Spring button toddler dress

I LOVE spring!






Yet sometimes I feel ansy about spring because I know that summer is just around the corner, and though I love my kids being home from school and I love the freedom the summer brings, well here in the desert it also brings too much heat! Even though I have never lived anywhere but the desert, I still cant bring myself to enjoy 110 degree heat day after day. The addition of having super pale skin for myself and my kids, means lathering on sunscreen and still burning....So with as much as I love spring, I know that the dreaded heat is just lurking around the corner. In fact today is supposed to be in the 80's and tomorrow 85 degrees....can I put a pause button on the weather?


Okay, so spring.






That means its time for cute little dresses with little diaper covers. I found a little pattern for a dress, but I've changed it so dang much I don't think I'll put the original reference, as I've re-drawn one for what I needed. I added a faux button placket to the front....this was the main reason for doing his dress, because I FINALLY figured out how to make button holes on my high tech sewing machine! (I'm not joking I couldnt figure it out for the longest time!) So to celebrate my happiness I just wanted to make a lot of button holes....of course that meant hand sewing on a lot of buttons too :-) The button on front dont 'work' they are just their for looks, because the dress is put on with the real working buttons on the shoulders.






The diaper cover was from MADE. Some adjustments I made for the diaper cover is I made it about a half inch higher in the waist (I have a tall daughter), but I sloped the front down a bit, because her belly is big and everything sits bellow her large Budah belly.

The buttons were actually from Stampin' Up. They have some super cute buttons! I also made the shirt under the dress (in 15 minutes before pre-school started none-the-less) It was just a simple peasant dress style that I made into a shirt....the shirt is actually too short for wearing alone, I just made it for under the dress. I also lined this dress with knit yet the front is made from quilters cotton. I wasnt sure how combining the two materials would work, but they have washed up just fine, and know the inside is comfy soft.

Hooray for spring and Hooray for making more dresses!

baby shower dresses

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to a baby shower. I found out about it the night before, and the shower was at noon the next day...In other words no time to run into town and buy something.

So I made a cute little dress for baby and one for big sister.

I made them to fit next year because...

1. Im not a fan of anything but comfy clothes on teeny babies.
2. Im not a fan of dresses on crawling babies...

...so...

That leaves a dress for a 'just starting to walk baby'



Big sisters dress will fit next year too. I also like when I got presents that werent all 0-3 months. I ended up with many of those and not much else for that first year when they grow so fast.



I also made little hang tags to go on the dresses. I've never had a reason to make a hag tag before, but thought it would be a fun touch...it kind of makes me want to make more dresses so I can add a cute little hang tag to the project ;-)




I bought A LOT of these gray fabrics to complete so other dresses for more little girls who will be born soon or have been born already but I've been procrastinating making anything.



Love,

Lil' Golf Dress

I love little girls in dresses!....a lot!



This little dress was made with green corduroy material. The purple plaid material for the ties match the little diaper cover and hairbow.




I also added a cute little patch that simply said 'happy' on the front lower corner of the dress.

Love,

Twirly circle skirt

Family wedding = sew new clothes!



Joely ended up with the circle skirt. I used this method here, and was happy with how super fast and easy it was!

Of course I made here wear some biker shorts to the wedding so that all spinning would be modest.

I think Joely and I may be matching soon, because I tried hers on and I totally want my own now too...I guess I should make a mini one for Parlee then we can be a whole family of circle skirts!

Love,

Snow Blossom Peasant Dress

This is the first little peasant dress I've ever made, and I adore it so much....does that sound funny to love something you made yourself so much? Either way, it's true, I just LOVE it. She's worn it 3 times in the last week that it's been made. I washes up beautifully....Im just happy! In fact all these pictures were taken after it had been worn and washed a couple of times!




The pattern is from Heidi and Finn. They are my FAVORITE pdf patterns EVER! I have bought several patterns from etsy, but these just make me giddy! They are super fast, easy and clear to understand.




I also made a little diaper cover from MADE. The next one I make I will do the waist a little smaller, I guess I have a skinnier baby then I realized. I should have measured her waist, but since I do most of my sewing when kids are asleep, it just didnt happen. They still fit, just big at the waist.



I also made her a little matching fabric rosette hairbow.



I love that the waist band tie and the diaper cover match....It was the perfect amount of polka dots.






Love,

Patriotic Kimono Dress

My little baby girl will be 1 on Saturday....Yes, I am wiping away a tear when I think of how fast the last year went.




For her birthday, I found this adorable and easy to sew pattern on Heidi and Finn. It really was as easy to sew as they say! I decided to go with the appropriate Patriotic theme. The dress is reversible, which is pretty sweet!



On one side I added the USA logo, and on the other side I put my Pea Pod label. Both were from Sweetwater

See at some spots posted here

Love,

Bright Summer Fun

Does anything say summer more then tie dyed shirts?



I didn't think so either, so this was what we did as a family.



We chose to dye the shirts out front on the lawn (very good choice). I was actually surprised at how little my kids dyed themselves, I visualized dye everywhere.

Love,

Trek Time

I haven't been posting much lately....that's just because I have been enjoying lots of family time!

Today I woke up at 5:30, met up with a group of people at 6:30am, and dropped my husband off to do the TREK with the youth in our ward. Trek is a three day hike, where they act like the early pioneers who crossed the plains.
Everyone is supposed to dress trek appropriate: Dresses, bonnets, aprons and pantalooms for the girls. Boys wear long sleeve shirts, hats and suspenders....The real kicker is that EVERYTHING they pack, must be packed in a 5 gallon bucket. And let me tell you there is not a lot of room in one of those buckets!!

My mom and I helped the youth make bonnets and aprons. They all did so great!

Many of the items to make the bonnets and aprons look so great were donated! So a huge thank-you to.....

Sweetwater for the great labels! The girls LOVED them!!!! Here is a link to there etsy site.

Quilted works for donating some of the fabric....I need to find a current site for them to link too.
Other fabric was donated by a dear friend, leaving not too much to have to bought by my mom and myself!

Love,

Splish Splash Dress

Today I am guest posting at Brown Paper Packages. Leisel has a great blog, if you haven't had a chance to check it out...well I'd suggest you go look...TODAY ;-) Here is the project I made. I think it turned out pretty cute...read the end and see what happened when I was making it though! The Project was part of Leisel's month of Pattern make overs

When asked to re-do a pattern, I started to think of what I wanted to make....well, with summer on it's way, we spend a lot of time at the splash pads around our house. So I thought I would work with a pillowcase dress pattern, and turn it into a swimsuit cover dress for my daughter.




With the pillowcase dress pattern, I decided to change it by using a different type of fabric and adding appliques.

Instead of a typical cotton fabric used in a pillowcase dress I used a knit material. (As a confession I have actually never used knit before, and it was much easier then I thought it would be!)

The bottom edge and armhole were a ribbed knit fabric (in the turquoise color). Both the bottom hem and the armholes where made by taking the ribbed knit material and making a bias tape. Need help making bias tape? Check here for help.




Doing something as simple as changing the type of fabric can make a huge difference.

The other change I mentioned was using appliques. The pattern for an applique can be found anywhere, clip art, a free hand drawing, I used my die cut machine to create what I wanted.



The key to using any applique is to remember to use Wonder-Under, especially on knit! The material shifts far too much, you need the Wonder-Under to help stabilize the design, then you can go around and satin stitch around the design......Changing your thread to match each piece of material will give you a much cleaner look.




I loved how easy and cute this simple dress turned out to be. I think that when you have a pattern you love, perhaps you don't need to look at making a major change to it, start simple by changing things like the fabric and adding appliques to your dress!



Summer here we come!

You know, I just cant seem to ever make a project with out something going wrong...and lo and behold this time was no exception.
When I was almost done with the project, I was multi-tasking (always a bad idea) I wrote something with a pen....not realizing it was leaking all over my hand and then picked up the dress...the WHITE dress, and the ink got all over the dress!




AHHH!



I quickly tried to remove the ink (Is that even possible?) All it did was make it seep through to the backside...

So I added some little circle appliques to cover the before mentioned pesky ink stains!

Problem solved!

Love,