Birthday Twirly Skirt

A friend of mine, a really sweet generous lady, posted on Facebook that it was her daughter's 6th birthday that day.  I had a hankering to do some sewing and I'm sort of stuck on my current big project, so I thought "what a great opportunity to sew up something quick and cute!"  So, I sewed!

I quickly cut out a Redondo skirt from some Little Mermaid printed fabric and I serged the pieces together.  Next thing you know, the skirt was done!   I set a new personal speed record!  A Redondo skirt in 45 minutes!  Including cutting the 12 pieces, pressing them, and sewing them together. Also put in the elastic waistband in that time!  I hoped it would fit since I just eyeballed the size of it. 

Luckily, any length is in fashion these days, so I never really worry if it's too long or too short, but it must fit in the waist. Elastic waistbands have plenty of sizing wiggle room, but still, it can't be too big or too tight. I don't see my friend and her kids often enough, but her daughter is in between the sizes of my daughters so it wasn't too hard to guess.

This Redondo pattern is from Studio Tantrum.  Totally cute pattern!  It twirls great too!  I don't know how little girls can twirl and twirl all day long, but they do. I'd puke.

We ran the skirt over to the birthday girl and she was thrilled! She loves to twirl, she loves skirts, she loves the Little Mermaid, she loves pink and she loves glitter too! This skirt had it all!  I didn't realize I was scoring on all counts, but hey, cool! 

I have an Idea!

A couple of years ago, my mom came to visit me and she brought with her two lovely old dresses from her friend Gladys. Gladys is in her 90s now and she made these dresses for her daughter's prom. I'm going to guess that the dresses are aproximately 50 years old.

Gladys wants me to make something pretty and fun for the girls to wear out of the old dresses. They are special to her and she wants to see them revived and made into something new. They are definatly out of style, but the fabric is good and still pretty. 

One dress is white and has a white lace piece that may be a veil or a shawl or something, and the other dress is a light green with pink flowers printed in stripes. The green one is just the right shade of green for Tinkerbell or Tiana, but the floral print isn't right for them. I can't think of another princess who wears green.

I put the dresses in the back of the closet and waited for inspiration to strike, and then I sort of forgot about them. I'm a visual person, if I can't see it I tend to forget.

My mom recently reminded me that Gladys was waiting for me to sew those old dresses into something fabulous.  So, I looked in all the closets until I found where I had stashed them, and drug them out.  Hmmm...

And then it hit me!  The green dress is perfect!  I'll make a Princess Anna dress!  Anna's coronation dress is the perfect costume to make!  I'm excited now!

Wet Beach Bags

I'm going to call these Beach Bags, all though you could use them for whatever wet stuff you end up with. Me? I need a wet bag at the beach, or any mall fountain.  My kids like to "stick their toes in".  Yup. Toes. Toes to head!

I've outgrown the need for a diaper bag, but do you ever outgrow the need for a wet bag? They're great for muddy little shoes, restaurant spilled on clothes, potty accidents, and so much more. I keep one in the trunk of my car and I'm really surprised at how often I use it.

I've even used mine as a temporary trash container.  Fast food wrappers and ketchup packets and straws and cookie wrappers and all of that sort of thing has to go somewhere. The best is when my kid bursts into a bloody nose mess and she needs a bag to toss in the used kleenex. Like I really want to pick those things up off the car floor! Yuck!

Good thing they are easy to launder! Stinky wet stuff and all can just be tossed into the washer and dryer. Presto! Mama's work is easier than ever now!

These are made from Polyurethane Laminate fabric. It's BPA free, same thing that I use for the sandwich and snack bags.  Since they have a bigger purpose, they are 16" x 14".  Nice and roomy.

Cars Twirly Skirts

I love this Redondo skirt pattern! It comes together so nicely and the kids just love to twirl in these skirts. The pattern is from Studio Tantrum.

This time I tried something different: Five panels and five thin panels for stripes.  I really like how it came out!  The thin stripes broke up the busy print fabric nicely without being too bold. I will do this again, the thin stripes. It measured out to be a little more than if I had used 6 panels, not too much but still lots of twirl.

I also decided to try to invent some sort of yoga waistband. I used ribbing and some knit elastic, I'm not sure if I got the desired effect, but close enough. It's soft and can be folded over. I think I'll make the waistband longer and easier to fold over. It should be comfortable and hold tight at the same time.

I made two of these skirts. They are birthday gifts for two adorable little girls who love Lightning McQueen. I'm so glad they adore these skirts because they are sure a lot of fun to sew!

Superhero Capes

I made six superhero capes in one day!  Thank you, serger!

I was only going to make one superhero cape for Henry. It would be a great 3rd birthday present!  If Henry has one, Alfie will want one. Charlie should have one too. The girls will each want one.  Next thing you know, I had six capes done.

I used some old royal blue polyester. This stuff was given to me and it's probably from the 70s. But it's bright and keeps it's shape, so it was just fine for a quick party cape. I used up my leftover cheap red fake velour stuff for the outer side of the capes. It's too flimsy on it's own so the two fabrics were a great pair! 

I decided to applique a  superhero emblem on each cape.  I cut them out and ironed them on with fusable interfacing, then topstitched along the edges.  This ended up being very important since every cape was a different length. Alfie had the smallest cape and Gracie had the longest. We'll need to tell them all apart! 

Since I didn't have a pattern, I just freehanded the cape shape.  I tried to make it shoulder width across the top and taper out to the bottom. I made the neck in backward bib fashion and used velco as the fastener.  I wanted velcro so that it will pop off if the cape gets stuck at the top of the slide or something, I don't want the kids to choke!

I serged around the outside edges and have the seams on the outside. No turning! Much easier and the kids really didn't care. With the serger, I can get away with finished edges on the outside from time to time, and this is one of those times. 

The birthday turned into a superhero party since every kid had a cape. They all loved the capes!  It was so much fun to see them all in their capes running and "flying" around saving the world from imaginary villains.

Sandwich and Snack Bags

More Sandwich and Snack bags!  I've been making a bunch of them as gifts and for my girls' lunch pails. They are just perfect for lunches and snacks on the go!

So far, the bags have been holding up really well. I handwash them sometimes and I toss them in with the laundry sometimes. Either way they come out clean and ready to reuse. No problem! I'm actually quite impressed with how well they are washing up.

Again, the nylon zippers are the best. I like using zippers rather than velcro on the bags. The nylon zippers are a lot easier to sew in and a lot easier to use. The metal zips just can't compare, but they are fine. Not that big of an issue to complain about, but I do think I've lost count of how many sewing needles I've broken while sewing in the metal zippers. Had to add the cost of a couple packs of needles to the cost of my sandwich bag supply!

Costs so far have been pretty good. I can get a lot of snack bags out of one yard of PUL fabric. I am not sure how many snack bags, but it's close to a dozen. I counted it up and promptly forgot. That's me. Ha!  The zippers are a cost if I buy them; they run around $2 each.  I'm almost out of my zippers in my recycled zipper stash. That was really cool having recycled zippers to use and not spend money on them, but the drawer full of zippers is now just a  handful. They were mostly the metal zippers anyway.

The PUL fabric is where the money goes. It's $16.99 a yard? I think? But if you get a coupon it that brings the cost down. In any event, a dozen bags costs around $25 - $30 to make. If I bought them on etsy from someone or through retail that would cost me a whole lot more!

I also bought some food printed fabric to make lined snack bags. The PUL is plain white and then I put a quilting fabric over the outside. I think these are my favorite because of two reasons: 1. the seams are all on the inside and 2. they are just so cute!

These have been fabulous gifts. Everyone likes them a lot and I can give more than two.  Here are photos of the fun snack bags that I've been making lately.

Mulan Dress meets Dog With Scissors

We got a new puppy a few months ago, she's probably 8 or 9 months old by now. And she's very talented! Her name is Penny.

According to my five year old daughter, who is sweet as can be and always honest, Penny the puppy went into her room, used a pair of scissors and cut the sleeve of her precious Mulan dress. The dog cut and cut until the dress was destroyed!  That dog didn't even ask to use the scissors!

My poor little girl was crying her eyes out over the ruined dress. It's her favorite and the dog cut it up!

Well, that puppy sure is a troublemaker.  But she insisted that the dog did it. "Penny is a cutter. She likes to cut things." Hmmm.

My big eyed little girl begged me to please please please fix it. Of course, dear, Mommy can fix it.

I suppose I should have let her worry about it and face her destroyed dress for a while. Maybe I should have told her it would be very difficult to fix and I might not be able to do it.  But, I think she felt bad enough and she never acts out, so I went right to work on it.

Normally, she doesn't destroy anything. She doesn't misuse scissors. And she doesn't lie.  This must be a pretty bad day for her. I think she's crying for attention and so I'm going to do what only Mommy can do, and fix her dress.

The puppy was underfoot as usual, so I turned to Penny and gave her a stern lecture on the proper use of scissors and the impact of destroying special things. I scolded her firmly. Then I congratulated her on her fine motor skills, especially since she lacks thumbs. I told my daughter to get the scissors off of her dresser and put them where Penny cannot get them any more. Then I put the puppy out in the yard for her time-out (and because it was probably puppy potty time by now).

While I picked apart the shoulder seam to remove the slashed sleeve, I had my daughter sit next to me and draw pictures of hearts for me. She drew and drew. I wondered if that would bring out the truth, but she was sticking to her story. The dog did it.

Once the sleeve was removed, I used it as a pattern piece to cut out a new sleeve.  One nice thing about always buying a bit too much fabric for every project, is that I have an awesome supply of scraps, and I lucked out and  had plenty of the same fabric for a new sleeve. Score!

I cut out a new sleeve, making sure to allow for a seam allowance on the edges. When I removed the old sleeve, I cut off the seam that went from wrist to armpit to flatten it out to use as a pattern. Rather than use the seam ripper on that line, I just trimmed it off with the scissors and remembered to give it a seam allowance when I cut the new one.

I serged around the shoulder seam and around the hem before serging down the inside seam of the sleeve. And then I straight stitched the top of the sleeve to the armhole of the dress.  And there we have it:  Perfectly repaired Mulan dress!

My little daughter is so happy to have her favorite princess costume in perfect condition again!  I told her that I can only fix it once. There will be no next time. If the dog cuts her dress again, or anything else, then we'll have to throw it away. The dog gets no second chances.  She nodded and said she understood. So I had her go show Penny that it was all fixed so the poor puppy could get over her guilt.

The repair really didn't take long. The most difficult part of it was keeping a straight face when my daughter was telling me how the dog used scissors and cut with them. She is totally sticking to her story. When Daddy came home, she repeated it for him and then proudly showed off her new sleeve.