clothes

Strawberry Biscuit Matching Skirts

April 25, 2016 by Amanda Leave a Comment

Yay! It’s my turn on the Strawberry Biscuit Blog Hop!!! I have loved seeing all the AMAZING creations on this super fun blog hop! I love strawberries, I love fabric, and I love this new line of fabric by the talented Elea Lutz for Penny Rose Fabrics. I could sew with it all day long!

Upon receiving my fabric I put my guard cat on duty so no one would touch or take my new fabric!

I knew as soon as I saw this fabric I wanted to make several quilts with it and I was dying to make my girls coordinating skirts. I got out my two favorite skirt patterns and began sewing away. For Sally’s skirt I used the Little Sassy Skirts book and for Ella’s skirt I used the Blythe skirt from the Magic Pattern Book. Both of which I have sewed many times and I always return to.

I always get a little nervous cutting into a piece of fabric – especially when it’s this pretty!

The Blythe skirt is an A-line skirt that has an elastic back, a flat front waist band, and a center pleat. You can totally make this skirt in an hour. I am so in love with the large floral print on this style of skirt!!

Sally’s skirt has several tiers, an accent band, and ric rac trim on the bottom. This style is perfect for showing off several prints and I love how they all work together in this skirt! That’s what’s so fun about this fabric line!!

I love having girls to sew with and I can’t believe how grown-up they are getting! Time sure flies. I am so happy to have pictures like this with them looking so happy wearing something their mom made 🙂

Be sure to visit Taunja from Carried Away Quilting today also for her stop on the tour. And tomorrow you’ll have to pop over to see what Jemima from Tied With A Ribbon is making!! These girls are all so talented! This blog hop is making me hungry for more strawberries! Thanks so much to Elea and Penny Rose for making it all possible!

I also made this cute little quilt out of Strawberry Biscuit and you can read all about it HERE.

Filed Under: clothes, FEATURED, Penny Rose Fabrics

Wonderland {by Riley Blake Designs } Easter Dress

March 15, 2016 by Amanda 4 Comments

Thanks for hopping over here as part of the Riley Blake Designs Wonderland Blog Hop….or should I say Bunny Hop Hoppity Hop! I am so in love with this fabric line “Wonderland” by my friend, Melissa Mortenson.

Melissa is the cutest ever! She writes amazing patterns and books, designs fabric, and writes a sewing & craft blog called The Polka Dot Chair. I am grateful to be a part of this blog hop!

When I saw this fabric I knew I wanted to sew Sally an Easter dress. I am so happy that Sally is still thrilled at clothes I make for her. Please don’t grow up!!! This is my favorite girl dress style: little puffy sleeve, collar, sash, pleats and a long skirt. I was actually surprised at this Simplicity Pattern #1211 . It followed traditional dress construction and was fairly simple to put together. I am hoping to make 5 more!!! Look at all the fun variations you can make!

It’s always a little scary cutting into yards of fabric!!

But with a little help from my friend Jennifer and her cute bunnies, it was a snap!

I think this is the definition of sweet 🙂

Sally was thrilled to hear she would get to model the dress with real bunnies!

The bunnies look all soft and cuddly, but you can’t see all the scratch marks on Sally’s arms!!

I love the pleats in the skirt portion of the dress rather than gathers, it gives it such a classic, clean look. And of course who doesn’t love a but accent strip on the bottom of the skirt!

Did I mention I love bunnies?

This fabric is so amazing and soft. I would totally wear a skirt out of the bunny print. Too bad I don’t have any left over 🙁

I think this poor bunny is saying “I’ve had enough, put me down!” Thanks for stopping by! I can’t wait to see all the other fabulous projects on this blog hop!!

Filed Under: bunny, clothes, FEATURED, Riley Blake

Milk Sugar & Flower Girls Dress

February 2, 2016 by Amanda Leave a Comment

I am so in love Milk Sugar & Flower from Penny Rose! I have been saving it until I found the perfect project. And I found it! A dress for Sally! Sally will be getting baptized this month and I wanted her to have a special dress to wear after her Baptism.

The style of the dress is classic little girl and fits Sally’s personality. She is a girl after my own vintage heart: lover of Elvis, old TV shows, and classic dress style. It’s just how little girls should be dressing.

I have to admit I did not like the pattern at all. Upon completion of the dress I wadded the whole pattern up and threw it in the garbage! Which, by the way, saved me a good 30 minutes of folding the dang thing up so it would fit in the envelope!

Despite the frustration with the pattern, I love the finished dress and so does Sally.

Filed Under: clothes, FEATURED, Penny Rose Fabrics

Sailboat Skirts

March 12, 2015 by Amanda Leave a Comment

This sailboat fabric makes me want to sing…..Sailing, sailing over the bounding main! Do you think I’m going overboard with too many nautical projects? 🙂 hehe

I found this fabric at my local Beverly’s store and I new I wanted to sew skirts. I love how they turned out. For Sally’s skirt I used Tie Dye Diva’s Potato Chip Skirt pattern. I wrote a review of this skirt here. After making it again, It’s still my favorite girls skirt pattern! The women’s skirt is from Amy Barickman’s The Magic Pattern Book. I also wrote a review of this pattern here. It’s such a great A-line skirt with a center pleat and it can be sewn in about an hour! If you check my Instagram this week, you can enter to win both these patterns!!! The winner will be announced Saturday, March 14th.

Here you can see the cute center pleat in the women’s size skirt. For Sally’s skirt, I choose a different fabric for the waistband and for the pocket backing.
Sally’s very serious modeling pose 🙂
I actually made this skirt for me, but I made my teenage daughter wear it for the photos 🙂 I think I will wear it tomorrow!

Having a sailboat skirt looks like so much fun, doesn’t it? (OK, it’s really late and I just ate a lot of chocolate cake)

My cute girls!!

Filed Under: clothes, FEATURED, Heat n Bond, pattern review, sewing

Tea Garden Dress

February 25, 2015 by Amanda Leave a Comment

I am crazy about tea parties, china dishes, tea pots, tea cups, and silver spoons!! When I saw this amazing fabric from Blend called Tea Garden I could not contain myself. I new immediately I wanted to make Sally a Tea Party Dress. I love the blue and white – it just looks like fine china!

It’s not quite an English Garden, but I do have a few flowers growing!!

I absolutely love how this dress turned out – and I pretty much made it up as I went along. It’s a girls size 8 and it is perfect for Sally!

If you would like to make a Tea Garden dress, follow these steps:

Supplies:

Fabric – I only had generous half yard cuts of each of the 4 fabrics. Make sure you have 20″ or more of each fabric.

2 types of lace trim, 3 yards of each

Heat n Bond fusible stabilizer for the sash

Fabric Fuse

velcro

scrap of felt

Create the peasant bodice. I am not a pattern designer. There are so many peasant dress patterns out there. Find one you like and cut out the size you want. Cut the bodice out of the Tea Garden Devonshire fabric and the sleeves out of the check. Follow the instructions until you have a completed bodice.

Assemble the skirt.

Cut (2) 10″ x WOF from the spoon fabric

Cut (2) x 10″ x WOF from the floral fabric.

Sew the long ends of the spoon fabric together (1/4″ seam) joining the two pieces to form one long rectangle. Do the same with the floral fabric. Press the seam open. Next take the spoon fabric and the floral fabric and sew them together long ways using 1/4″ seam. Press toward the spoons.

Top stitch the lace, centering over the seam.

For the hem…. Lay the lace on the bottom edge of the floral fabric right sides together. Stitch along the lace. Ziz zag the seam. Press the lace under so it looks like this:

Top stitch all the way around 1/8″ away from the edge:

Now join the two ends of the skirt with a generous 1/4″ seam. Zig zag to finish seams, press to one side. The skirt is finished! Sew a gathering stitch along the top of the skirt, stopping and starting at each side seam. Sew one gather 1/2″ and another 1/4″ away from the top of the skirt. Pull up the threads and evenly distribute the ruffle to match the bodice, matching the side seams. Sew the skirt to the bodice and remove any gathering threads. Zig zag to finish the edge. Press the edge toward the bodice.

For the sash… Cut a piece of fabric 6.25″ x 30″. Measure your child’s waist to see if this needs to be adjusted. It will need to overlap a few inches for the velcro closure and for seam allowances.

Fuse the stabilizer to the wrong side of the sash fabric. I had a piece already cut and was slightly narrower, it will be fine 🙂

Fold the sash in half, right sides together. Sew using 1/4″ seams along the edge. Leave a 3″ opening in the center of the sash for turning. Clip the corners. Turn right side out. Press and top stitch.

To make the rosette, cut about 2 yards of lace. Sew a gathering stitch along the edge. Pull up the gathers to form a ruffle.

Start twirling the gathers around to form a rosette. Tuck the raw ends under. I used Fabric Fuse because I was too lazy to hand sew the ruffles. Hot glue would work, I just didn’t feel like getting burned 🙂 The fabric fuse is great because it is a super strong adhesive designed for fabric. Cut a piece of felt in a circle. Add dots of Fabric Fuse to hold the gathers in place and finally to anchor it to the felt circle. Let dry for a few hours.

I added a little pleat in both ends of the sash. This is totally optional. Measure the sash to the waist one more time to determine the velcro placement. Sew the Velcro strips. Hand sew the rosette in place.

I think the sash and the flower give it just the right touch!

Whats also is great about this dress? Sally likes it!!! It’s super comfortable and she can move around in it. She didn’t want to take it off!!

Filed Under: Blend Fabrics, clothes, FEATURED, sewing, Therm O Web

{Pattern Review} The Potato Chip Skirt by The Tie Dye Diva

February 23, 2015 by Amanda 2 Comments

This is not a paid review, I purchased the skirt pattern from Tie Dye Diva’s online shop.

I am so excited to be sharing my experience of making this super cute girls skirt called The Potato Chip Skirt by Tie Dye Diva. I don’t think it’s possible to say how much I love this skirt, how it fits so perfectly and how wonderfully the pattern is written. Tie Dye Diva has many fabulous patterns and this is my first experience sewing one of them. You can purchase the pattern and download it immediately. The pattern was easy to tape together and assemble. The step by step instructions were very clear and thorough. I am confident a beginner could tackle this pattern as it is so well written. This pattern is sized from 12 months to size girls 14.

Baby Mufasa loves helping with the pattern pieces! He chewed one of the pieces and I had to tape it back together!The fabrics are from Blend’s The Makers line. The fabrics are a light whimsical feel with several panel prints. I fell in love with this print of a girl sewing with her kitty!!! The panel was slightly smaller than the skirt pattern so I added some coordinates: 5″ to each side and 6″ to the top.

OK, I really can’t get enough of the girl & the kitty!! I top stitched a little lace around the pockets. Sally is so thrilled to have a skirt with pockets!!!!

I also top stitched along the seams where I pieced the panel so they would stay in place after washing.

I love the scrappy look of this skirt, with the back having a totally different fabric. My teenage daughter was begging for one in her size 🙂

The skirt pattern has 3 options: no lining, lining, and reversible. I choose to make the reversible version. I love the weight the skirt has with the lining – it hangs really nice. The waistband is super simple because it has elastic in the back portion. I used some Heat n Bond fusible stabilizer in the waistband to give it some strength.

This skirt can easily be downloaded, printed, cut & sewn in 2 hours. It’s called the Potato Chip Skirt because you can’t make just one! That’s true, I already have several more in the works! Sally is happy because I pay her $1.00 for each modeling session 🙂

I can’t stop gushing about this pattern. The length is perfect and the fit is perfect. Sally is 7 years old, wears a size 10 and I cut out the size 9/10 skirt. It’s PERFECT!!!!

Filed Under: Blend Fabrics, clothes, FEATURED, Heat n Bond, pattern review

The Blythe Skirt – Magic Pattern Review

February 17, 2015 by Amanda 2 Comments

Today I am sharing my thoughts about this super cute pattern from Amy Barickman’s The Magic Pattern Book over on the Therm O Web Blog today.

This book is amazing with such cute patterns and styles. There are 6 basic patterns and then variations on each pattern which give 36 different styles! The CD has all the patterns included. I love skirts and I especial love this A-Line pleated front skirt. There is no zipper, not buttons, no hooks – super easy, right?

I love the two front pockets and I also love the length of this skirt. I can’t wait to sew up a few more!

Filed Under: clothes, FEATURED, Heat n Bond, Therm O Web

The Lucky Girl Dress {Review}

February 12, 2015 by Amanda 2 Comments

I am so excited to share my thoughts about this new dress pattern called The Lucky Dress designed by Lucy Blaire. Lucy is super talented and has created so many awesome patterns, contributed to books and magazines. You can read more about her and her patterns and designs on her website.

The Lucky Dress is sized from 12 months to 6T. It is a wonderful fitting dress sewn out of knit fabric; it has sleeves with a cuff, a hood, and a twirly skirt. As full as this dress is, there is no gathering which saves a lot of time. I agreed to do this pattern review as a way to force myself out of my quilty comfort zone 🙂 I have never sewn a dress out of knit before and I don’t own a serger – I was pretty intimidated at the thought of putting this dress together. I choose this darling print from Riley Blake Designs called Roots & Wings. This dress can totally be made on a home sewing machine and a serger is not necessary. It took me a few minutes to wrap my head around the PDF pattern assembly, but once I studied it over and read through the instructions, the pattern came together easily. I cut out the size 6T. It was clear how to lay out the pattern pieces and the fold lines and grain lines were marked nicely. The instructions were easy to understand the the illustrations were helpful. Bottom line: If I can make it, anyone can make it!

The kitten wanted in on all the steps of making the dress – especially chasing the scissors 🙂

Here are a few tips and minor changes I made:

1. If you don’t sew with knit very often, familiarize yourself with the stitches on your sewing machine recommended for knits. Then practice on some scraps to make sure tension is right and you like the stitch width and length. I did not do this, I jumped right in – I should have done this!!

2. I think the sizes are generous – which was exactly what I was hoping for. My daughter is 7 and she wears a size 8 or 10 and she is tall. I figured since we were working with knit it would stretch. I added 4″ to the length so it wouldn’t be too short on her. It fit my daughter perfect.

3. The pattern says to fold the hem under 1/4″ and press, then fold again 1/4″ and press. MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS. The skirt is full, round, and stretches.

4. This dress was so much fun to make! From start to finish it took 2 hours – not bad! I can’t wait to make another one! I might try a shorter sleeves version because we live in California and my kids hate sleeves, pants and socks 🙂

I also made a matching headband out of the left over knit fabric. Cut a 5″ x 24″ strip and fold in half lengthwise, right sides together. Sew a 1/4″ seam and turn the tube right side out. With the seam centered on the back, adjust the stitch length to a gathering stitch and sew a serpentine/wavy seam down the center. I tried first to zig zag back and forth but the thread and the knit kept catching at the corners. The curvy line worked better. Then gather the threads to form a wavy type of ruffle. I was in a hurry so I hot glued it to an existing headband.

I think adding 4 inches to the skirt worked great for my tall 7 year- the hem hits right below the knee.

It was hard taking the pictures because all Sally wanted to do was make faces and play with a bug she found 🙂

I had to sneak the kitten in here somehow!!

Make sure to check out these other fabulous bloggers to see their version of the Lucky Dress!

5^th: Melissa (Sew Like MyMom)

6^th: Remona (The StitchingScientist)

12^th: Amanda (Jedi CraftGirl)

13^th: Becca Duval (BeccaDuval Photography)

19^th: Ren Murphy (TheInspired Wren)

20^th: Maryam (Hi and Hello)

25^th: Jen (Lea and Lars)

26^th: Julia Frazier (Riley Blake)
27^th: Lucy Blaire

Filed Under: clothes, review, Riley Blake

Little Girl’s Western Outfit

January 28, 2015 by Amanda Leave a Comment

My sister and her friend asked me to sew western outfits for their 4 year old girls. I just finished them – I think they turned out pretty cute! The hardest part was finding plain tops – all our stores are in-between seasons and there is not much to pick from. I was lucky to find 1 white and 1 black shirt! The cow print is my favorite 🙂

I used Heat n Bond lite for a quick appliqué on the shirts. Then I added a denim & lace rosette accent.

Filed Under: clothes, FEATURED, Heat n Bond

Monogram Peasant Top, a modified tutorial

September 22, 2014 by Amanda Leave a Comment

I am still loving Geofabulous from Blend fabrics! Here is outfit #3 for Sally! I followed the peasant shirt pattern in this McCall’s pattern:

The front and back pieces are cut out of solid pink cotton and the sleeves are the Stained Glass Navy print.

I printed the letter “S” on my computer and traced it to Heat n Bond Lite in reverse. Iron it to the wrong side of the monogram fabric. Cut out the letter, peel the back off and press to the front of the peasant top piece. Top stitch in matching thread.

Follow the instructions in the pattern to complete the top. I added a ruffle to the bottom. To do this, cut (2) 5″ x WOF pieces of coordinating fabric, I used Symmetry Pink.

Sew the (2) strips end to end, forming a big loop. Sew a rolled hem by folding the bottom edge up 1/4″ and then another 1/4″ and stitch close to the fold. Gather the top of the ruffle pieces by lengthening the stitch length to the maximum. Pull up threads and gather by hand. Match the seams on the ruffle with the side seams on the peasant top. Pin into place, distributing the ruffles. Sew along gathering stitching. Press the seam and top stitch if desired.

Filed Under: Blend Fabrics, clothes, FEATURED, patterns, sewing, Therm O Web

Strawberry Biscuit Matching Skirts

Wonderland {by Riley Blake Designs } Easter Dress

Milk Sugar & Flower Girls Dress

Sailboat Skirts

Tea Garden Dress

{Pattern Review} The Potato Chip Skirt by The Tie Dye Diva

The Blythe Skirt – Magic Pattern Review

The Lucky Girl Dress {Review}

Little Girl’s Western Outfit

Monogram Peasant Top, a modified tutorial

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