a mom, a wife, and a me: sew

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Re-Doin' it Wednesday- Denim and Lace

I can not believe how many people wrote me such nice comments and emails about my skirt redo last Wednesday! Yeah for having the most blog views I have ever had before... it was really kinda exciting! So with out further ado here is this weeks re-do! From maternity jean to super cute jumper!

Here are the jeans I started with. A size M maternity jeans that THANK YOU LORD i will never have to wear again. I would have passed them on but there was a hole in the crotch because the denim was stretch and i was way to big to be squeezing them on :) (I was going to use that other piece of fabric to pleat around the bottom but I got scared) not pictured was the pillow case I took the lace trim off of, but that's where it came from

I cut the legs off the pants (I considered re-making the top part into maternity Daisey dukes but quickly decided no one would want to see that :) )

There are two seams in a pair of jeans. I pictured this jumped with the big seam out

So I folded the legs inside out and cut up the seam so I ended up with two wide pieces of denim with the good seam in the middle.
I wanted to use the bottom hems (cuffs? i dont know what they are called but the bottom part you always step on ) so I matched the two bottoms and pinned them together while I did the rest of the pattern.

I took a tank top that fit my daughter and had nice openings and traced it

then I cut it out (notice I made a 3 inch deep neck line... but I wish it would have been lower)

then I serged all the edges and I really like the way it looked. (this is my first time using my new serger, and while it did was it was suppose to do i wasnt that impressed to I will have to work on learning more on it)
I put the two pieces right side together and sewed the top shoulders together

(she was saying EWWWW i dont want to wear baby belly pants lol attitude:)
then I laid it out on the table and pinned on the lace trim. I decided I wanted it on top of the seam I serged.

then I top stitched it on.

Next I flipped the pieces right sides together and serged the sides together. TaDa a jumper!!

but I didn't stop there I fished it off with more lace trim on the bottom. Im not a fa of pinning (I mean the literal pinning not the Pinterest kind .. cause I love that:) ) So I just matched it up to the hem/cuff/seam as I went and made it pretty on the bottom!

Isn't she pretty!! I want to put some fabric flowers on there too but decided that was from another day!

I bragged about my self here:

Re-Doin it Wednesday!

My daughter gets emotionally attached to the weirdest things... envelopes, candy wrappers, toys, .... but the worst thing in the world has to be clothing! She would have worn a onsie she had that had a lady bug on it till she was 30 if I wouldn't have secretly thrown it in the trash one night, which lead to days... and literally weeks of 'looking' for it. I thought about putting it in our pass it down bag but I was in fear for any friends baby that might sport it in her sight :) Dresses seem to stay in the drawers the longest, first as dresses, then to short dresses, then to shirt, but last week when my darling daughter was trying to squeeze her 5 year old self into an 18 month dress she was mortified to learn the arms were just to small to move in, after about and hour of tears she emerged from her bedroom and said "fine, make me a new one." '"Unfortunately I didn't make it to begin with so all hopes of that were out. I did however come up with a cleaver way to make it fit... we turned it into a skirt!! (which hopefully she wont be sporting to prom...)
Here is how we did it. ..

Here is the old dress (Yes its 18 months and yes she is a tony 5 year old)

Her favorite part is that the dress is so soft (velvet) and it has a black (jack halloween) bow.

So I measured up 3 inches from said waist band and cut.
(Tears ensued and in the end I had to pay her to let me throw away the top section.. although Im thinking about making a headband but shuuu dont tell her that)

I folded the top over and pinned and stitched

Half way around my needle broke and actually got me in the eye... who knew you needed safety glasses to sew....

And a quick bit of elastic stung inside and we have a new twirly skirt!!

See how happy she is.... now if she would just brush her hair.. but that is another battle for another day :)

I bragged about myself on these awesome blogs!

Easy Pillow Dolls

We have a family birthday coming up... well 3 very important birthdays! My triplet niece and nephews first birthday on the sixth and boy have they come along way. Miss Brooklyn kept asking to make Isabella dolls for her birthday so I had to do some thinking on that one. I dont know how to embroider and there is no way I would let my insane (yet wonderfully amazing) 4 year old try it with a needle then I remember these dolls I had when I was little. I always assumed they were called pillow dolls because they were stuffed dolls, I searched the Internet for days and came up with nothing, nothing at all of what I had, then I ran to etsy searching endless pages of dolls, and found Stache dolls. Perhaps it was because mine were so old I didnt get them when they smelled, or perhaps they were just pillow stuffed dolls. So I jumped back online and saved some princess baby pictures (via Brooklyn's request) and this is how we made these! (Its so simple I'm sure she will be making her own set this weekend.)

Your supplies:
Muslin
sewing machine (or hand sewing) stuff
Freezer paper
an iron
and a printer.

First find pictures you like online (although it might be really cute to make family members dolls)

Next cut muslin and freezer paper to printer paper size. (note freezer paper is not wax paper, look for freezer paper next to the aluminum foil)

Iron your muslin onto the shiny side of the freezer paper. Pop it in your ink jet printer

Print onto the muslin.(please note this will not work in a laser jet printer)

Peal off the freezer paper. Iron right on top of your print, I dont know if the heat makes some kind of heat seal but if you dont do this it will bleed in the wash.

Next cut out your doll leaving seam and puffiness allowance and trace it again making a backing. (Next time I think im going to do a cotton color to match the print)