No-Pattern, Baby Girl, Gift Set

About two months ago, I decided I absolutely had to sew a personal gift for a friend's baby shower. I had an idea, so I went out and found the nearest Joann's. Yep, I bought full priced fabric. Thankfully it was baby-sized, so I didn't have to get much. :)

My original idea was a stylish tag blanket. I bought a minky-style, pink star fabric for one side, and a lovely black and grey baroque-patterned (I think?) flannel for the other. I also chose an approximately 1" wide pink and white chevron ribbon, and a 1.5" wide silver and white baroque-style ribbon for the tags. Unfortunately I didn't even get a phone picture of the finished product, but this gives the basic idea and shows all the fabrics.

After making the blanket, I ended up having a lot of fabric left over. I was afraid I would never use it up, so I decided to see if I could throw together a little dress as well! I don't have any of my little girl dress patterns with me though, so I also decided to try my hand at creating something without a pattern. On top of that, I wanted to make it reversible. And once I got designing, I thought a contrasting band around the bottom edge was a cute idea as well! I really forgot how much I enjoy sewing and creating. I had a lot of fun creating it, and I think it turned out very cute.

But I still had a good bit of that pink minky fabric left over, even after the dress! So I immediately thought "Diaper cover! What baby girl dress is complete without a diaper cover?!" I was a lot more nervous about this idea though (still am, actually. Baby girl's not here yet, so I have no idea if it'll fit her!). Drafting pants is a lot more difficult than a basic dress. So, Pinterest. I found a pattern, and drew up the basic lines, and just decided to go for it. Hopefully it'll work for her. :)

Simplicity 2498

Yes, yes, it's been months... Still, I found time (and motivation, if not inclination) to sew the past couple of days. When I bought the fleece for THIS, I bought a cheap piece of green... something or other. Suiting of some sort. It's been sitting around just waiting for me to do something amazing with it. When I got it, I had a skirt in mind, but when the opportunity to work with it, I wanted to make a dress. My choice was Simplicity 2498. I've made this pattern before, but I chose a slightly different view - view A with adjusted sleeves.

Detail close-up. It's around the hem and under the bodice-skirt seam. I was trying to keep it from looking Amish. ;) 

My First Knit Dress!

It worked!!! I can't believe it! My fabric was pretty difficult to work with, and it wouldn't iron out. AT. ALL! That was rather annoying, but I think it still turned out pretty good. My only area of dissatisfaction with this pattern, New Look 6823, is the collar. It's not laying down quite right in the back. Not a big problem, but still there. I'm not even sure it's a fair accusation. I mean, I was in the middle (like, exactly half-way through!) of sewing on the collar when the incident mentioned in the previous post occurred. :P

I did make a few changes, but not big ones. I lengthened the sleeves quite a bit (good thing I did, too! They're still only 3/4-length sleeves on me!), and I took in the side seams by about... an inch on each side at the waist. Oh, I think I also added some length to the bottom, but I do that to just about everything. :)

All in all, it's definitely not a bad pattern. If I do it again, I'll probably do the wider sleeves though; these are kind of tight on me.

Another Winnie the Pooh Toddler Dress

So, along with the two adorable Winnie the Pooh fabrics that I used on the last Winnie the Pooh toddler's dress and upper two-thirds of the tiered skirt in the previous post, I had another Pooh-themed fabric (found in the lower third of the tiered skirt). It's always fun to try to come up with the cutest possible way to use fabrics like these. This time I don't feel like I did as well as I could have, but it was fast, easy, and still turned out very cute!

For this dress, I used Butterick 4176, more or less. The biggest deviation was to add the lace around the neck edge instead of doing single-fold bias tape as they suggested. I also didn't just straight-line hem it. The machine I used has a cute stitch that almost exactly mirrors some of the design on the fabric; that was too much of a temptation NOT to do! Unfortunately the thread doesn't match as well as I thought it did when I started, but I think it still looks good. :)

With this, I think I'm finally done with all my Pooh-themed fabrics, though don't be surprised if one or more of them show up again as pockets on bags, dresses, skirts, etc.

Winnie the Pooh Toddler Dress

I found some absolutely adorable Winnie the Pooh fabric at Sir's last year! Not only that, but I found 2 coordinating Pooh fabrics! I couldn't resist that; I just didn't know exactly what I was going to make with them. :)

Here's what finally came about, using Simplicity 2985:

Front view, including coordinating diaper cover/shorts/whatchacall'ems.

Back view.

Close-up of the cute fabrics!

Okay, the changes I made were few. The main change is the ties. The pattern has you cut out a couple pieces about as wide as the ties are now, fold 'em in half, sew a 1/4" seam, and the turn it. Uh... can you say difficult! I couldn't do it, and I didn't want to spend the time to cut out a couple more ties and top-stitch them. So, I pulled out our "Ribbons and Trims" boxes, and dug around. I kind of like what I came up with. :)

The other obvious change is the piping. Can you tell I love that stuff? It's probably my favorite type of trim! It's so quick and adds something that makes it look more finished than if you just hemmed or otherwise left it off.

The less obvious change I did was to almost entirely ignore the single-fold bias tape instructions. I used double-fold, and just did it how I wanted to. Each armscye is done different. I was experimenting, you see. :P

All in all, I think the outfit turned out very cute! I did the largest size in the pattern, which, I think, is about size 18 months. Now, on to the next thing! :D

Simplicity 2926

I'm sewing up a storm while I'm waiting for my next study materials to arrive! This dress was one of the things I've made in the past week or so:

The pattern only lines the bodice and sleeves, but since my fabric was so thin, I lined the skirt as well. I love how it turned out! Oh, and I didn't have to hem the skirt!!! Here's a close up of part of the hemline:

Toile Toddler Outfit

Here's another picture of a project that I made a while back. I used THIS pattern, only adding the navy ribbon. It was a difficult pattern, but I was using heavy fabric. If I make it again, I'll probably use a light weight fabric. It turned out really cute though! I'm very willing to sell it for $50. It's about a size 2, maybe 3, and cute, cute, cute! I wish I could find a darling little girl to model it, but I can't find one willing to be photographed. :)