t-shirt copy dress


Tuesday has a little dress that she loves. It’s a simple soft jersey knit and I wanted to figure out how it was constructed to make her another. So when Bj got a super soft jersey shirt (that also happened to be super skinny fit and small) I knew it was just the thing to try (bottom hem already done after all!).

To figure out the size of the dress I just laid the one she likes on top of the shirt and sort of made up a pattern. I just made it wider on top so there would be a bit to gather. I didn’t worry about the button placket, she didn’t use it to get it on and off anyway.

I ended up with two pieces like this, utilizing the bottom hem.

I cut strips about 2 inches wide for the strips. That way I had enough fabric to fold under for a clean seam:

I mitered the edges and sewed them all together.

I couldn’t figure out how to do this with out backing it on a piece of muslin. I cut as much of it away as I could after I seamed. Is there a better way to do this? I’m not sure, but at least this way the thin material didn’t get sucked into my machine.

Here you can see how the dress fits together. I already sewed the sides together and hemmed the edges of the arm holes (just folded over and top stitched). I gathered it a bit and pinned the edges of the strap part so it was sandwiched the dress in between. Then I top stitched very close to the edge all the way around the square strap part.

I added this logo to the back. I just cut it out and put it on with a small zig-zag stitch. I should have put interfacing under it first, it was hard to get nice straight stitches, but it works.

The next day Tuesday wanted to wear the dress over her jammies top. I woke up to her in this outfit. Of course you can’t ask for more than that when you’re making kid’s stuff! I’m so glad she likes it. I am going to give it another try. I think making the dress pieces a bit wider so there is more to gather at top would look nicer. Also I could do shorter straps and she’d still be able to get into it without trouble (the material is so stretchy). She’s pretty much in a 3T size right now and I think I could make this type of dress from a t-shirt until she’s a 5T size, depending on the length of the t-shirt of course.
There are so many cute t-shirt to kids clothes tutorials and patterns out there. I bought this one from Lil Blue Boo, but I haven’t tried it yet. Have you tried to refashion a t-shirt into kids clothes? What did you make?

Springing!

Spring is finally, truly upon us! It’s so wonderful to have some sunshine filled days. Bj did a deep clean on our porch so we could dress it up again, as we do every spring. I can’t believe that we’ve been using this porch since summer 2009. This will be our forth summer using our favorite outdoor room. I only have partial pictures, because though it’s dressed up Tuesday decided one of her cardboard houses needed to come out.

One of my thrifting finds from the weekend o’ thrift with Sciarrino:

I thought $8 was a little much to spend on it, but Tuesday loves this silly little chair as much as me, so it’s all good.

Our little setup by the front door for this year. The plant stand and octagon shaped planters were from the adventure as well. I told Tuesday we were going thrifting and asked if she want anything. She asked for a plant stand. Uh. A plant stand?!?! Where does she come up with this stuff? And out of everything to ask for. Oh my goodness what a wonderful girl. So I couldn’t resist getting her one of course. The first day thrifting we saw so many that I became a little picky and ended up getting one at an antique store Saturday. I bought one for my mom for mother’s day too. I’ve never taken much notice of them, but now I think I might want a little collection of these worn heavy kind for my yard.

The high school club that usually sells hanging baskets for a fundraiser didn’t this year so I decided to try my hand at it. I packed them pretty full, so hopefully they’ll grow and spill over soon.

These roses are about to bloom like crazy. Even though they’re my most neglected. I have such trouble figuring out how to train these climbers up the porch. I think I need to cut a few canes back, but can’t bare to.

A few of my other roses have started to bloom. This tree type rose bush glows:

And I swear the blooms by the picket fence get darker every year. I’m not sure why this would be?

They are supposed to be very light pink. Has anyone had this happen to them?

The backyard still needs a bunch of work. I weed as much as I can, though it’s getting harder. Bj’s mom helped when she was here this weekend. We’ve only been watering for a few days, so hopefully not having (as much) rain fall all over the yard will slow down the weeds (we use a drip system to save water). We need new compost over pretty much the whole yard and I’m trying to talk Bj into getting some help to spread it around. Bending over with this belly is such a pain! Tuesday follows me around tugging my shirt down when it rides up, hehehe. I’m just hoping I get everything pretty well established before the baby comes so it will be relatively easy to care for. And I’m trying to rein in my vegetable growing and annual planting. Of course I said yes to some broccoli starts from Erin… broccoli! I’ve never tried that before. Arron came over and tilled up that little bit of dirt up there in about two minutes last night. And my next door neighbor gave me a roma start to plant. Ah I love my neighborhood. Someone asked me before about the stuff I leave on my porch. Let’s just say I have some very active neighbors who keep tabs on everything and everyone. 🙂

One of Many

Oh how I am addicted to this simple fun pattern (free pattern found here).

This is the second one I pieced, the first top was pretty much the same as the example. Making up different color combinations is so much fun!

I chose to do the back simple, in a Kona solid. I love how it shows off the quilting.

Even though I practiced (and ripped it out once one the actual quilt) the swirl was really hard for me to get right. I had to free motion for the first bit before the circle was wide enough for me to maneuver with a walking foot. Once I got the walking foot on it was so much easier. I was able to use the foot as a guide and go around. BUT I went around the wrong direction so instead of each pass making me have less bulk in the throat of the machine I had more. UGH! Lesson learned. Good think I have two more of these spray basted already (I said I was addicted!).

If you’re coming to quilt guild this week you’ll see lots of this quilt since I used it to take example photos for the photography presentation Paula and I are giving.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this quilt. It’s either going to be for the new baby, or the baby stash. The baby stash is a really good idea I came up with to help myself with future baby showers that may occur before or in the first year of new baby (and who knows how much quilting I’ll get in then?!?!). I need to stock pile other presents as well. Can you believe this is when I started shopping for Christmas last year? I love to get thrifted things for people and summer is always easier to find those treasures. Oh speaking of that I spent all weekend thrifting with Sciarrino! I’ve been busy integrating the new treasures into my house (and purging other things). I’ll snap some pictures soon if you want to see the truly random things I gather on these trips.

Project Life—On to Volume 2!


Are you doing Project Life? Have you gotten behind? I was. I was about four weeks behind current time on my spreads. I decided the best way for me to get back into the groove was to do a current week and then work backwards. It worked. Once I got the current week done I was able to remember just how much I love this project and cruise through the remaining weeks.

That is the spread that spurred my latest bout with the project. I have been so into sewing lately that I didn’t think anything was going to pull me back to paper crafting, but this project really is a gem.

Another week another spread. These are the ones I went back to finish after that April 23-29 week. I kept them all pretty simple, and I like that. If I had a certain type of product (letter sticker, label, etc.) out I just used it over and over, easy! I actually got about five weeks done in one day with Sarah here!

I had a lot of photos from this week because my friend and I did a photo shoot at a local park. After getting behind of a bit I realized that having a few special photos representative of the week is all that really matters. I’m not worrying about getting “everything” in.

Here’s one that was completed before that I just didn’t share. I have been doing menu planning for a few months (minus the last few weeks) so I stuck one of the printable I use into the album. I just hole punched it, easy. I don’t feel the need to do this every week. In fact since this is a year long project (yes really) things that happen over and over can be spread out over the year.
Despite having tons of fun with this project and not worrying about including everything (much less “stuff” these last few weeks), I was surprised when I went back and finished those missing weeks that my first album is full! I went back to the title page I made at the beginning of the year (see here) and filled it in with a few pictures. I waited to do this so it was representative of the time in the book.

I also added notes about the last four months, and things to look forward to in the next four (the baby!). For the last page I did it super easy:

I went ahead and did up titles for the next album:

Very similar, to keep it, you guessed it, EASY!

And onward!
 

Week in the Life—The Weekend

This weekend was far from typical, so I may do another weekend some other time to remember our usual spring weekend (work outside and inside mostly). We had something to celebrate this weekend! Friday was Bj’s 30th birthday! Happy birthday to  my young hot husband. Hehehe. He wanted to do something fun for all of us so we went to the Oregon coast, Lincoln City. And we drove to Newport for Tuesday’s first trip to the aquarium (and my first time back since Keiko was there!). Tuesday was pretty sure this was the best vacation ever! She could play on the (very cold and windy) beach all day long. We had great weather and sunshine; which was just beautiful. Here are a few photos from the trip.














Week in the Life—Wednesday

note: Bj and I were both up with Tuesday in the middle of the night. I think because when she fell asleep the baby sitter was here and she was checking we were back. It took a long time to get her back to sleep and Bj was somehow the epitome of cool and calm while she had a tantrum at 2 AM. “Sweetheart I love you. Please use your words.”
8:33

8:46*

9:00

9:48

10:40

11:38

12:11

1:05

1:58

3:19

4:40

5:25

6:24

7:18

7:54

9:01

*I feel the need to explain this photo. For you readers and my memory. When Tuesday wakes up before me she usually plays quietly as long as she can stand it (or until she gets really hungry). Then she comes to wake me up, “Wake up lazybones” Over time when I was really tired I told her to please turn off my fan for me, and to go get her stool and open the curtains so I could wake up. She started to do it so fast I came up with something else, for her to get me a pair of socks. But I was still too tired to get up so she put them on me. It’s so funny! She does it all now with out me asking, silly girl.