Mom T-Shirt to Ruffle Cuff Baby Pants

So the Little Miss has managed to grow again, and since her seasons (and style) are a bit different from her big sister, I find myself needing new articles of clothing for her.

Most recently, her brown knit pants became more like brown knit capris and needed a replacement.  Since it is spring, knit pants are hard to come by (though I could have gotten more knit capris).

As I was going through my own spring wardrobe, I noticed I had two different brown t-shirts.  I do have a skirt that requires a plain top, but if I am ever at a point in my life where I wear two different solid brown T-shirts in a week, it is time for my friends to stage an intervention.  So I kept the cuter one…

…and sacrificed the other one.

{Baby toes!}

After having success with the Made “the basic pant” pattern, I decided to make knit pants.  Now pants frighten me a little, but they worked out last time, so I was prepared to try again.  Knits, however, terrify me.  The hardest thing for me is to not stretch out cuffs when hemming, so I cheated was resourceful.  I cut the pattern out so the existing hem from the T-shirt was the hem for the pants.  This meant I just had to sew the pieces together and make a casing which holds elastic and scrunches up anyway.  Success!

And they were really plain-looking (which doesn’t always bother me but did on that day) so I added a ruffle around each ankle.  I used any leftover bits from the shirt.  Since it was a knit, I didn’t have to do anything to the edges.  Easy!

Nursing Cover to Baby Shirt Refashion

I had a nursing cover (brand name Udder Covers, and available here), that was made of a cute purple damask fabric.  I didn’t have any friends to pass the cover on to, and I really liked the print of the fabric, so I decided to try to refashion it.  I wanted to make an A-line jumper, but it would have been too short, so I made a tank top.

(I made it a little big so it fits through this summer.  And sorry about the barefoot baby—we weren’t outside too long, and it was nearly 70 degrees today.)

The front and back are cut out of the middle of the cover.  I used the edges of the nursing cover to make the binding for the bottom hem, arms, and neck.  I had to undo the stitching and put it in again, but it had already been well-pressed so it looked nice.

One of my favorite things is the ruffle down the front.  I hardly did any work for that—it is the strap from the cover.  It even had the nice taper already.  I just gathered it and attached it to the front.

 

I’m excited for the nursing cover to have a second life.

Take a Memo

A long time ago (though I’m only now getting around to adding it to the blog), I made a memo board for the Little Miss’s room.

I didn’t use any type of tutorial, though I’m sure there are many, so I’ll give the brief “how to.”  At least the brief “what I did".”  I found a couple of things that worked out really well for me: for the foundation, I used a piece of foam core board.  I split it in half and stuck the halves together.  The fabric is a fat quarter, which ended up being the perfect size to cover the board.  I added a little batting to it, and stapled the ribbons across.  The pattern of the fabric was great and acted as a grid so everything lined up nicely.

I was going to use buttons at the intersections of the ribbon, but those were a little pricey for the quantity I needed.  I found these beads instead and glued them on.

And done.  I guess I didn’t hang it very straight.

Here’s one I made a while ago for her sister.  It has a stretched canvas as the base of it.  Looking at it now, I notice that it also has a grid-like fabric, which is funny—I didn’t recall that when choosing the fabric for the Little Miss’s board and just picked the fabric I did because I thought the color was good.

Being Super

Influenced partly by her enjoyment of the show “Super Why” and partly by her super hero-obsessed guy friends, I tried to make the Peanut a cape.  (My plan is to make several, but I needed to make a prototype first.)  Upon allowing me to try the cape on her, Peanut announced that she needed an eye mask.  Back to the sewing room I went, but with a couple of minutes, some scissors, a piece of felt, and some elastic we were back in business.

I didn’t find a tutorial I really liked, so I just made it up.  I used a stretchy velvet so I didn’t even need to hem it.  There’s a casing at the top that I ran twill tape through and used velcro for the closure.  Thrilling!