Sergers Rock

My daughter keeps asking for skirts. Sometimes it's just easier to make them yourself, ya know?

This one was a women's XXL from Target, cut down:


This was a L shirt from Kohl's cut down for a 7 y.o. I might round out the bottom, but we'll see how we like it on.



Then, I bought this HUGE poncho shirt (it was marked a small, but it's more like a man's XXL in width). I found this AWESOME tutorial from It's Always Autumn on making a easy t-shirt and simple baseball/raglan shirt. I didn't want to mess with the cute neck on this one, so I just did the easy t.


I also took in a cute peasant top, but didn't take a pic. My old one is just a little tight in the bust since I'm nursing and fatter thank I'd like to be. I needed a bit more room.

These were my starting experiments with old t-shirts:

I also learned how to put in elastic with the serger!

This is so awesome. The options are endless. I should probably take a class.

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.

American Girl Doll Clothes and Sewing with the 7 Year Old

We got our 4-year old a Julie American Girl doll for Christmas. We had a 6" Julie, but she somehow she got lost in a pile of laundry and went through the dryer, which melted part of her hair together. The 4 year old had been so good to little Julie - except for the dryer - that we thought we'd get her a big Julie. Big Julies don't get lost in the laundry pile, right?

So, of course, the first thing Julie needed was some PJs, and I had an old T-shirt that was the perfect color. We couldn't find butterfly ribbon, but picked something the 4-year old liked.

I used and modified a PJ pattern from All Things with Purpose.

As we went through fabric scraps, we found an old bandana from a cowgirl birthday, and thought it would make a great cowgirl dress. After debating, I used a peasant dress pattern from Call Me Crafty Momma (I found the instructions to be overly confusing, but the shape/size is right). The little dress needed a belt, so we made one out of felt. It still needs a belt buckle.

Then, I was just messing around with scraps and made some little Christmas skirts, 2 for my girls and 2 for our little friends and their dolls.

As we were sewing along, our 7 y.o. wanted to sew, too. Calling her crafty is an understatement, so I thought we'd give it a try. She really liked it. (Wow my chin looks really pointy in that picture!)

I thought it would be easiest to start with a tube skirt.

Then we moved on to an a-line skirt, but I goofed up my measurements and it didn't work out.

Then we moved on to a pillowcase dress.

She wanted to make one for her friend, but I was helping her pick out some stitches, pulled the fabric and it just fell apart. I think the fabric was pretty old (or else I'm really strong, ha).

Instead, she just made her friend a skirt from a leftover Christmas goody-bag we had, just like the red one up above.

Her next project is a peasant shirt, but I think she's a bit bored of sewing for now.

My next project is a corduroy A-line skirt and then a sailor dress.  And maybe to clean up the sewing room.

I've been keeping a Pinterest board of the patterns I'm finding, so check it out!  There are lots of great links (including free patterns) out there!

And P.S. I read somewhere out there that if you use a little bit of water on the doll's curly hair, it helps, and it TOTALLY does!  Then if you curl the damp hair around some sort of tube/dowel it will curl it (10-15 seconds) - and that works too!  Looks great!

Ruby's Christmas Stocking

The poor baby didn't even get a stocking last year because I was too beat to make one.  Things are better this year so she gets one.  I've tried to have a Christian theme (not Santa theme) for the stockings, so after making 3 other stockings, I was searching for ideas.  The eldest has a baby Jesus on his; our 2nd has some lambs, and the 3rd has an angel.

Since this one's name is Ruby, and a ruby is precious, I thought, hmm, maybe I could do something with the gifts from the wise men.  So I put three "gifts" on her stocking to represent the three wise men and their gifts.  I'm not sure I'm loving the colors, but I'm not going to change it now.

The more I think about this, though, the sillier the whole thing is to me.  Why am I putting these Christian symbols on these pagan stockings?  Stockings really have NOTHING to do with Christ, so why am I trying to tie them in?  Anyway, I surely don't have time to make 6 new fully-pagan stockings, so I'll just continue my already established theme for now.

American Girl Doll Clothes

We broke down and got our 6 year old daughter an American Girl doll for Christmas.  It's so not like me to get all faddish, but we did go all out and got her the NEW Caroline from 1812.  She has pretty blond ringlets and Regency clothes, so how could I resist? Of course I wanted to sew her some clothes, so I, of course again, searched for some FREE patterns online and found a few.  I also thought the fantastic Sense & Sensibility e-pattern was a deal ($6.95 and I love Jennie Chancey), but haven't made anything from it yet!

I got this FREE pattern from My Cup Overflows and modified the neckline.  Also, instead of making a bodice and a skirt for a dress like the pattern says, I just carried down the bodice lines into the skirt to make this nightgown.  It was really fast.  I made it on Christmas.

I also used the above pattern to make this little dress.  I need a ribbon for a sash and wish I'd made the dress a bit longer, but now I know!  I don't really like the shape of the skirt for the bodice either and wish I'd made it fuller and gathered.  The neck is also a little big.  I used piping left over from one of my pioneer dresses.  Glad I didn't throw that away.  I made the entire dress by hand while I watched shows on Netflix (The Artist & From Time to Time).

My mom also made the below dress from a pattern she had from when my sister was a little girl.  I'm afraid we might just have too much fun sewing.  We'd better save any new dresses for birthday presents!

Little Christmas Tablecloths

I made these little tablecloths for my MIL for her b-day in early December; although, she didn't get them until Christmas!  One is for a 2 x 4 table, the other for a card table.  I should have made them just a little longer.

Temple Hankies

I have been so NOT crafty lately, but today during Conference, I wanted to stitch the kids' names on their temple handkerchiefs (I did not do the edging on these, though).  I think they turned out pretty well.

And yet, another layered skirt

I made this one for my niece. Isn't she cute?

From MADE.

Another Layered Skirt

I've had this one cut out for a while, but haven't taken the time to sew it together.  It took me all day yesterday.  If you have the time, though, I'm thinking it's about a 2 hour project.  I think it might have looked cuter with 4 tiers, rather than 3.  Here's the tutorial from Made.

Layered Skirt

I found this cute tutorial on MADE for a layered skirt.  Turned out really well.  I'll make another.

Easy Gored Skirt Tutorial

I thought I'd make my daughter a gored skirt, too, just based on measurements -- and it worked!  So, here's a tutorial.  It's probably not perfect, so feel free to leave any helpful comments if you give it a try.

For your fabric width:
1.  Measure around your hips (widest point around your bum -- your skirt needs to fit over this widest point) =  _____"
2.  Add 2"for give = _____"
3.  Add an inch for each seam (# of main panels, in my case 6") = _____"  (I ended up doing 1/2" approx. seams, so that really only adds 3" extra in addition to my extra 2" for a total of 5" wider than the hips.  This left a good amount of wiggle room, but not too much.)

**So, for my daughter's skirt, I took her waist measurement of 25", added 2", then added 6".  This gave me a width of 33".

For your skirt length:
4.  Measure from your waist to however long you want your skirt to land = _____"
5.  Add 1.25" for the waistband = _____"
6.  Add 3/4" for the hem = _____"

7.  Cut out your skirt fabric according to the above width and length.

8.  It's easiest if you are doing an even number of panels in your skirt.  You could divide the width by the number of desired panels and measure them out and cut them, but I just folded my fabric in half and then thirds and then cut it down the folds to get my 6 panels.

 9.  Next, I cut some long triangles to fit between the panels.  I didn't do any magic math or anything, just hoped it would work.  The width at the bottom of the triangle is just a bit smaller than than the width of the rectangles.  I think, though, I did try to get the triangles to end right up about the height of the pubic bone.

10.  Now, sew in the triangles.  Just place a triangle and a rectangle, right sides together, sew, then zig zag (or surge it together if you have one!).  Then, place a second rectangle over the combined triangle/rectangle piece and sew that together the same way, but securing all the way to the top of the rectangles.  It's a little tricky lining up that second rectangle piece as to not let the tip of the triangle poke through wrong.  You may have to pick out a time or two before you get used to it.  Continue piecing together all the way around.

11.  I realized that my skirt was going to end up a little short, so I added enough fabric at the top for the waistband casing and a couple more inches.  To make the casing for your elastic, either fold the fabric under 1/4" and then another 1 1/16" (or just a little bigger than the width of your elastic) or zigzag your edge then fold it down and stich all the way around a little wider than the width of your elastic leaving an opening to feed your elastic through with a safety pin.

12.  Feed your elastic through using a safety pin.  I like to cut my elastic an inch or two smaller than the waist size. I  used Wal-Mart elastic, so it is kind of stretchy, so 23" for the elastic seemed good.  Stich the waistband casing closed.

13.  Hem the bottom of the skirt.  I just folded the bottom under approximately 1/4" and then again 1/2" and stitched.

14.  Let your little girl wear it with something that doesn't really match!

Patriotic Skirt

My SIL gave us the darling skirt in the top picture for the baby.  I thought I'd copy the idea into a patriotic skirt.  I think it turned out really cute.  We gave it away for a b-day present.

Patriotic Infant Peasant Dress

 I managed to make this little dress from Sew Much Ado yesterday (free pattern!!).  Took around an hour.  I think it turned out cute.  Now we can all match for Independence day.

Gored Skirt

I got yards and yards and yards of this fabric from my aunt.  Last year, I made my girls some patriotic dresses with it:

I never got around to making me something, though, until now.

As I searched for a "patriotic skirt" for ideas, I came across a "propaganda dress":

I searched for other 1940s dresses and found a cute wrap around dress:

I tried to make the dress over the last couple days by adjusting a pattern I had, but didn't have luck.  I gave up and took it apart and just made the skirt.

I've never found making a gored skirt quite so simple!  I didn't use a pattern, and I think it was easier.  I may have to make a tutorial. The skirt turned out longer than I wanted, and maybe too much width, but I'll work out the kinks.  I entered it into the Crafterhours skirt week contest.  Funny because the contest ends tonight and I made the skirt today.  I don't think it's that cute, but it's fun that the girls and I match.

Somehow I made the above skirt just a bit bigger than my liking.  I pulled out a couple panels and it fits much better!