Re-fitted Family Reunion T-Shirt

I took this large family reunion t-shirt and cut and sewed it down to fit!  I still want to adjust the sleeves a little, but I'm so glad it (mostly) worked!  Now I can do it to some other very large t-shirts!

A Girl Like Alice

After watching the new Alice movie recently, I was looking at one of my blue little Pioneer dresses.  I thought, that is the perfect little Alice dress! I just went with the Disney cartoon costume, though.

Here's the transformation:

Hemming Pants

Image from http://crafterhours.blogspot.com/

This is the awesomest thing ever!

http://crafterhours.blogspot.com/2010/08/scary-sewing.html

Only my pants are some Gap ones; that's expensive enough for me!

Dress Alteration

I bought this dress at Sears about 4 years ago.  It had a belt around the waist and little belt/buckle things on the rolled sleeves.  The sleeve things reminded me waaaay too much of the horrid '80s, but I still wore the dress that way for a couple years.

As I have gotten more confident in my sewing, and some of the dress seams needed some repairs, I thought I'd cut off the sleeve belt things, shorten the rolled sleeves, and convert the waist belt to ruffles on my sleeves.  It's a little hard to see details in the picture, but I definitely like the whole thing better.

Fabric for Sale!

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=218&ad=11259499&cat=74

Gored Skirt

I've wanted to make a gored skirt for a while now.  Cotton skirts were out of fashion while I was growing up, it was all rayon and other smooth, slippery fabrics.  I've seen many, many cute cotton skirts around the last several years and have wanted one. I have so much fabric, I thought I'd try making one.  I didn't want to go buy a pattern, so I found this sew-along.

http://sewingmamas.com/b/downloads.php?do=file&id=96

I think I'll go back and read this more:  http://vintagesewing.info/1940s/42-mpd/mpd-08.html

These were also helpful: 
http://wkdesigner.wordpress.com/2007/09/29/gored-skirt/

http://patternsthatfityou.com/frskirtcl.htm

I mostly like how it turned out.  I had to take it in a bit (made some pleats), and I think I'll do a regular waist band next time.

Pillows!

I've been following the Make It and Love It blog for a while now.  I loved all the pillows Ashley made for her bed and thought I'd give it a try.  She's a great decorator!

http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2010/03/decorate-my-home-part-13-pleated-pillow.html
http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2010/04/gathered-pillow-variation.html

This is what we've lived with for the past DECADE.  I'm serious.  Decorating is just not a big deal for me -- it usually has to mean something to me for me to put it up/out (or I have to really like it or be desperate).

Here's what I came up with.  They help.  (Sorry the picture's not too great.)

I went to the Overstock.com outlet with my friend and found the pillows.  I got two of the big ones for $5 total!  They are filled with just standard pillow fill.  The other two I got for $11, but they are feather!  I couldn't believe my find.  All four pillows for $16!  OK, I had to buy some thread (I got the fabric for free from my Aunt Bonnie!).

The two lighter colored pillows are just plain, but if you enlarge the picture, you can see I made one of the red ones with gathers and the other with pleats/runners/tucks/whatever you want to call them.  They look really nice!

The gathered one was the biggest pain -- all that adjusting!  The pleated one was easier, but still took a lot of time. My 6-year-old helped me sew more than half the lines for the pleated one.  He'd push the pedal while I'd guide the fabric.  While we sewed he asked me to tell him stories about when I was a little girl and also kept asking me about the sewing machine and how it works. He really liked filling the bobbin and would say, "Mom!  I want to bob it!  Let me do it next time!  Is it almost out because I want to do it."  It was really cute!

I want to make one or two small pillows, too, with fabric flowers on them, but I'll get to that... later.