Holiday Dresses

I haven’t been very good about updating my blog recently. I apologize to anyone missing my posts! Most of my sewing these past months has been for Christmas presents and I can’t share them yet. I don’t want to ruin the surprises for my family! I promise I will share them all after Christmas.

I can finally share the girls Christmas dresses however!  I actually finished them a few months ago, but I wanted to wait until it was closer to Christmas to post them. Here you go….

I used Create Kids Couture’s Violettes dress pattern. Those swirls were a LOT of work but they just screamed “peppermint” at me and I decided to use the pattern for their holiday dresses.

The bodice seemed a bit empty, so I decided to add an applique. I wanted it to mimic the swirls of the skirt, so I created a miniature version of them to use as the fabric. The letters are Hang to Dry’s Every Day Applique Alpha.

The girls’ favorite part of the dresses is that they are great for twirling. So great, I think I am going to have to whip up some bloomers before Christmas! Oops!

Trista’s Sew-Along

Wooooo Hoooooo!

Its time for another sew-along!!!  Lets dance!

It has been a few months since I had the opportunity to participate in a sew-along. It seemed every time one came up I was out of town, so I was excited when the chance to participate in one using one of Create Kids Couture’ new fall releases, Trista’s Knit pixie T-shirt.

I fell in love with the pattern the moment I saw it. The hood is so quirky and fun, I knew I had to have the pattern for my girls. I love how it twists down into a point!

Plus it is pretty cute from the front too.

There are several options with the pattern. You can make it without the hood or add short sleeves or go sleeveless. They also suggest a few different ways to finish the seams and edges. I tried my first lettuce edge! In fact, I can only think of a couple of other times I have ever attempted to sew with knits, so the whole outfit was a bit outside of my normal comfort zone. Luckily, CKC’s patterns are always easy to follow and I had nothing to fear. In fact, I never used my sewing machine at all! I made both tops using only my serger (but you can do it with a sewing machine too if you don’t have one)!

Although these shirts would be adorable just paired with jeans, I had some leftover fabric that was just begging to be made into matching skirts. I had recently discovered the Cascading Ruffle Skirt tutorial by Lil Blue Boo and I had to try it. It was very simple to construct. The hardest part was cutting out all those kidney bean shaped pieces of fabric! I think they turned out pretty sweet in the end!

Halloween Skirts

It makes me a bit sad and a whole lot of relieved to say I am not making Halloween costumes for my kids this year. Naomi and Calder want to wear costumes we already own and Maya talked us into a store-bought kitty costume. I really wanted to make something for Halloween though, so I picked up a cute Halloween fat quarter bundle from Joanns with no plans in particular for it. After digging through the fall clothes, I found a pair of purple Halloween shirts I bought on clearance last year and decided to make skirts to go with them.

I used the 5 Berries Isabella skort for inspiration. I just finished two Isabellas a few weeks back (I will post them another day), so I was pretty familiar with their construction. To make the skirts, I used stripwork in an attempt to get enough continuous fabric for the main body. I was able to sew three strips together to get enough length for the ruffle. After laying it all out, I realized I didn’t have quite enough fabric still, so I added a purple batik from another bundle I had. I think it helped pull it together with the purple shirt better anyway!

We finally had a cool day today, so the girls got to wear them to school. I just hope we have a few more fall-like days before Halloween, so they get worn more than once!

School Picture Day

When I picked up the kids Monday afternoon from preschool, they had stickers on their back to let me know the next day was picture day. Of course, I wanted to make something special for the girls to wear. Maya has been begging me to make her something out of the “bad wolf” fabric (otherwise known as Micheal Miller’s Les Amis – Dawn Collection) and I chose Create Kids Couture’s Molly’s Faux Apron Peasant Dress for the pattern.

I picked the pattern thinking it would be simple, quick, and easy. It was, but I didn’t get them done in time… or so I thought!  After I gave up for the evening, I checked my email and found out their class wouldn’t be photographed for two more days. Yippee! I even found the time to make a couple of matching headbands using FooFoo Threads ruched headband pattern.

Naomi says “make a wish!” My wish is that they follow the photographer’s directions better than mine today!