Tie-Dye Fun

In May of 2021, I bought a tie-dye kit and kinda went crazy with it! I bought some plain white shirts along with the kit. I looked on youtube for videos on how to tie-dye certain designs and decided to try out the spiral and the heart technique.

 
The shirts were fun to do, although they were a lot trickier to prepare than it looked in the videos! I let the kids choose their colors for their shirts. I think they turned out great! Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the dye faded quite a bit after washing and wearing. The kids wear their shirts and pjs quite often, thought sadly, the shirts and pjs are getting to be too small.

My hand looked like it had been smashed! Yes, I used gloves, but the dye got inside anyway so I just gave up. The dye didn't stay on my hands for too long anyway.

This one probably turned out the best. 

A nice blue spiral.

The heart turned out good, but not great.

The shirt in action. You can see it had faded already. Still cute though.

I also had sewn up some pajama sets for Eesa and Ian, using a white, slightly stretchy, and super soft fabric I found in the Walmart value fabric bin. I've been looking for that specific fabric ever since, but I haven't been able to find it. I used VFT's Gracie pajama pattern. I altered the pattern slightly for the boy (no curve at the waist, and buttons on other side). I've used that pattern often, so I'm super glad I bought it. They turned out super cute. I just wish I would have sewn down the back facing by the nape of the neck.

I used the tie-dye crumple technique for the pajamas

I didn't like the white spots on Ian's pj bottoms, so I re-dyed those spots.

So adorable! Nice jammies, too.

The pjs in action! So soft and comfy.

Patriotic Outfits

May 2021

You know, call me an extremist, but I kinda consider it an abomination to purchase patriotic clothing from China. It just seems counter-intuitive. After scrolling Amazon for shirt and shirt made in China, I gave up and just made my own. I used a dolman top pattern and my own creativity for the design. I used a star punch, but it was trickier than I thought to employ it in the freezer paper transfer, but I muddled through. I like the way it turned out, and I do wear it occasionally, even when it's not the 4th!

I made Ian a patriotic shirt in addition to mine since he had outgrown his from the year before. It was hard to do. I had to double the white fabric, and then and somehow keep track of all those stripes, but I did it, even if they did take a long time. I thought the sewing of stripes together would never end! In any case, like how it turned out. The shirt was large on him when I first made it. As of this date, he's worn it for two 4ths of July already, and we might get a third year out of it. He wears it fairly often outside of any patriotic holidays as it is. 

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I made this simple dress for a friend's daughter who was turning 3, using VFT's Piper pattern with flutter sleeves. I also found a fun silver button in my button stash that went so perfectly with the dress! The fabric was given to me by a friend down the street. Free fabric is the best!

Danger Noodle Tank aka A Waste of My Time

In May of 2021, per request of Eesa, I made this here shirt. Exactly as she asked. She liked snakes and wanted me to make her a snake shirt. I reconfirmed with her several times of the design and if "danger noodle" was the saying she really wanted (she was also think about "nope rope"). She said yes, yes, yes! Ok, so I went ahead and made her this tank top. I used fabric paint via freezer paper transfer method for the design. Well, she wore it to school once and said she would never wear it again, because one of her classmates made and improper comment about it. So, into the giveaway pile it went. Sigh.  

Yellow Top

Oops. I almost forgot about this one. Much time has elapsed since I made this shirt, yeesh probably 5 years! But better late than never huh? And I do actually remember most of the specifics. I made this using the VFT Pepper pattern (top version) using some really cute yellow eyelet fabric I found at the thrift store (I'm pretty sure it was Savers). I had to line it with a light white cotton since there were eyelets (aka holes) all over the fabric. I added flutter sleeves as well to make it extra cute! I love the bright yellow. Just so cute on a little girl. I didn't get a picture, but the back enclosure had daisy buttons that matched perfectly! I also made a head band and sewed on some more of the same daisy buttons, sorry, also no picture. I made this in probably late 2017 or early 2018.

Thank goodness for school pictures, or this shirt would have never been photographed! A perfect shirt for pictures! 

Color Blocked shirts

Here are a bunch of pictures of the Color Block shirts I made using Ellie and Mac's pattern. I love that it's a uni-sex pattern. I can sew for my boys, finally! I may have gone a bit crazy with making the kids stuff from this pattern, haha. 

March 2021

I believe this was my first shirt I made using the pattern. Eesa likes snakes (why?) and I happened to have this snakeskin stretchy fabric that also happened to match perfectly with the purple knit fabric I had in my stash. The pattern comes with an optional tie, which I used for this shirt for added interest. Girly liked it and she still wears it to this day (1.5 years later).

March 2021

A few days later, I made Ian a shirt using the same pattern, sans tie. Unfortunately, it was way too small. He wore it once before I gave it away. I made him another one a month or so later, exactly the same expect a bigger size!  

April 2021

I made the boys matching shirts! Again, the shirts turned out too small and were only wearable once or twice. After making these shirts I figured I needed to use a bigger size. I'm not sure if there was an issue with the pattern itself, or the way I printed the pattern, or maybe the fabric shrunk a ton (unlikely since I almost always pre-wash my fabrics). Luckily It wasn't too much of a loss, I just gave the big guy's shirt to the little guy and gave the little guy's shirt to an even littler guy! I don't think the orange fabric I used was stretchy enough for this pattern, notice how the neckline bunches up!

May 2021

I no longer trusted the size I had printed out, but I was able to draft a larger size from it. I made this shirt for Gabe, who was happy enough with the shirt to actually wear it! 

An orange color-blocked shirt for girlie, no tie this time. She doesn't have a lot of the color orange in her wardrobe, so this was nice for a change. I love the shiny, shimmery fabric. Alas, it has started to rub off, so she doesn't wear it much, yet she doesn't want to give it away quite yet.

They both wore their color block shirts on the same day!

Here's the replacement color block shirt for the one that was too small. I stupidly cut two fronts instead of one front and one back, but it wasn't that big of a deal, it just made me feel stupid. As a bonus, Eesa is wearing a tank top I made from altering the color block pattern into a tank.

Shiny Purple Dress

March 5 2021
I made this pretty dress out of some random, super-shiny purple fabric I found at Goodwill. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it may have been a curtain at one point. Unfortunately, the fabric was incredibly low quality, but so very pretty. It was thin, slippery, and warp prone. I'm surprised I was able to make a dress at all, but the sewing gods were with me I guess, and this dress turned out surprisingly well. I created it using a mash-up of VFT patterns, the Harlow with the Sutton cold-shoulder sleeves. I think the sleeves add and air of elegance to the dress.

Eesa liked to wear it fairly often to church. Alas, the skirt fabric ripped from the bodice in the front after maybe 3-4 wears. Did I mention this was cheap fabric? I wasn't my sewing job; it was the fabric that tore from itself. Sigh. I would have tossed the dress, but Elisa really liked it, so I hand-stitched the skirt to the bodice, and the repairs aren't too noticeable, thankfully.
Girly still wears this dress (a year and a half after its production). I've been using the largest size that VFT patterns go up to (at least for the girls) which is size 9/10. She's so skinny that I'm still using this size, 1.5 years later. Of course, this dress was a bit big when I first made it, but she's grown into it, so we've gotten lots of use out of it. Oh, if only the fabric weren't so sucky. I supposed its better than ugly fabric, right? Here she is in her shiny purple dress. So cute!! 

Pay no mind to my messy craftroom.

I love low-cut back on VFT's Harlow pattern.

I think she's just the cutest little girl that there ever was! The dress is pretty cute, too.

Tribal Print Outfits

April 2021

Another Walmart bargain bin score! It was nice to find a knit with a print for a change! Most of the bargain fabrics are solid colors. The fabric I found is soft, stretchy, but it tends to catch on hangnails or anything, really! I think it must have some nylon in it...? The problem with the Walmart bargain fabrics is that there isn't a label as to exactly what the fabric is. 

The first thing I did was make myself a dress. I used my dolman top pattern that I drafted myself. I intended to have an elasticized waist, but it turned out that I didn't need to--the bodice was tapered enough. In all, the dress turned out nicely. I wear it occasionally. I did have a scare before I sewed on the skirt part with the pattern being placed in a just the wrong (or right, depending on who you're talking to) place! Thankfully, I had put it on backward, on accident (duh!). No way I'd be able to wear it in public otherwise haha. 

I had just enough fabric left over to make Eesa a top, using the Twist it Up pattern from Ellie & Mac. It's a cute and comfy shirt that she wears plenty.

Oho no way!

Phew. Had the dress on backwards!

Cutie wearing her new shirt.

I also made a pair of beaded earrings that happened to match pretty well with the dress. Unfortunately, I lost one in the grocery store and have yet to make a replacement.