Smocked Shirt

It got hot around here again! Isn't is supposed to be fall? I got teased last week, but I know it will come soon enough. At least the hot weather pushed me to finally make this shirt out of some fabric I have had for almost a year now.

Ok, so the shirt is a little puffy, but I think once I wash it up it will lay a little flatter. C is my wonderful photographer for the photo as always.

This shirt was super easy to make, I just cut out a rectangle, the length I wanted and 1.5 times the width. Sewed the sides, hemmed and smocked the top and bottom 5 times and put some straps on.

Kristen

More Dresses

Remember the Threads of Love project? Well, it's been a couple weeks since I have had a chance to sew for it, so I decided every other thing I sew will be for Threads of Love. This week, I got 3 more dresses done.

It turns out strapless is working best for the kids in the Orphanage in Haiti. So strapless it is. :-) Since I got all the kids measurements, it's fun to pick a name and sew for that child. These dresses are going to Thamara, Charlinda and Rachel. I think they are 10, 7 and 4.

I just love this lettuce hem. I haven't quite got it down on my serger, so I am still using my regular machine for that, but it works great. On this one I did the blue thread on the top and pink in the bobbin. I like the way it turned out with the colors in the dress.

Shirt from scraps

Remember that orange knit I made one of the Haiti dresses from? Well, I had a thin strip left and I have been wanting to make Lacey a specific top that needed just that amount of fabric. I cut 20 inches of that strip and smocked the top and bottom, added straps and ta-da...

I just love this print! The hair isn't bad either. Now that it's short, I don't have to detangle it every morning.

Such a perfect summer top. Very girly too.

Kristen

Haiti Dresses

Look at all this wonderful knit!

All this lovely fabric is for that project I was working on this week. My church has this thing call, "Threads of Love," it's an outreach for people that can sew, knit or crochet. I was so excited when there was an e-mail that went out about it an a meeting, I so wanted to do something. I went to the meeting and found out they needed people to sew clothes and diapers. Perfect! They also needed quilts sewed, but that's not really my thing. Anyway, one of the things they needed were dresses for Kenya and Haiti. An orphanage in Haiti was the most immediate need. There are girls that are in some way disabled and they can't dress themselves very well. So, the girl from our church that works there requested tub type dresses! Perfect! I could do that. She wanted strapless, but I thought that wouldn't be good if they were too loose and falling down. Especially as these girls go through puberty. Anyway, I made some dresses this week and they are all a tad different. I will put the whole story of Threads of Love and what it is all about on a Threads of Love page soon, but for now this is just the basic.

I had so much fun creating these dresses this week. L sat with me many times at the sewing machine helping.

It was so cute, both C and L wanted to know so much about the girls, L had these specific questions, "Why don't kids have moms?" "What were their names?" "Can we see the girls?" "How old are they?" "Where are they?" "Can we see them when we give them the dresses?" and "So, the dresses aren't for me, I don't get to keep any?" Yes, she is only 3.

Now onto the dresses.

I am told that many of the children are very thin because of malnutrition. I was given no sizes really so I used C as my model and made them long for him. There are a lot of girls in a lot of different heights. These dresses will stretch and are long so hopefully they will work.

This orange one is one of my favorites. I made it tie so a child can put it on with the straps down and a worker can come and tie it for her later. If she wants she can wear it with the straps tucked in. (Lovely picture with the fabric and paper air planes all over!)

I made some smaller dresses too. This is when L was a little disappointed that she doesn't get to keep any dresses. On this dress, I sewed the straps on, but it's a good knit that stretches both ways, so the straps stretch. I thought this would be easier to get their hands in.

This one is my favorite. I loved the feel of this knit! It was SO soft. I did it without straps because I ran out of time this morning before I had to drop them off. But, I thought she can try one strapless. If it works, I can do more, if not she can send it back and I can add straps. I love the way it turned out with the lettuce hem at the top and bottom.

Here are all the dresses. I know, it's a bad picture, but I couldn't find either camera with all the mess so it's taken with my phone.

This project is on-going, so there will be many more to come. Diapers, shorts and shirts too. If you are interested in the project, I will have the Threads of Love page where I will post everything and have a tally of how many dresses, etc are made for all the kids by all the sewers. It should be fun!

Smocked Dress Tutorial

This is a very simple, comfortable smocked summer dress. Before you take a double look, yes, that is my son in a dress. I needed a model! I hope you all don't think that is too horrible that I did that to him.

First, here are some of the dresses I did for my special project...

Anyway, I'm making a bunch in different sizes for a special project. But, before I share the project with you, I need to get the tutorial up for others to copy. Since it is very late and I have been busy all day, there may be a few mistakes in here. If you don't understand something, please let me know and I will fix it right away. So here it is...

***There is a change to the straps for the Haiti dresses. The dresses that work the best are strapless or the straps sewn to the front ONLY so they could tie around the neck.

You will need:

1. Pattern paper or old sheet

2. Fabric with matching thread

3. Elastic thread

Here are your steps:

1. Make the Pattern

2. Cut out fabric

3. Sew sides

4. Hem top and bottom

5. Smock

6. Sew on straps.

No onto the details and pictures.

1. First, measure around the chest of the person wearing the dress. Then measure the length you want from just below the armpit to where you want the dress to stop and add an inch for hems on the top and bottom. For my dresses, I did 24 inches around and 24 inches in length for 6T; 23 inches around and 23 inches long for 5T; 22 inches around and 22 inches long for 4T.

Now take that 1st measurement, the one of the chest and multiply it by 1.5. Then divide it in 1/2. This will be the width of your pattern piece. I will use my 6T as an example. I had 24 inches around, times 1.5 I got 36 now divided by 2 and I have 18 inches.

I drew my pattern 18 inches across the top, went down 24 inches and 24 across so the dress goes out a bit and isn't just straight. I think it flows better this way. Here is my pattern piece.

2. Now, take your fabric and fold it, right sides together. I did wrong sides together, it really doesn't matter, but if you do right sides together after you cut it, you will just go right to the machine and sew. Anyway, lay your pattern on top and cut. My pattern might look a little big, that's because I forgot to divide by 2 up above. It took me a day to figure out why it was so big! Duh!

3. Now that your fabric is cut, right sides should be together. Take it straight to your machine and sew the sides with a zig-zag.

4. Then sew a zig zag around the top edge. Now because it's knit I don't even iron this part, just fold the top down a thumb width and sew straight along the hem. You can use the pressor foot as a guide for a straight line.

The bottom hem, I didn't do the zig zag first, I folded it a thumb width and sewed a zig zag along the folded edge. I didn't like the zig zag on the top so I did it with that extra step.

5. Once the sides and the hems are finished you are ready to smock. You need to take a new bobbin and hand wind the elastic. Be careful not to stretch it while winding it.

Stick your bobbin in the machine and sew straight lines around the top of the dress. I use my pressor foot as a guide for these lines.

Yes, it looks a tad messy at the top edge, but, in my defense, this was my first one; the trial one and I thought the contrasting thread would be cute. I wasn't exactly right on this one.

Anyway, when you have as many rows as you want, you are finished with the dress part. Iron up the top and it shrinks the elastic a bit more and you are left with straps if you want them.

6. For a child's dress, I usually take the middle and measure out 2 inches on either side. For the 6T, I measured out 2.5 inches, marked it and sewed on the straps.

***Since I was using knit material, I thought I would just try cutting some strips the non-stretchy way. (This knit only stretched one way.) So, there was no sewing for the straps, just to put them on the dress. Anyway for these particular dresses, they need to be very easy to get on and off. Someone had suggested buttons, but I was having great difficulty with the button holes in this very thin knit and buttons take me a very long time to sew. So, I left the straps long, fed them through the button holes and tied it off. It looked decorative.

Please remember this tutorial was done on the first one, the trial one and I messed up the pattern, making it way too huge! Also, the straps are way too far apart. I didn't follow my 2 inch rule because the dress was huge and I still hadn't figured out why. Once I realized what I did, I cut off the excess on the sides and made the dress much smaller. The other dresses turned out much better. But, this one isn't bad.

Anyway, here are a couple other dresses with some variations...

Dress refashion

Yea! I'm back. I haven't been sewing much lately. It's been crazy around here, I've been packing, cleaning, going on vacation, unpacking, cleaning and doing it all over again. In-between River trips and vacations I've been very busy with swimming and beach trips, so there hasn't been much sew time. I also haven't had anything I've been dying to make. Until today! I got the sew itch yesterday.

First thing this morning I pulled this dress out of my closet.

I never wear it, it just doesn't look that cute. I bought it for about $2 on clearance. No wonder, huh. So, I cut the top off and cut down the skirt part to 1.5 times L's chest size.

I put the right sides together and sewed it closed.

Then I smocked the top and used the straps from the original dress for this new dress. Not much work at all and L loves it.

She was a little upset because I already made 2 other dresses this weekend and she wanted to wear those, but they aren't for her. So, I had to make her something too. You can probably see some of the sewing mess in the background. I have a big project I am working on that I will share with you soon. I'm so excited for it!!

The visor is from JoAnn's. L and C each brought $2 with them to pick out something. She has been wearing it ever since.

Happy sewing, I'm so excited to be back and sewing again!

OH! I almost forgot!!! I am SO excited! I got a serger for my birthday!!! It should be here between July 13th and 16th. I can't wait to get started. Oh My Goodness, I am so excited.

Kristen

4th of July Dress

Last year, I made L a little dress for the 4th. I made it a little long so she could wear it again this year. Holiday stuff just doesn't get worn enough. So, I pulled it out yesterday and it fit perfect. My little girl has gotten taller, but hasn't gained much weight. She's just a little peanut.

I just did a very basic dress, cut 3 pieces for the front, 2 for the bodice and 1 for the skirt. Then for the back I cut one piece and smocked the top part of it so it fits nice and snug and pulls over easy.

I used ribbon for the bow and the straps. I had some ribbon hanging down from the bow too, but that frayed since I didn't use any fray block, so I had to remove that.

It's hard to take a picture of one without the other sneaking in.

Very simple, just my style.

Kristen
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Summer Dress

Yea! I manage to do some sewing yesterday. It was nice! Sunday night was my first night of real sleep since the Poison Oak thing started. Last night I was back to no sleep. I thought I could do it with out benadryl but. I was wrong! I ended up taking it along with a scalding shower at 2 am. Now, onto sewing.

Remember this?

Well, I had a lot of extra fabric to do something with. I thought a little smocked dress would be cute for the little sister of the boy who goes in that baby carrier. Here is what I cut for my dress.

I didn't have much fabric to make the skirt very twirly, but this worked. I cut the top and bottom separate because I wanted to do the slashing thing I told you about before. Basically, I took this, sewed the top right sides together, the skirt right sides together, then the top and bottom together. I finished all the hems and seams nicely, added straps and did the smocking last.

Here is what it turned out like. It's a bit big for L, but I did it to the measurements to her little girl that is older and taller.

I made the back with button holes and the straps long enough to be crisscrossed. Hopefully I can get a picture of her little girl wearing the dress so you can see it all filled out.

I was good to be sewing again!

Kristen

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