Blog Favorites: Sewing

September is National Sewing Month, so I thought I’d showcase a few of my favorite sewing tutorials - some simple, some challenging, some for hand sewing and others for machine sewing. I’ve linked to shops run by these wonderful bloggers in the cases where I am aware of their existence (if I missed your shop, let me know and I’ll edit this post to include it). When using these tutorials, please follow requests made by bloggers with regards to fair use. Most bloggers restrict their tutorials to personal, non-commercial use. Now, on to the blogs:

• LiEr at ikat bag has a fantastic collection of sewing tutorials for toys, clothing, and hair accessories. You can find the full list in the sidebar on her blog. She also recently opened an etsy shop.
• Get instructions for a sandwich wrap that doubles as a placemat from the Frugal Family Fun Blog. Valerie has a few sewing tutorials, including this apple printed lunch sack and instructions for making a bib from a pair of old jeans.
• Deb from Works in Progress shows how to make a bag from a vintage sheet. I also like the pram bag she made using two pillowcases. She also recently opened a shop – based in New Zealand, but ships worldwide.
• I love this repurposed girls’ ruffle front shirt from Make It and Love It. Ashley has a TON of tutorials for sewing projects – just check her left sidebar. She also has an etsy shop.
• Beth from be the thread has a great two-part tutorial for making adorable onesie dresses here and here. She has a few other sewing tutorials here, and an Art Fire shop.
• Katherine at One Inch World has wonderful sewing tutorials, including several for felt food. Just check her sidebar. I think her ravioli tutorial is especially clever as it is the most efficient way of making felt ravioli that I’ve seen. Many of Katherine’s tutorials can easily be sewn by hand, so you don’t even need a sewing machine.
• Favorite tutorials from homemade by jill include her ruffle shirt, taggie animals, and very adorable quiet book. See her sidebar for more templates and tutorials.

This blog has sewing tutorials for baby wipes, crayon rolls (the giveaway for a crayon roll is open until Friday morning), instructions for repurposing jeans and t-shirts into toddler shorts, a doll bed mattress, a pattern for Christmas stockings, a winter toddler dress, and a princess gown, Also hand-sewing tutorials for princess shoes and patterns for felt food here and here.

Do you have a favorite sewing resource that I’ve missed? Please link up in the comments, I’d love to check it out!

Sew Organized and a Giveaway

Mike surprised me on Labor Day by suggesting we drive to Ikea to pick up this computer workstation I’ve been drooling over for the past couple of years with no intention whatsoever of using it for our computer. Mike says it’s my anniversary and Christmas present – meeting anniversary (this month), not wedding anniversary. Aren’t I lucky to have a husband who celebrates two anniversaries every year? =)

I’m hoping this will be my solution to sewing without having children climb on the table. I can lock the machines in the cabinet by putting a child lock on the doors, and I finally have somewhere to store my fabric, which actually mostly consists of clothing I’ve collected from family members who humor my questionably sane desire to repurpose all old clothing into new things.

I can’t call the cabinet thrifty, but my sewing stash is, and this is the best solution I’ve come up with for having a (child-proof!) sewing corner in a limited-space home (although I lived in a few apartments before moving here that didn’t have space for this corner). I’m especially proud of it because, although Mykel built the main frame for me, I managed to put on and adjust the doors and hinges all by myself – with all three children “helping”.

As for the giveaway, I’m offering a crayon roll like these to whoever can guess what the first present Mike ever gave me was. If you wish to earn entertainment points, give some ideas as to how he chose your guess of a gift for this girl he was “not dating”, only spending every spare moment with. If you have a preference for crayon roll colors, put that in your comment and I’ll match them if I have those colors in my felt stash.

If nobody guesses correctly, the winner will be chosen randomly – unless someone leaves me a particularly entertaining guess, in which case I reserve the right to subjectively choose them. If more than one person guesses correctly I’ll choose a winner randomly from the correct guesses (unless one correct guess was particularly entertaining, in which case they may win instead).

This giveaway is open worldwide; just expect your prize to take a while to arrive if you live very far away. If you know this story and want to enter the giveaway, make a suggestion as to what it could have been instead (fitting within the limits of my hints).

I’ll give you a few hints: it was very practical, relatively thrifty, very G-rated, and immensely useful. And last I heard, it was in the possession of a graduate student whose name I no longer remember.

This giveaway ends at 9am Eastern time on Friday, September 18th (the actual meeting anniversary).

Fluff Talk Thursdays: Show Your Stash

 

My stash, from left to right, top to bottom:

• Lily’s small-size Huggabuns diapers (this particular version is no longer made) with liners underneath
• Bumgenius 3.0 snapped to fit Lily with liners (also snapped to fit Lily) underneath
• Johnny’s medium-size Huggabuns diapers (also no longer sold in this incarnation) with liners underneath
• Imse Vimse training pants for Johnny with home-sewn cloth wipes (see this post for instructions) underneath
• Lily’s home-sewn newborn cloth diaper covers (see this post). We used wipes as inserts for these, and she already outgrew them being the fast-growing child that she is…

The Bumgenius 3.0s are my favorites, but I only have three. They also don’t really fit Johnny at 20 months and 26lbs, so they aren’t the ideal one-size diaper in my mind. I would love to try out some one-size FuzziBunz or Smartipants but we have a decent stash of sized diapers that work just fine so I can’t justify the expense. Thirsties diaper covers also look lovely, although I always prefer snaps over velcro (ironic given that I put velcro on the diapers I made, I realize, but I didn’t have any of those fancy diaper snaps). I also want to try my hand at sewing an RRP diaper and one of Katrina’s fleece soakers – once I figure out how to use my sewing machine with three children in tow, that is!

And while we’re on the topic of sewing, if you’ve always wanted to learn but didn’t get the chance, consider joining Valerie from the Frugal Family Fun Blog’s FREE sewing workshop here – you have until August 31st to sign up!

Baby doll slings

I decided to fit one final sewing project in before my mom left Saturday afternoon. Emma had been asking for one of these for a while, and I’m glad I made one for Johnny too because he thinks it’s really cool to have a baby sling. Made using the same fabric and design as my pouch sling (which Lily spends large portions of the day in).

Also, beautiful newborn photos of Lily taken by my very talented friend Felicia are here.

My first cloth diaper (cover)!

Mike took the kids to the Children’s and Science Discovery Museums in Acton on Saturday and I had a quiet morning at home. It’s amazing how much I can done without two toddlers underfoot! I decided it was the perfect occasion to tackle my fear of sewing cloth diapers. I decided to start off with Shar’s free (for home use) newborn diaper pattern off of The Nappy Network. It’s designed to be a pocket diaper, but I decided to just turn it into a fleece cover instead. I have plenty of prefolds to stuff it with, and covers are slightly easier to sew than pockets.

I had some soft purple fleece left over from making Emma this jacket and some velcro from making crayon rolls, so I didn’t have to purchase any materials for this project.

Here are the pattern pieces with the velcro pinned on:

And here the pieces are sewn together and the elastic has been added:

I was really confused about how to add the elastic (it’s different from adding elastic to, say, shorts) until I found this Youtube video. Hooray for Youtube!

After adding the elastic I turned it right side out and hand-stitched the opening I had left for turning. I was originally going to topstitch it, but I liked the way it looked without the topstitching and so left it that way. Making this took 20 minutes tops after all of my drama over being intimidated by cloth diapers, and I definitely plan to make more! Many thanks to my online friends (especially Ally) for inspiring me to try this project! Now I just need my baby girl to arrive so I can test how well this diaper works!

Crayon roll

I decided to make crayon rolls for my kids after seeing Valerie make a felt crayon wallet for her daughter in this post at the Frugal Family Fun Blog. I’ve admired crayon rolls on many blogs, but I was attracted to the idea of using felt as a material because it’s so easy to sew. My crayon rolls are quite a bit different from Valerie’s crayon wallet, so I’ve included a tutorial. These crayon rolls were super easy to make, and could also be sewn by hand – it would take a little longer but might also look nicer.

MATERIALS:

• 1 9x12 sheet of felt (standard size sold in craft stores)
• 2 3x11 strips of felt
• velcro

  STEPS:

1) Divide each felt strip into eight sections and mark. I used a pen with disappearing ink for this step.

2) Stitch each strip to the sheet of felt and stitch section lines (see photo below for placement.)

 

3) Attach velcro. Emma’s fingers in the above photo show the placement for one hook piece and one loop piece. I sewed a second piece of hook velcro directly behind the hook piece on the side you see in this photo to keep the crayon roll shut. You can either add a second loop piece for this to attach to, or have it attach itself to the felt (my solution). Here is Emma’s finished crayon roll filled with crayons:

And Johnny’s crayon roll rolled up (with crayons inside) – you fold it in half lengthwise first, which makes it more compact and keeps the crayons from falling out:

Both kids like their crayon rolls, although Johnny only uses his properly about half the time and methodically removes and throws each crayon the rest of the time. Emma neatly removes one crayon at a time, colors with it, and carefully replaces it.

From worn-out jeans to toddler shorts

MATERIALS:

• One pair of old jeans
• scissors
• elastic (for waistband)
• thread
• sewing machine (optional, but highly desirable)

Place pattern pieces (or, alternately, an existing pair of shorts to use as a pattern) over jeans, avoiding the more worn-out portions of the garment.

Cut, allowing for seam allowances and the increased/decreased stretchiness of new material if using an existing outfit (the shorts I used were made of a woven material, while the jeans I was cutting up were the stretchy type). I’m keeping the outer seam of the jeans for these shorts, and so I didn’t allow for any seam allowance there.

Make any further adjustments. This pair of shorts was cut to be about an inch longer than the pair used as a pattern. I also made the rise slightly higher in the back and slightly lower in the front as you can see in the photo below. I considered adding pockets, but didn’t really want my son to fill them with anything so I left them off.

Stitch together and photograph the end result (optional). If you look closely, you will see that I am still learning how to properly use the blind hem on my serger, and that I lazily left on the yellow thread even though it didn’t match. That’s the beauty of making play shorts for an 18-month-old out of old clothes – you can practice sewing and be lazy about thread colors.

Johnny liked this pair of shorts first try, but got them seriously dirty, so no photographs of the model in them until I do laundry.

First Sewing Lesson

Emma found a sewn card craft while perusing this French craft book from my childhood, and asked to make it. I was a little dubious about her ability to sew at all, but she really wanted to try the craft and Johnny was asleep (allowing for close supervision), so I stuck a sheet of paper in an embroidery hoop, poked some holes in the paper, and threaded a (blunt) needle for her to use. She had no trouble identifying and putting the needle through the holes, although she did get quite upset halfway through when she accidentally ripped the paper (hence no photo of the completed project). Maybe I should let her try embroidering on proper fabric since that won’t rip…

Another maternity skirt

I made this skirt using the same techniques from this tutorial that I used to make my other maternity skirt, although I added a bit more of a curve to the front of the skirt and made it slightly more fitted.

I sewed this skirt entirely on my serger. It was nice to only get out one machine instead of two, particularly since half the challenge of sewing at my house is keeping Johnny from trying to use the sewing machines.

While I have written about my love of my serger before, I don’t think I’ve mentioned a favorite feature: its ability to quickly sew a blind hem. Here’s a photo to illustrate (done using stitching to keep the hem from looking blind…) I’ve never enjoyed hemming, so this is a wonderful feature to have on my new machine!

Toddler shorts

I made these shorts for Johnny using my tried-and-true method of “take an existing article of clothing that fits and use that as a pattern”. In this case, I used his swim shorts as a pattern. I think they turned out great, but I’m not sure Johnny agrees. I realized that, apart from his swim trunks, I’ve never made him wear non-knit shorts before, so maybe that’s the problem? Or being photographed too close to bedtime…

Sewing Machine Meme

What brand and model do you have?

I have a Brother XL-3030 (fairly basic electronic sewing machine) and a Brother 1034D overlock serger.

How long have you had it?

I’ve owned the XL-3030 for eleven years, and the 1034D for about a month.

How much does that machine cost (approximately)?

I’m pretty sure the XL-3030 cost around $100, and I just paid $200 for the 1034D.

What types of things do you sew (i.e. quilting, clothing, handbags, home dec projects, etc.)?

Primarily clothes, but also the occasional curtain and toys for my kids.

How much do you sew? How much wear and tear does the machine get?

My machines get less wear and tear than I would like them to, because I find it hard to sew with two toddlers (particularly with my 18mo son, who thinks he should operate the sewing machine). However, the XL-3030 did survive sewing my wedding dress, which I found very impressive for a budget sewing machine. It also does fine sewing jackets.

Do you like/love/hate your machine? Are you ambivalent? Passionate? Does she have a name?

I’m absolutely in love with my serger, I wanted one for a long time and this one is living up to my expectations beautifully. I’m very fond of the XL-3030, it’s served me well for many years.

What features does your machine have that work well for you?

Brother sewing machines have reminders etched onto the machine of how to thread them – very helpful for forgetful souls like myself. The XL-3030 has never broken down or had any other mechanical problems, and I definitely appreciate that!

Is there anything that drives you nuts about your machine?

Not so far. I taught myself to sew on my mother’s beat-up Singer sewing machine, which had major tension issues, so in comparison my two machines are fantastic. In my mother’s Singer’s defense, it had survived roughly 20 years of Home Economics students before arriving in our home, where it went on to receive more abuse at my own hands (picture a not-especially-cautious/careful twelve-year-old playing with a sewing machine unsupervised).

Do you have a great story to share about your machine (i.e., Found it under the Christmas tree? Dropped it on the kitchen floor? Sewed your fingernail to your zipper?, Got it from your Great Grandma?, etc.!)? We want to hear it!

My strategy for buying sewing machines so far has been to buy them at Costco, when they are on sale. I doubt it’s the way to buy a fancy specialized machine, but it’s worked well in terms of meeting my fairly basic needs.

Would you recommend the machine to others? Why?

I would definitely recommend the 1034D. I’d probably look for a different model than the XL-3030 for a basic machine – mainly because I don’t think they make the XL-3030 any more but also because I don’t like the way the spools of thread sit on the machine. Both machines have been a good value for the price, though, and I would recommend Brother as a budget sewing machine brand.

What factors do you think are important to consider when looking for a new machine?

At this point in my life, I’m looking for decent quality at a good price. I also wanted machines that were easy to store, since I currently do all my sewing on the dining room table and am therefore constantly setting up/taking down machines. I would love to own a higher-end machine some day - and my own sewing/craft room!

Do you have a dream machine?

Not yet, since I’m years (possibly decades) away from being in the market for one. I think it would be fun to own a fancy embroidery machine, and I would love to own an old-fashioned treadle sewing machine – they look beautiful, they are earth-friendly (no electricity), and they seem to last forever.

Thank you Sew, Mama, Sew! for this fun sewing machine meme!

Maternity Top

 

I finally followed through on my monthly goal of making some maternity clothes by finishing this top (made using this pattern) last night. This is actually the shirt I had started when I wrote my goals post – it only took me 20 days to sew up the shirt I cut out…

Overall, I like the pattern. I do feel like it fits a little big – even though I was between two sizes and chose the smaller of the two to sew up. So if I use the same pattern again I’ll be making a smaller size. I think I’ll also bring the neckline in a little – toddlers plus a loose, knit kimono top equals sleeves getting yanked off your shoulders very easily. This is by far the most comfortable maternity top I’ve ever worn, thanks to the cut as well as the super-soft knit fabric I made it out of.

I got the pattern at JoAnn’s during one of their 99 cents for Simplicity pattern sales. If you didn’t already know, JoAnn’s usually has sales where they’ll sell patterns for 99 cents, one or two brands at a time. I’ve never seen Vogue or Burda patterns that cheap, but if you’re willing to go with the less-fancy brands it’s a great deal.

After watching me drool over sergers for the past decade or so, Mike bought me this one as a combined Mother’s Day (May)/Anniversary(June)/Birthday (July)/Baby (hopefully July but, given my track record, more likely August) present. It arrived last week, but thanks to some rather unfortunate home-falling-apart incidents, I didn’t get to play with it until last night when I used it to sew up this shirt. I’m completely in love with my serger – I can finally sew easy hems on knits, and the side seams look so nice and neat with minimal effort! Now to figure out a way to keep my anything-with-a-motor-obsessed 17-month-old away from the sewing machines…

Repurposing clothing: How to turn a shirt into toddler shorts

Massachusetts has had a bit of a heat wave this week, and Johnny’s wardrobe was woefully unprepared. I hadn’t taken stock of his summer clothes at all, and discovered AFTER the warm weather arrived that he had one short-sleeved t-shirt that fit, one that was really too small, and a single pair of shorts that I could barely squeeze him into. I had an old t-shirt sitting in my fabric pile, so we took that and improvised it into a pair of knit shorts. It worked really well and was super quick to sew (I kept some of the t-shirt seams and the bottom hem so I was able to skip those steps). I definitely plan to turn more t-shirts into shorts in the future!

MATERIALS:

• Adult t-shirt
• Elastic (for wasteband)
• Thread
• Sewing machine

STEPS:

1. Choose a pair of shorts (pants will work too, just cut the legs shorter) to use as a pattern.
2. Lay over t-shirt and cut, adding seam allowances and extra fabric at the top for adding elastic. Notice that I kept the side seam and bottom hem of this t-shirt – cut down my sewing time for quite a bit and since these are just play shorts I wasn’t looking to make them perfect. You want to copy the backside of the article of clothing, since that piece is typically larger than the front piece. You can trim the front side later.

3. Repeat on the other side of the t-shirt. You can actually use the first piece you cut as a pattern (Preferable - I didn’t do this, and then I had to trim the two pieces to make them identical).

4. Trim the top front of the shorts a little – you normally want the backside of shorts to be higher than the front.

5. You can see in this photo how the back of shorts (right side of the photo) is taller than the front (left side of Image 4). You may want to trim some of the front edge (left side of Image 4) off as well, to prevent fabric bunching in the front (you need less in the front since in the back it is stretching over your child’s bum). If you do trim the left side, be sure to re-cut the little bit on the bottom left to match the backside.

6. Sew the side seams of Image 4 (done in the photo). I used a zig-zag stitch since this is a knit fabric and the stitching needs to have some give.

7. Open the shorts out the way they were in Image 3, but with the seams on the outside of the fabric. Stitch the crotch seam, again using a zig-zag stitch

8. Cut a length of elastic to fit your child’s waist.

9. Stitch down the top of the shorts, leaving an opening to insert elastic

10. Thread elastic through shorts. If you don’t have a elastic threading tool (not sure what the formal name for that thing is), attaching a safety pin to one end of the elastic works pretty well.

11. Stitch together the ends of the elastic, making sure that the elastic isn’t twisted within the band

12. Finish stitching the waist.

13. Put the shorts on your child and send them out to play.

Johnny loves his new shorts, although he doesn’t share his sister’s zest for modeling.

Blog Favorites: Sewing Projects

Some favorite tutorials:

• Easy and stylish spring tote tutorial from homemade by jill. While you’re there, check out her gorgeous WIP quiet time book, as well as her tutorials for taggie animals and a wipe-clean vinyl bib.
• Discover the many possibilities of foam by exploring these gorgeous creations from Ikat Bag – creations range from a children’s sofa to dirt (very cool dirt, I might add)!
• Very cute and simple headband tutorial from vermillion rules.
• Great ideas of ways to recycle/upcycle baby tights from Filth Wizardry.
• Easy hooded bath towel from Make and Takes.
• Make a felt armchair for your child’s dollhouse using this tutorial from One Inch World.
• Toy gathering bucket from Sew, Mama, Sew!

Skirts

As I mentioned in this post, my goal for April is to make some maternity clothes. Here’s my first attempt, made using this tutorial.

The hem is straight, even though it doesn’t look it in the photo. The tutorial was easy to follow, and it fits great even though I was stuck with 2” elastic (all my fabric store carries) instead of the recommended 3”.

There was just enough fabric left to make Emma a matching skirt, which she was more than happy to model :)

Pouch sling!

I’ve wanted to make a pouch sling for a while, but I was too lazy to get my act together and figure out the steps that don’t get written into the free online tutorials I’ve seen. So I jumped at the chance to test out this pattern, and I have to say I’m pleased with the results!

I followed the pattern exactly, apart from adding topstitching. Aside from the sloppiness/awkward thread color of said topstitching (I shouldn’t try to sew with a 15-month-old on my lap) I’m very happy with the results. The instructions were super easy to follow, and I hope to make more of these for friends and family!

You can order the pattern for $5 from the loveseptember etsy shop. If you don’t sew, she sells ready-made pouch slings. There is even a pouch sling gift certificate where the recipient gets to choose their own pouch sling, which is then custom-made to fit them perfectly!

Easy-sew Princess Gown

Emma loves Disney's "Beauty and the Beast", and has been begging for a "Belle dress" for several weeks now. She seems to care mainly about dress length and color, so I ignored the overall design, added long sleeves, and used an entirely different but much more comfortable fabric. I don't remember what the fabric was called at my local store, but it was something very similar to this, machine washable and dry-able (on low heat).


I used the pink fleece dress I made as a pattern, adding length to the skirt, omitting the panels, adding ties to the back, and widening the sleeves at the ends (for a dramatic flair).


Here are the pieces laid out on the table (ignore the pile of scraps by Emma's hands). There are two of each piece, for a total of six pattern pieces.




STEPS:

1. Sew edges and one end of ties and turn right side out
2. Sew shoulders together
3. Hem neckline (I used a decorative zig-zag stitch)
4. Gather sleeves
5. Attach sleeves
6. Baste in ties (or pin them in very carefully)
7. Sew edges - from end of sleeve to end of hem on each side.
8. Finish hems on arms and bottom of dress (I used the same decorative zig-zag stitch that I used on the neckline)
   

Result: A very happy toddler

From Rag to Heirloom

My son Johnny is named after his Grandpa, John, who sadly passed away from cancer without getting to meet either of his grandchildren. My husband wore this shirt of his dad's for years, to the point where it was almost completely worn out. I noticed that parts of the shirt (front and back) were less worn, so I thought it would be fun to turn it into a pajama top for Johnny to wear. I like to find ways to make a connection between my kids and their grandpa, especially where they can't meet him and enjoy his kindness and goofy sense of humor.

There wasn't enough fabric in good shape for pajama bottoms - maybe I'll find another shirt or a pair of old pants to use...

MATERIALS:

• old shirt
• thread
• scissors
• pattern or clothing to copy for a pattern

STEPS:

1) Cut out pieces. If you look closely, you'll notice that I actually kept parts of the original shirt (lower hem and front buttons) intact. This means less sewing and makes it more like he is wearing his Grandpa's actual shirt. Here are the pieces. I used a raglan sleeve design. I need to learn to take pictures so the pieces don't look so distorted...

3) Sew all edges with a zig-zag stitch to prevent fraying.

4) Sew together.

5) Enjoy :)

I made this one big - so he can grow into it (he has plenty of pajamas that fit right now) and so that I have some time to figure out what to make the pajama bottoms out of!

Things to make with old socks

Check out this tutorial at Little Birdie Secrets. I love baby legs (basically pant legs, especially perfect for cloth diapered babies). I hadn't realized they were so easy to make. What a great thing to do with an old pair of socks. Makes me wish I had more knee-high socks...

Any other great ideas for things to do with old socks? Post a comment with your idea!

Toddler reversible jacket

Emma hates wearing layers - so much so that, since the cold weather started, she has consistently chosen to stay home in order to avoid wearing a jacket. She needed a new jacket, so I took her to the store to choose some fabrice (from fleece remnants) in hopes that she would like wearing a jacket she helped make. This jacket has no collar and no hood - unusual, but that's what Emma wanted.

1)Select (or allow your child to select) two colors of fleece fabric - it took less than a yard of each color for this jacket, and I found all the fabric in the remnants section of my local fabric store (half price from the already-reduced sales price)

2) use an existing item of clothing as a pattern, allowing extra width for your seam allowance and since a jacket needs to fit over other clothing. I know this dress is in all the photos on my site; my daughter does own other clothing but this is one of her favorites.

3) Cut half based on the clothing item, then fold over and cut to make it symmetrical. Cut a small notch in the fabric in the neckline to mark the center. This is the back of the jacket
4) Use the back of the jacket as a pattern for the front of the jacket - allowing extra fabric in the middle for overlapping edges in the center front and seam allowance. Cut down the middle of the front piece to make the two sides of the front of the jacket.

5) Cut out sleeves, again based on an existing garment with extra width for seam allowance and for the sleeves to fit over other clothing

6) Cut out copies of all pattern pieces in second fabric. This photo also shows the shape of a typical sleeve (the sleeve gets gathered a bit using a basting stitch to fit into the armhole.

6) For a warmer jacket, add batting to the front and back pieces - probably not sleeves since it gets too stiff on a small child and two layers of fleece are already quite warm.

7) Stitch together as two jackets - one in each fabric

8) Sew the two jackets together, leaving an opening to turn right side out (the bottom back of the jacket works well and is easy to blind-stitch shut). I recommend stitching the ends of the sleeves together last since it's easy to get wrong otherwise (at least for me).

9) Mark positions for buttons and buttonholes. This jacket was actually a bit thick for buttonholes, so I sewed elastic loops on to go around the buttons. Since this is a reversible jacket, I sewed buttons on both sides of the jacket.

One side finished

And the other side

I like my elastic-loop button solution, but I feel like it's a bit awkward for little hands. Any other ideas of how to attach the buttons?

So far Emma still won't wear it, but she will carry it around to go out and did put it on once. Baby steps, right?