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.

Happiness

I got these adorable baby shoes in the mail this week from my bloggy friend Valerie from the Frugal Family Fun Blog. Valerie and I started our blogs at around the same time, and I’ve loved reading about all of her wonderful ideas. She has amazing recycling craft ideas, and posts a lot of outdoor activities too. I’m so glad I got to meet her (virtually, at least), and I can’t wait to try these shoes on our little baby girl in a couple months - Thank You, Valerie!

In other happy news, Johnny wore THE SHORTS with no complaints yesterday, so that sewing paid off after all. Doesn’t he look handsome?

This is as “still” as I could get him to be for photos – my little 18-month-old climbs, runs, and turns somersaults(!) nearly non-stop these days!

Picture Princess

Shabby Apple, maker of beautiful and unique dresses for women and girls, is holding a contest to find a Picture Princess!

Emma is a perfect “Picture Princess”. She loves to pose, as can be seen in these pictures, even though she is barely three years old. She strikes a pose, and then asks me, “Mama, this a good picture?” – regardless of whether or not I have a camera on hand! She also enjoys “experimenting” with fashion, combining different things she finds in her closet to create her own original outfit. A dress aficionada, she wears at least three on any given day and likes to change outfits so frequently that her exasperated father has imposed a five-dresses-per-day limit. She wears dresses every single day regardless of the weather, and won’t even sleep in anything else.

 

Emma picked this dress as her favorite from the many adorable little girls and girls dresses from shabby baby.

Goals and a Tutu

At the beginning of this year I posted some goals for the year. I also wanted to set some small, easily-attainable goals for each month. For January, I decided to make a tutu for my daughter Emma’s third birthday next month. I had heard tutus are easy to make, but I’d never done it.

Here’s the finished tutu, made using this excellent tutorial from Vermillion Rules.

I didn’t actually follow the tutorial exactly since I wasn’t sure Emma would wear a super-full tutu (she doesn’t like layers as a general rule), but it was an excellent resource, answering every question I had from where to buy tulle to different types of tulle to use. I bought the kind that comes in 6” rolls, which requires less cutting.

As for my other goals, let’s see how I’m doing…

Find places to keep all those odds and ends that get stashed in random places: I’ve started on this, but there are still plenty of homeless odds and ends lying around the house.

Potty train Emma: No progress whatsoever. Any suggestions for motivating a completely unmotivated child to potty train? I don’t want three kids in diapers this summer!

Get Johnny to eat more solid food: He’ll eat sweet food now (fruit and yogurt) and the occasional bite of whatever we’re having…

Be more patient with cooking/baking that involves a rolling pin: Haven’t touched a rolling pin all month. In fact, I took away my kids’ play rolling pin because they were throwing it around and (being wood) it’s heavy enough to do some real damage. 

Take the kids outdoors more: I took them both out once. Emma’s been out with Mike a few times. It’s been very cold here all month.

Get the kids to sleep through the night better (closer to achieving this with Johnny than Emma, unfortunately): Emma is sleeping about the same, but going to bed without making a fuss. Johnny woke up every ten minutes last night, but I think that’s because he wasn’t feeling great. I sure hope it’s not a new habit he’s starting!

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!

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?

Winter Toddler Dress

My daughter Emma is extremely fussy about clothes – styles and textures. She doesn’t like to wear layers and will currently only wear dresses (full princess mode), so for wintertime I decided to make some warm dresses. I went to my local fabric shop and found some cute fleece in their remnant section (the great thing about making clothes for toddlers is you can get an entire outfit out of a remnant, and remnants are usually half price). This particularly remnant (roughly 1 yard) was under $2, so even with the thread the dress came to less than $3.

I cut out the dress based on a long-sleeved knit dress she already owned, and then added the triangular panels for twirl-ability. I think it gives it an ice-skater outfit look. Emma says it is her Cinderella dress. The dress is cut on the bias (diagonal line of the fabric) to make it easier to pull over her head. I just hemmed the sleeves, collar, and skirt.

This type of quick and easy pattern approach doesn't work with all fabrics, but fleece is a forgiving fabric with just enough give. If you want the bodice to fit more closely, add a zipper or buttons to the front or back or use a stretchier fabric.