Sweatshirt jacket to Vest

I just realized, I dont think I've ever put any pictures of my Monkey up on my craft blog.  So, at almost 4 months old, he's making his blogging debut...

 What a charmer!  This is such a happy-go-lucky kid, which is a real blessing considering how busy my other two are!

Do you see the vest my Monkey is wearing here?  I just bought that for him, its size 9 months but apparently runs small.  He'll only fit it a few more weeks.

Which is sad, because I think he looks downright studly in a vest!

I also realized that this jacket of his just wasnt fitting right.  It was tight through the shoulders and arms, but the tummy and length were just fine.  And since its really winter now he wears a heavy coat instead of jackets.

SO.

I cut it up and made a vest!

It was really quick and easy, too...my kind of project!

Since this was a hooded jacket, and I wanted a collar, I cut the hood off about 2 inches up from the neckline. 

 Then I folded the top edge (where I just cut) in about 1/2 inch.  Since the hood had been lined, this is what it looked like:

I pinned it in place, then stitched!

And thats it!

 I do think I would like it better if I took it in around the armholes, particularly on the shoulder.  But that's easy enough to do; I'll just fold it under one more time and stitch again (although it'll be thick so I'll have to go slow.)

 Monkey just discovered his tongue, if you couldn't tell.  :)



Now, I guess since its December 1st, I've got to get serious about making Christmas presents.  Anyone else out there feeling WAY behind already?!

Batman Slippers

My hubby L-O-V-E-S comic books, superheroes and all that jazz.  He's passed that love onto our kids it seems; my Munchkin can name just about any superhero by sight but, until we bought the Beauty and the Beast DVD this last week, she really didnt care much about princesses.

Go figure that my only girl just wants to be one of the boys!

Anyways, its getting colder so I thought my little Monkey could use another pair of slippers...since he's only 3 1/2 months old he can wear them anywhere, not just in the house which is great!

I used my tutorial for Wool Sweater Slippers found here.  The sweater I used for these had rabbit hair, so its little fuzzier than I like, but they are so soft!!!!  The Batman Logo is made from recycled t-shirts...scraps leftover from the Batman bibs I've been making.

Pink Lemonade dress

My little Munchkin totally made my week.

This morning she chose to wear a recycled t-shirt dress I made for her, one I like to think of as the Pink Lemonade dress.

This evening, as I was getting the kiddos ready for bed, I told her she needed to take it off and put a night shirt on.  This was her response:

(throws herself on the ground, wailing) "NO, Mommy, I love it!!!"

Who can fight with that?!  I let her go to bed in it...its stretchy, so she'll be comfy, right?

I had originally made the dress for the Great Ugly Knit Upcycle contest, but I couldnt get any good pics so I entered a different dress.  I wish I could have made this one work; the dress I entered is great, but its black so it seems very blah next to all the other fabulous entries.  These colors would have stood out much better!

This morning I tried to have a "photo shoot" with my Munchkin in one of the new dresses I made for her.

It didn't go so hot.

But, at least the dress is finally finished - its been sitting half done in my craft area for almost a month.  Maybe we'll try the pictures again tomorrow.

Polo Shirt to Girl's Dress

This girl, this Munchkin...

...is an

IMP.

HOOLIGAN.

BIG PAIN IN THE REAR END.

A very, very cute pain in the rear end, but a pain nonetheless!

She's never what I would call "cooperative" when it comes to taking pictures of the clothes I make her, but today was particularly terrible.

First off, she absolutely REFUSED to stand on the nice green grass or in front of the rose plants; she kept running to the driveway.  Hence the ugly car backdrop.

Then I told her "Where's mommy?  Point at mommy!"  Most people would look where they're pointing...

Nope.  Not my Munchkin.

Then I told her to show me the new bag she painted (that'll be my next post!)

Of course the bag swings right in front of the dress, blocking the only shot of the bodice that I could get!  (Plus, she decided to run into the shadoms at that very moment.)

So, I guess you're just going to have to trust me when I tell you how cute this dress turned out.  It started out as one of my 12-yr old twin brother's Polo Shirts.  Ever since I mentioned that I'm working on a project to enter into the Lil Blue Boo Great Ugly Knit Upcycle, both my mom and grandma have been weeding out everyone's T-Shirt drawers and giving the stash to me.  (My brother doesn't actually know that this shirt is gone yet, and even though we spent a couple hours with them today he has yet to put two and two together, which is a good thing since he would be VERY upset about it!)

Originally this polo shirt was just going to be a skirt for the Munchkin.  But I got to looking at it, thinking how easy it would be to turn it into a dress, using the original collar and buttons and sleeves.

I was worried the collar might be too wide, but it actually turned out looking a little "Jackie O"-ish...you know, classy 50's full-skirted dress.  But, in knit.

Anyways, the black waistband is just a strip of black T-shirt I had leftover - like I said, it was going to be a skirt but the I sewed the top onto the waistband.  Maybe a different color would have looked better, but this dress was one of those just-throw-something-together projects.  Seriously, I didn't start working on it until almost 9pm (my bedtime is usually 9:30) and I didn't really care how it turned out.  I just needed another summery play dress because I didnt feel like doing laundry!

Well, good bye then!

Market Skirt

Here's yet another project I've done, that I can't seem to get decent pictures to chronicle it.

I finally got around to making a Market Skirt for my little Munchkin.  I've had it bookmarked for ages, but lately my daughter has been obsessed with pockets...I keep finding all sorts of interesting things when I wash her clothes.  And I found a poplin shirt at Value Village for $1.50, with all sorts of bright colors.  Totally matches her vibrant personality.

The headband I made is kind of a dud, because I couldnt get an accurate measurement due to her thinking we should play hide and seek right then.  And you can't get the full effect of the skirt in these pics, so I HIGHLY recommend you click on the link above to see the original Market Skirt; it is absolutely adorable.  And the instructions were pretty clear, which is always a good thing!

I still have a good portion of the shirt left, so I'm debating between making her a pair of play shorts or maybe a shrug to go with her skirt (the thought of an unprotected white T-Shirt on this girl is a very scary thought indeed!)

Knits - my love/hate relationship

There is something infinitely appealing about sewing with knits. 

No need for any buttons, zippers, snaps...which means one less complicated step.

Its stretchiness allows for a little wiggle room, which comes in handy when you can't get your 2 year old to hold still long enough to get a really accurate measurement.

There always seems to be an old T-shirt lying about that can easily be remade into something new.

So many of the craft blogs out there make it seem easy to sew with knits.  It makes me wonder what I am doing so wrong.  I've even swallowed my pride enough to ask my mom how to make it work. 

Part of my problem is my poor little sewing machine, the cheapest one available at Walmart that has gotten quite a bit of abuse lately.  It just does not like knits!  It does all sorts of weird things...things I cant even begin to describe.

My stubborn side is pushing me to keep trying until I master this skill.  After much struggling, I have produced one (almost) successful knit outfit.  (I won't tell you about the mountain of failures cluttering my craft area.) 

My favorite part of this outfit is the colors.  In fact, my little Munchkin got LOTS of compliments on the great color combination when we ventured out in public for a few minutes.

I got the idea for the skirt right here.  The orange is from an old shirt of mine, found in the Walmart clearance racks ($3? $5? I can't remember) that I wore a little bit before I made the mistake of wearing it while painting the living room.   There's a huge drip of blue paint hidden behind that flowerish thing on the front.  (Its actually almost the same color of blue as the flower.)  I'm going to add a second, smaller flower to the side and a little above the big one; its so much in the center I think its needs something to off-set it. 

Also, I didnt do a tie, like the tutorial shows, but it turned out better without one I think.

I dont really remember how I made this shirt; it was so spur-of-the-moment that I didnt write any of the process down.  The blue is some ribbing that I had gotten at a yard sale a while back (it was a huge roll, probably close to 5 yards, for $1-although there was staining on the ends, there's still a goodly amount that is just fine. Pretty good deal, if I do say so myself.)  The orange again is from my old shirt, and I cut it in long strips and folded/ironed it in as if I were making bias tape (although I didnt cut it on the bias).  Dont zoom in on the pic; the sewing is TERRIBLE.  So wonky, I almost just threw it out.  But I love how the sleeves turned out.  I think I'm going to make another shirt, especially since she managed to get a huge ketchup stain on the belly and I dont feel like fighting to get it out.

This last pic shows off her personality these days so well!  I had to bribe her with skittles to stand by the wall so I could snap some pics.  And even then she kept wiggling and giggling, knowing what I wanted her to do and defying it as much as she could without being outright disobedient.

Oh, and the clashing Elmo sunglasses were totally her idea.

Flat sheet from Value Village - $3, A Shamelessly Matchey-Matchey family photo- Priceless

Okay, so in my previous post I showed you a lil' sumthin' you can do with a $1 sheet.

Now, what if you decide to 'splurge' and get yourself a $3 sheet from Value Village (or another thrift store)?  What can you make from THAT sheet?

A little boys hat?

With a matching vest and tie?

Or a new dress for mommy?

With a matching bow tie for daddy (not pictured)?

A new Sunday dress for the little Munchkin?

With a matching handbag?

If you couldn't tell from the pictures, the answer is ALL OF THE ABOVE.

These were our Easter outfits this year.

So cheesy with all the matching.  I just can't help myself!

(Just so you know, I've only made us all wear the matching outfits to church once.  Or maybe twice.)

For the vest I just used a hand-me-down dress vest I had as a pattern.  It has a full back, and even though it LOOKS like it buttons, the front is actually velcro with buttons on top.  I really hate sewing buttonholes!  But its actually a good thing I did the velcro instead, because this little Monster has been packing on some weight around his belly.  In the month between Easter (when they first wore them) and yesterday (when these pictures were taken) he's gone from fitting it just fine to practically bursting the seams.  At least the velcro gave a little lee-way.

The tie looks funny here because my hubby tried tying it first THEN putting it on, which didn't go so well.

And this hat...what a pain in the rear!  The end result is (mostly) worth it, but honestly I gave up on this hat so many times but kept coming back to it and trying to fix it.  I think it worked out okay.  Not that he usually leaves it on very long for me to see.

For my dress, well as you can see I needed something maternity.  Lucky for me this wonderful blog called Presser Foot just happened to do a month-long project called the Maternity or Not Frock.  I followed the wonderful tutorials, except I cut my "frock" to be long enough for a dress rather than just a long shirt.  If I'd thought about it a little more I would have made more of a flare to the skirt part, because it is rather narrow to be chasing after a 2 year old and a 1 year old!  Also, my armholes ended up too big (at least for my liking) and I was worried that the hole for the head would be too small so I cut it bigger than they suggested.  I should have listened to them - it turned out too wide!  Which is why I'm wearing a white shirt underneath, to keep it a little more modest.  Usually I wear my black sweater with it, too.  (There's also a tie that goes around the waist, meaning above my belly right now, but I couldnt find it for this pic.  It looks way better with the tie.)

This is the only pic I got of the bowtie, but its really nothing special.  Its terribly crooked here, and yes it makes my hubby look incredibly geeky so I don't let him wear it all that much.  Just when we were all wearing it and being matchey-matchey.

I started this dress first, and it took the longest to finish!  Those pleats were kind of time consuming, mainly because I didn't sit down and plan it out first, I just started ironing and pinning.  And then unpinning and re-ironing and re-pinning until it worked.  I didnt exactly have a pattern for the dress - I could only find the front bodice and the back of the skirt of my go-to dress pattern.  Oh, and the sleeve to a smaller size.  Somehow I made it work, with a side zipper rather than the back (its a terrible job which is why I didnt bother with a close-up).  I had to choose between 3T and 4T, so I opted with the bigger size to make it last longer.  She may still be wearing it next Easter!  The sewn-on belt tie really helps it from not being to baggy.

As for the cute little purse, I made it on a whim once everything else was finished and I still had a little fabric left.  I didn't bother to write down how I made it though, so I can't remember exactly what I did.  It was something weird that I was sure wouldnt work, but then it did! 

(I just have to say, this was a ridiculously windy day when these pics were taken, and we were about to rush off to church, so all in all this is a decent photo shoot.  And the only tears that were shed were when we had to stop running around outside and load into the van.)

So, what do ya think?  Not too shabby for a $3 sheet!

Beam me up, Scottie!

I made this sweater dress for Madeline back on Tuesday. I had bought the sweater on Monday for $1.75 at Goodwill with the intention of using it for another craft, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it wasn't going to work. On Monday night I made those Toddler Legs out of the sweater I had used for the Owl Hat. And I had this really shiny sweater now with no purpose, and I figured what little girl wouldnt LOVE to shimmer like that?

My first thought was to just make Toddler Legs out of the sleeves, and stash the rest away for a rainy day. But I just couldnt stop with just the Toddler Legs! I had to make a matching hat (which didn't turn out quite how I wanted, so I may go back and fix it up a bit) and then since there was so much sweater left I thought I could turn it into a matching sweater dress for Maddy. But because I'd already salvaged so much for the other projects, I had to do the dress in a very roundabout way. It turned out alright...I really am wishing I had a serger though! The one thing I liked about doing a sweater dress is that because its so stretchy, I didn't have to do anything like zippers or buttons or snaps to fasten it. Its one solid piece!

So, you may be wondering about the title...I finished the whole project Tuesday night, which also happens to be the day that the new Star Trek movie came out on DVD. Kyle and I never got out to see it in the theaters, so he put it at the top of our Netflix queue forever ago...and we got it on Tuesday! We were so excited to watch it...I grew up watching Next Generation with my dad after dinner, mmmm William Riker....anyways, while maybe not full-out-costume-wearing Trekkies, Kyle and I both LOVED the new Star Trek! They did such a good job! But I was finishing up the dress and forced Maddy into as we were reminiscing about the old Star Treks and I realized that in the sweater dress Maddy looked like she could be aboard the Starship Enterprise. Maybe its the shiny late-80s-early-90s-ness of the sweater, or the way that the sleeves and back are (see picture below - Maddy wasnt a cooperative model AGAIN so thats the best I can show you).

(above) This is the top part, see what I mean about the sleeves and stand-up collar looking Trek-y?
So, I was worried about the skirt part of the sweater dress being too narrow and tight on Maddy's thighs, so I decided to throw in this pink sparkly fabric (leftover from aprons made for some of my nieces) to add color and width. It was supposd to be in the front of the dress but thanks to two screaming kids who woke up early from their naps I got mixed up and it ended up being in the back. I thought I might like it that way anyways, but I really don't. But I'm not sure I want to unstitch it and turn it around either, thats a lot more work and Maddy doesnt really care either way!

The best shot I could get of the Toddler Legs and Sweater Dress. I had the pink leggings already, and they matched so nicely! I'm not sure how I did the flower on the dress, but I dont think I like it. The edges are unfinished anyways so if I were to leave it on and wash it, it would unravel. So it'll be coming off and I'll do something else. Maybe a bow, but probably another - better - flower.

She was distracted drinking her milk cup and watching Super Why.

She does really like to look in and play with this mirror...its over the door that goes into the storage room, in my craft area, so shes not usually allowed near it. This is the best shot I got of her hat. It was a fight to get the hat on her, but after it was on she enjoyed it for a few minutes. I had to throw a flower on there because one side ended up flatter than the other...dont ask me how! I was worried about making the hat too big, so instead it ended up being too small almost. Oh well, live and learn and keep crafting anyways, right?!