Summer Beach Robes

Ok, well, so far they have been pool robes. At some point, these "beach robes" will actually make it to the beach. Pathetic really, since we have a beach within a hour or so in either direction. Gulf to the west, Atlantic to the east. Sigh.... neighborhood community pool it is.


These cozy robes are made from towels (beach or bath) and a downloadable pattern from Dana at Made.  

Disclaimer: the picture is a little deceiving, the larger pink robe actually took 2 towels to make, not 1.  The smaller blue robe I did get from 1 towel.  


The towels were on sale at Target for $4 and the pattern cost me $8. Total cost for two robes and a pattern I can use a million more times was about $20. (Budget leftover for Starbucks drive through... mmmm). You could use terrycloth fabric, but usually you have a way better selection just getting a towel. Also,they sell towels everywhere or you can just take some from a relative's linen closet next time you're over. What?

So, I must admit, I'm a bit of a blog stalker. I check out Made once a week. Okay, a couple times a week. OKAY, everyday. But isn't that what bloggers want you to do? I'd like a blog stalker or two, or a few thousand. Tee hee. Anyway, one day Dana announced that she had a new pattern for sale. My first thought was, "I'll just look at the pictures and wing it... I don't need the pattern. I am the best seamstress ever!" -said in super hero voice. (Well, maybe not that last part). Then, I realized I'd have to make arm holes and measure my kids... bleh. $8 later, the pattern was mine. I must say, well worth it!  I hope my extended family knows their kids will be getting robes for the next few birthdays and Christmases. : )

This was the first time I made any clothing from a pattern and Dana breaks it WAY down. Have you ever tried to sew from those tissue paper patterns from the fabric store? Holy confusing! I just did it for the first time the other night (blog post to come) and had to look up 3 words in the first sentence of the first direction. Not simple no matter what the package says. The pattern from made was just like reading a blog tutorial with color pictures and instructions. Easy.


So anyway, they turned out really well. The only complaint I'd have is that there is A LOT of bias tape to sew on. That was the most time consuming thing. Not hard, just tedious. I love how bias tape looks, just dislike sewing it. Do they have a machine for that?


It's so nice to have robes to throw on the kids for the walk home from the pool. Trying to keep a beach towel wrapped around a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old for a 5-minute walk wasn't working out. I can't tell you how many times I yanked dirty, ran-over beach towel out of the stroller wheels. Problem solved and they look so cute!


Kid #1 was more interested in swimming than having her robe  picture taken. Imagine that?!

 Kid #2 is a bit of a ham.  "Helllllllo ladies".

Let's be friends!

Simple Shirred Skirt {from an old tank}

In my sewing pile I have actual fabric and then a whole bunch of old defective clothes.  Defective meaning they either don't fit, have a hole, have a stain, or are severely out of style. This tank is in the "doesn't fit" category.  Looks cute on the table, not so much on me. I've wanted to use it for a long time in some sort of upcycled project.  Then it came to me... as in, my friend Katherine from Sew Woodsy sent me a link to some shirred skirts made from t-shirts. Bingo!


Here's what I did. (note, this tank was a women's small which made a good toddler-sized skirt.  The bigger the booty, the bigger the shirt has to be.)


Start with your tank or t-shirt laid out flat.

Chop off the bottom just under the pits. (might want to measure your kid to see how long to make it)

I hemmed the top by folding it over about a half inch and ironing. (totally optional since knit won't fray)

Iron all the way around.

Now comes the shirring.  Load your bobbin ONLY with elastic thread.  You have to do this by hand, not in the automatic bobbin winder on your machine.  It will wind it too tight.  Wrap it around the bobbin tight enough so there is not slack but you're not stretching it either.  Then thread your machine with regular thread.  Start sewing a straight line.

 Here's what happened to mine. Ugh.

I have a Brother sewing machine and after many frustrating balls of elastic thread got ripped from my machine, I Googled and found Brother machines don't play nice with elastic thread.  So I messed and messed and experimented both with tension and stitch length and FINALLY got it to work!


I made my stitch length 5 and my tension 7 and it started to shirr! As you can see, I was so sick of seam ripping at this point, I just sewed right over the messed up lines. Whatever, she's going to spill juice on it anyway.  Just sew line after line about 1/2 inch apart... as many as you want.

It turned out really cute but has some flaws.  First of all, it doesn't stretch out as much as it should. My kid really has to shimmie to get it over her booty.  And, when I tried the same technique again to make a skirt for me, I got a big old mess again of elastic thread and no shirring.  I guess I just found the right tension and stitch length for this particular fabric?  I have no idea.  According to everyone else in blogland it's really easy... if you don't have a Brother sewing machine. : )


Click here for another explanation on how to fix your shirring frustration with a Brother sewing machine. I don't know if I'm brave enough to take my machine apart, but it worked for her! Good luck.

Let's be friends!

Simple Summer Dress

While avoiding a sink full of dishes making my blog rounds a few weeks back, I saw that Anngela at Anngela's Pretty Little Things made a dress for herself using an existing dress as her "pattern" ...and it looks pretty awesome. And pretty, and awesome. Voila! Inspiration for the Simple Summer Dress.

I've never actually made any clothing for myself from scratch since adult clothes have to "fit" and that always intimidated me. Darts, pleats, curves... so many ways to screw it up, and I'm a "wing-it" kind of sewer... I don't really know what I'm doing. hehe (Nervous laughter) Once I saw Angela, I got the If-she-can-do-it-I-can-do-it motivation I needed and headed for Walmart. The real fabric store is like 40 minutes away, ugh, no thanks... Walmart it is!


I had an idea for a causal knit dress in my head and found a great grey and black stripe (among the bolts and bolts of pleather and Disney character fabric). It was double width! Sweet. $6 later, I was off.... to daycare, dinner, a couple timeouts, cleaning, baths, teeth brushing, stories, blankies, lights out... and finally sewing.


I used a simple shift dress I wear to work as my pattern.  I laid the dress on top of two layers of fabric. The two layers were right sides together.  I then pinned around my existing dress, hugging as close as I could to the edges, only pinning the two layers of my fabric together.  I used A LOT of pins. Then I trimmed with a really large seam allowance in case I had to adjust.


Next, I shimmied inside my newly pinned fabric all while stabbing myself and cursing.  (kids were asleep) It fit!  I only had to adjust the arm holes/shoulders.... as in, I cut them off because I decided it would look better as a tank dress.


I then shimmied back out... more cursing... and sewed up my 2 side seams, trimmed the extra seam allowance fabric, and hemmed the bottom (with a stretching stitch so I could walk easily... I sewed the sides with a regular stitch).


After that, I put it back on and tried to figure out how to make knit bias tape to finish off the arm holes and top.  Um... still have no idea. Anyone?  3 tries later and some time with the seam ripper, I bought regular bias tape. I added it around each arm hole, then across the front and back.  It worked fine.  The neck hole is large enough that it doesn't have to stretch.


To make the straps, I used two strips of double fold bias tape per strap (4 strips total).  I opened them up so they were still folded in on each side, but not in the middle, and sewed the folded sides together with a top stitch.  Then attached them to my dress.  Last thing was a couple fabric rosettes.  


It's done and I have a real piece of clothing in my closet I made that I'm actually going to wear.  Still can't believe it.  You should give it a shot.

 (I think I'm looking for ants... yeah, that's it.)

Did I mention, it will fit your curves exactly since it's custom made for you...

 even if you have to bend really far to the side to pretend you have curves.

Let's be friends!

Plum Cute Ruffle Top

So back when I discovered that craft blogs existed (it wasn't that long ago... I don't know, maybe I was living under a rock) I found this sweet top from Sparkle Power.  I think it sat in my bookmarks bar for about a year before I finally decided I was a little tired of making skirts and wanted to try sewing up a shirt for once. I should organize one of those bucket lists of crafting before my bookmarks bar is taken over and my bank's website gets lost in the shuffle. Just a thought. I probably won't get around to that for a year or so either.

If you're looking for an easy first shirt to make, this is a good one. It's made exactly like a simple elastic skirt with sleeves. You could quickly turn this into a dress too just by making the shirt part longer. Easy peasy.

The plum purple fabric and pink ribbon were leftover from a Rapunzel skirt project gone awry. (Anyone else have Tangled memorized? Right now I could probably recite the entire movie to you... along with Dirty Dancing..."Nobody puts Baby in the corner!"... but that's a whole different post.) Maybe one day I'll show off the purple/pink-tulle disaster. For now, I'll just continue to post mostly good stuff so it looks like I know what I'm doing.

I cut the flowers from an old stained baby outfit that was in my Goodwill pile. Two nights while they snoozed, some Heat'n Bond, and stitching later... done! Does that count as thrifty too?  Hmmm.

Linked to...

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Jimmy Buffett gone Village People

After my thrifty finds shopping last month and finding the giant shower curtain, I had a vision in my head of some beach pants for my little man.  The vision was something like this, minus the sexy factor.

My kid is a baby after all. Sexy would just be creepy. (Let's just take a moment and admire Kenny there... Ahhhh, ok, enough.) I was going for a baby version in the spirit of the above pants.  Think Jimmy Buffett baby pants (JBBP? No?).  Instead, I got something like a bad Village People costume.

I started with my shower curtain from Goodwill and a remnant of a Hawaiian print I got at Walmart.

Then, I took a pair of his pants that fit a little big and used those as a template.

I folded the pants and the shower curtain in half and aligned the bottom hem of the pants with the side of the shower curtain so I wouldn't have to hem : )  And align the side of the pants with the side fold of the shower curtain. Then I cut roughly along the pink dotted line.  Remember to add lots of room to the top so you can fold over your elastic casing.

Then, I took the leg I just cut out, flipped it over and traced out another leg.  You need two after all.

Now, you sew the crotch parts together.  I stopped taking pictures at this point and crafted my disco-tastic pants sans camera.  Here is a great tutorial on how to make kid pants if you want to give it a shot.

Here's what I learned while constructing these pants he will never wear again.

1. Don't use such bright bold fabric for the cuffs... looks a little too costume-ish.
2. Move the pockets up to where he could actually use them... if babies actually used pockets.
3. Leave more room in the rise!  I made this mistake last time too. Doh.  I thought I left enough room, but his booty is still quite cramped in there.
4. Go drawstring next time.

So, even though they came out way not like I wanted, I still got a good laugh.. and learned something.  To quote my husband, "You're not going to make him wear those, are you?"

Let's be friends!

How to make a quilt... kind of.

UPDATE: To see a video tutorial showing the free motion quilting process and check out my lisp click here!

Remember this post?  Well, I finished before Christmas!  My first quilt ever! This is what I did... feel free to make fun of me.

Here's the short backstory:  My sister was pregnant with baby #3 and to everyone's surprise, it was a boy... her 3rd boy!  Sooo, since a whole lot of what little baby Levi would be getting would be a hand-me-down from his 2 older brothers, I decided to make something new just for him.  The perfect time to tackle quilting.

I've never quilted before and really had no idea what I was doing, so I started where I usually start in that situation; Google.  And, I found this.  Love!  Ready?  Here we go.

• Determine what size you would like your quilt, this will determine how many fat quarters you'll need.  My quilt was small. 32" x 40".  I ended up using 6 fat quarters, cut into strips, for the front (pre-washed and dried) and one big solid piece I had cut at JoAnn's for the back.  My advice, buy more than you need, then return the unused ones... or throw them in your fabric stash for another project. One of those Jelly Rolls would work really well for this too, but I couldn't find one with the colors I wanted.

Here are my fat quarters, all cut into strips.  Strips were anywhere from 1.5" to 3" wide. All randomly cut.

Lots and lots of strips!

• Next, you are going to cut paper squares to use as "templates" for your quilt squares.  I used notebook paper which is only 8" wide.  So my squares were 8" but you could make them whatever size you want.  You can use any thin paper you want too... copy paper works good. My quilt is 4 squares wide x 5 squares tall. I think this is a great method for first time quilters!

• Then I used an Elmer's glue stick to lightly stick my center strip, right side up, to each paper square, diagonally, corner to corner.  (I used all beige for my center strips so you would really see the diamond pattern when it was done... completely optional) Like this...

• Tighten up the stitch length on your machine at this point.  It's not critical, but it is easier to rip the paper off the backs of these if the stitches are closer together.  Not crazy small, just a few notches smaller than normal.
• Now, take your next strip, place it on top of your center glued down strip, right sides together aligning one raw edge. Sew along that edge with a 1/4" seam allowance.  Don't worry about back stitching at either end... it's all going to get cut off anyway. Just sew off both ends, past the edge of the paper slightly.  Sew right through the paper.
• Then press your seam open with a dry iron. (If you use steam, you paper will curl... very annoying!)
• Add your next strip to the one you just sewed on, right sides together. Continue this until you cover the entire square. The back will look like this.

• Flip your square over, paper side up, and trim all 4 sides. Now you have a perfect square of fabric. Save your trimmed fabric strips and keep using them!  The small ones are perfect for the corners. See the paper sewed to the fabric?

• After all of your squares are made (it took me a few months... don't judge) you can rip the paper off the back.  Hold the seam edges as you rip each section since they will unravel.

• Once you have all of your paper ripped off, lay out all of your squares and move them around until you find an order you like. Here's 4 squares layed out... keep going.

• Now sew each row together, square by square, right sides together. Press each seam. You will have several long strips when this step is done.
• Now that all of your rows are sewed together, sew all of the rows to each other, right sides together. I used a 1/4" seam allowance on everything.

Here's what the back will look like when everything is sewed together.

And the front...

As you can see, my squares didn't line up perfectly. : )  I'd also like to point out the different beige fabrics here.  That's because I ran out of my beige fat quarter and had to cut some strips from another beige fabric I had in my stash.  Still looks good to me.

• Now you need to make your sandwich: top layer (that you just finished), batting, and back fabric. Your top layer and back fabric face right sides out... batting is the "meat" in this sandwich. Make sure all of your pieces are as big as, or bigger than your quilt top.

• Baste your sandwich (sounds like we're cooking). When you make this sandwich, you have to stick it all together (baste) before you start quilting it, otherwise everything will shift all over the place when you start sewing. I used FUSI-BOO batting which has a glue built right in, activated by the steam of your iron.  It worked great and washes right out.  You could also use a million pins (yuck), use spray glue made for quilting, or do a basting stitch (also yuck) to keep it all together.

Fluffy and soft. (my bias tape is in that top photo too)

• Once your fabric sandwich is glued together, trim everything up so you have an even  rectangle again.

• Time to quilt!  Again, I had no idea what I was doing.... Google! I found out that the swirly look was called "meandering" or "free-motion quilting". Luckily, my machine came with a free-motion quilting foot and directions. I attached the foot to my machine and put the feed dogs down (the little metal gripper things on your machine that pull the fabric from front to back). You don't want your machine to pull the fabric anywhere... you'll be doing the pulling.

• Start sewing from a corner, work your way across your quilt in a zigzag motion, heading towards the opposite corner. Just make your sewing lines wavy and swirly, not straight. 

It's a little weird to get used to sewing sideways, backwards, diagonal, etc.  If you're unsure, practice on a scrap first to get the hang of it. Also, a helpful tip: put on some rubber gloves! I know, weird.  But, it's so much easier for your hands to grip your quilt and move it smoothly with them on.  I used my good ole rubber kitchen gloves :)

At this point, my quilt started to look like this (below) and I did several happy dances in the dining room.  "OMG, It's working!!!!"  You can see where some of my stitches are short, and some are long... but no one is going to see that when it's all done.  Keep going!

Here's how I tackled having a lot of fabric up under my machine... I rolled.  You will probably use up a couple bobbins at least during this too.  Just start sewing again with a new bobbin right where you ran out the last time... just back stitch over the ending spot a little.

• Once all of your swirlies are done, add a bias tape all the way around.  I followed this tutorial on how to do that.  It was a little tricky, but not terrible.

• Last step! Wash and dry your quilt to get all the basting glue out and to make it nice and crinkley! (oh, and take a million photos because you are going to be extremely proud of yourself)

 

I think I got the bug. Next quilt will be for me : )

UPDATE: I did make another quilt for me! Head here to see it.

Let's be friends!