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".

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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.

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Summer Beach Quilt... in the making

It's official.  I started the Summer Beach Quilt.  Thanks to an awesome Independence Day sale JoAnn's was having, quarters were 50% off!  That means, they were $1.  Woo hoo!  On top of that, work let us out early on Friday which means the kids were still at daycare and I had 2 hours to shop by myself. "Auuuuuuhhhhhh".... that was the sound of angels singing and the clouds parting.

Everything except the two fabrics in the front there (the yellow paisley and the orange floral) are quarters. I like using quarters mostly because I hate having fabric cut. Haha. Why does it take forever?! Ugh. I tried to buy 3 of each quarter but in some cases they didn't have 3.  Oh well, I'll just wing it.

I've been scouring Pinterest lately looking for a new quilt pattern to try, but I keep going back to the style I already made for little Levi. I just love it. And since the last one was a gift and this one will be for me, I think I'm just going to do the same thing again. I can do that, right?

Hopefully I'll have it done before beach weather is over.  Hope you like, stay tuned.

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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.

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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.

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