Big T-Shirts to Little Nightgowns

I recently inherited a serger from my grandmother who died a year ago.  Also recently, my husband cleaned out his part of the closet.  In the process, he pulled out a bunch of t-shirts that he didn't want anymore, so I thought I'd pull out my "new" serger and see if I could make those shirts into girls' nightgowns! I just traced shirts that fit my girls and came up with a few:

This "small" t-shirt was way too big for my 5 year old, so I made it smaller.

Scripture Bags

It's a tradition to give our kids scriptures when they turn 8. Well, I can't say it's really a tradition as we've only done it once, but we intended to when our 2nd child turned 8, too, but forgot. So, as a late gift, we got her scriptures and I made a case. The 4-year old (at the time) of course wanted a cute scripture bag, too, so I pulled out some of my old scriptures and made her a bag for them for her birthday. I think they turned out cute. I didn't even really measure anything!

Little White Dress

Around the time I made the baptism dress, I also made a dress for our 4 year old. It turned out like this:

She's super skinny so we can fit it over her head, but I should have put in a side zipper or not made the waistband so tight and added a tie in the back (but I ran out of fabric anyway). I may be able to go back in a add a zipper in the side. Perhaps I can go back to the fabric store and buy a little more fabric and change the waistband. Bummer. It looks more like the dress I was baptized in.

Updates from 1999 to Today

I like it! I even put zippers in the pillows.

8-Year Old Baptism Dress

Our daughter turns 8 at the end of the month, and I wanted her to have something other than the traditional jump suit to be baptized in.  I was baptized in the same dress as my mom and some of her sisters, as well as my own sister, but my mom doesn't think she'll be able to find the dress anymore at my grandma's house.  So I thought I could recreate the dress, but decided not to when I saw a picture of it.  This is my sister on her baptism day in the dress:

This is me on my baptism day in the pink dress.  These days, the trend is to get baptized in the jump suit, then get a fancy white dress for the little girl to wear to church. Honestly, the fad kind of bugs me because why would you even consider putting an 8-year old girl in a fancy white dress??  It's not like she's a bride on her wedding day, and it's just going to get dirty.  I hate following the crowd, so it's really hard for me to do this.  I did ask our daughter if she would like me to make her a pretty white dress to be baptized in and then get her a new, regular dress (not white) for church.  She said she wanted the fancy white dress.

So, I searched around on Pinterest and found a white dress bodice on Pink Princess that I liked.  I didn't like how it looks busty here, so I just made a regular width waistband rather than a high one.  Although, if I make another, I see some alterations I'd like to implement.

I used Liz Clark's pattern and came up with this:

I think it's super cute, but it would be so fun to wear to church, too! 

So, I got some more fabric and took a dress I liked and reverse engineered it:

I came up with this this morning, but it is so plain that I wonder if we may as well use the jump suits!

For the baptism, I dressed it up a bit with a few flowers. I think it looked just lovely; I also made a clip for her hair with 2 more clips for her little sisters so they could match.