Tag Archives: baby dress

Polka-Stripe Dresses

I hate missing deadlines! These dresses were originally supposed to be submitted for Project Run & Play’s week 2 challenge: Stripes and Polka-Dots. I was really excited about this challenge too, because I already had this awesome polka-dot corduroy. I got it last fall to make new Fall Dresses for my girls, but pregnancy exhaustion struck.

So, when last week started I pulled out the fabric and fell in love with it all over again. AND I noticed that the polka-dots actually make a stripe pattern…bonus! Many of the folks sewing along with the challenge were doing interesting things mixing up prints and while that is awesome, it just makes me nervous. I guess my style is much less adventurous than that. The fact that I actually was hitting both polka-dots and stripes in one awesome piece of fabric made me even more excited to get down to work on them. And then…life struck. My children were crazy-pants all week and didn’t actually go to sleep until after 9 pm each night…I had to finish up a couple orders for the Shop…I got a wicked headache that lasted 2 days…our pest control company sprayed the house one morning and then 7 hours later the floors were still soaking wet, effectively locking the small children and pregnant people out of the house…it was just one of those nutty weeks. I was able to work on the dresses here and there, but just couldn’t get them done for the Friday at 8:00 am deadline. Boo. But I plowed on and finished them this weekend and the girls were able to wear them to church this morning.

And now that my whining and excuse-making are over, I present to you my Polka-Stripe Dresses!

Polka-Stripe Dresses-4

Since I bought this fabric I have been going back and forth in my brain over what I wanted them to look like. I decided this week that I wanted to do a simple a-line dress to show off the print on the fabric. But because that would be too easy I wanted to give myself a couple challenges.

The first challenge was the sleeves. I took an existing straight sleeve pattern and expanded it using ikat bag’s sleeve adapting tutorials. I wanted a slight puff at the top and quite a bit of volume gathered into cuffs just below the elbows. Esther’s didn’t turn out as big as Dinah’s, but I love the result of both for each of their dresses.

And the other challenge was to do a real button placket. Um…I have to say this was A LOT more daunting. I looked up several tutorials and settled on this one. Okay, in theory it seemed simple enough. And it was…sort of. They turned out okay, but I need lots more practice to get them to look better. Esther’s is slightly crooked and both of them are hideous on the inside. But on moving children you can’t notice any imperfections and no one will ever see the insides.

Each girl had a different contrast color for the lining, underside of the button placket and the hem facing. And they each had fabric covered buttons (my favorite!) made with some of their color dots.

After church today we went to a friend’s house for lunch and I took our pictures there. Dinah was being a good model again…

…but Esther was a wild woman! This is mostly what she wanted to do…

Polka-Stripe Dresses-Silly Esther 3

These were definitely better late than never. I just love how they turned out (though Dinah’s is a bit big on her right now) and I am glad I set myself new challenges, even if it meant I missed the deadline for the contest.

Next week: my little nephew gets to be the star of the show for Boys’ Week!

So, does anyone have tips for making a better button placket?

Minnie Mouse Dresses

This past weekend we went to Disney World with our mothers. Christian’s mom has never been before, my parents go every weekend. And it was fun as always.

But let us back up a bit. On Thursday before our trip I mentioned that I needed to make a new Minnie skirt for Dinah (she has outgrown her old one). And Christian was like “it would be cool if you could make it like a dress.” Like a dress? Oh, so he thinks I should make a dress. Sure, why not make two? I’ve got two days. Easy.

Except not so. Thursday night was eaten up by Children’s Ministry stuff and my Baby, Take a Bow post. So, that left Friday night. Yay?

They were finished pretty much just in time to get in the car and drive to Orlando. No, I did not sleep. Yes, I am crazy.

But look how cute!!

Their dresses were made from a hodge-podge of patterns. I used a self drafted bodice with white neck binding…

the sleeves from the Shirley Temple dress…

and a circle skirt.

For the white sash I just used simple grosgrain ribbon.

And (of course) they had to have matching bows.

I was EXHAUSTED after a night of no sleep and a day roaming the Magic Kingdom, but it was worth it. I received so many compliments on their dresses. Affirmation = energy for me, so it worked out nicely. :) But next time, I think I will try not to be so ambitious!

Here are the little Minnies enjoying their day at Disney.

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If you would like me to make a Minnie Mouse dress of your own, please check out my shop!

My Signature Look: Easter Dresses 2012

I can’t believe it! This is our last week for this season’s Project Run & Play. As with each season, the final challenge is our signature look.

I have thought about what might define my children’s clothing style and this is what I came up with:

I like little girls to look like little girls. Luckily right now mine are very little, but even for older ones I just think children should dress like children. There is plenty of time in life for dressing like a grown-up.

I prefer classic styles for girls. Sixties, Fifties, Forties, Thirties, Victorian, etc. I love the silhouettes, the details and the girliness of it all. Ruffles, pleats, embroidery, sashes and bows. So much goodness there. I don’t like to use a ton of embellishment…only enough to add just the right touch.

I tend to like solid color fabrics and subtle or graphic prints (nothing too busy). And, if I do use a print, I like the fabric to be the main feature of the dress.

When the challenge list was announced Christian pointed out that the Easter dresses I had just made fit exactly as my signature look.

The fabric is a pinstriped Swiss dot with green and yellow on a white field. (I cannot remember for the life of me where I got it, but I know I got it online somewhere.) I just loved this fabric. It is really light and I love the tiny dots and pinstripes.

I wanted to showcase the fabric so I chose a very traditional, simple pattern. Esther’s dress is McCalls M5791 and Dinah’s is a sized-up, self-drafted version of that.

I tweaked the pattern a bit by adding a yellow band to the bottom of the lining on Esther’s dress and making extra-wide sashes for both girls.

The design isn’t going to set the world on fire, but I just love the simplicity and lightness and they were perfect for our Florida Easter.

…
Fun story about these dresses: Esther’s dress is actually the dress I cut out for Dinah to wear to my sister’s wedding in April 2010. Two years ago. With the quilt I was finishing up for my sister and all the other wedding preparations I didn’t get to finish it. And by the time I recovered Dinah had outgrown it. So, all the little cut pieces sat in a box for two years until I pulled them out to make Esther’s Easter dress this year. When I pulled it out I realized that I had a TON of that fabric leftover…enough to make a dress for Dinah too. Yay for over-purchasing!

Grape Soda Dresses

This week’s Project Run & Play challenge was all about color. We were tasked to pick a color and design something around that color. Sound vauge and nebulous? You betcha! At first I was stumped and then I started looking through my stash and I found a bunch of purple fabric I had purchased for another project. I had four different complimentary shades of purple and I was immediately inspired.

Looking at the colors together in “order” reminded me of a freshly poured glass of grape soda. So, that is the effect I was going for here. A fresh, fizzy grape soda…perfect for summer.

I toyed with a couple different silhouettes before settling on this one in the sketch below.

Here are a few details about the dresses:

The top is a bodice pattern that I drafted up myself. Jess over at Craftiness is Not Optional has several great tutorials on how to do this easily. I drew a square neckline and cut off the bodice about an inch and a half under the armhole.

I made a little peek-a-boo opening at the back of the bodice. The dresses close at the top with a button and a ribbon loop.

The skirt of the dresses are tiered ruffles. I used the tutorial over at MADE for the Layered Skirt. (I love her stuff, in case you haven’t noticed.) I love how float-y the dresses look with all those ruffles.

For the hems I simply serged a rolled hem with some woolly nylon in the upper looper. I love the clean edge each of the ruffles have. The white tips also helped to lighten up some of the darker layers of purple.

And of course I had to make them hair accessories. They each got little rolled rose hair clippies made from the dress scraps.

My original idea for our photo shoot was to go to a little ice cream shop or something. However, I ran out of time and I was not going to try to do a location shoot by myself. So, the backyard it was. Unfortunately, three minutes after we got outside our lawn guy showed up. Back inside we went to wait it out. By the time we got outside again everyone was stir crazy. It was impossible to get a picture of them standing still!

Running, running, running!

Luckily for me the dresses looked great while they were running.

And now she is worn out from all that running.

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Next week is movie inspiration week. I am so excited about this next challenge! I am basing the outfit for my curly top on the style of the original Curly Top: Shirley Temple. I’ve got an awesome vintage dress planned.

Source: heckfridays.blogspot.com via Harmony on Pinterest

Christmas Clothes

So, I was telling Christian the other day that when I found out baby #2 was a girl I was undecided about how I felt about matching clothes. I suppose that I have decided.

I think they are so cute when they are all matchy AND it is easy to make clothes for them assembly-line style. Making one thing is just as easy as making two.

I’ve got several Christmas related items I wanted to share and I thought I would start with the outfits I’ve made for the girls for Christmas this year.

First up, the other side of their reversible holiday dresses. (I told you all earlier about the Thanksgiving side.) The Christmas side is made with this cute, tiny, red and white stripe. Don’t look at it too long because it does weird things to the eyes! But it was perfect to go with the little Christmas Tree applique. (Sorry for the wrinkles. I did iron it, but not to Christian’s satisfaction.)

I wasn’t thrilled with the green button choices, so I decided to do bows at the shoulders. BUT I didn’t want the bows on the underside of the dress when they wore the Thanksgiving side, so the bows needed to be removable. So, I created little snap button bows.

What I did:

Installed the “female” side of the snap on the dress (I sewed the button for the Thanksgiving side over the backside of the button on the other side of the flap.)
Made a bow the size and shape I wanted, except for the center band.
Next, I measured around the center for that center band, heat sealed the ends and installed the “male” side of the snap on the end of the center band.
I hot glued the center band on, carefully making sure the snap lined up directly on the back side of the bow.
To attach, I simply open the button hole over the snap and snap the bow in place. You could also snap the bows on and then put them through the button holes like they were actually buttons.

And that’s it…I was worried that it might be impossible, but it turned out to be really easy.

Cuteness in line to see Santa…they liked that part of the experience anyways!

The other thing I made were these cute Christmas t-shirts.

I just took ribbon and sewed it on to a plain whit t-shirt (or onesie) in flaps to look like a Christmas tree, with a bow on top. So, easy and very cute. This is a great bang for your buck project and it only takes about an hour or so.

And…because those were so easy I needed to complicate things and make some pants.

I found this red gabardine in the remnant pile at Joann. It was 7/8 of yard and $2.18. I bought it not knowing exactly what I would make, but it was such a great shade of red I couldn’t pass it up. When I got home I discovered that it was wider than the standard 44 inches. Perfect! Now I could make two of whatever I decided upon.

Since it is sort of Winter I figured pants would be best, but I wanted to make them cuter than normal. I went with this pants pattern for Dinah, but I added a little one inch ruffle at the cuffs.

For Esther I was on my own. I found several free pants patterns for babies, but I didn’t like how voluminous they all were. I wanted her pants to be a bit more fitted, so I had to draft my own. Working from an old See & Sew pattern that I had and a pair of pants already in her drawer I drafted up a pattern. Unfortunately, when I tested the pants before I did the waist I found that I did it wrong and there just wasn’t enough room in the rear for her cloth diapered fluffy butt. Christian suggested a butt panel and I went back into my sweat shop and took a seam ripper to her pants. I inserted a couple triangle panels in the back center and that did the trick! You can’t even really tell.

The girls are wearing their new outfits tomorrow when we go to decorate gingerbread men with their Auntie and Uncle, so I’ll get some good Christmasy pictures of them then.