Strawberry Newborn Set

You guys, it is so fun to be an auntie!  And it is so great to sew newborn things without having a newborn of my own!

We were so lucky to have my husband's sister and her husband and new baby in town when we returned to Portland from Tokyo--they live in San Francisco, so we weren't sure when we would get to meet the baby.  But they were here!  And we even got to take a trip to the beach with them!

This outfit starts with a sad story though--I actually sewed the outfit pictured above in June, and mailed it to Baby Cousin from Tokyo.  I also searched high and low for an infant sized jinbei, which I finally found and mailed along with the strawberry outfit.  But boo hoo hooo--the package never arrived!

Luckily I had enough fabric to start over again, so I dusted off my Portland machine when we arrived and gave it a try.  The old girl could use a tune-up probably, but she performed admirably!

Here's how the set turned out on the second go-round:

I was just going through the pictures of the original outfit, and I had almost forgotten that I made a second hat that was also lost--unfortunately I'll have to wait for our shipment to arrive from Tokyo to remake that one, since I didn't bring any of that fabric with me.

The main difference between the original set and the new one is that the first time around I made the hat reversible.

I didn't have enough fabric to do that this time, but it's still cute even with only one option!

The hats are the free baby hat from Zaaberry's pattern and tutorial.  To make mine reversible, I used the pattern for the knot-top hat, but instead of cutting a separate band for the bottom, I added 1/2 the length of the band to the main part of the hat pattern and cut out two from each fabric (so four pieces total).  I then sewed the two striped pieces together and the two strawberry pieces together, like I was making two separate hats.  BUT, I left an opening towards the top of the striped pieces, where the knot would be tied eventually, so I would be able to turn the whole thing right side out.

Once I had the two hats sewn, I turned one inside out, and slid the right-side out hat inside the wrong-side out one, lined up the raw edges at the bottom of the hat, and used a zig-zag (or serger) to sew around the opening.

Then I could pull the whole thing right-side out through the hole in the top of the striped hat.  I hand-sewed the opening closed, tucked one side inside the other and tied the knot, and flipped the brim up! Tada!  You do have to untie the knot to reverse the hat.

The shirt is the Tiny Tunic free pattern from iCandy Handmade.  She also has another version with a contrast peplum.  So cute and easy!

And last but not least, the pants are the Just Hatched leggings from Made by Rae, another free pattern!

I love how these patterns all go together, and how easy it is to combine different prints.  I fell in love with this strawberry print knit in Tokyo, and I'm wishing I bought more than 3 meters--it was only 200 yen (about $1.70) per meter!

Also, check it out--all three items fit Baby Cousin at the same time!

I'm pretty much dying from cuteness.

Baby Shower Bonnet and Booties

I got to go to a baby shower for one of my high school buddies that I haven't seen other than via facebook in  probably 10 years.  She's having a little girl, and this mama is decidedly not a girly girl.  I had to go a little girly, because that's my style, but I thought bringing out the yellow and gray combo would be the perfect way to avoid girly overkill.

I had been wanting to try this reversible ruffled bonnet from Prudent Baby (tutorial with printable pattern) ever since I saw the pattern, and I think it makes a great gift!  Especially when paired with these sweet little baby shoes.

The bonnet is reversible:

And it has a little elastic strip in the back to keep it snug without being too tight.

For the bonnet, I made strings that tie in a bow rather than the super-cute snap-tie from the tutorial, mostly because I didn't have any functional snaps and didn't want to go to the store.

The shoes came from this tutorial from Michael Miller fabrics.  Instead of the fleece/shearling they suggest for the sole, I used one of my fabrics with fusible fleece attached for the outsole, and the coordinating fabric, also with fusible fleece ironed on, for the insole.  I just basted them together (wrong sides together) and then treated it as one "sole" piece when assembling the shoe.  Also, when I made my elastic casing on the heel portion of the shoe, I made the casing visible on the outside (so basically, attached my heel portion inside-out) because I liked the way the contrast fabric looked.

Outsole/Insole

Casing turned to the outside of the shoe rather than to the inside

I learned at this shower that I have been doing a good job of making Little Sister's clothes and staying away from the stores, because I knew that owls were a thing right now, but I had no idea how prevalent they were until almost every baby present involved owls in some way!  And no, it wasn't what she had registered for!  I love them because they're cute AND there's the suggestion of wisdom/smarts, so it makes sense to me that people have seized the owl.  Even I was not immune:

This was the card I gave.  I mentioned before that I didn't want to go to the store to make this gift--well, that extended to a baby shower card!  I didn't have one around (or a blank one that would work), but I did have this cute mama/baby owl card that I got for my birthday.  I cut out part of the image, glued it to a blank notecard, and covered the paper edge by hot-gluing on a little ribbon.  Tacky?  Or resourceful?  You be the judge.

One of the reasons I was so excited about this shower was that the invitation included a fabric square.  The instructions said that half the guests had received a onesie to decorate, and the others had gotten a quilt square.  The mom-to-be would be presented with the onesies and the finished quilt at the shower (her mom assembled the quilt), and the guests would vote on the favorites and winners would get prizes!  Well, I'm not a quilter, but one square I figured I could handle, and I was planning to kick some quilt square butt.

Owls again!  We voted on the onesies (some really cute ones--got some inspiration!), but mom-to-be was put on the spot to pick a favorite quilt square, and she understandably refused.  I know in my heart that I was the winner, but I totally forgive her for not wanting to embarrass her grandmother's inadequate square (totally kidding!)  I did take home a prize anyway--I know my fill-in-the-blank nursery rhymes!  Anyway, fun idea :)

Diaper Wallet Tutorial!

Ooh, guys, I loved making this one!  First of all, it's always fun to make something for a gift.  You get to imagine them using it while you're sewing!  You get to see them ooh and ahh over it (especially exciting if it's opened in front of other people)!  You get to save money since you would have wanted to BUY them a REAL gift!  And in this case, you get to figure something out that will be functional and practical, but also pretty and fun!

I had a pretty specific idea of the kind of diaper wallet I wanted to make, and I couldn't find an existing tutorial that made it this way--so I decided to document what I was doing so other people could make one.  Mine is based on the diaper wallet I've been using for years now (and I only use for spare toddler undies now, NO MORE DIAPERS YAY!)--it's from Skiphop and I bought it at Target when the boy was a baby.  I really loved the stretchy pockets on it--the diapers and wipes don't slip out, and there's extra room to tuck a few other things in there when you need to.  I wasn't sure at first what I would use to make the pockets--my old Skiphop one has stretchy mesh--but then it came to me, like a vision:  old t-shirts!  Stretch!  Lightweight!  Finished edges!  Upcycling!  It was the perfect thing to use.

I didn't design the bag pictured with the diaper wallet--it's the Wasp Bag, tutorial found here--and I'll give a few notes at the bottom of the post if you're interested in making one.  It turns out really cute!  Love the handle detail.

So!  Diaper wallet!  Here's what you'll need:

Exterior and Interior panels, 14 inches x 10.5 inches each.  I cut my exterior panel from a thick home-decor fabric; if you use regular quilting cotton you might want to use an interfacing.

2 pocket panels, 10 inches x 7.5 inches each, cut from a t-shirt, with the finished edge on one of the 7.5 inch sides.  If you are cutting from fabric, add 3/4 inch to the length so you can fold over and hem.

Exterior and Interior Flap, 3.25 inches x 3.75 inches each.  In my case, the "exterior" matched the lining of the main body of the wallet so that it would contrast.

2 4.5 inch pieces of 1/4 inch elastic

About 2 inches of velcro (I used 2 inch wide velcro so it would give more flexibility for closing the wallet more tightly or giving more room when you stuff a ton of things in there!)

Directions:

I started by making the flap.  Decide which fabric you will use for the hidden side of the flap, and sew your velcro about 1/2 inch away from one of the 3.25 inch ends.

With right sides facing, sew around 3 sides of your two flap pieces.  The velcro should be opposite the side of your flap that you left open (so, at the top of the photo below).

Clip the corners and flip your flap right-side out.  I love the look of topstitching, so I added topstitching on the three sewn sides.  Also, that lets me skip ironing!

Set the flap aside--it's time to make the pockets.

The finished edge of your pocket fabric will go at the top.  Finish the left side on one pocket and the right side of the other with a simple folded-under hem.  That's so that when you attach your pockets to the lining fabric, the edges of the pocket towards the middle of the diaper wallet will be finished.  You don't have to worry about the outer edges at this point because they will be sewn into the outer seam.

Next, attach your elastic across the back side of the top of the pocket.  I used the seam from the finished hem as my guide.  Pin your elastic at both ends (I pinned mine in the middle too for good measure) and stretch the pocket fabric straight as you sew on the elastic.  It will be nicely gathered when you let go!

 See, all gathered up!

Now you're going to attach your pockets to the lining fabric.  I am pretty lazy, so I only sewed down the inner edges of the pockets, since I would be pinning the bottom and outside edges in when I put the whole thing together.  But I have to admit, it would have probably been easier to just sew all three sides of the pockets down so I didn't have to worry so much about catching all my layers when sewing the bag together. Just don't sew the top (gathered) edge closed!  And if you sew the outside and bottom edges, do it really close to the edge so that your seam is hidden when you put it all together.

Oh!  So I get nervous about placing my velcro panels accurately, so I rarely do it before the bag is assembled.  But it really would be easier to do it right now--you will need the other side of your velcro on the exterior of your bag.  It should go right in the middle on the short side of your exterior fabric, about 3/4 inch away from the edge of your right-side-up fabric.

If you don't do it now, you'll have to squeeze your machine inside the pocket of the bag to avoid sewing the pocket shut (it is possible, as you'll see below, but a bit of a pain in the rear).

Onward--time to put it all together!  You have three pieces to assemble--the lining piece with attached pockets, your flap, and the exterior panel.

As I mentioned, I wanted the flap to contrast the main fabric so I flipped it.  Your flap should be laying on top of the RIGHT SIDE UP lining/pocket panel, and it should be VELCRO SIDE DOWN with the raw edge lined up with the raw edges of the exterior and lining panels.  Then your exterior fabric should lay face-down on top of that.

Pin carefully, especially if you didn't sew down the outsides of your pockets yet.  Make sure to stretch out the elastic at the top of your pockets so everything lines up.  Leave a hole large enough for your hand (4-5 inches or so) at the TOP of the bag, where there are no pockets or flaps to interfere.

After sewing around, clip your corners and flip it right-side out.  You could press it if you want, but if you're topstitching, you can skip that step.

Here's where I attached my velcro after flipping the whole thing right-side-out:

I had to remove the sewing platform (no idea what that's really called, so I'm going with sewing platform) from my machine and fit the pocket over the arm.  I got it in there and it worked, but let's just say I'm lucky that the pocket is a stretchy fabric.

Anyway, once your velcro is in place and you're right-side-out, go ahead and topstitch all the way around the outside of the bag.  I love topstitching for three reasons:

1. The look is so clean and polished!
2.  You get to skip ironing!
3.  Maybe the best part--no invisible hand stitching necessary to close up the hole you left for turning--just topstitch it closed!

And there you go!  A cute diaper wallet!

And if you've got plenty of time, you could make a bag to match!

I made The Wasp Bag, which is a good size for tucking a diaper wallet inside and still being able to use it as a purse.

I love the cute handle shape on this bag!  I am still afraid of zippers (silly, I know, but it also means I never have zippers on hand for this type of project) so I just made ordinary patch pockets for the inside.  Note to self (and to you all) though--if (when) I make this bag again, I will cut pattern pieces for the interior that are slightly narrower at the top than the exterior panels.  I don't know if you can tell in my picture, but this bag has really cute little pleats where the bag body attaches to the top panels.  But for the interior of the bag, using the same pattern pieces and pleats made the inside unneccesarily bulky in my opinion, and did weird things to my pockets.  I would make the interior body pieces the same width at the top as the top rectangular panels.  This explanation will probably make sense to no one, but at least maybe now I'll remember it for next time!

Little Sister needed to try out the bag:

Although when I showed her the diaper wallet she did seem to understand that this was for the baby and it wasn't too difficult to get her to give it up.

Incidentally, HOW TINY ARE THESE LITTLE BITTY NEWBORN DIAPERS?!?

I found a few of these left over from a gazillion years ago when there must have been a human in our house small enough to fit into one, but if that's true I don't remember it.

For comparison's sake.

I don't know if these things have an expiration date, but I thought I'd tuck them inside the diaper wallet, at least for show.

Halter Dress with decorative stitching!

I had no idea when I bought a few halter tops from The Childrens Place on clearance for next to nothing how much Little Sister would love them.  She wants to wear them all the time; I don't know why.  I have been having issues lately with getting Iris to wear the things that I make for her, so I thought I'd try making a dress out of one of her beloved halter tops.  And what do you know, it worked!

Jumping for joy

  Not only did it turn out pretty darn cute, she also wants to wear it pretty much every day!  Maybe next time, I won't choose white.

Who gave that child in a white dress raspberries to eat?  

The open back makes this dress nice and cool for those rare Pacific NW hot days--but we've actually had a fair share of those this year, so it worked out well.  

I used the same method that I linked to in this post--you can see the original tutorial from Tea Rose Home here.  It's really an easy way to highlight a cute fabric AND use a top that's not so exciting--or even one that has a stain at the bottom or isn't long enough anymore.  Recycling ahoy!  I've made several dresses this way now, and I've even tried it out with onesies.  Oh, what's that, you'd like to see a picture of that too?  Okay, here you go!

I can't seem to get the color quite right in this photo--it's coming out a  lot more neon than that pink looked in person.

Both the pink print I used for the onesie dress and the orange print I used for Iris's halter were major scores that I got on clearance for $2 a yard.  I really love that orange batik-y one--I wish I would have stocked up so I could have made myself a matching one!  But these projects take such a little bit of fabric--between a quarter and half yard of fabric, depending on the length you want.  Combined with upcycled tops, this is a project you can make for next to nothing!

And for something extra...

I thought that the plain white bodice of this dress would be a fun opportunity to try something else out that I've been thinking about--decorative stitches.  I've mentioned here before that my sewing machine is a hand-me-down from my grandma, and while I've been using it for years I only recently acquired such handy things as...the manual, for example.  This pretty sheet was also tucked in there:

It's full of decorative stitches!  There are a series of buttons with numbers and letters on them at the top of my machine, and I never knew what they were for.  Well, voila!  The code is cracked!  With different combinations of buttons, I can make lots of lovely designs, and I don't have to do anything special except make sure I'm pulling the fabric through at a consistent speed.

Do you see the one I chose?

This was my first try on an actual garment--I'd only practiced on scrap fabric before.  So pretty!  I love the little detail that the decorative stitch adds.  It might be fun to do this kind of thing to plain store-bought clothes too, to dress them up a bit.  Lots of possibilities!

Upcycled T-shirt Waistband Skirt

This skirt has been hanging around for years.  For EVER.  I bought it in college on clearance at Old Navy for somewhere in the neighborhood of $5.00.  I wore it for years.  It never quite felt out of style, but it definitely did quit fitting me at some point.  I kept it through two pregnancies because of those awkward before-and-after sizing periods, but it's been at least two years since I've worn it and I decided it was time to let it go.   It's made out of a thin woven cotton with a tiny bit of stretch, great lightweight skirt fabric, so I decided not to go too crazy with it and stick with a simple skirt.  The girl has had a recent obsession with what she calls puffy skirts, and I suppose that if I want her to actually wear the clothes I make for her I should MAKE WHAT SHE LIKES, instead of making what I want her to wear all the time.  So, I figured that by gathering up a skirt made for a full-grown lady into a size that would fit a two-year-old, it should be puffy enough for her discerning tastes.  I liked the stretch waistband idea I'd seen around, and had the leftover waistband that I'd cut off of this shirt, so thought I'd use that for the top.

Rocking it.

Surprisingly, while she does like it, it didn't turn out as full as I had expected.  Maybe I need to add another layer underneath.

So here's the run-down of how I made it, if you're interested in that kind of thing.

I started with this lightweight A-line skirt and scrap of t-shirt fabric.

Hello, old friend.

My t-shirt fabric was already folded in half and pressed, since it had been a waistband on another shirt.  If yours isn't, then make sure you cut your t-shirt fabric to twice as wide as you want your waistband to be (plus an inch for two 1/2 inch seam allowances).  Mine would have been about 7 inches wide opened up.

First, I put the t-shirt waistband piece around the girl's waist to see how small I should make it.  I actually ended up taking it in some more, since (duh) it's stretchy, so it was slipping down on her.  So make it a pretty snug fit.  My finished waistband for my 2-year-old is about 15 inches around, to give you an idea.  You could just fold it in half lengthwise and sew a seam, making it a loop, then press the raw edges open on the inside, or you could press the raw edges in first to give it a more finished look on the inside.  It's not going to fray, so either way is fine.

When I was ready to start cutting the skirt up, I had my trusty helper hold the obnoxious dog out of the way:

Then I stripped off the puffy skirt that Little Sister was wearing (one of her current favorites, that of COURSE I didn't make) to check the width.

My skirt was quite a bit wider, but I figured a little extra puffiness wouldn't hurt anybody.  I aim to please.  I definitely wanted to use the existing hem on this skirt, as I am pretty much incapable of sewing one of those tiny perfect rolled hems.

I decided to make the new skirt a little longer as well, which may account for some of the lack of puffiness, but the brown skirt does have an underlayer too, which is the real secret to its success.

Next was to sew a straight basting seam (machine set to the widest stitch length) all along the top of the skirt, without backstitching at the beginning and end.

This way, if you pull on your bobbin thread (the one on the bottom), you will create a gather.  Do it carefully, so that you don't break the thread.  You could have a separate gathering seam for the front and back so you don't have to gather quite as much at once, but I'm lazy so I just do it all at once.


Gather the top of your skirt up until it's a bit wider than your waistband.  That way you can stretch your waistband as you attach it so that there's enough room to pull the non-stretchy part over her hips/diaper.  When I gather, I'm not too careful about getting the gathers even at first--I just bunch the fabric up until the top of the skirt is the width I want, then I tie the loose threads together so it doesn't get any looser or tighter and THEN even out my gathers.

Then flip the waistband inside out and upside down, and pin it to the right-side-out skirt, with the raw edges of the waistband lined up with the raw skirt edges.

I started by pinning the two side seams on the skirt, then the front and back in the center, then pinning inbetween my pins, to make sure I had equal amounts of skirt all around the waistband.  You will be stretching the waistband a bit as you pin it.

I opted to use a zig-zag stitch as I sewed my waistband to my skirt, to give it a little more stretch. I also made sure to stretch the t-shirt waistband as I sewed.  After sewing the two pieces together, I flipped up the waistband, then (again stretching as I sewed) added a topstitched seam on the waistband right above where it meets the skirt, making sure to catch the ruffled edge in the seam.  This helps flatten the waistband and secure the seam.

And just look at that sass!

Cue the "tsssss!" sound effect.
Okay, I apologize for that one, but with that pose you know you were thinking it.

Yeah, I had too many photos to choose just one or two.  Here is a tip for those of you having a hard time getting your toddler to cooperate during a photo shoot:  throw food at them!  We had been picking raspberries off the bush you see behind her in the pictures, and I literally took a handful of them and told her to catch.  One of our best photo sessions to date!  Note:  I do not recommend this method when photographing a white outfit.

I can't tell if the dog was impressed or not.