away and get recharged.

Last of March Stashbusting

I figured I better finish posting about March before I get caught up in the excitement of April. That last weekend turned out to be very productive and I was able to use up a remnant that was supposed to be sewn up last November.

 A super soft dress jacket for the cold spring days! My little Not Niece's eyes lit up when she saw and felt this fabric. Her favorite color is green and she immediately asked if we could make it "right now?"

I adapted the t-shirt pattern from Kwik-Sew Method Sew For Toddlers by Kerstin Martensson. When I laid the pattern pieces out I decided to go for a bit of a 50's swing jacket silhouette and put a pleat in the back. I also flared out the back sides to give it more volume, and use up the fabric!

I didn't want to do any top stitching on this plushy fabric so I decided to cut a lining from another knit that she liked. I think it adds a lot of fun to the jacket. I did some light pressing so it wouldn't show on the outside. I also cut the sleeves at three quarters, which was all I could squeeze out grainwise but added big cuffs that fit her just right!

I had some trouble with the collar and decided to rip it out. My sharp seam ripper took a turn for the worst and decided to slice into the shoulder as well. Thankfully plush came to the rescue and it isn't even visible on the outside. I took the rotary cutter to the seam at that point.

By the end of the experience I had one happy little girl, even if she didn't want to wear it just then.
Throughout this project I had to keep reminding myself this is just for a child. She will wear it hard and not for long. I don't need to have everything perfect. As long as it holds together the finishing is fine. Turns out, I was right.
What do you take into consideration when you sew for kids? Do you have any special tips or tricks? 

Birthday Dress

I thought I take a break from the stashbusting madness and share a post on a surprise project, it just happened to fit in perfectly with January's theme of one yard or less. :)

Surprise! It's your birthday!

Wild Thing, not-niece number three, is turning two on Sunday. I had forgotten all about this. To top it off, she informed me on Tuesday that her favorite color is ORANGE. (yes, she has a large vocabulary for someone almost 2) Now, orange is not my favorite color and I live too far from the fabric store to get there and back and made before her birthday party. Thankfully I was able to scrounge around and find a few things.

Wild Thing likes to tear around the house, dressing up in
whatever takes her fancy. This was during her "shoe phase"

McCall's 7226 was a great little swing dress pattern with the simple silhouette I was looking for. It also had lining pieces that fit on my bright orange fat quarter.
I love linings and how they allow you to dispense with all those fiddly facings. For this dress I wanted the orange to look like the bodice so I flipped the "lining" piece to the outside of the dress after grading seams and clipping the curves.

Grading: to trim your seam allowance two different heights.
The "outer" fabric is always the longer one. 

Clipping Tip: clip the seams DIAGONALLY to the seam allowance
instead of straight down. Clip the seam allowance opposite directions 

Result: The fabrics overlap when pulled around the curve and eliminate
those dips or "witch's teeth" Just try it! You will be amazed at the results!

I stitched the pink corduroy 1/4 inch seam lining it up along the edge of the orange bodice. After I had sewn, hemmed and gathered all three of my skirt ruffles I pinned them to the white lining. The top skirt ruffle went under the corduroy. The succeeding ruffles were carefully [note to self: measure next time instead of just eyeballing it!] pinned down with the 1/4 in. gathered line under the hemline of preceeding ruffle. I topstitched them down with some peachy orange ribbon.
After sewing the center back seam and inserting the zipper; voila! I had a perfect orange birthday present! I made it long and a bit wider so she can wear it now with a turtleneck underneath and this summer.

For you stashbusters, I used 4 stash pieces of fabric and one ribbon. The pink corduroy was from one of my first skirts, the bright orange was from college and the ruffle fabric was from one of my first attempts at making things to sell. The lining was given to me by someone cleaning out their stash; so, for not trying to fulfill a stash project I certainly managed well!

I'm just tickled that my idea turned out, mostly, the way I imagined it would! Plus I got Wild Thing's present done in plenty of time!

Have you ever felt the joy of a project turned out just right? How's the stashbusting going? There's lots of amazingness on Flickr! Keep up the inspiration, guys!

Sewing Swap!

  The holidays are approaching quickly and our local sewing group, "Tubs Anon." decided to squeeze in one more sewing day before the madness started! After reading about all the lovely fabric swaps on different blogs I suggested we try one ourselves in lieu of gifts.
  We sat in a circle a showed everyone what we had brought. One lucky person drew the special paper and got to choose first, whoever she chose from went next, ect. Those who had brought more things got to choose more times. It went pretty well but some had to wait awhile for their first pick.
  Next time we will put all our stuff in a pile and draw numbers to choose items in that order. That way everyone will get to go once before some get to choose twice.
  Most of us were delighted to get rid of sewing supplies we were never going to use! Some books found new homes and fabric and notions got happy new owners.

  I got rid of some crazy leopard knit, a bear pattern and some sports fabric that I was NEVER going to use. While I was trying to decrease my stash I ended up bringing home a bit of a pile.

Bow fabric is a sweatshirtish fabric for a spring jacket for a not-niece.
The light pink check will be a summer dress.

2 shades of green blue soft and cozy knits I'll eek some warm winter shirts out of.

A fun blue border print I'll make myself a skirt out of
or a dress for the little neighbor girl who sews.

The plus side is I can see the garments I will make out of this stuff so it shouldn't sit around while I wonder what to do with it.
How about you? Have you ever attended a fabric/sewing swap? How did it work? Do you ever go home with more than you came with?

Refashioned Birthday Gifts

I'm copping out on the more serious posts I had planned to give you this quick project I whipped up for one of my Not-Nieces. She turned 3 today! Her favorite colors are green and yellow.
And just a disclaimer before we begin the show and tell. Yes, this is probably a bit too big. Yes, snow and general winter temperatures have arrived. BUT She has tall genes and I intentionally made it big so she can layer it now and wear it this summer.

TaDa! A cute jumper dress.

 This started its life with me as an unfinished skirt. No waistband, zipper, hem. Even the embroidered panels were not finished.

I removed the three un-embroidered panels and sewed up the zipper opening. I folded it where I wanted the center front and center back to lay. After playing around with some pattern pieces I ended up with this:

It took some fiddling since the "front and back" swung out instead of a straight line. I finally just lined it up and winged it. I figured since it was supposed to be looser fitting I wouldn't sweat it.

I added binding to the armholes. Then sewed up the shoulder seams so the seam would be caught when I flipped the binding over and topstitched. I added the neckline binding and flipped it all to the inside. I decided the cleaner looking finish let the embroidery shine.

It was a pretty wide skirt so I stitched a ribbon to the front. Quick Tip: 100% Polyester ribbon will melt and seal the ends to prevent fraying if you hold it to a flame. Be careful not to blacken the edges or burn your fingers. This will work on blends, not as well, and they can actually catch on fire so kids, please don't try this at home.

Isn't the embroidery pretty. I really like the tone on tone effect.

For the "buttons" I took apart an old cufflink. One has more wear than the other but I think it adds character. I hemmed it with a blind hem.

Super cute.

There it is! My super quick refashion! Do you have any great ideas for refashioning skirts?

More, More, More!!

 Here I am back with more STASHBUSTING! More Remaking and Replacing RTW! More Foundation Garments!!

Don't they look AWEsome with my sweat pants! :P

Is it a peppermint? A circus tent? Or the Cat In The Hat's hat? I went from liking this fabric to total bleh after playing around with the stripes. I decided to test my Built By Wendy raglan sleeve pattern on it. Raglan screams casual wear to me and I figured I could use it as a pajama shirt if it didn't work out. It was too short so I added cuffs and a bottom band. Then I wore it...

I'm in love with long sleeves!

The strangest thing happened when I wore the shirt so I washed it and wore it again. This shirt wins the prize for invoking happy, peppy feelings. It wins the Alter My Mood Prize. I happen to love it in spite of its brightness, simplicity and the peppermint jokes it brings me.

While it was a total stash busting project I must admit the next one isn't totally. After assessing my stash and online fabric shopping while I was depressed since my blood sugar was high AGAIN making some carefully thought out shopping decisions I bought this lovely dot fabric that I knew would match perfectly with the purple in my stash.

Beautiful dots! Now all I need is some teal to go with it.

Huzzah for long sleeves!

Neckline binding could be a bit tighter, or wider to give a turtleneck effect.

So there you have it! Two tops that decreased my stash and replaced my boring RTW. I had this great idea to have side by side photos of RTW next to my creations but I already chopped up my RTW shirts into little girl skirts.

Cut off the offending parts, draw a picture, sew neckband as waistband. Presto skirt.

Cut off arms and taper down. Sew up holes in side. Presto skirt. 

I'm almost embarrassed at how easy and how terrible these look in photos. They were made quickly for little girls to be comfy and wear around the house. Since they didn't want to take them off I consider it a win even if it isn't my best handiwork.

How about you? Anyone else taking the Foundation Garment Challenge? Do you have any great stash busting ideas?

StashBustin' Ladybugs!

My Darling Not-Niece chose a white and pink polka dot knit as her favorite when we played the "Ugly or Nice Fabric Game". She immediately christened it the "Ladybug fabric" and wanted to drag it around the house. Why I am bringing home fabric from their mother's stash when I have a pile of my own at home, I don't know.
My Darling Not-Niece has Spinal Muscular Atrophy which means she cannot walk and spends the bulk of her time in a wheel chair or scooting along the floor. She also wears braces to help her stand with assistance. After chatting with her Mom about her wardrobe needs I decided to make a long winter skirt that could be worn over the braces. It couldn't be too full or have any seams center back as she sits a lot, and who really wants to sit on a pile of bunched up fabric or a hard seam? It needed to be large enough for her to move around on the floor though. After some serious thought I remembered CIRCLE SKIRTS!!!
Lex of What the Craft won the google search of the best math on making a circle skirt. I love circle skirts for little girls because you can do the WHOLE circle since it is so small.

I couldn't do just a regular skirt so I added suspenders. I made the waistband looser than tight since I didn't want it to press against her G-tube and the suspenders are insurance that it won't fall down! I also added the cutest little buttons.

Isn't she the cutest!

When I made the skirt I cut a full circle and realized that would be too much fabric for her so I ended up doing a half circle skirt. This left me with enough fabric to do another outfit. I decided a full dress was in order.

I cut a basic tee shirt pattern a bit short in the body and attached the skirt. I gathered scrap strips and topstitched them down with turquoise thread. 

The favorite part for her and I was the cute velvet bow I made out of craft ribbon. We'll see how that holds up in the wash.

Her mom and I were both worried it would be too big but the little stinker is growing up on us! It fits her perfectly! She was pleased, I was pleased, and so was her Mom. A win all the way around. (PS. I didn't hem either skirt since it is wonderful knit that doesn't fray!!) I also used almost all of it up! Way to stash bust!

I enjoyed thinking through this project and making something that would work for her. Have you ever sewn for children with disabilities?