My Quest to Please the Unpleasable

 I have been making quite the stack of summer clothes for the girls.  Genna is easy and already has a bunch of dresses which she would be happy to wear everyday.  I took all of the winter leggings with holes in them and cut them off to make capri leggings to go under skirts and dresses for her. 

Hannah is where the problem lies.  She didn't really like the maxi dress that I made her because it has a seam that is itchy (FYI: all seams are itchy to her.) 

Here's another maxi dress I tried where I sewed down the seam to make it softer, but the armpits were apparently uncomfortable.  Fail!  To make it, I used an adult skirt from the thrift store and an old shirt.  This took almost no time compared to making the dress from purchased fabric and a t-shirt and was less than half the price.

But luckily someone doesn't care what things feel like, just what they look like!  Success!  If you can even call it that since, as I said before, she has a million dresses.

Hannah didn't like any of the capri leggings because she likes things loose.  So we painstakingly went through her summer clothes that we already have and eliminated all clothes that she couldn't stand which was almost all of them.  Then I set out to duplicate the only kind of capri/shorts she likes which are basically clam-diggers, which are loose, flowy capris.  The first one I made was a fail because I used a band she didn't like.  The second one was a success.  I made it out of one of Brian's old t-shirts with a soft elastic band.  The third one, I tried to make cuter, and you know that was a fail.  

Here was my attempt at cute-ing up the capris.  I took a thrift store skirt and cut out a triangle out of the bottom, then sewed them together as pants.  Cute?  Yes, but...Fail!  Itchy seams!  I am going to attempt to line them with a t-shirt material, but I have my doubts it will please my little Goldilocks.

Hannah liked most of the skirts though.  This was another thrift store find that I had to altar just a bit.  Genna will be borrowing them, I am certain.

I made these pants with holes in the knees into capris since Hannah used to love them as pants.  Alas, they failed the test as well.  They are tighter than last year.  Notice Genna's summer closet is growing, but Hannah's...not so much.

Hannah did like this patchwork skirt, but Genna modeled it for me.

What is amazing is that the first dress Hannah tried on for her First Communion was a total success.  She loved it!  She also found shoes that very day to match that she loved.  I was in shock since I was sure all communion dresses would be itchy, but this one was virtually seamless inside AND it was the only one at the store that had sleeves which was a bonus because getting her to wear a shrug over a sleeveless one would have been impossible.

A little ducky

A minor embellishment to the kids' shower curtain...

turned out to be very minor. You can barely see it. Oh well, at least the kids like the ducks. Although Genna did say she thought there were going to be lots of ducks and there are only five.

Sweater refashions

It's a sweater, no it's a pillow...

Now it's an apron...

What a great model! Here's the back!

And finally a side view! He really does it all!

My husband's pile of old sweaters has been fun to play with! The pillow was a lumpy old couch pillow that had been played on one too many times. It's still lumpy, but at least it is cute now. The apron didn't turn out quite as cute as I had thought it would. It was quick though. One lonely husbandless evening and it was done. I left off the pockets because I could not get the ribbing to line up and thought I would further be butchering the apron. I made this for my nephew who is Isaac's age, and I think it is a bit long. I hope his parents allow him to wear it. It kind of looks like a dress a bit. I may try another one and see if I can learn from my mistakes here. It was supposed to look like this halter apron from Green Kitchen.

Something for me...

This is my first attempt at refashioning clothes for myself. It was a rollover cotton skirt, and now it is a swimsuit cover up...

Although I did not have a pattern to follow, I was inspired by this post about a pattern in some magazine that I don't have. I changed it a bit to fit my need for a cover up at the beach this summer.
Unrolling the top of the skirt, I cut just a tad off the top, and then sewed in wide elastic. Then I took a knit material that doesn't have to be hemmed and gathered it at both ends then wrapped it around the top and sewed it in place. Pretty easy and quick which is my kind of project.

Saints in Training

I made these saint gifts for these two lovely sisters!

This one was on a previous post, but here it is with the precious child inside it! St. Rose is her name saint.

This St. Faustina doll was hand drawn as well and is this cutie's name saint. It has the Divine Mercy red and white stripes radiating onto her and has a purple flower pattern on the back.

Before and After Pics

I have made three more elastic waist skirts, one more for Genna and two for Hannah. I almost forgot to take a before picture on this one, but remembered right after I cut it up.

Before

After


I added a pocket to this one instead of ruffles.

And now for the pastel sisters!

Of course they won't keep their shirts tucked in, but they are cute anyway.

A few more accomplishments

I have been saving all these up from the last month for one post, so beware!

Refashioning Old Clothes: In retrospect, I should have taken "before" pictures.

Here is Isaac with his shirt pillow. He outgrew the shirt and so I stuffed and sewed it. The other side has his nickname on it, "The Tank."

An old dress (that I was not terribly fond of, but I always liked the pattern and colors) turns into a new skirt for Genna. All I did was cut off the top of the dress, sew it to extra wide elastic. Then I sewed some of my new Belgian lace to the lining underneath. I was inspired by this.


A plain old mock turtle neck turns into a shrug for Genna with just some elastic in the back and a some ribbon to trim the sides.

Another identical old mock turtle neck turns into a very different shrug for Genna. For this one, I was inspired by this cardigan at Happy Together.

(And she couldn't resist a silly pose!)

Stain Covering

This is for Isaac...a hand drawn back hoe for my little construction boy. He wore it on Easter Sunday.

This is for Hannah...a stained dress from a flea market turns into a nice summer dress with a little crocheted flower and some ribbon.

These flea market capris had a hole in them, so I covered it up with a flower made of ribbon and a button.


Gifts

Here is a saint dress for a friend's daughter. I made this from a men's shirts. I used ribbon and some ruffle that I got at the flea market in Belgium that just happened to have roses on it. Then I used a pocket from one of the doctor's coats and embroidered her name saint on it. I'll get a picture of it on her soon.

I bought this purse somewhere thinking I could spruce it up and give it as a gift.

This is an ornament for a dear friend who lost her baby Catherine after only 9 days. It is hand drawn and then embroidered.

Disclaimer: I would like to say, I am a total sewing dumby and made so many mistakes that it's not even funny. However, I learned a lot through all of these projects. I would also like to say that these things don't take as much time as you would think. All of this has been done during naps and on the occasional night.

DRESSing up!

Fashion show time! Or perhaps I should say "Refashion show." Refashioning has been my latest thing. Refashioning is turning old clothes ready for Goodwill into something new and cuter. My husband, in preparation for the move, went through his closet and left a huge pile of old t-shirts and some other things. I stole them all and turned many of them into dresses for the girls. Who knew an old t-shirt, button down shirt, or a pillowcase could be a kid's dress, what about a sweater turning into a diaper cover or a throw pillow? Those are only some of the ideas I found online. The best part is you save ample amounts of time making dresses from old clothes because you reuse some of the hems in the process which means less sewing.

Transformation #1: Daddy's old button down shirt turns into a cute summer dress!

Transformation #2: Daddy's old button down shirt turns into a cute summer dress!

Transformation #3 & 4 (one for each girl): Old pillowcase turns into a summer dress! They will be wearing a shirt under these for sure!

Transformation # 5: Daddy's old Aggie t-shirt turns into a cute long sleeve play dress! (embellishments are from my old Aggie shirt.) These shirts turned out entirely too big, so they will either have to grow into them or I will have to take them in a lot.

Transformation # 6: A couple of daddy's old Aggie t-shirts turn into a cute long sleeve play dress! (I plan to sew a ruffle ribbon around the stitching on this one to cover it up.)