Apron knotted dress

Last Christmas, I decided to let Isabelle pick out the fabric for her Christmas dress and I was determined to stick with what she chose.  She actually has a strong aesthetic sense and I want to encourage that as much as possible.  Well, one of the fabrics she picked out was this red and green swirly fabric that I really did not like so I tried to find a pattern that would let me highlight the fabric she chose with the candy canes and chocolate on it and de-emphasize the swirly one.

I decided on this Simplicity apron dress pattern.  It is a very simple pattern and I really recommend it to beginner sewers.

I appliqued this candy cane on the bodice.  I am not thrilled with how it came out but it helped tie everything together.  I really like the knotted straps because that helps the dress fit your child for more than one year.

 Even though I did not like the swirly fabric, I think the Christmas outfits came out really well.

A friend of mine from church sent me this picture of her precious daughter Chloe and asked me if I could make Chloe a vintage apron dress with knotted straps like the one she is wearing in this picture.

 

I told my friend that I would love to do that for her.  I knew I had the pattern to do it but it took me a little while to find the fabric.  Vintage clothes are not really my style so I was concerned about whether I would b able to piece together fabrics that would have a vintage flair.  I think I found the right fabric.  I hope she likes it!

 

There will be pants to go with it and I will post those when I have them.

 

Great pattern for babies

This Butterick pattern has been one of my favorite patterns for babies.  Why can it be difficult to sew for babies?  You need to be more exact in your measurements when sewing for a baby.  While you can adjust a 3T dress to fit a 2T toddler, you can't really make a 6 month dress and fudge it for a 3 month old or a 9 month old.  That being said, I like this Butterick pattern because I feel like the sizes are the most accurate to baby sizes. 

Fall 2011 Sunflower (one of my favorites!!)

It is a little strange at first because the sizes are small, medium, large and x-large but once you read the measurements, it is easy to find the right size you need.  Remember, since you need to be more exact on baby clothes sewing, don't mess with the 5/8" seam allowance (like I am prone to do because I think I am wasting fabric by using such a wide seam allowance) or you will quickly make the dress to big or small for the baby.

Christmas 2011 Candy Cane

I also feel like it is a pattern with flexibility in sizing because it does not have straps that you need to worry about being too long or too short.

January 2012 Cupcake dress (the coordinating pants aren't pictured here)

I also love the little bloomers or pants that you can sew with the dress/top so that the dress that can last the baby longer.  The pants have been great for us since my daughter isn't walking yet and the pants protect her legs from being scraped on the floor.

Matching Christmas bibs

You know those cute little bibs you get as a present from people? Well, cute describes them well, but practical they are NOT! We have a couple of Christmas bibs but they are tiny and barely cover the food-spillage domain. Our son, Gabe, is especially adept at making a mess on his clothes during mealtime so we need heavy duty bibs in our house. Answer: sew bibs for them using old towels and cute fabric.

I used a bib that we had that was nice and big as my pattern. For the material, we have these red towels that we barely use so I used them since the red would look great for Christmas and the terry cloth is perfect for bibs. I cut out two pieces for each bib so that it would have two layers for durability and also because I planned on appliqueing on the top layer (and the second layer would hide the stitching on the underside of the top layer).

I decided to applique their initials and Christmas trees on the red terry cloth using leftover Christmas fabric I had.
These bibs have gotten so much wear and tear and have held up really well. They are also fun to make because they are easy to make, take very little time to make, and the design possibilities are endless! I will change a couple of things for next time:

1. The towels I cut the bibs from were very thick towels. The two layers of thick terry cloth made the bib a little stuff so I probably could have used a coordinating fabric for the bottom layer instead of the terry cloth.
   
2. To attach the front piece of terry cloth to the back piece, I sewed the wrong sides together for the outer edge of the bib, turned the bib right side out and then used bias binding for the neck (inner edge) to finish it off. I did this because I did not have enough bias binding in my stash to go around the complete outside of both bibs and I did not feel like making more. BUT, the towels I used for the bibs were very thick so when I turned the bib right side out after sewing around the outside, the seam on the inside of the two layers makes a bit of a bulge and almost makes the bib a bit puffy. Next time, I will not be lazy and will go ahead and make bias binding to go around the entire outside of both bibs. I do not love the process of making or using bias binding, but it will pay off in the end. I think it would be really cute to use the same fabric for the bias binding that you use for appliqueing.
   
3. These bibs have been washed a lot and I can see where some of the applique fabric has separated from the applique stitching. I will make my zigzag stitched wider next time to make sure that the applique fabric is really caught in the stitches and anchored well to the main fabric.

This picture below shows a better picture of Isabelle's bib even though it is on Gabe. It is also just an adorable picture of Gabe and one of our friends' little girl named Grace (great name, huh?).