I love Easter

Happy Easter!!  He is Risen!!

Easter is by far my favorite holiday.  Preparing my heart for the celebration of Easter is amazing, too.  I love seeing the new flowers and thinking of how we are new creations in Christ and how His blood over us makes us pure and beautiful before our heavenly Father.

Making new Easter outfits for the kids is really fun for me.  

I love dropping the heavy flannels and corduroys of the winter and finding the light cottons of spring and summer!

I will post individually about each outfit in separate posts for those interested in the sewing info; this post is just to show you how they look on the kids and hopefully inspire you to get sewing!

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.

Cupcake Party Dress

This dress just makes me happy!  Winter can be so dreary but this winter is full of fun and color in my sewing repertoire. 

Cupcake dress front

I made this dress for my younger daughter to coordinate with the below Feliz party dress that I made for my older daughter.

 

 This Butterick 5017 pattern has been a favorite of mine for babies/one-year-olds for a while.

The pattern has horizontal panels but I like the vertical panels instead.

Cupcake dress back

To make sure that the dress coordinated well with the Feliz dress for my older daughter, I tied in the cupcake corduroy, purple plaid twill, hot pink rickrack, pink and green pom pom fringe.

 My daughter still is not walking, so I made coordinating pants to go with the dress. 

 

I love the idea of sewing elastic about 2 inches above the hem and creating a cute ruffling at the bottom.  I also sewed a ribbon onto the ankle area that helps tie the pants into the dress.  I think next time, I will make the pants longer so the ruffle can be more distinct.  It is  too subtle for me on these pants.

 

Feliz fun

I have latched onto this book called "Sewing Clothes Kids Love" that my mom gave me over a year ago.  I made some really fun twirly skirts from this book for my oldest daughter and some other sweet little girls in my life

 and they were all big hits.

Then, I wanted to push my skills a little bit and try something new so I picked the Feliz Party Dress (how fun is that pattern name???) from the book to tackle.

"The Feliz dress is a two-layer dress.  The full skirted underdress is topped with a shorter, pinafore-style overdress that's open in the back.  An elasticized panel at the center back provides comfort and room to grow and ties cinch the raised waist for a custom fit. (Sewing Clothes Kids Love, 2010)"

Feliz front

What makes this dress (and all of the clothes made in this book) fun to sew are the endless embellishing options.  I used rickrack, ruching, ribbon and pom pom fringe on this dress and I could have done more.

Feliz back

 Comments on the pattern:

1. The pattern runs a little big so make sure you measure your child and use those measurements to gauge what pattern size to use.  I am a lazy sewer and skipped this step.  This dress will probably fit my daughter for three years or more (wowzers!)
2. This dress has a LOT of fabric so keep that in mind when you are using scraps or buying new fabric.  For a 3T-4T dress, I used almost 3 yards of fabric.
3. Embellishments can be very expensive so try using up those 40% off coupons at JoAnns, Hancocks, Michaels, etc and stockpile ribbon, pom pom fringe, rick rack, etc.  You can also look online.
4. Make sure your ribbon, rickrack, etc is long enough to go all the way around the part of the dress that you are applying the embellishment to before you start sewing.  Again, I can be a lazy sewer and just jump into sewing it on to the dress.  This almost became a problem on the bottom of the overdress since it is so wide.  Think ahead and measure (unlike me!), especially if you are using leftover embellishments from another project.

Excited about twirling

My precious daughter Isabelle loves all the typical little girl stuff - dress up, princesses, pink, sparkles, accessories, dancing, twirling, etc.  I have gotten the creative juices flowing and sewn with this super fun twirly skirt for her and two of her little co-princesses, Ruthie and Vivian.

Twirling skirt mania!
This all started with an awesome book my mom bought me last Christmas called, "Sewing Clothes Kids Love"

In the book, there are clothes that just make you smile!  The patterns have a ton of possibilities with all of the embellishments that you can add so you can stay simple (and "get her done") or you can go wild with trim galore!  The pattern that seemed like a good place to start was the Insa dress.

 It is a double layer skirt where each layer (or gore) has 4 equal sections so you can add in as many fabrics as you want.  I chose four different fabrics for the top layer 

and then one fabric for all four pieces of the bottom skirt.  

There are placement guides to help you put in vertical elastic strips on the top skirt to give the scalloped effect.  Isn't it cute?

The skirt has a wide waist band that helps you put in a complimentary fabric to the rest of the skirt.  I really liked the look of putting the plaid on the angle.  This uses up more fabric but it was not that big of a pattern piece.

Can you see the circular beaded things that I appliqued onto Isabelle's skirt (above)?  They were special to me because I bought those in Central Asia when I visited my friend Leslie in October.   Unfortunately, they disintegrated in the wash. :(

Do you like the ruffle that is sewn on the hem here?  The technique is new for me and is called ruching.    All ruching means is gathering, ruffling or pleating.  I really love how it adds some more femininity to the skirt and helps give a finished look since it is the same fabric as the waste band.  I am going to do a post to give some tips on how I did it.

If you look closely, you can see the row of basting stitching that I never took out.  I can be really lazy sometimes with those finishing touches!!

 After I did the trial run with Isabelle's skirt, I decided to make two more for two little girls that live in Central Asia.   One of the girl's mom sews so I put the elastic in the waist casing but left the safety pin attached so the mom could adjust it for the girl's waist size.  I don't think the other girl's mom sews, so to avoid the issue of guessing at how big her waist is, I put in a ribbon that she can use to cinch the waist.  I hope that works out.

 So, off these two skirts go...

 in this duffle bag... 

 to go make two little princesses very happy (I HOPE!!!).  We love you Ruthie and Vivian!

Here is a picture of one of the little girls getting her skirt... How adorable is she???????

Fall fun

I am so excited about these coordinating fall outfits!!
I will post individual posts with info on the patterns I used for each outfit and comments about the patterns soon.

This one is for my oldest daughter:
This one is for my youngest daughter:
My daughter is still crawling so the pants will be useful for protecting her legs.

This one is for my niece:
The only difference between this dress and my daughter's dress is that one of the panels has a mushroom fabric in it instead of the fall collage fabric. This picture is better at showing the pretty sunflower fabric that is on both dresses.

Now that you have seen my ideas, show me what has inspired you this fall...

Aren't they cute?

I just got this picture of my niece Owyn in a dress I made for her third birthday. Isn't she cute??

Owyn's dress matches this dress I made for Isabelle.
Here are the details on Owyn's dress and here are the details on Isabelle's dress.

Matching pillowcase dresses for the fall!

Fall is here and I am so excited!! I wanted to make some matching dresses for Isabelle and Grace but since I am still in the newborn baby fog, I decided to keep the patterns simple and make pillowcase dresses. I love the fall fabric and I love how the dresses turned out!!

The hardest part of the whole thing was getting a decent picture of the 2 of them in their dresses! Oh well...

The individual pics came out much better! Here is Isabelle and her dress:


Here is Grace and her dress (gotta love those sleeping newborns!):

Want to see some more pillowcase dresses?

Want to see some more pics of matching outfits for kids to get some ideas for those special little ones in your life?