more soakers for charity

I added a new soaker to my etsy site today!


Go here to purchase it!
ETSY LISTING

I have to tell you something about my husband

being that he is a jeans/tshirt/baseball cap kinda guy, it takes a LOT for him to part with some of his old t-shirts. And today he did just that.... for his little boy.
JR went through his closet for some old unwearable tshirts (one was too large, one had a paint stain) and I got to work downsizing them for Brendan.

Here is the before


and here are the afters (don't mind the cheesy "I'm a 3.5 year old, and i love being in pictures" smile)

The boy recon! (tutorial)

How to make a man's t-shirt into a boy's t-shirt.
This will also work on woman's shirts into girl's shirts, just fyi.

I decided it was about time for a boy Recon :)

I found this (size Large) shirt at the CCA (thrift shop)

This is the original t-shirt


Cut the sleeves off as close to the seam as possible


Cut along side seams and shoulder seams as close to the seam as possible.


Take a RTW shirt in the size that fits your child, flip it inside out while leaving the sleeves tucked in. Line up the top neckline with the neckline of the FRONT PANEL of the large shirt


cut out the front panel around the RTW shirt, to make the front panel of your child's shirt.


Line up the neckline of it with the neckline of the back panel of the large shirt. Cut out the same shape using the front panel of the small shirt as a template.


Flip your RTW shirt right side out and line up the cuff of the sleeve with the cuff of the Large-Shirt sleeve that you set aside. You are going to use the RTW shirt as a template to trim the large sleeve down to size.


Line the sleeve up underneath the new shirt panels. You want to be sure the sleeve length/drop is appropriate for the style of the shirt.


Trim the shoulder part of the sleeve to the same shape as the armhole of the shirt.


Flip your sleeves and shirt panels all so they are right-sides-together. Serge up the underside of the sleeves, the shoulder seam of the shirt panels and the side seams of the shirt panels.


serge sleeves onto bodice of shirt


flip right side out, hem bottom, and it's read to wear! :)

Tutorial: A womans shirt into a toddler dress

Hey everyone! Here is a tutorial I did this morning for how to quickly and easily reconstruct a womans t-shirt into a dress for a toddler. This was very simple.

I started with a dress the style I wanted to use and that fits Lily, and an old t-shirt of mine that was too short in the body


I got all my tools handy for starting the project


and I took some measurements on the rtw dress. These measurements are for a 12-18m dress. You can swipe them if you want

Now you won't actually be able to use ALL of these measurements, b/c if you want to make it out of JUST a t-shirt, you won't have a long enough piece of fabric to make the ruffle band that long to start with. But it's a good starting point to know how different your final product will end up depending on the difference in measurements.

I flipped my rtw dress inside out, leaving the sleeves tucked in. Then I lined up the neckline of the shirt with the dress neckline. I traced outside of the edges of the body (not including the ruffle length) leaving a seam allowance


Cut it out


Line up the neckline with the back neckline (be sure you make it so the neck opening will fit whatever age child you are sewing for)


Cut it out


Then I took the bottom of the shirt which is still intact, and I drew a line about 3 3/4" up from the hem. This is because (as shown in the photo above)that is the length of the ruffle on the rtw dress.


cut it out


this is what you have


now take the shirt sleeves and measure up about 3.5 inches (the length of the sleeve from cuff to shoulder on the rtw dress) and cut two of them (one from each sleeve)


Then (i forgot to take a pic for this part) using the side of the little sleeve that has the seam, measure up about 1.25" from the cuff. Mark a line. Then cut on an angle from that marker to the top of the cut you made before on the opposite side of the sleeve. This is b/c that seam is going to be in the armpit of the sleeve, and the underneath of the sleeve needs to be shorter than the top part.

this is what you have now



And on to the sewing!!!

Flip body pieces rights sides together, serge along shoulder seams and down side seams. It'll basically look like a rough tank top.


sew a machine stitch over the "shoulder" of the sleeves (at the higher point). It should run about 2-3 inches long, and no knots at the ends. leave the threads long, don't cut them close.


grab one side of the long thread, and pull. it'll make the fabric ruffle up.


sew the sleeve on, lining up the seam with the side seam of the shirt. be sure the top ruffles are laying flat



once both sleeves are sewing on, serge over them


this is what you should have


arrange the please in your ruffle piece the same distance apart and pin. occasionally measure it up to the dress to be sure the width is approx the same. if it's too big, it'll stretch the "shirt" part, if it's too small, it'll pucker.
once it's correct, sew over the pleats to secure them.


serge the ruffle to the dress and you're all done


and here are some action shots

next week should be fun

This week is an extremely busy week for my work (atleast through Wednesday night) so I'm very excited to get back to sewing late this week/early next week.
Sorry to not post in a while, but I promise to post some good stuff here soon :)

More teeny Pjs

This time in the form of a nighty.

I got this stretchy fabric on sale at walmart for $1/yard. I bought 2 yards b/c I thought it was cute and knew I'd eventually come up with something to do with it.

I finally did a month or so ago!

I used the Miss Madeline Pattern and modified the hell out of it.

For starters, I pieced it together exactly as it says to, but didn't cut a piece for the waist band.

When I put the elastic in the neckline, I set it in about 1/4"-1/2" from the edge, to give it a small ruffle.
Then I zigzag stitched the arm openings and the bottom. B/c it was a stretchy fabric, It ruffled out. (it's hard to see in this pic b/c she just woke up, so it's all wonky from her sleeping in it)

Anyways, that's my Modified Madeline Nighty

Operation: Coupon Binder

A year or so ago, we put together a cheap coupon binder for our grocery trips. It worked fine, but it was not very well organized. Originally, I intended to go out, get a bigger binder, buy some 3m labels for the pages, get more insert pages, etc.
Then I got thinking about how pricey that all was. I mean, heck, GM labels themselves are pricey on their own.
So I made my own.

Here is my binder before




So I hit the PC, printed out all the words that I wanted to use as categories, and grabbed a roll of clear packing tape


And I made my own tabs using the packing tape with the label inside of a fold of tape.


So that was my project for the other day.

Today, though, I DO have to go buy some more insert pages, b/c my book is packed to the gills with coupons, and I have another whole Sunday worth of coupons to clip today.