everyday princess dresses - take 2

Once upon a time, there was a little girl K. who didn't like to wear clothes.  She would get dressed in the morning, but as soon as her Mom wasn't looking the clothes would come off.  This behavior perplexed K's Mom and made her Aunt giggle.  One day while wasting time perusing blogs for quilt inspiration, K's Aunt read about a 'pretty princess sew-along' by Cut to Pieces and thought that maybe K would keep her clothes on if she had a princess dress to wear.  The dresses were made  and it was a success!  K liked wearing them, often changing dresses multiple times a day - but she was wearing clothes!   Time passed and, as little girls tend to do, K grew.  She grew so much that her princess dresses were getting too short, too small, and just plain worn out.  K immediately knew the solution: call her Aunt and ask for new ones.


I thought I'd make just a couple.  One or two of K's favorites.  I took my favorite little people princesses to the fabric store and started picking out fabric.  I'm not really sure how, but fabric for 8 dresses ended up in my cart and I just couldn't put any of them back.  Little girls can always use more dresses - right?

The pattern is a simple peasant dress - Simplicity 2377.   This time I made a few more notes and made actual patterns for everything that I did differently (Rapunzel bodice, Rapunzel sleeves, Tiana skirt, Merida sleeves).  K does have a younger sister and I might be making these for a 3rd time.  My sister mentioned that the ribbon did not wear well, so I 'made' most of the ribbon with strips of fabric and bias tape makers. 

 A fabric explosion occurred in my living room followed by sewing for almost 3 weeks.  (I will spare you a photo of my disastrous living room/kitchen.  Just picture fabric and thread on every surface.)  Here are the dresses:

Rapunzel, Aurora, Tiana, Minnie Mouse.  (okay, Minnie Mouse isn't really a princess, but I love the dress.)

Merida, Belle, Snow White, and Cinderella

My sister tells me that the most recognizable is Snow White and Minnie Mouse (as in random people stop them in Wal-Mart to comment on the dress) - but K knows who all of them are.  The new ones this time are Tiana and Merida.  Tiana because K requested it and Merida just because.  Tiana took some thought - and there is a lot of fabric in that skirt.  The yellow underskirt plus 3 panels that are 'tulip' shaped on top.  For Merida I tried to imitate her 'gathered elbows' on the top of the sleeves.  I think it turned out pretty cute.  I probably should have use a more cream/ecru fabric for it, but I loved the gold with the teal dress.  Hopefully K likes it. 

I have several ideas on an 'Ariel' dress, but I thought 8 dresses were enough.  Plus I'm tired of gathering skirts.

There were many shouts of joy as K opened the box from her Aunt and tried on each dress.  And she lived happily ever after.  At least until she grows a few more inches.

Stats:
pattern - Simplicity 2377
fabric - various cottons from JoAnn Fabrics, a few ribbons, and some lace.  Many thanks to Cut to Pieces for coming up with the idea.

needle book

I keep my needles stuck in a piece of scrap batting. Every time I need a needle I end up searching through all of my sewing supplies to try and find it. Is it in the yarn basket? Is it in the other basket with yarn, scrap fabric, and a few patterns? Is it in the sewing supplies bin? Is it in the Ziploc bag of sewing machine needles? Or did I just drop them in my pin box when after I used it last time.  (It's always fun to search through the pin box for a needle!)  And when did I use a needle last? ... maybe it's still with that project.

It's always an adventure.

Last year when looking for new projects on blogs, I came across an entry on 'Twin Fibers" where she mentioned making a needle book with her daughter.  (She points you to a tutorial by "Sew She Sews" here.)  A book for needles.  With a pocket that could hold little scissors or thread.  This could be my solution to where are my needles.  Or at least a 'book' is bigger than a scrap of batting to look for.

I pulled out my scraps of 'Whimsy' while I was procrastinating working on taxes a few weekends ago  on a Saturday morning when I was in the mood to sew.  Lucky me, I had one square that wasn't used in the quilt, and it would be perfect for this project.  I cut it in half and had two 6" x 12" rectangles to make two needle books with.  Not quite the size mentioned in the tutorial, but it worked out just fine.

One book has the 'pink honeycomb' fabric for pockets, the other has the 'blue honeycomb'.   I really like the stripe the top of the pocket is bound in.

A couple hours of cutting, ironing, and sewing and I had two needle cases.  I hand sewed the bias binding.  (I have not mastered the 'machine binding' skill.)   I think it took longer to get the snaps on correctly than it did to hand sew it. (Note to self: a snap press would be a really groovy gift.)

Now to start searching for where my needles are.

front pack carrier & randomness

I made this today for my niece K.   The pattern is from Oliver + S "Little Things To Sew"  She likes to carry her 'baby doll' with her, so this should give her some hands free ability.  Now that I've sewn a pattern from Oliver + S, I understand the hype.  It was well written, had great tips (I learned some new tricks!), and it was easy to whip out.  Two short hours of sewing today, with the obligatory 30 minutes to get the button holes right, and Buttercup the bear was modeling on the fence.   Hopefully K. will love it.  It's currently my favorite project.

I also tried out my bias tape maker.

The instructions sounded too good to be true.  I was prepared to fight with it and force the fabric through ... but the fabric just flowed through it like a dream.  Now to buy some bigger sizes.  It's time to conquer my fear of bias tape!

And this picture is included because looking in my cupboard this morning put a smile on my face.

Fiesta Dinnerware!  scarlet, paprika, tangerine, marigold, sunflower, lemongrass, shamrock, turquoise, peacock, cobalt, and plum.  They're a complete splurge and indulgence ... but I really love them.

cathedral windows

This is my favorite project of 2011. A pillow. A cathedral windows pillow. A pillow made with my sister.

My sister came out for a '4 day weekend' - a gift from her husband - over Easter weekend 2011. (She says it was more like a 6 day weekend, but I'm not counting the 2 traveling days.) It was the best 4 days ever. We made projects. Four lovely days of trips to the fabric store, cutting, sewing, changing plans part way through projects, more fabric shopping, ironing, burning fingers on the iron, talking, shopping, a little bit of running, and lots of fun.  We even finished all of the projects we started. (okay, we talked about more projects - but 'talked about projects' don't count.)

I'll have to post the HUGE swim bag she made. But this post is about the cathedral windows pillow. B and I have fallen in love with this pattern. We found a couple of tutorials on-line. Some looked hard, some looked a little less hard, and none of them felt right. Then B found it. A tutorial written by an engineer. 'Charming Windows' tutorial on Moda Bake Shop. Engineers appreciate tutorials written by other engineers.  It tells you where you have to be perfect, and where you can be a little less than perfect - with beautiful results.

We started out with 20 10.5" squares of white fabric and started ironing.  Two hours later, we had squares - and a couple of owie fingers.  (Yes, it really does take 2 hours to fold and iron the squares.  Afterwards, we rewarded ourselves with slushies, popcorn, and a girl movie.)

The squares were sewed together - 9 squares per pillow. (We had two extras to choose between.) Now we had to pick the fabric. I had some charm packs of Kate Spain's 'Central Park' and Sanae's 'Arcadia'. We decided to go with 'Arcadia' and picked 12 fabrics.    B is way better at picking fabrics, so I just followed her lead.  Here's B's pillow laid out.

My pillow. 

We traded off pinning fabric in place and sewing.

Full windows are sewn.

1/2 windows added and sewn.

At this point we visited every fabric store and debated what fabric to use for the boarder and backing.  We tried every color combination that we could find that was contained in the fabrics.  Orange, yellow, greens, blues, browns.  Solids and prints.  We disliked all of them and hated a few. :)  Then we tried Kona charcoal.  I have no idea why the charcoal works.  There is no grey/charcoal in the prints.  The charcoal just works. 

The back has a zipper flap.  Tutorial found from 'House on Hill Road' zipper in your pillow tutorial.
It takes careful reading, but it works perfectly!

A beautiful pillow from a pretty perfect weekend.

Ocean Fairy petti-skirt

Halloween of 2010 found my sister with a new baby, Halloween costumes to sew, and a kitchen demolition/remodel in progress. I offered to help with the Halloween costumes - and made a petti-skirt for an 'ocean fairy', inspired by 'Shannon the Ocean Fairy' book.

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History: A few years ago, my sister and I started searching for instructions on how to make petti-skirts because they were cute and her daughter (3-ish at the time) needed one.

We found a video on Martha Stewart's web site that gave what I think are pretty bad instructions - but we were inspired and kept looking. I found yet another blog - Grosgrain that listed 3 very important things to know:
1. Use nylon chiffon. It's soft, doesn't fray ... and seems to be only sold on-line. (The best place: AFC Express. 27 different colors, very inexpensive, and fast shipping.)
2. Build from the bottom up.
3. Know how to 'shirr'. (Wind elastic thread in the bobbin, thread on the top, set the stitch to the longest setting, and sew = gathers)

With that information, my sister ordered fabric and sewed 2 incredibly cute petti-skirts for her daughter.

I was a little slower - and intimidated by the instructions - so I kept looking and pondering.

Then I found the mecca of all instructions on of a blog called 'Creative Chaos'. I wasn't even looking for petti-skirts when I found her stuff. She has long, meticulous, detailed instructions and even hand dyed fabric to make them. Wow!. (Instructions found here and here and here.) I jumped on the petti-skirt making wagon and made 3 skirts for nieces that Christmas. (without any pictures to show for it. bummer.)
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Having made three petti-skirts, I understood what was involved ... and knew I had time to do it. Just in case I need to make them again, here's what I did:

1. Read the instructions from 'Creative Chaos' - at least twice. :)

2. Calculate fabric needed:
My niece is 6 years old with 16" waist to knee = 5.5" + seam allowance = 6.5" strips
middle tier - 4 strips x 6.5" x 2 layers
bottom tier - 8 strips x 6.5" x 2 layers
total: 24 strips @6.5" = 4.333 yds
fluff: 8 strips x 3 x 3" width x 2 layers = 4 yds
(I used some shiny polyester-satin like fabric I found at JoAnn's for the top tier.)

My niece picked out the colors herself and here's what it looked like when it arrived:
Aqua for the body of the skirt and pink for the bottom ruffle.

3. Cut it out. To do this you either need a long counter, several really long tables, or lay it out on the floor.
4. Sew
a. Use a ruffler to 'gather' the fluff'

Just to confirm, 48 WOF strips takes a long time to gather. :)

b. sew the bottom tier strips together .
c. sew the fluff onto the bottom tier.
d. 'shirr' the top of the bottom tier.
e. sew the middle tier strips together .
f. zigzag over the elastic bobbin thread to attach bottom tier to middle tier. (and if you're really picky like me, pull out the elastic thread because 'it gathers the fabric more that I like' and 'you can see it'.)

Remember you've got 2 layers to this skirt, so go back and do all of the above for the second layer.
g. sew the top tier - the satin - into a circle, remembering to leave a 1.5" gap to thread the elastic into. Fold in half long ways. Sew 1.5" down from the top to make the elastic casing. Sew down one more inch to keep the skirt looking pretty.
h. sew gathering thread into the top of the middle tier. I like 2 gathering threads.
i. pin to the satin and sew. Repeat for 2nd layer, but sew to the inside edge of the satin. (ie, make it a reversible skirt ... because what 4-6 year old actually looks at the seams to see if it is inside out.)
j. put the elastic in. Put a bow or flower in the front.

Stand back and be proud. And watch the recipient twirl.

The skirt was delivered in time for Halloween ... and the recipient was quite happy with it - and the 'twirly-ness'. Yea!

Dragons have wings.

C wanted to be a dragon for halloween. An orange dragon with purple spikes. (He's 4 and very specific.) Luckily when my sister told me about this I had just read a blog that had instructions on how to make a dragon tail. (no link because I can't find it now.) Mom was able to find an orange hooded sweatshirt at DI and my sister was able to find purple fabric at JoAnn's that looked really cool and had these shiny purple pieces on it. Mom looked at the dragon tail tutorial and decided the tail needed to 'curve' - so she took a sheet and made a 'dragon tail'. Costumes were a group project this year.

The costume turned out great. My sister did an awesome job on the tail and the dragon 'spikes' - layering the fabric with interfacing, sewing triangles, cutting them out with pinking shears, and sewing them on the sweatshirt. Unfortunately, C was quite upset when people called him a dinosaur - informing his mother, "Dragons have wings. If I had wings they wouldn't call me a dinosaur."

At Christmas, my job was to sew dragon wings for C's costume. I had bought a really cool stuffed dragon pattern on etsy - "Yoki the Dragon" and thought the wings had a great shape. My sister was able to find more of the purple shiny fabric at Jo-Ann's, so I enlarged the pattern, layered the fabric between interfacing, and sewed some wings. My sister sacrificed her hand and cut them out with the pinking shears. The next day, C and I sewed the wings onto his dragon costume - with him standing next to me the entire time so he could push the 'cutting' button.

I think they turned out great. Hopefully he'll have lots of fun wearing his 'dragon' shirt.

Got labels?

For the last labels I made, I used fabric, freezer paper, and my laser printer. They worked. They worked really great. But I wanted something with finished edges. Edges that I didn't need to keep folding to hide ... or hem.

I started searching for tutorials again. I found many that use iron-on transfer paper that you can run through your ink jet and then iron onto ribbon or fabric tape. But I don't have an ink jet. And I'm not wild about iron-on transfer paper ... you can see the iron on!

So I wondered if I could run the ribbon right through my laser jet.

I bought ribbon at Wal-mart. White ribbon. 5/8" wide.



I made a page with columns of my label with MS Publisher. I mirrored a few across the x-axis. I printed a page, grabbed the double sided tape and stuck down the ribbon in 3 places.



Put it into the tray for my laser jet ... and hoped I didn't just ruin my printer.



And ....



it worked!!!! It actually worked. I printed the entire roll of ribbon. 4 sheets of paper, 7 columns = gobs of labels. A quick heat set with the iron and I have more labels that I know what to do with.

They're not perfect. I'd like to try writing on the ribbon with permanent marker ... but they will work for now.

'bean' - aka pyramid doorstops

This is one of those 'finish this project in under 30 minutes' projects. I made a bunch earlier (last year maybe?) and then gave some away so that all of the upstairs doors don't have them. The doors continue to slam shut when windows are open ... so these needed to be made. The fabric and interfacing have been cut out for months (or maybe a year) and they just needed to be sewn and stuffed.

I think it took all of 10 minutes to sew 3 of them followed by a trip to Walmart to buy some pinto beans to stuff them with. They look cute, work great. A niece named them 'bean'. Tutorial found here.

tote bag times four

Sewing items assembly fashion makes the job go faster - right? WRONG. I found this tote bag tutorial on Ikat Bag's web site and knew I had to make one. (LiEr is amazing and talented and I want to grow up to be just like her.)

It's functional. It's a bag. I love bags. I love to sew them. I love to have them. I love to carry them. Plus I really needed a second bag to haul to church to carry nursery items in (food, books, lessons, new toys, old toys, tissues, things to be fixed, things to do, etc.) This bag looked to be absolutely perfect.

I knew if I sewed one, I'd want to sew one for my sister. (She needs lots of tote bags too!) Then I thought of my sil who admired the bag I sewed for my sister at Christmas, and knew she needed one. And while I was at it, Mom didn't have a bag I made. 4 bags. It didn't sound like too big of a task

The first one went pretty fast. I didn't put the pocket edging on it because I couldn't figure out how I wanted to do it. I also didn't interface the lining fabric because the bag was made of canvas and between that and the thick craft interfacing, I would be okay - right? WRONG. The bag was okay - it was even cute ... but the lining didn't hold it's shape and the pocket was just okay. Ack. Time to start ripping it apart.

I started on the next three bags. I guessed at how to put the pocket edging and _really_ liked it. I liked it enough that I started undoing the first bag completely so I could also re-do the pocket.

They took twice as long as they should have. But I like them. I really like them. I like the edging around the pockets. I like the lining fabric on the handles. I like them. LiEr is a genius. (Have I mentioned how much I admire her mad design skills?)


But I'm never making 4 bags at the same time again. Or at least for a few months. :)