All Season Jumper Dress -update

For the longest time my "All Season Jumper Dress" post has been the most popular. I always figure people land there when searching for a free pattern.

Now, I just realized that the download link for my Jumper Dress pattern was broken. And NOBODY told me!!!!

Anyway, I have fixed it now. So, if there are still people out there looking for the pattern and tutorial, it's available for download again!

My Girls are wearing Vera Wang...

... Yes! That's right. A little over ten years ago, when my sister in law was getting married, I wore this pewter colored 2-piece-dress by Vera Wang as one of her bridesmaids. I have never worn it since (and who does that with bridesmaid dresses anyway...?!).
I am not going to show you a picture of me in the dress, because I don't want you to start convulsing when you see my hairdo. So, here is just the skirt; after I was done with it. Unfortunately, the skirt had some oddly placed stains, which my drycleaner couldn't remove (???) and lot's of vertical seems. So, I couldn't use all of it.

The outer skirt, however, provided enough fabric for the bodices of the girls' new dresses. I think it's Tafetta. I lined it with red jersey from an old T-shirt. The dresses' skirts are made from another long skirt I had made for myself 11 years ago for yet another wedding I attended.

To distract from the color difference of the bodice and skirt I added a charcoal waistband/tie and covered the front with red flower trim. I bought the trim at Joann. They have several different colors of it and I think it's very pretty.

I did not really use a pattern, but based the bodice on the top part of this nightgown tutorial. However, I made it longer, not as wide and turned the back into two pieces.

As a special detail, I handstitched three of the trim flowers onto the bottom of the dress and the matching jackets (more on those in another post).

So, why these special dresses, you may ask?! One of my nieces is having her first communion this Saturday. So, my sister in law will get to see her bridesmaid dress again! It's just going to look a little different now ;-)

There-is-only-one-of-me-Sunshine Dresses

Still no progress on any of the WIPs I mentioned in my last post. In fact, they are all put away in drawers, so I don't have to look at them every time I step into my sewing room. I guess, they just don't inspire me right now and they will have to wait a while to be finished.

BUT, I did get inspired by one of LilBlueBoo's limited edition dresses recently. I fell in love with the flutter sleeves and fuller skirt on this version of the Sienna dress. I was so ready to finally give in and purchase her pattern. However, unfortunately, I realized the pattern goes up to size 6 only. My girls wear size 6 now and I wasn't sure about the pattern's fit. So, I decided to draft a pattern based on her finished dresses. It's not quite the Sienna dress, but I think I came pretty close.

Around the same time I decided to make this dress, Ashley also posted these images as free downloads on her blog. I instantly knew, that one of them had to be on the dresses for the girls!

So, here is the dress making process in a nutshell:
I wanted to hand dye the dresses in sunny yellow (mine and Kordula's favorite color) and purchased white jersey knit. Before dying the fabric I cut all pattern pieces. I was trying to go for different shades of yellow: lighter on top, darker towards the bottom. So, the time I had each pattern piece in the dye bath varied from 10 - 30 minutes. I like how it turned out. I am not so keen on those orange speckles on the darker yellow, but you can barely tell.

After dying and drying the fabric I applied the image on the front. I had printed the images on T-shirt transfer paper and followed the package directions. I have not washed the dresses yet, so still don't know how it will hold up.

Then, the last step was sewing up all the pieces into a bright fun summer dress. Voila!
So, the image reads: There is only one of me in all time. I think it's fitting: for those who insist on saying they (the girls) look the same and are the same... ;-)

Valentine T-shirt Dress

I haven't made T-shirt dresses in a while and had forgotten how quick and easy they are.
Over Christmas I noticed that one of girls' red shirts was getting waaaaayyyyy to small; I mean belly-hanging-out-small and sleeves becoming 3/4 length. So, I decided to upcycle them into Valentine dresses.

And, if I may say so, they turned out really cute.

Here is, in short, what I did:
1. The skirt part is made up of three tiers. Each tier was cut 7 inches wide. The lengths for the top tier is the width of the fabric (42 in), the second 1.5 times the width and the last one twice the width of fabric. So, really easy to calculate.
2. The sleeve extenstions are made from two 4.5 x 12 inch pieces of fabric: ruffled on top and turned under on the bottom.
3. The neck opening was too small as well, so I cut of the old one and covered the opening with: WAIT!!!!: FOE. Yes, there it is again. Best thing ever, I tell you.
4. The sash is twice the width of fabric and about 3 inches wide finished.

More finished projects to show off soon. Just need to those pictures edited. Have a great weekend.
And: Happy Birthday, Lauranie!!!!

Crochettop Dress Tutorial

I just remembered that I never got around to posting again about the crochet-top dresses I made earlier this season. Reason being, I have no model shots.... ;-).

Anyway, I have put together a little pattern for you to use, if you wish to make a dress just like it. Simply click on this link and download via the free version.

Enjoy.

Back to school! Yeah!!!

Today is the kids' first day of school. 12 long weeks of summer are over. It seems the weather knew exactly what day it was, 'cause we went from almost 100 degrees on Friday and Saturday down to barely 70 today.

Here are some back to school things I made for the kids (Caution: picture overload!).

First a new set of dresses for the girls in simple pillow-case-dress-style.

The bottom is made from several different cotton laces, hand-dyed "apple green". After I had made my orange lace skirt earlier this summer, the girls have been bugging me to have one, too. Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with the patience to sew together enough lace for two skirts, so I opted for this alternative. The girls like it nonetheless.

I little lace detail on top.

And matching hairclips made from leftover lace pieces.

Next: new pyjamas for everybody. These are the first nightgowns the girls have ever had. And they are in love with them! I used this tutorial for them. It's super easy and quick. For the fabric I chose a very light and soft jersey and left-over flannel for the bias tape.

 Even Yanic scored a pair of PJ-pants from the same fabric. Cute, to have all three of them matching, huh?! :D

A (long) while ago I bookmarked this awesome tutorial and just thought of it again last Friday when I was going through Yanic's closet. Perfect timing, since many of his shorts are just way toooo short now.

 I think this bottle holder will be perfect for soccer practice, since it will hold the water bottle and a snack and his phone.
Wanna know somethin'?! This bag was made from a pair of long pants, which turned shorts two years ago and are now a bag! What a life for some plain ol' cargo pants.... ;-)

Last thing, I want to show you today, does not score very high on the creativity scale. However, it's a slightly different approach to personalizing, so I wanted to at least post one picture of it. This is a simple, cheapo 1$ pencil case from Walmart with a picture collage on the back. I created the collage on the computer. I chose a pic of Yanic and logos of some of the teams he plays for. In the center is his name, school and grade. I printed it onto fabric and then simply sewed it to the back side of the pencil case.

Wow, that was a lot! Next post will be shorter! Promise!

Sewing projects with Pillow Cases

Originally, I just wanted to make another post about the few things I have made lately. But, then realized how many different things I have made from pillow cases already and wanted to share. Maybe, you will be inspired by the simplicity of these projects and try it, too.

So, first, my latest creations.
About a year ago I scored a set  of cute peach colored machine embroidered pillow cases at a Thrift store (2.99$ for both!). For this project, I simply cut off about 6.5 inches off the closed end of the pillow case, finished the raw edge by double-folding and stitching it. Then I added 6 rows of shirring. The straps are made out of the strip I cut off the top.

Then, you can easily turn a pillow case into a peasant top/dress. Like, so. Inditutes has a wonderful tutorial.

You can also make a simple halter dress from a pillow case.

And, then, there is the tradditional pillow case dress. There are several great tutorials online for this version.

Non-matching matching dresses

I have been wanting to try Made's tutorial for turning a men's shirt into a girl's dress for the past two years, but never had two shirts that kind of had either a similar pattern or type of fabric. Luckily, hubby finally sorted out these so-90s dress shirts. Remember?! Those, pink or light blue or light green striped shirts that every business man on earth was wearing back then???!!!

Dana's tutorial is for a simple tailored peasant dress. Very easy to make.

I used XL-sized shirts and they were just big enough to accomodate the length of the dresses I was going for. So, if you want to make a dress bigger then, let's say, a 5T, you will need to use a men's shirt that's bigger than a size XL, or add a wide border on the bottom.
So, how lucky am I, that hubby had a pink and light blue version of these "awesome" shirts and my fabric stash held the blue and red prints of Amy Butler's LOVE???!!!! The result: pretty and cute non-matching matching dresses!

Instead of double-folding the seam on the bottom I added a bias-tape border. It would also have been very difficult to fold over the front twice with the button front and all.

 

Patriotic Spirit

Happy Valentine's Day!
I don't have any valentinish things to present to you today. YES, my children did not get special Valentine's dresses or accessories this year! Shame on me. Just didn't have the time or drive.

So, I only have some pics from our International Festival at the girls' school this weekend. This is an annual event to celebrate the diversity that exists at their school. It's literally The United Nations there. I set up the German table with some help from one of the other parents. We decorated with typical German things, toys and offered food: I had made over 200 cookies and two German cheesecakes (delicious!) and the other parent had two crock pots full of Spaetzle (egg noodles).
We also had clothes pin magnets with the German colors as little give-aways for the children. It took me quite a few evenings to make these (100+), but the concept is pretty easy: plain clothes pin, decopage one side with flag printed on plain paper, glue magnets to the back. Sorry, forgot to take a picture of those.

Aside from decorating the German table at the Festival I also "decorated" my children...

The appliques of Germany are made from left over jersey I had from old T-shirts.

The girls' dresses are an enlarged copy of a well-loved dress they have. The dress is now too small to be an actual dress, unless you live in the Fiftees when dresses barely covered a girl's behind. So, they are more like tops now. But, anyway.

I am working on a little tutorial for you, so you can make this type of dress yourself. But, as always, it will be a while until I get around to posting it. I will first have to make another dress, in order to take pictures for the tute. These dresses are great for layering and wearing for several years as tops (see notes above...).

Happy Valentine's Day.

... and more dresses... "Hello Kitty"

Nobody really needs more dresses around here, but I couldn't help myself. Fabric.com had another great Sale and I couldn't pass on this super cute and soft Hello Kitty Jersey fabric.
I used the same basic pattern, I had drawn up for these Raglan Sleeve dresses and just modified the lower part.

The girls are in love with them. They wear them all the time, with leggings and shirts underneath right now. Since it's getting really cold. Brrrrrrh....

I have also made some very warm sweat pants, hats and mittens a while back. I am hoping to get pictures of all those taken soon.
Other than that I have made some gifts for Birthdays the girls have been attending: pencil rolls, covered note books, book bags. No pics, though. I am finding myself always in a hurry, lately. No time to stop and breath...

Until later. Have a great short work week and Happy Thanksgiving.

Are you in?!

I know, I am so boring lately. Nothing’s going on around here on this blog. Also, I have not been checking any of my favorite blogs for at least four weeks. Yesterday, I realized that I completely missed out on the May Giveaway Day/Week at SMS. Shame on me.


I am still very busy working on the name tags. I am getting closer to finishing. YEAH! 850 are done!

But, let’s change the subject!

ARE YOU IN????? “In” what, you ask?! Well, the Soccer World Cup, of course. I know, being from Europe, I am probably one of five or so, that care about it here on the North American continent. Luckily, I work in a VERY international company and we have people from all over the world, from places were soccer is a major sport. So, we will have some “brackets” going.

Our house will be divided for a while (until the US is kicked out of their group ;-)) and then we will all be rooting for Germany.

Besides the T-shirt dresses you see in the pictures, I also started to work on a new pattern. I am hoping to have it finished in a few weeks. After I finish the name tags….

Here is a little sneak peak. It will be really cute. I promise.