Modesty Shorts

Last night I made modesty shorts for Joey and blogged about it (see I See London, I See France...), but due to technical difficulties the photos weren't published.  Aaargh. 

I purchased six pairs of leggings from babyGap and Target for $3.50 average.  I chose colors that would coordinate with her skirts.  I washed and dried them to preshrink.  Tilt your head to the right to view the photo below.

Last night I only committed to making one pair, so I chose a pair with stripes because those would be easier to make straight, even cuts.  I cut them about two inches longer than I wanted them to be to allow for the hem.  I then turned the shorts inside-out, folded the raw edge twice, and ironed. 

Then I stitched.  Easy peasy.

I'm very pleased with the results.  It would be cute to embellish these shorts with bows, a la Monkeybar Buddies, or even using a Bedazzler.  I'm kidding about the Bedazzler.  Or am I?

I see London, I see France…

Yep, folks, we can all see Joey's underpants.

My little princess insists on wearing skirts every day. Mostly tutus, if we want to be specific. It doesn't bother me in the least. Skirts are easier than pants when it's time to use the potty. And she looks pretty darn cute in a tutu.

Today Joey's teacher mentioned that the boys were noticing her underpants and that it would be better to send her to school with shorts under her skirt. She doesn't really understand the concept of modesty yet, but I don't want for her to be teased. Searching online, I found modesty shorts called Monkeybar Buddies, but at $16 a pop, I quickly determined that I could do better.

I decided to make modesty shorts for Joey. Not from scratch, mind you. The plan was to purchase leggings and shorten them. I went to babyGap, which was offering an additional 25% off their sale items, plus another 10% for using a GapCard, and got four pairs of leggings for about $3.50 each. Next I went to Target and got two more pairs, also $3.50 each.

First, I washed and dried them to prevent additional shrinkage.

Next, I made the cuts. A rotary cutter and self-healing cutting mat would have come in very handy, but I just used good old-fashioned scissors. Well, maybe not good scissors, but scissors. I have a rotary cutter but not a self-healing cutting mat (hint, hint). I cut the length about two inches longer than I wanted them to allow for the hem.

I turned the pants inside-out and folded the raw edge over twice and ironed. This way I didn't need to pin. I don't pin. I'm lazy.

I stitched the hem with a plain old straight stitch, but kept the stitches somewhat loose. I worried that if the stitches were tight that they might pop. It all worked great for the first leg, but then I ran out of thread. So one leg has two different thread colors. At least it's on the inside.

The results? I think they look great, but I guess we'll see in the morning when Joey gets dressed. One down, five to go…

Josephine Losavio: Clown?

Tomorrow is Circus Day at Joey's school.  All of the kids will be dressing up like clowns or circus animals.  Although clowns creep me out, I figured a clown costume would be easier to DIY than an animal costume.

I picked up some supplies at Hobby Lobby:  a green t-shirt (because green is Joey's fave), pom poms, felt, and a sheet of green foam. 

I began by making a ruffled collar from the felt.  I cut the sheets lengthwise and stitched three of the pieces together, creating a long strip.

I stitched some elastic to one end of the felt, then for the length of the felt, I stitched around the elastic using a zigzag stitch.  That's a fancy trick I picked up from sewing class.

To finish the collar, I stitched the ends together.  I just hope that it doesn't choke Joey.

Next I got to work on Joey's hat.  I decided to use the foam to make a cone-shaped hat with pom poms.  I cut the foam into a round-ish triangle (sorry -- that's mommy brain for you) and then attached the edges with hot glue.  I glued a large pom pom to the top of the hat and small ones around the bottom.

I  hot glued some large pom poms to the front of the t-shirt and Voila!  A clown costume!

Plain White Onesies

When I was sorting through our baby clothes the other day I found a ridiculous number of Plain White Onesies.  Seriously ridiculous.  At least 15.  And that's just for sizes 0 to 6 months.  Some of these probably haven't even been worn.  Seriously.  I know that I bought them all, but why?  Did I think that Joey needed a Plain White Onesie to go with every outfit?  Regardless, Paul and I figured that we could do something fun with these Plain White Onesies.  Fun as in creative.

Paul's idea was to screen print or stencil designs on the Plain White Onesies.  I suggested creating designs on the computer and using iron-on transfer paper.  Paul is a talented designer (if you didn't already know) and I'm sure that his designs will be awesome.

My idea was to embellish the PWOs (Plain White Onesies) with scraps of fabric, ribbon, and buttons, all of which I had on hand.  I've also been wanting to attempt applique, and practically free PWOs would make a great medium.  And considering that I've got lots of fabric just lying around, I wouldn't feel wasteful if the outcome wasn't perfect.

For the applique project, I found simple images on the Internet and printed them.  I cut the fabric and fusible web (available at fabric stores) to the approximate size of the image and ironed the two together.  I pinned the image to the fabric and then cut it out.  I then ironed the fabric to the onesie and then stitched it for reinforcement and to prevent fraying.  I believe there are "no-sew" options that would probably be worth looking into, since the stitching was the most time-consuming part of the project. 

I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome:

"C" Onesie: 

Font: Adobe Jensen Pro Bold

Fabric:  Amy Butler Midwest Modern Happy Dot

Crow Onesie: 

Image:  Milliande Printables

Fabric:  Amy Butler Midwest Modern Honeycomb

Fish Onesie:

Image:  Clker.com

Fabric:  Michael Miller Tortoise Plaid

I also created some yo-yo rosettes to embellish the PWOs, but thinking that they won't launder well I didn't bother to attach them to the PWO.  I think that they would make adorable headbands or hair clips.

More on the DIY Diaper Burp Cloths

Several weeks ago I entertained myself by making diaper burp cloths.  So many of our friends are having babies, and I think that these will make cute, personal baby gifts.  Especially if they are monogrammed.  But I don't have an embroidery machine, nor do I know how to embroider by hand.

Last week I made a couple of diaper burp cloths for a friend's baby shower, which was Saturday.  On Thursday I realized that I should get the cloths monogrammed, since our friends had just decided on a name for the baby.  I called several local businesses for pricing and turn-around time, but none would be able to do the work by my deadline.  After a little searching, I found a local woman who does this sort of work out of her home.  Her prices were extremely reasonable and she was able to do the work overnight!  I dropped the things off on her porch on Thursday afternoon and picked them up Friday morning.  Paul said it sounded like a shady drug deal, but no, no drugs in these diapers.

This is how they turned out:

More on the DIY Cocktail Napkins

Earlier today I taught myself to make cocktail napkins with mitered corners.  I initially tried to figure out how to miter on my own, then referenced a web tutorial, which confused me, so I then figured out how to do it my own way.  The first napkin took a while, but I've knocked out several more since this morning.

I am horrible at explaining things but I'll give it a shot.  For the life of me I cannot remember sewing jargon.  I had difficulty recalling the word "crease."  Anyway, this is what I did:

Cut fabric to 2 inches larger than desired size.  Fold over an inch on each side and press.

Fold the one-inch sections in half and press.

 Your creases should look like this:

Fold the corners in and press.  The fold should be at the corner of the inner crease.  Flatten the napkin and flip it over.  Fold the napkin to make a triangle and sew along the corner crease.     

This is what your napkin will look like after sewing all four corners.  This is inside-out.

 Snip, snip.

Turn the napkin right-side-in.  Refold your creases and press again.

Stitch the hem of the napkin.

Voila!

This process actually requires more ironing than sewing.  I'm lazy and I don't like to use pins, but I think that if you make sharp creases when you press, it's not really necessary to pin.

DIY: Cocktail Napkins

I had some leftover seersucker fabric from yet another attempt to make a dress for Joey and decided to use it to make cocktail napkins.  Why cocktail napkins?  Why not? 

To make things harder for myself For a more professional outcome, I decided to miter the corners.  After about 30 minutes of trying to figure out how to do it by myself, I searched for an online tutorial.

I wanted my cocktail napkins to be 8 inches square.  I cut my fabric to 10 inches.  Note:  the measurements must be perfect for the mitered corners to work.  I learned this after spending longer than I'd care to admit trying to get it right.  Rather than cutting and folding the fabric (as the tutorial suggests) to get the mitered corner, I did some wacky sewing trick that I may or may not be able to repeat.  It was easier for me, considering that my measurements weren't perfect. 

Trying to miter the corners by cutting and folding.

It took a while, but I finally ended up with a cocktail napkin.

Only 7 more to do...

Here's an update on the napkin-making process.

DIY: Diaper Burp Cloths

With so many of our friends having babies in the next few months, I've been thinking of personalized baby gifts that I could give.  I often purchase gifts from a registry, but I also like to include a small supplemental gift.  I figured that diaper burp cloths were within my skill set, so I asked Google how to make them.

I used  Gerber cloth diapers, the kind that have the thicker center panel.  These seriously make the best burp cloths, in my opinion.  I believe that these are also available in organic cotton, if that's your thing.  I washed the diapers using hot water and then dried on hot, to get the little suckers to shrink as much as they were going to.  Unfortunately they didn't shrink very evenly, as you might be able to tell by the photographs.

I had some very cute Amy Butler fabric on hand, but I decided to make the first burp cloths using scrap fabric, because it was pretty darn likely that I would mess up.  I found some houndstooth fabric that was left over from an attempt to make a dress for Joey.  Houndstooth diaper burp cloths would make great gifts for our friends who are Alabama fans.

I cut the fabric to size, and then folded down the edges and ironed.  I sewed the strips of fabric to the diaper using a small zigzag stitch.  And Voila!  A diaper burp cloth, made by yours truly!  A little crooked, but not bad for a first attempt.

Sewing...

Attempt #1

Attempt #2

If you are interested in making your own diaper burp cloths, please visit the blogs that I referenced.  These explain the process more eloquently than I can.

http://chickpeastudio.typepad.com/chickpea_sewing_studio/diaper-burp-cloth-tutoria.html
http://anewchelseamorning.blogspot.com/2007/03/such-mystery-not.html

To my friends who are having babies in the next few months:  you will be receiving burp cloths from me.  And they were made for you and your baby with love.

Here's an update on this diaper burp cloth project.

Joey's Halloween Costume

Unlike the past two years, this year I really took Joey's interests into consideration when deciding what to dress her as for Halloween.  She is getting to the age where she's enjoying dressing up, and I knew that her costume would be reused for playtime regardless of what it was.  She loves princesses but she's getting a princess dress for Christmas (shh!), so I didn't want to buy another one.  I turned to Etsy for some inspiration and found the idea of Candy Corn Princess. 

For Joey's Candy Corn Princess costume, she'll have a tutu, a magic wand, and either a tiara or a hat.

I found several tutu-making tutorials online, and the consensus said:

Cut the tulle into 4 inch wide strips
Cut the strips to double the desired length
Layer three strips together and fold in half length-wise.
Sew or knot around elastic (cut to desired length with the ends sewn or tied together)

I was able to find 25-yard spools of 3 inch wide tulle pretty cheaply, so I bought one spool each of white, yellow, and orange.  They were $1 each, but after shipping and handling (gag) they worked out to about $3 per spool.  I had 75 yards of tulle to work with, and would you believe that I actually used all of it for Joey's tutu?  I cut the strips roughly 24 inches long and layered three of the same color, folded, and sewed, allowing room to thread elastic through.  Although it seems to be the trend to make "no-sew" tutus with knots, sewing seemed easier to me.  I threaded the strips onto a wire hanger before the elastic to make sure that the tutu would have the fullness that I wanted.  After all of the strips had been threaded onto the elastic I sewed the two ends together, fluffed, and Voila!  A tutu!

The magic wand was purchased at Hobby Lobby.  It is a wooden star-shaped wand that cost $1.47.  I first painted the entire thing yellow using acrylic craft paint, and then added a candy corn design using white and orange paint.

A candy corn hat was lent to us by Paul's coworker, but if I'm able to find a tiara I may use that instead.

Joey will wear her costume over a long-sleeved black shirt, black leggings, black socks, and black Mary Janes.

This project was so much easier than anticipated that now I want to make tutus for Joey for every occasion!