Sewing Update

As per usual, I've been trying to forget the fact that it's still winter by sewing springy/summery things.  In the past month I've made the girls' Easter dresses, a top and a summer dress for Charlotte, and two rompers for Elise.

All of these (except for the rompers) were made using the Geranium Dress pattern by Made By Rae. I can't get over how much I love this pattern. I love that it has cap sleeve and sleeveless options and can be made into a dress or tunic length top. It's my favorite pattern to date!

First up: Easter dresses. I wanted them to coordinate but not be matchy, so I used prints from the Riley Blake line "Fancy & Fabulous."

Here's Charlotte's:

And Elise's:

Next up was a top and dress for Charlotte. The top is from the Vintage Market line by Tasha Noel and the dress fabric is from Joann's. I didn't get a photo of the back of the dress, but I changed the pattern slightly and did a zipper instead of buttons. I might be the only person in the world who prefers sewing zippers to buttonholes, but it's true.

And finally, baby rompers. I used a vintage Simplicity pattern on these and it was super simple and fun to make. The top fabric is Saltwater by Riley Blake and the strawberry one I'm drawing a blank on but I believe it is also from the Vintage Market line. I can't wait to see her chubby baby legs in these :)

Happy Sewing!

~Stacy

Christmas Geranium Dresses

If you read sewing blogs, chances are you've seen Made By Rae (or at least heard of her excellent blog). I read several sewing blogs, most of which have projects for girls, so I'm pretty familiar with Rae's work and her most famous pattern, the Geranium Dress. I've seen many a blogger sew up a Geranium top or dress from this super versatile pattern and I decided it was my turn to test it out for the girl's Christmas dresses.

I downloaded the pdf pattern (though you can also order a paper version) and made a size 4T for Charlotte and size 3-6 months for Elise. The sizing is spot on--these both fit really well, no adjustments needed. I made the faux cap sleeve version for Charlotte out of some soft cotton/flannel plaid I had left over from yardage I bought last year. For Elise, I made the sleeveless version out of a large print red gingham using fabric from a curtain I had made years ago and no longer used. Repurposing=excellent.

This a super quick and simple pattern and with so many ways to change it up it will surely be in heavy rotation!

If you want to see tons of samples of what you can do with the Geranium dress pattern, check out Craftiness Is Not Optional  for tons of inspiration! She's made dozens over the years.

Happy Sewing!

~Stacy

Frozen Halloween

I haven't been doing much sewing lately, but I did manage to make two little Halloween costumes this year. Charlotte decided, after going back and forth a lot, to dress up as Princess Anna from Frozen. I knew there were patterns out there to make an Anna dress and I decided I was up for the challenge, though there were a few moments where I wanted to toss the whole thing into the garbage can and drive directly to the Disney store to be done with it.

But I persisted, and I'm glad. This is one of those projects that stands out as one that I'm most proud of. And it didn't hurt that the dress fit her perfectly and she LOVED it.

I made a few minor tweaks to the dress but stuck pretty closely to the pattern. For the cape, I used comfy fleece so it would be warm and sewed rick-rack around the edges. I skipped the collar and clasp and just added a ribbon to tie it closed.

Are you ready for Princess Anna, in all of her adorable-ness?

But I didn't stop there. Princess Anna would be lost without her loyal sidekick Olaf, so behold Baby Olaf:

That is one cute snowman :)

Happy (belated) Halloween!

~Stacy

DIY Bean Bag Chair

Last week I found a tutorial on how to make a kid's bean bag chair on Pinterest, which you can find by clicking here. It looked like a super easy and quick project to make--and it was!

I bought some cute fabric at JoAnn's that was in clearance for $4 a yard. I bought 1 5/8 yards--which was just enough with a tiny bit extra to make this (I used regular quilting weight cotton, which was 43" wide. If you use home dec fabric, like the tutorial suggests, you won't need as much yardage since it's wider).

I also found the bean bag filling at JoAnn's, which came in a giant bag full of small foam balls. This stuff isn't cheap, I discovered, and I needed two bags (one bag was 2 cubic feet and the chair requires 3.5). Thankfully I had coupons, otherwise I wouldn't have made this project since the cost for the bean bag filling would have been quite a bit more than just buying a finished bean bag chair somewhere.

I also only used a 12" zipper instead of a 22" since that was all I had on hand and I forgot to buy one at the store. This was fine, other than making filling the bag a bit of a challenge. A messy challenge.

Behold.

Filling the chair is the most difficult part of this project, and really it isn't that bad--it took about 10 minutes to get the chair full. In total, this was a 30 minute project--seriously. I made it while Elise was napping and Charlotte was eating lunch. Those are my favorite kinds of projects!

Charlotte has quickly become a huge fan of her new bean bag chair. Since it's filled with foam balls it's super light, so she carries it from room to room as she pleases. It has also been outside and used as a landing pad off the deck--which I vetoed after several dozen jumps, fearing that the seams would just burst apart and I'd have to refill the thing completely. So now the rule is that the bean bag chair must remain indoors and not get jumped on from a height greater than two feet. Sigh.

I tried it out myself as well--and it really is quite comfy!

Happy Sewing.

~Stacy

A Playhouse and Other Projects

Over Memorial Day weekend we were busy--and by "we", I mean "not me", with building a playhouse we bought for Charlotte's 4th birthday (see this post for more about that). Overall, Chad spent about 8-ish hours on it but was able to get it completed by Sunday evening--squeezing it in before any rain visited.

He started Saturday afternoon and spent the better part of three hours just going through the instructions and laying out every single piece and part in an assembly line before building the roof and two walls. Charlotte was home during this process was extremely excited, asking "is the playhouse done now?" no less that 457 times before the sun set. She even brought her play food out in preparation and insisted on eating dinner out there.

This little house turned out so great--it's just the cutest. Charlotte was gone overnight Sunday into Monday and when she came home she was SO excited to see her finished house. She spent the rest of the day in there--eating lunch and dinner inside.

And my favorite photo--I love how this looks like she's walking into a cute little cabin in the woods:

The cabin was the only project we (Chad) did ourselves (himself), but we had a bunch of other things done this past week, too. We outsourced a lot this year, starting with having the deck cleaned and restained:

I knew it was looking bad but I didn't realize just how bad until it was redone.

And the porch. The porch needed repainting, which is a project Chad and I undertook ourselves four years ago. After painstakingly painting all 300 (it seems) spindles, we swore never again to paint that porch ourselves. We made good on our promise and had it repainted by some poor, unsuspecting college students who decided to spend their summer painting houses. They may rethink that decision after spending two solid days in almost 90 degree heat painting this porch.

The one project that I took on was to repaint Charlotte's picnic table. Several years of use and year round weather left it in need of scraping, sanding and repainting. Before:

And after:

Now all the big projects are done and no more weekends will need to be dedicated to working on anything. Starting with this weekend, when Chad and Charlotte go on another camping trip and I...don't. :)

Happy Weekend.

~Stacy