Another day, another project: Upcycled applique for Annabel

I'm on a crafting rampage. All that pent-up creative energy from my five-week road trip, when I was 3000 miles from my sewing machine and literally having dreams about the things I wanted to make for this baby (and Annabel), is exploding out of me this week.  Here's today's project:

"HEY! Is this upcycled applique?" Oh yeah baby, it totally is.

Here's what I started out with: first, a plain long-sleeved tee (or down-sleeved, as Annabel calls it). Last winter I bought about six of these super-soft long sleeved cotton shirts on super-clearance from Children's Place (like $2 each - it was a huge score). Plain, solid-colored toddler tees are amazingly hard to come by, so I stocked up in a bunch of colors and got them sized to fit her this fall and winter. I specifically got them with freezer-paper-stenciling and applique in mind. This is the first one I've tackled. (I'm also really excited that my incredibly picky daughter pretty much only wants to wear long-sleeved t-shirts every single day. Awesome. I will make her the cutest toddler long-sleeved t-shirts on the block!)

...And second, a worn-out, too-small, paint-stained baby dress that I saved specifically for its adorable pinwheel flowers. I knew I would use these to embellish something at some point. And how cute is that knit fabric? Wish I could get some yardage of that!

I was seriously emboldened by my applique success on the baby blanket, and went into this mini-project with confidence. I was happy to find it was pretty much as easy as I'd hoped. I stuck with jersey knit for the applique material, so I wouldn't be stressed about it fraying. 

So like I mentioned before, Annabel is SUPER picky about, well, pretty much everything - but especially her clothes. I thought that if I let her "help" me make this, she'd feel more ownership in it and be more likely to actually WANT to wear it. (Having clothes around that she's excited to wear that are also weather-appropriate and parent-approved = major stress reliever around here.) I've also been wanting to include her more in my crafting endeavors, in hopes of passing on the bug to her. She was actually super excited about the whole thing. I didn't let her in on it until most of the basic cutting and ironing was done, so as not to have to reject her "help" with the scissors and iron. 

I let her pick out the thread color. Like I said, even she picked something totally clashing, it would have been worth it for her willingness to wear it without a fight. So I was relieved and excited when, with absolutely no suggestion from me, she chose "the pink red thread." I let her put it on the machine and I showed her how to thread the needle. I think she actually chose the very color I would have picked:

Nice! My daughter has an innate understanding of basic color theory. Or, more likely, she just really loves pink. In any event, I think it looks awesome. (Oh, and I also added an extra layer from an old yellow t-shirt in my fabric stash. I thought it needed an extra little contrast against the pink.)

The thread was the only part she actually "helped" with. The rest of the time she was content to watch me sew. We had a great time.

My cozy sewing space at my parents' house. I am incredibly grateful to have it.

Here's she's saying about the needle, "It goes up and down!" She thought it was the coolest thing ever.

I love love love this. Someday when I have a real crafting room, this is going on the wall.

The cast of Star Wars likes to give me sage life-wisdom while I sew.

I recommend the whole interlocking-arm method for sewing with your toddler. It's good wrist exercise. (You should all know that my daughter is extremely cautious by nature. Otherwise, her fingers wouldn't be getting anywhere near that close to a moving needle!)

Chilling on the cutting mat, checking out her butterfly-in-a-cube. Good times.

So, my strategy paid off and Annabel could hardly wait for me to finish sewing this before putting it on. Actually, she got a time out because she didn't want to wait for me to take a photo of the shirt before wearing it and was yanking it off the blanket mid-photograph. Luckily the discipline didn't sour her excitement about it.

Rocking the jeggings! Oh yeah baby.

Playing with her disturbingly real-looking wooden snake. Yikes. (Annabel has a strange love/interest/fixation with snakes. Go figure.)

Refusing to look at the camera. Not hard to do when you can basically hide behind your bangs that your mom refuses to cut, in vain hopes that you'll one day agree to actually wear a barrette.

So there you have it. I have fun plans for the rest of her shirts, and am hoping to bust a bunch of them out after our trip to Chicago this weekend. They're very fun and fulfilling projects because they give big payoff for minimal time and work. LOVE that kind of project. And it's also a nice change-up from the rather work-intensive blanket. This has also scratched a long-term itch to make clothes for Annabel, because ever since she got so intensely picky about her clothes about a year ago, I've shied away from making her pretty much anything. It's kind of anticlimactic to pour lots of time and energy into something, only to have her try it on for 3.5 seconds and decide she hates it and will never wear it again. Lots of projects have never made it onto the blog because they fell into that category. I think the shirts will be a winner, though. Hooray!

upcycled t-shirt dress!

So, in between laying in bed, not showering, and reading blogs all day long, I've been spending my sick spring break days working on an upcycled t-shirt dress for Annabel (see Cheri's tutorial, which I linked to the other day). Oops, I mean "shirt." Upcycled SHIRT. You remember how Annabel rejects all dresses and skirts which do not meet her twirling standards? Well, I know for a fact this dress, while adorable, will not meet them. But I also really don't want her to reject it out of hand. So, I thought to myself, "It's all in the marketing." Right? My strategy is to market this to her as a "shirt," rather than a dress, in hopes that she will actually give it a try.

In any event, on to the results (eye candy first, process later):

Yay! Isn't it lovely? (And rainbow-riffic?) [It's also not as awkwardly long as it looks in this picture.]

So, there was your teaser. You'll have to skip to the end for more lovely photos. On to the creative process.

I was really excited when I saw this tutorial, because I have lots of old t-shirts that I still absolutely love, but that no-way, no-how are ever going to fit this post-baby body EVER again. Mostly the issue isn't that they're too tight, but that they're too short - a problem that's not going to change in this lifetime. Certain [err, umm] "expansions" that happened during pregnancy and nursing have made me even more long-waisted than I was before I got pregnant. This was somewhat baffling and extremely frustrating to me, because I have always had a hard time finding shirts long enough. Then, I had to go and literally out-grow the shirts I had looked long and hard to find! In any event, the point is that I've had this collection of pre-baby favorite t-shirts that I knew I couldn't wear anywhere except to bed, but that I absolutely couldn't bear to give away. They were just too unique and wonderful. 

Especially my rainbow t-shirts. Those who have known me for awhile know that I have a thing for rainbows. I LOVE them (along with thrift store t-shirts). Though my expression of this love has simmered down somewhat from the levels it attained in high school and college, the love remains. And it took about ten years of thrifting and gifts from thoughtful friends to score these three wonderfully rainbowy shirts:

And yet, none of them were wearable anymore. (Actually, the Hawaiian Moving Company shirt has a lot more issues going on besides fit (namely holes and nasty pit stains. yeah, it was done)). So, seeing this tutorial gave me just the outlet I needed to both let go of these too-short t-shirts AND reincarnate them into the better, prettier, and more appreciated life on full display that they deserve. (Cutting them into pieces still made me wince, though!)

I also immediately thought of this special shirt, which my best friend Lisa handed down to me after much admiring on my part:

I still love it. But it's pretty worn out at this point, and fits kind of awkwardly now. It, too, deserved a better life.

With rainbow and purple shirts in hand, I began my thorough sweep of our apartment in search of all our random give-away t-shirts. Lucky for me, Nate had already set a bunch aside for Salvation Army, so I knew I could cut them up without getting into trouble. (I didn't even end up using any of his, though.) I  knew that I wanted the dress shirt to have some rainbow flare, but I also didn't want to be tacky or over-the-top. Just in case, though, I did try and find t-shirts in all rainbow colors. The beginning of the visioning process:

I'm still kind of amazed I actually managed to find unwanted shirts in all colors of the rainbow. If Annabel likes this one, more dresses shirts may be coming down the pike!

 More visioning. I originally was going to use that polka-dot long-sleeved tee for the top.

The final vision. (Yet another use of those free jersey knit bedsheets!)

At the very last second, I pulled out an adorable waffle knit hooded tee from Auntie Lisa. 

I had always loved this shirt, but Annabel hardly ever wore it because A) She's long-waisted like me, and it quickly became too short (even though the arms are plenty long), and B) The V at the top meant she always had to wear a t-shirt underneath, which was impractical and inconvenient. 

So, I sewed in a little triangle from the collar of one of the t-shirts to permanently solve that problem. Perfect! (And, can you see the little rainbow flecks in the fabric? Even more perfect!)

So, the process of cutting out the strips of fabric was actually extremely tedious, time-consuming, and annoying. I hated it. Thus, I didn't take pictures. (Any pictures you'd need are on the tutorial anyways.) But I always hate the parts of sewing that rely on exact measurements and precise cutting, because that has never been my strong suit (either for my [non-3D] skill-set or my impatient [sinful] nature). But I really fought my nature on this one and took the time I needed to measure everything out as carefully as I could. In the end, some seams still ended up crooked and the whole thing didn't turn out quite as A-line as I'd hoped, in SPITE of my painstaking efforts to make it so. ...Sigh. Oh well. The lesson I learned is that I really, really need to acquire a rotary cutter and cutting mat. Those two items alone probably would have cut my time in half, at least. Can I tell you how impossibly frustrating it is to try and cut a straight line in t-shirt knit with a fabric scissors? Yeah. Pretty much one of Dante's circles of Hell.

These two tools (plus some working tailor's chalk) would have saved me a lot of time (and my sanity). [I'll pass on those fingernails though.] Too bad my birthday is eight months away.

But, on to the happy results, which in the end I am (indeed) quite happy with:

I'm very satisfied with the color and pattern combos that I decided on. 

I wanted it to be cheery and rainbowy, without being obnoxiously Rainbow Brite (hence, I didn't end up using any of the rainbow-colored t-shirts). Muted and neutral, yet still colorful and happy. I feel like I achieved this effect. 

My favorite touch: the rainbow that starts in the middle on the green stripe, and finishes at the bottom on the yellow stripe. One of the fruits of all that tedious measuring and planning.

The bottom of my Hawaiian Moving Company tee had this cute brand tag on it. I was excited to reuse this detail, even if it's [sort of] cheating. (But come on, Crazy Shirts should be proud to call this their own!)

The back. 

Love the "Le Semana" shirt's contribution, both on front and back. (Lisa, will you forgive me for cutting up your two gifts? :D) I also was excited to include some of the cute text from my "i'm always chasing rainbows" shirt. Not excited about the crooked seams. Oh well.

Bonus points for any North Parker who can spot one of our UMin tees here.

So, I love the end result, but the jury's out as to whether I will subject myself to a repeat-performance of this project. I feel like my prerequisites for taking that on will be 1) Acquisition of a rotary cutter (I think I can live without the mat for now) and 2) Annabel actually being willing to wear this. 

That last point remains to be seen. I'm purposely posting this before she gets home (without pictures of her in it) so that I can make sure to enjoy this project now, just in case she rains on my parade tonight by refusing to wear it. (Assuming she does like it, pictures will follow.)

jersey bedsheets: reincarnated as toddler yoga skirt

So, remember these?

....Those free bedsheets I got a couple weeks ago? Well, they have officially begun their new, reincarnated life:

Behold the toddler yoga skirt! (Is she great at modeling poses or what?) This was the first project that I was immediately excited about making when I got those gray jersey sheets.

A blurry shot of her Anna-belly, so you can [kind of] see the cute folded-over waistband (just like the grown-up version of this skirt).

The ensemble is completed with her freshly made babylegs, repurposed from $2 Target knee socks. (I was introduced to these by Keight @ Put Up Your Dukes, who sells this exact pair in her Etsy shop, and who in turn was inspired by Raechel's tutorial.)

Seriously folks, this skirt took me about 30 minutes to whip together. And I am no expert sewer - I learned a year ago, but have only had my machine for a month. It was incredibly easy. I wish I could give you a tutorial, but the fact is, I didn't even need one to figure this out.

Admittedly it was made easier for me by the fact that Annabel already has a pink version of this skirt from American Apparel. I was able to use that skirt for measurements and as a template, which was great since I knew that it fit her just right. I also got some help from a sewing book I borrowed from my friend. But even if I hadn't had these helps, I could have easily figured this one out on my own. The whole skirt is basically two half-circles and a waistband. Check out Dana's circle skirt tutorial for the skirt part, but substitute jersey fabric, and make your own jersey waistband instead of using elastic. I only used straight stitches on this entire project. I didn't even bother zigzagging the raw edges, because with the way jersey rolls up, it just seemed unnecessary. (Besides, I...err...ummm...haven't learned how to do zigzag stitches yet. That's next on my sewing to-do list.)

Blue Steel. I told you she was good at modeling poses.

I know, I'm irresistible. You can kiss me now.

Girls-to-toddler 4th of July dress

...I know what you're thinking; it's February. Why am I posting about a 4th of July dress? But when you look at it, you'll understand. It's totally going to be her 4th of July dress.

So, this post would have been a lot better if I would have remembered to take a "Before" picture. And I did remember, but only after I'd cut up the girls' size 16 dress I got from Salvation Army to repurpose for Annabel. So...no before picture. It's still totally worth posting, though. Behold:

See? Fireworks! Totally the 4th. Couldn't resist the cute fabric on this dress. I knew I could fit it to Annabel with some simple alterations.

First, I had to shorten the hem by about 6 inches. The dress had two tiers of ruffles at the bottom (wish I had the before picture!), so this was simple enough. I simply cut it off to just below the first tier, and it fell at just the right length. I then re-hemmed it. Easy as pie.

Then, I had to take it in on both sides. I measured from another dress of hers, and then just laid the dress flat and took off one long strip from either side, cutting through both layers at once. The most important part was the ruched top, so I was very careful with those measurements. But for the rest of the skirt, I didn't work too hard at being overly precise because I knew it would just hang loosely. Then I sewed the two smaller pieces back together, with a simple straight seam up both the sides.

Next up, I had to shorten and reposition the straps. (Aren't those beads adorable?) I just cut the straps out of the front. It was really easy to move them in closer and re-sew them. This fabric is super forgiving in terms of not showing details, so there's no way you can see the stitching. (Though, to hide the stitches, I could have just used matching thread and stitched along the ruching lines. This is what I did with her pink and white dress.)

I was originally hoping not to have to move the straps in the back. But I also needed them several inches shorter, and I didn't want to mess up the beading. My solution was to add 4 extra knots to each strap, which shortened them just enough. You can see the knots in this picture. I like the effect a lot! ...Though in the end, I had to move the straps in the back anyway, because they were too far apart and made a big pucker in between them. So in theory I could have just cut the straps shorter. But I like my knots, so I have no regrets!

And there you have it! For $2 and an hour of labor, I created a dress that's perfect for:

twirling,

dancing,

running blindly,

and lounging!

...And the 4th of July. Major score!!

peasant top toddler dress

So, when it comes to making things for Annabel, I've had more frustrations than successes in the department of actually producing something she likes. Most of the things I make (remember that scarf?) get immediately rejected by her. It's kind of anticlimactic and not very motivating. So, for now I am focusing on making something that I KNOW she loves: dresses!

So yesterday, I mentioned that I spent $1.40 on a shirt at Salvation Army with repurposing in mind. Here's the shirt:

So I know "peasant top" may not be the technically correct name for this style of shirt, but I'm not sure what to call it, so I'll stick with that for now. (Any help on this front is welcomed!) When I saw this top, I loved the fabric. Something in me felt like I had seen it before. Turns out I was right...

Annabel at 6 days old. I loved her in this onesie!

...When I saw this fabric, it tugged my nostalgic mommy heartstrings and I immediately envisioned it as a dress for her. I thought it would be really easy, and well, I was right! About two hours of taking-in and strap-making, and I ended up with this:

Love it!

Luckily, so does she. She didn't even want to wait until I was done sewing it to put it on!

The back. Next time I'll make the ties less wide and bulky.

Seriously, this dress was amazingly easy to make. I didn't need any tutorials or instructions. I just took measurements from one of her other dresses, cut a few inches off of the top and bottom of the shirt, cut a few inches off of one side, and then re-sewed one side seam all the way up. The cotton jersey material is wonderful in that I didn't have to hem anything! The edges just roll up and look cute and finished all on their own. See?

Adorable! And totally in keeping with the style of the dress.

Actually, the hardest part (which wasn't very hard at all) was making the straps. I just used the extra strips that I trimmed from around the bottom of the shirt. Folding it in fourths to make finished-looking straps was no walk in the park because of the previously mentioned rolling-up tendency of jersey fabric, but in the end they turned out fine (as long as you don't look too close at my stitching).

This was so delightfully simple to make and so deliciously satisfying as an end product! I'm already eyeing a couple of old shirts I have like this that I really don't wear anymore. And we won't talk about the fact that I already got another $2 kids dress at Salvation Army to alter for her......