Tutorial: Baby's Flyaway Jacket

I bought a book a few weeks ago, I posted about it, it was called "One Yard Wonders" http://dressedtothe9sconnie.blogspot.com/2011/02/add-another-book-to-collection.html


Great book full of patterns and lots of inspiration. There was this little pattern for a baby's "Flyaway Jacket". The jacket is not fitted and would be beautiful over a little outfit of similar colours add a bonnet and you're all set.

My idea was to used some of my many decorators fabric books and create a selection of like fabrics that compliment each other.

I found some beautiful fabrics that looked lovely together and tore the fabric book apart , washed the pieces and pressed them. I took the four pieces and sewed them together.

Seams pressed I folded the fabric in half and laid the pattern piece on top of it and pinned it down.
This pattern piece as you can see gets put on the fold at one part and not on a fold at the other end.
Cut fabric along lines of pattern piece.

Do the same for a piece of flannel. I pre-washed the flanned to allow shrinkage and I thought the crisp white would make a nice contrast.

Pin pieces together and sew leaving opening along bottom of back about 5 inches.

After trimming and clipping seams turn right side out a press very well.  Turn seams in on opening at back and close up the 5 inch opening.

I sewed up the sides and sleeves on the outside and left a small opening about a 1/2 to 1 inch at both ends, I just thought it looked nice.
Add a decorative ribbon and a snap and you are all finished.

Fairly easy right?

This pattern said that it fits a newborn but I have to say it is probably more like 2-6 months depending on the size of the baby.
It was fun to make and will make some more for my Etsy shop, I already have 2 more in the works.

Hope you enjoyed that.

Toddler Dress from Two Sweaters

I bought a sweater last fall from Forever 21 , just a nice orange casual sweater. I didn't even realize it was made with wool (who would have thought), normally wool makes be itch but this sweater didn't. I wore it and then it went into the wash. It made it through the washing (I wash everything in cold) but when it came to the dryer? well? mmmmm...Not so good.
Of course it shrunk and it shrunk quite a bit. So I thought ...Okay.. I can make something out of this, I love shrunken wool .

I found another sweater in my studio one of my hubby's sweaters ( believe me when I say I have tons of things that I don't throw out). This sweater was a nice charcoal colour and it went beautifully with the orange.
Now to find some fabric to make pockets on the front. Should they match? Should they compliment each other? I found in my trusty dusty designer fabric books some lovely orange patterned pieces. Quite small but perfect for pockets.

Here is the dress laid out to see what it would look like. My first draft.

My thinking was to make the top part of the dress from the orange sweater and the bottom part with the lower half of the charcoal sweater. In my mind it seemed quite simple its not until you attempt to do it that it becomes a little more difficult.

The above fabrics were my first choice for pockets but not what I ended up using.

I cut the bottom part of the charcoal sweater to the size that I thought might work for a size 4-5 for a little girl.

I sewed up the sides of the skirt but my thoughts were that the ribbing at the bottom had to go, too tight. I cut the orange sweater up , a front , a back, and two sleeves. I wanted the sleeves to be 3/4 length , I cut a slit in the front piece in the centre so it would be a little more loose. I found a great piece of fabric and cut a 2 1/2 inch square that I then frayed and sewed to the bottom of the slit I had just cut. I ended up sewing it on a little crooked so trimmed it to make it look more even.

The next step was to sew up the sides and the shoulders and sew along the slit edge at the neck (leaving it slightly raw) just to stop from fraying. The sleeves were added next. My cutting was spot on because the sleeve fit the armhole perfectly.

Now to sew the bottom and top together. My machine stopped working so I had to dig out my Mom's 75 year old Singer. STILL SEWS LIKE A CHARM!

I also trimmed off the ribbing on the bottom and hemmed up about a half inch by machine.

Buttons were found in my button box and a small organza flower that I made was used at the top.

SO VOILA!!! Here it is the finished product. I'm pretty happy with it. I hope you are inspired to dig out those old sweaters and come up with a design of your own. Happy sewing!

You Beautiful Doll Part 2

I promised you that I would post more pictures of the mermaid doll I made so here they are. Unfortunately I did not take pictures of every step but I will show you what I have.

I drew the shapes that I wanted for the pattern pieces on tracing paper, figured out how many pieces I would need to cut and then moved on to pinning the shapes to the broadcloth which I doubled for durability and because I knew I would be painting the face and I figured it would be better doubled.

 You may be wondering how I knew how to come up with the right size for the pattern. Well, I didn't really, it was just trial and error. I think I should have made the head and neck a little larger so I will know better next time. I pinned and cut out the pieces.

 Remember to leave enough of a seam allowance. I used one quarter inch on this one so I wouldn't have to do too much trimming once it was sewn together and turned right side out.

Next I needed to make a pattern for the fin outfits. I just freehanded something allowing for seam allowance and making sure it would fit around the waist, I would add a facing to the opening and use velcro for closure.

Because the back of the fin outfit is open and in two pieces you have to remember to add the seam allowance all around the piece because the two pieces you sew together to make the back need to be equal to the front piece.

I made a couple of fin outfits

After sewing the body together, trimming the seam on curves and corners and turning it right side out it was time to paint the face. I used acrylic paints mixed with textile medium. First I painted the whole face with a peachy pink so that I would have a base to paint the facial features.

I used a bit of shading around the eyes , put some blush on the cheeks and made he neck a little darker so it would look like she had a chin.

I stuffed the rest of the body and inserted a smal dowel up into the neck . It goes from the bottom of the torso right up into the neck and ends just below her mouth. It's in the middle with batting around it so you don't feel it, it is well hidden.

 Here she is with her hair attached. I used upholstery trim and sewed it on in strips with clear nylon thread and as I worked my way to the top and front I used smaller pieces and sewed them on in little bits.

Click here to see the finished doll in my previous post.

http://dressedtothe9sconnie.blogspot.com/2011/01/you-beautiful-doll.html

A Special Little Girl and a Big Collage

Three years ago my best friend who is 20 years younger than me (read on for the reason I mention this) had her first baby, a beautiful little girl.
My friend wanted me to be something special to her little girl and she told me this not long after she was born. She said I don't want you to just be an aunt it needs to be something else. So we thought about it and came up with the name "Nanba". So that is what I became that day and she became my Nandaughter.
Today she is an energetic, intelligent, witty, enertaining and very loving 3 year old and she now has a little brother so I now have a Nanson!
When she was 6 months old I decided to make a collage (her mom loves collage) of her baby pictures on a canvas with some of my creativity mixed in. I incorporated my friends favorite colours and some of  her favorite pictures and quite a bit of imagination and whimsy and I got a bit carried away.
It ended up being an 18x18 canvas framed with wood painted black and sealed.
My friend hangs it proudly in her home and keeps telling me now that I have to make another one when my Nanson is 6 months old. I've got 5 months to get my act together..!

 I have this listed in my ETSY shop and will do a custom keepsake with your mementos, photos and anything else you want to incorporate into the collage.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/58020640/collage-art-of-your-baby-or-child-18x18

You beautiful Doll

I love to make things and I will try anything once so I was pretty excited to attempt to make a mermaid doll for a very special little girl in my life for Christmas. I made the pattern myself after a little trial and error.
The doll has a head, shoulders, arms and torso only. There are no legs because she is a mermaid and the  outfits (which there are 3 of) are the tails.
The outfits slip up over her hips and do up in the back with velcro as do the tops.

I made her body with broadcloth and then I stuffed her with batting and painted a face on her with acrylic craft paints mixed with textile medium.
The hair is made from upholstery trim that I cut up and sewed to her head with clear nylon thread.
My mom made me a large rag doll when I was little she was almost the same size as me and this kind of reminds me of her on a smaller scale.
I will try to post more pictures once I get them off of my friend. She has them on her computer.

Handmade Blessing

So a few weeks ago I went to a baby blessing for a very dear friend (since most people don't have a shower for a second or subsequent babies we called it a baby blessing) Everyone was asked to contribute to a stroller and or make a gift.I decided to make an asymetrical repurposed baby cardigan.

I took 3 old sweaters of mine, one blue , one blue stripes and one red. I cut up the 3 sweaters using some parts of the edge of the sweaters as edges. The back and pocket are red, the sleeves and pocket trim are the striped sweater and the front panels are blue. I added trim from some old fabric I had, sewed on 3 buttons and made 3 button loops. I also cross stitched around the cuff with red embroidery floss and added a label. Then I cut out two pieces for the hat and a few long thin strips and sewed together a hat.