Cinderella

I have been really neglecting this blog lately. Sorry! I've had so much going on that I haven't dedicated much time to crafting. A month or two ago, I spent several days scrapbooking and got done with Zoe's 2nd year. (Now I'm only 2 years behind with her! lol). Today I spent the whole day sewing and finished this fun little project. I also posted this on my other blog.




I've had this little project in mind for MONTHS. First I was going to make it for Halloween, but that didn't happen. Then I planned to make it as a Christmas present, but that didn't happen. I finally dragged my sewing machine out again and got to work on it today. Next week is Zoe's birthday, and she's having a princess party with a few of her little friends from church. I figured it was time to add a new princess dress to the mix. :) I used THIS TUTORIAL. She did a great job showing step by step instructions with photos, and really made it a whole lot easier.

I had few issues with the bodice... I made the neck hole way too big, and also the back panels are a little too big. But I'm really happy with the way the rest of it turned out. :)



Zoe thinks it is just perfect for twirling...



And curtseying...



And while we were out at the fabric market in Sham Shui Po yesterday, we happened to find the perfect little pettiskirt to go with it so that it flounces out nice and big. :)



It took me ALL day to make it, (I could never win on Project Runway, lol), but I'd say it was a day well spent. Now Maya wants one, too. :)

Dress #2!!

Well, after I finished editing Zoe's pink and purple dress, I wasn't ready to put my machine away. I decided to get out the yellow polo shirt and see what I could do with it. I had originally planned to do a tiered ruffle dress, but that didn't work out so well. I didn't measure my tiers correctly and it looked really weird. So after more seam unpicking, I decided to try something else, and this is what I came up with:



The white fabric is from an IKEA sheet that I found on sale a couple months ago and thought it would be great for things like this. :) After I added the ruffle, I was trying to decide what else to do, and remembered seeing a tutorial for adding a sash. I couldn't find the tutorial, but kind of played around and came up with this. I think it will be ok. The sash is sewn on to the dress so it won't get lost.

And I was really smart on the neckline this time, I just cut off the collar and left the neckline as is! :) I'm so smart, haha.

Well, dinner time, so I'm off. It feels really good to be productive and make cute things like this. Now I need to figure out something to make for Maya. She's feeling a little left out. ;)

Happy sewing!

Take two...

Well, there were a few things that I wanted to fix on the dress that I just made for Zoe in my previous post, so last night I got out my sewing machine again and got to work. First of all, I unpicked the neckline, and let me tell you, that took FOR-EV-ER. I got through an episode of Glee and an episode of American Idol (minus commercials) before I was completely undone picking it. Maybe I need to use a slightly longer stitch length, lol.

So anyway, I reworked the neck line, and I like it much better now. Still not perfect, but better.

The old neckline:

The new neckline:

I decided to overlap the ends at the front to make it look like it could open, but actually the buttons are sewn through all the layers, so it stays closed. I didn't want to mess with button holes, lol.

I added a fabric flower to cover up the annoying logo from the original polo shirt. Not 100% happy with this either. I think it's too heavy for the fabric, so it sags a little. Plus, the logo isn't exactly centered like it would be if this were the full size shirt, so the flower doesn't look like it's in the right place. I'm going to have to think on that a little. Maybe add a few smaller flowers on the left side of it to balance?

And I added a pink ruffle to the bottom using scraps left from the pink shirt. (The purple flower is made from the original purple hem that I cut off to add the pink ruffle.)

What do you think? Better? I'm still debating whether to add two pink pockets to the skirt, but am wondering if that would be overdoing it a little.... Zoe loves it and says she looks like a princess. :)

I still have one XL yellow polo shirt left, so I may try to make a shorter, more summery little dress for her, or maybe just a skirt that she can wear with a shirt? Hmmm...

It's about darn time!

I have taken an extended break from crafting, not because I wanted to, but because I'm too afraid of making mistakes! But making mistakes is the only way to learn sometimes. :) That, and sometimes it's just too darn much trouble taking everything out just to put it away again. I guess I've gotten kind of lazy, but I'm feeling the itch to be creative again.

As you all know, I'm still pretty new at sewing, but today I decided it was time to take out the machine again and put it to some good use. I've had these three XL men's polo shirts that somebody gave my husband months ago. Besides the fact that they are too big for him, they are in colors that he would never, ever in a million years wear. Bright pink, lavender, and bright yellow. So I put them with the rest of my fabric hoping that I could use them for something or refashion them somehow. (The colors in the photos are not true, just imagine bright pink and lavender).

Today I took the plunge and cut up the pink and lavender ones.

I took one of Zoe's dresses that fits her pretty well now, and laid it out on top of the giant polo shirt, then leaving about a 1/2 inch of space (for the seams), I cut around the shape. When I got to the sleeve area, I didn't cut around the sleeves but rather tried to eye where the seam between the shoulder and sleeve would be, and cut that.

I won't go through all the details, but I'm happy to report that figuring out which way to sew the sleeves on took much less time than in the past! lol. I did a gathered waist with the purple polo shirt, and I used the hem of the pink shirt to put around the neckline. You can see in the picture below that I have some issues with sewing in a straight line, lol. I wish I had pink thread so that all of my little imperfections would not show up so much. I took the two buttons off the polo shirt and re-sewed them on in the proper place (upside down so the brand wouldn't show).

Also, after I had the dress on Zoe, I could see that I probably didn't cut the neck hole evenly because the buttons seemed a bit off center. Hmmm. Oh well. Zoe's young enough that she doesn't care, and hopefully by the time she is old enough, I'll be a much better seamstress!

There are a couple more things I want to do with the dress. I thought about cutting the purple skirt a couple inches shorter and adding a pink ruffle to the bottom, but I'm not so sure I want to do that. Thoughts? I also for sure want to add a couple of pink pockets to the skirt, a la the market skirt. Also, the top of the polo shirt has an annoying brand image on it that I couldn't get off, so I was thinking of making some lavender cloth rosettes or flowers or something from the leftover fabric to cover it up. 

Before I put my machine away, I decided to try and make a wrist pin cushion. I decided to use left over scraps from the Christmas jammies I made for my girls. I gathered a bunch of the long skinny scraps and rolled them into a ball, and then covered it with a larger scrap. I gathered the bottom and hand sewed it onto a little band that I made. I added velcro to the ends of the band so that I could strap it on. Very rudimentary, but for now, it works! This will be much handier, I think. (ha ha, no pun intended.)

Next on my list, I really want to try making this kind of gathered pillow cover. I think it adds just the right amount of something extra without being overdone! (photo courtesy of Make it and Love it) I would love to have some super cute fabric like this to do it with, but I'll have to look through my small stash and see what I have, or else make a trek out to the fabric market. Wish me luck!