1st Day of Preschool!

Today was Annaliese's first day of preschool, sniff, sniff...
I made this dress for her. It turned out alright, but not what I had originally envisioned. I embroidered the "A with apple" design from Artistic Threadworks on a blue t-shirt, and then sort of used the EZ2Make Twirl pattern to complete the dress. If I could start all over, here are a few things I'd do differently...
* use more fabric in the skirt. I was being cheap and didn't buy 45" of the fabric I needed to make it gather like it should. I realized after the fact that I could have pieced the skirt since the pattern repeated on the yardage... oh well.
* Do a better job tacking the elastic down on the skirt. I had never sewn elastic to fabric like this before (remember I'm new to garment construction) and I didn't space it out very well. So one half was much more gathered than the other.
* Use less elastic. By the time I got it stitched to the fabric and then to the shirt, it wasn't tight enough anymore.
* Don't use a shirt with 5% spandex. Not only did the elastic stretch and not return to it's original length, the edge of the shirt stretched as I added the skirt to it.

To try to fix all of that, I added the ribbon around the waist with a tie in the back. That helped me make it fit her waist better.
Oh well, live and learn. She got lots of compliments from the preschool teachers and seemed proud of it, so that's what matters most! :)
Oh, and the beautiful hair bow is compliments of Ms. Valerie!

Abby and Anna's pillowcase dresses

This morning I was delighted to have the opportunity to see both Abby and Anna in their coordinating pillowcase dresses. They looked beautiful together! Their glowing tans after a week at the beach was stunning under the soft pastel colors. What precious girls!
Close-up of Anna's A
Close-up of Abby's A

A Case of "The Tank Tops are Too LONG"

Yesterday I made two bandana dresses. One is a Fourth of July dress for Ella, 2.5 yrs old. I took a 2T tank top and used red and blue bandanas to make the dress. Quick simple project, right?

Well, what I didn't pay attention to is how LONG the tank top was. When poor Ella put it on, the waistline was a good 2-3 inches too low. That's significant on a little girl! So this evening I cut the skirt off, trimmed off about 2" off the shirt, and sewed it back on. To cover all my stitching, I added navy ribbon (which has red accents you can't see in the picture). It turned out beautifully and now fits Ella perfectly! She wasn't too thrilled with the idea of getting her picture taken at that moment, but cooperated!



Now I'll have to tackle the second one I made yesterday... It was for Keeley's 2nd birthday party. I used a 24 month tank top for her, pink and purple bandanas, and embroidered her initial on the tank.

Thought it looked precious, until her mommy held it up to her -- I think it might touch the floor if she were to wear it as is!! Since Ella's modification worked, I need to get this dress back to fix...

Pillowcase Dress for Abby

One of my best friends, Jenny, was in town Monday night. Her daughter Anna is about 5 months younger than Annaliese. We decided to give her the pink pillowcase dress, and it looked PRECIOUS on her. Today I made a coordinating one for her big sister Abby. When they get done vacationing in Jacksonville, they will swing back by Tallahassee to pick it up. I hope to snap a quick picture of them together before they continue their trek home. Here's an unmodeled preview:

USA Dress

This is my first EZ 2 Make Pillowcase Halter Dress from http://www.ez2sew.com/index.php?main_page=index.
In Trammel fashion, I chose not to do it the easy way the first time! I used a yard of fabric instead of a pillowcase. I knew I wanted to add applique to it, so I figured out where the center of the 4.5" cuff at the bottom would be and did the applique first. I was tickled with how well I got it placed! The embroidery design is from an applique alphabet freebie posted on Sew Forum.
GOOD NEWS!! Even though it doesn't twirl, Annaliese agreed to wear it today!!

Red and Blue Bandana Dress

1 free hand-me-down tank top + 2 $.99 bandanas = really cheap cute dress! ;)

Bandana Dress, now with Embroidery

Here's an update on a previous post... I bought this cute paisley frame design from AK Designs Boutique and use a Curlz font A. It's a perfect match and Annaliese was thrilled to see an A on her dress. We bought more bandanas on Sunday, and she expected the new dresses to be made when she woke up from her nap! ;)
I like Daisha's suggestion of adding ribbon (or maybe ric rac) to the waistline. We'll see what I can find.

Pilllowcase Dress

Here's my first pillowcase dress! I pretty much followed the EZ 2 Make pattern. Next time I'll use wide bias tape (the narrow was hard to work with), and I'll make the dress longer. But pretty good for my first try, especially since I made the pillowcase before starting!
Although I was unsure about placement, I did decide to put this "A" up near the top of the dress. I like the location, but in the end I'm not thrilled with my thread selection -- I wish I had used something other than white for the satin stitch part of the A so it would be more visible. Oh well...
Click on the image for an enlarged view.

Bandana Dress

Thursday night Kathy sent me patterns for several EZ 2 Make patterns for little girls, purchased here: http://www.ez2sew.com/index.php?main_page=index
Friday I went shopping for bandanas, shirts, pillowcases (actually bought yardage of fabric instead) ribbon, bias tape and elastic. Today I'm working on the projects!
I decided to start with the easiest first, EZ 2 Make Bandana Dress. I need to embroider something on the shirt, but I didn't want to waste my time if I goofed up on the skirt. It turned out pretty well, although I'm not sure if the front point is actually centered.

Centered or not, it makes a nice twirly dress, which is extremely important to a 3 year old!


So I have to decide what to embroider. Embroidery Library has some neat paisley designs that would be cute. Or I might applique an "A" on the shirt, using the leftover bandana fabric cut out of the center. I think it also needs a little extra something around the waistline, maybe ribbon or ric-rac. We'll see...

Any way, it was EZ2Make!