Grecian Maxi Dress

I've wanted to make a maxi dress for a while now. You know, before they go out of style or something. I hope that won't be for quite a while, because now that I've made a maxi dress, I have fallen in love! This is about the most comfortable dress I've ever worn, and it was so easy to make!

I used DIY Maternity's tutorial for the Grecian Maternity Maxi Dress, from a list of maternity tutorials I have pinned. No, I'm not pregnant, this dress is fantastic for regular wear as well as maternity. So I'm just calling mine a Grecian Maxi Dress. But it is nice to know that the next time I have a pregnant belly, I'll still be able to wear this.

The fabric is a fashion knit from JoAnn's. I wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't on sale for 40% off - even so it was a splurge for me at almost $8 per yard. But the print, the feel, the drape were all so absolutely wonderful that I went for it anyway.

This is one of the easiest dresses I've ever made. It's simply a fabric tube with elastic casings along the top and under the bust, then a hem on the bottom. It can be worn with a belt or sash, or as is.

Super comfortable. I love my new dress.

Linking to the pin-did challenge at The Modern Marigold.

Princess Doll Bed

Zaylee has started a Language Arts unit on the story of Sleeping Beauty, and I thought it would be a fun additional activity to create a special Sleeping Beauty doll and bed to go along with this unit. Now Zaylee can act out her favorite part of the story to her little heart's content.

For the bed, I was inspired by this webpage. I drew the sides, headboard, footboard, and bottom of the bed on pieces of a large cardboard box, then cut them out (boy, cutting out fancy shapes from cardboard is hard work!). Then I glued scrapbook paper on each piece to make them pretty, and hot glued them all together. It made a sturdy little bed.

Next I sewed up a simple mattress, and a little doll-sized pillow.

Then came the fun part. Zaylee and I got to decorate her new doll bed with acrylic jewels, to make it fitting for a royal princess.

Together we chose a pretty fabric to make a blanket for the bed, so Sleeping Beauty wouldn't get cold. P.S. Isn't this the most gorgeous flannel you've ever seen? DAMASK FLANNEL. How totally awesome.

Lastly, we made a simple Sleeping Beauty doll to go in the bed. I did the sewing, while Zaylee chose the fabric for the dress and helped to stuff the doll.

Thanks to this fun and simple craft, this has become Zaylee's favorite unit so far! We're both excited to do more school crafts together.

 

 

Linking this post to:

Feelin' Feminine Friday at The American Homemaker

A New Kindle Cover

As I lay awake late last night (wishing I hadn't made and consumed a microwave mug cake right before bed) I came up with plans to make a new cover for my Kindle. I really like the first one I made, but there were improvements I wanted to make. The button loop on the side was a little annoying, and I wanted the elastic corners to be more snug and do a better job at holding the Kindle in place. Plus I wanted a bit more padding for the front and firmer board for the back.

So I put all those wants and ideas together and came up with this lovely little thing:

I used a nice sturdy cardboard for the back, and batting for the front. The flap in the front can be moved to the back to open the cover, and to hold the padded part in place while I'm using the Kindle.

Pulling back the flap

The padded front

Opening the cover

The elastic flap holds the padded flap in place so it doesn't flop around

With a layer of batting in the front of the cover, I'll feel more comfortable keeping my Kindle in my bag when I go somewhere, and not worry about cracking the screen or anything. Plus, it makes it more comfortable to hold, because it's all soft and squishy.

I made sure to make the elastic tighter so that it will hold my Kindle snugly, and the elastics also cover a little bit less of the bottom buttons. Now I don't have to take the Kindle out of its cover if I want to play games on it, which I do rather frequently.

I think I did end up sewing the elastic straps on a little crookedly, as can be seen in this picture, but it's not enough to convince me that my experiment in creating my own Kindle cover was anything but a success.

I didn't take pictures of the process of making this, but if I ever make another one I'll try to put together a tutorial. Since this was just an experiment there are still kinks to work out. But on the whole I'm super satisfied and love my new Kindle cover.

Kindle Covers

Jeff recently bought me a Kindle. It was an early birthday present (very early, my birthday isn't until late November). I have been enjoying it so much that Jeff started expressing a wish to possess one of these magical e-readers as well. So I surprised him and bought one for him. Again, an early birthday present (his birthday is in December). There are two main consequences of these particular gifts. First, each of us will get only cake and ice cream on our actual birthday. Second, I felt a great need to make covers for each Kindle so that we can easily tell them apart.

The first one I made was for Jeff. It was sort of my experimental cover. I used this tutorial from One Pearl Button, to make a book-style cover. For Jeff's I pretty much made it according to the measurements and directions given. It turned out okay, and Jeff is quite satisfied with it. But there were a couple things I wanted to change about it when I made mine.

Here's the cover I made for Jeff. It holds the Kindle in nice and snug, and will be great to protect it when he takes it to work. But if you look closer, you'll see that the elastic covers the 5-way controller on the bottom right, and some of the letter keys on the bottom left.

Jeff doesn't mind this, and just pulls the Kindle out of the bottom elastics when he needs to use the buttons.

 

For my cover, I changed things around a little bit, though still used the basic premise given by One Pearl Button. And I used funner, brighter fabric than I did for Jeff's. :)

Changes I made:
1) I made the body of the cover smaller. Instead of cutting the body fabric 15" by 10.5" as per the tutorial, I cut mine 13" by 9.25". I wanted a snugger fit, a smaller and more streamlined cover.
2) I hemmed my accent fabric to be exactly equal to the size of the cardboard.
3) I cut 2.5" lengths of elastic, and machine-stitched them to the corners of the accent fabric before attaching it to the body fabric. I found this easier than hand-stitching them on afterward. Also, the smaller length of elastic doesn't cover the 5-way controller, so I can keep my Kindle completely tucked into its cover even when I want to play games or do anything that needs all those buttons.
4) When I sewed the body together, I made the seam line up exactly (as much as possible) with the outer edges of the accent fabric. This way, the cardboard pieces fit snugly and perfectly.

You can see here that the elastic doesn't cover the buttons so much, and that the seam of the main body lines up with the edge of the accent fabric.

Other than these changes, I followed the tutorial as written.

More pictures of my Kindle cover, which I have totally fallen in love with:

Girly Clothes

Yesterday I was at Wal-Mart with my oldest (almost 6) daughter. In the craft section, I noticed a new thing - awesome little packages called Stash Packs. Each had two 2-yard cuts of fabric in coordinating colors and patterns. I immediately thought of making a new skirt for my daughter, who loves wearing skirts so much that her favorite one is rather stained and grubby. So I grabbed the pinkest, girliest pack and a package of pink ric rac. And I made her a pretty new skirt!

It has three tiers - the two fabrics in the stash pack were both so vibrant and busy that I felt they needed a calmer fabric in between them. I used some pale purple flowered fabric from my stash. I used this tutorial from Prudent Baby as a basic guideline for making the skirt, and embellished the seams between the tiers with the ric rac. The whole thing took me only about two hours to make. Most of that was gathering and pinning the tiers into place.

 

I apologize for the pictures - this same daughter, several days ago, got my camera nice and wet all over, and it's really difficult to use now. It still takes pictures, but the screen is very messed up and I can't really see the pictures until I upload them onto my computer. I did the best I could with what I had, but these were the only halfway decent shots I got. Grrr.

There was plenty of fabric left that I wanted to make a coordinating dress for my toddler. I made a cute little peasant style dress using this tutorial, also from Prudent Baby. This one only took me about an hour and a half. And I have to say, my little cutie looks absolutely darling in it.

With this little gal, my picture trouble wasn't just the camera - she just wouldn't stand still! As soon as we got outside she just wanted to go all over the place. I had my hands full keeping her from running into the neighbors yard or out into the street, I'm lucky I got pictures at all, haha.

I sew for me too sometimes - Knit Dress

I started this dress a month or two ago, but never got around to sewing on the sleeves and finishing the collar. Last night I finally pulled it out of the closet to finish it. The funnest part was discovering that my daughter had gotten into my fabric glue and glued the sleeve pieces together. Doh! So I had to cut out new sleeves before I could finish the dress.

But I got it done, and I love how it turned out. It is a bit loose on me, but very comfortable. The original pattern called for simply doing a rolled hem on the collar, but I didn't like how low the neckline was. So I added a simple cowl-style collar. It's not perfect, but the imperfection gives it character and makes it look really neat.

Here I'm modeling my Mother's Day goodies - a candy lei, a yellow silk rose, and a small bouquet of daisies. I look downright tropical!

I chose not to hem the sleeves or the bottom of the dress, simply because I finished this dress last night in order to wear it to church today, and it was getting late. Knit does well with unfinished edges anyway.

It's nice to sew something for me occasionally. I love adding new pieces to my limited wardrobe. :)

P.S. I used this pattern: 

Summer Shorts for Audrey

I found this sweet tutorial at Sewing in No Mans Land. I loved how cute and comfy the little shorts looked on the little model, and I also loved how easy to make they looked.

And now that I've made them, I love how adorable they are on Audrey!

One of my favorite parts is the mismatched vintage buttons. I luuurrrrve old buttons!

Now that I've made these shorts, I'm so excited to make more pairs! They were fast and easy, and are oh-so cute.