Christmas Gifts For My Little Nieces

For Christmas I made my 3 yr old nieces a few things. It's Christmas/Birthday gift not because their birthdays are anytime soon, but I generally sew for them and I won't be sewing much with a new baby. The dress above turned out the best but gave me the most problems. I was nearly ready to give up. Drove me right crazy. I used the In The Garden dress tutorial by From An Igloo. 

This is the dress for the other little niece. Kelly has a dress the same style and this 3 yr old lives in town so they can wear them together in the summer. Both of them will like that. This is another From An Igloo tutorial - the One Hour Sundress.

I also made matching skirts for Kelly and the two little girls. 

I looked at the Ruffle Bustle Skirt on Punkin Patterns that she made from this pattern by Lil Blue Boo but I didn't have any knit fabric. I found another pattern (that I can't find now) that I looked at the picture on the front and with some help from these I came up with these skirts. Flat in the front and all ruffly in the back. For now I don't have any good pictures but I'll post some when I can.

I may do a tutorial on how to make them one day.

And last, I made them patchwork aprons and oven mitts.

I made the apron using this pattern from Living with Punks, and the oven mitts as well, but I can't find picture of them!! Oops. 

 was totally guessing as to whether they would fit and poor Zack was my model a couple times (he wasn't too thrilled to try on the first dress) but he's five and so I just made it too short for him but not too much and the aprons were about a size too small so I figured they would be ok. They were fun projects and since a lot of it was scraps (and thanks to mom for all the lace!) I spent $8 on 2 m of the butterfly fabric. That's it. And more white thread but I needed that anyways.  :D 

Ruffle dress from a t-shirt

This is a project I've been wanting to try for at least a year but never had the right material and shirt combo. It's based on the tutorial on www.makeit-loveit.com. The tutorial is here. I'm almost happy with the result. It's a good size bigger than I expected it to be overall so when she grows a bit and it's not so big I think it'll be better but it's a fun little play dress and pretty easy to do. I've started finishing the ruffles a little differently so that the tops are all neat and tidy. I'll post about that later. Hopefully soon. :o)

Happy Birthday to me! ;o)

I made a gift out of these gorgeous Flora and Fauna fabrics by Patti Young. I'll wait to post the gift until after it's given. I didn't have much left, but I am making something ruffly for myself. I absolutely adore the daisies on the dark polka dots!

A Double Layer Twirl Skirt

I wanted to make the little girl an easter dress, but in the end I made a skirt. I love how it turned out. She loves it too. It twirls really well. She just didn't feel like getting her picture taken. We compromised and she left her purple pants on. Interesting, but whatever. I had more princess fabric left after this dress, so I used it for the underskirt. 

This skirt was harder to sew (or maybe just more time consuming) than I originally thought because of all the gathering but I'm getting better at it. I'm figuring out that if I use a high tension on my sewing machine it gathers it for me, but it's not usually the right amount - too tight or too loose. It's a good way to start, though, instead of just pulling a thread and trying to get it even in the end.