bird & flower rubber stamps

it's Craft With Your Kids Week & together my 12 year old son & i made these cards.  it's the Thank-You Cards & Stamp project from the Craft Hope book.  the bird & flower rubber stamps were designed by Geninne Zlatkis, be sure to check out her hand carved stamps tutorial on her sidebar.  my son carved out the rubber stamps & now they can be used over & over again...

kid's art supply storage

this week is Craft With Your Kids Week.  we are doing arts, crafts, & baking, but first of all i wanted to get all the art supplies better organized & in easy reach for my kids so that they could help themselves... you see, we used to store the art supplies on top of the fridge where i had to stand on a chair to get items down for them... well, not anymore... i painted an unused cabinet in the kitchen & now the art supplies are in easy access & close to the art table

PS kid's art caddy tutorial can be found here

coat with scarf

October's pattern for the Carefree Clothes for Girls sew-along was the coat with scarf.  i knew for sure i wanted to use mustard yellow yarn for a knitted scarf, so i went & searched through scarf patterns on ravelry & found a free knitting pattern called mustard scarf !  how perfect was that !?!  a huge vintage button (made in Holland) was added to the scarf which was made with super soft 100% organic cotton.  and for the coat i knew i wanted to repurpose a 100% wool jacket i've had for at least 10 years (it sure got a lot of use).  the blue wool jacket was wet felted (washed in hot water in the washer) which made it shrink & the fabric became thicker.  this coat ended up being quite simple to make, just 3 pieces were cut out: body & 2 raglan sleeves which were zigzag stitched on.  what a bonus that the 4 buttons & 2 pockets were already in the original jacket !

BurdaStyle voting

thank you BurdaStyle for putting my Project Runway Competition entry in the top 50 !   go vote for your favorite ~ mine is #27, hint, hint, hint ;)

music box jumper

i started sewing this jumper during the kids clothes week challenge, but just finished it today.  it's the music box jumper from Oliver + S.  for those of you who check in here frequently you'll notice that this is something different from what i've been doing lately.  usually i grab something from my fabric stash (or my closet), my vintage stash (like vintage buttons), & if i follow a sewing pattern i might make things up as i go along.  well, not this time.  this time i bought brand new fabric, brand new buttons, & a brand new pattern that i followed pretty closely.  and this time i sewed button holes... i seriously cannot think of the last time i sewed button holes (maybe when i was a teenager??)  anyway, this jumper is view B, i really like the center box pleat & the buttoned down pocket flap details... this one was made in size 3T.  it got done just in time for C when she starts her first day of Sunday school on Sunday :)

kids clothes week fall

this week is Kids Clothes Week Challenge & i'm playing, too.  my daughter had this pink polo shirt that got a chocolate stain on the front... i wanted to extent the life of it, so i made it into a dress by sewing on some fabric.  i used 17 inches by 44 inches of fabric.. right sides together, folded it in half, selvage to selvage & sewed along the selvage.  the hem was folded over 1/2 inch, then 1/2 inch again & sewn down.  then i sewed the fabric onto the polo shirt. simple simple

Project Runway competition

I've mentioned in the past that I'm a huge fan of Project Runway...

Well, I participated in a Project Runway competition !

I took an existing garment from my closet & turned it into something new.

With the summer weather in the past, I took a white eyelet strapless summer sun dress from my closet. With a seam reaper I removed the zipper & separated the top from the bottom. I decided to sew my 3 year old daughter a peasant style dress in size 3T. It's the Sweet Little Dress pattern (from Leila & Ben) although I made the sleeves longer. This is the 4th dress I've sewn using that pattern... the 1st one was green, the 2nd one was repurposing a vintage pillowcase, & the 3rd one was repurposing a man's white shirt.

After I separated the pieces I ironed the fabric from the bottom part of the original dress to smooth out all the winkles in order to get the most accurate pattern pieces cut out. I also used an iron to form the elastic casing at the neckline of all of the 4 pieces (dress front, dress back, & 2 sleeves).

Now here's the really fun part (& what I really love about repurposing "using what you've got")... I was trying to figure out where & how to add the elastic on the sleeves , well this unique piece has this lovely lace trim & it's attached to the eyelet with a 3/8 inch seam which after I sewed it down made the perfect casing for the 1/4 inch elastic !

I wanted to add a splash of color, so I sewed a gold colored sash (a nice color for the fall).
So that's my upcycled garment & I only used the fabric from the bottom of the original dress. That's all it took to make size 3T, but I have to say that it was exactly enough to sew a size 3T, the size 4 pattern would not have fit on this amount of fabric. So I still have the fabric from the top of the original dress & the zipper to repurpose for a future project.
Oh, I also forgot to mention that the original dress had a lining & I did use the lining fabric to line the peasant dress, but just in the dress, not the sleeves.