Infant School Spirit T-shirt Dress

I finally sewed again this past weekend! I feel like I haven't made something cute in a while! Well, I guess I made burp cloths recently, but they weren't as fun to make.

I took this pile of stuff...



and turned it into this...



Seriously, how cute is this little baby dress?! Let me explain a little bit about the design. When I was teaching, I was the Varsity cheer coach for a couple years. Once I had John, I stopped coaching cheer because it takes up a TON of time and I obviously wanted to be home with my precious new baby. My assistant coach, Lauren, took over for me. Well, she had a baby 3 months ago and Lauren's hubby coaches baseball at the school, thus she will be taking baby Piper to games all the time. Soooooo, I wanted to make her a cute outfit using my old WHS shirts since I don't really have use for them right now. And let me tell you, when you coach a high school cheer squad, you get TONS of shirts. Multiply that over 4 years, I have WHS shirts coming out my ears!

So, here is how I did it and hopefully it makes sense to you! I am already thinking of new versions, so hopefully I can crank out another tutorial or two soon

Supplies:
-spirit shirts (or any old t-shirts)
-onesie
-sewing supplies such as sewing machine, thread, rotary cutter, etc.

1. I cut the cute parts of the shirts into strips that were about 1-2 inches wide. I just kind of lined them up to see how I wanted it to be on the dress. What I for sure wanted was the top strip to be the same color as the onesie, so it blended well. I also cheated by making the bottom strip the original hem from one of the t-shirts. Yay for no hemming in this project!



2. Once I found an order and placement I liked, I sewed the strips together, first pinning right sides together. {NOTE: If I was going to sew this dress again, I would have placed the strips better. I wanted some of the wording purposefuly to the side of the dress, but I didn't offset it enough. I think it looks like I just didn't center everything correctly. Just a little FYI!} After sewing all the strips together, iron along all the seams.





3. I did the same thing with plain strips for the back of the dress. I used the back of the shirts so they are the same colors...{and actually just cut them out all at once.}



4. I then set my stitch length as long as it would go on my machine and set the tension tight. I sewed across the top of the front and back piece so that it gathered it up. DO NOT back stitch at the beginning or end when you sew this time!



5. I needed to figure out how wide I wanted the front piece to be. SO I layed it across the onesie and kind of folded it around the onesie until I found a width I liked. Then using a disappearing marking pen, I marked on the sides where to sew.



You can barely see in the below picture some purple marks on the material that marks a diagonal line on each side. I cut a diagonal line about an inch past each purple line so I had a nice edge instead of all the scrappy edges hanging around. I only did this to the front piece.



6. I layed the back piece face up on my counter and then layed the top piece face down. I pinned the sides and sewed along each side, using the front piece side edges as a guide.





7. Trim your edges on the back piece (which I think is much easier than cutting the front and back piece before sewing and hoping they match up!).



8. Ok, let's see if I can explain this part! I kept the dress part inside out and slid the onesie into the top opening of the dress. Make sense?! :) Maybe the picture will help! (Make sure the front of your dress is facing the front of the onesie!



I pinned the dress around the onesie, lining up just under the arm pit. Sew around the edge of the dress, making a complete circle.

9. Flip the dress over the onesie and you are done! (unless you have some mistakes you need to fix like I did!) Admire your work...and if you are like me, become amazed that this project actually turned out well and cute to boot!

Front:




Back:



I already showed a picture of this to Lauren and she loves it! Yay! I can't wait for her to have Piper wear it and see what it looks like on a real live baby. :)

I am totally picturing A&M dresses for my next one. Hopefully I have a lil Aggie to sew for soon. I may or may not be looking in a certain someone's direction...

If you make one of these, I would LOVE to see how it turned out! And if you have some ways to make it easier, help a girl out, will ya?!

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Ruffle Peace Jacket

I have had a plain blue hoodie jacket that I got from Target for $2 sitting in my craft closet for about a year. I just never knew what to do with it. Until last weekend that is! Here is what I came up with...








And before I explain how I did this, I made a ruffle on my sewing machine for the first time. I. am. addicted. to. ruffles. All I do now is look around the house and try to think of what I can add ruffles to! haha! And seeing as how I am the only girl in the house, there is not much that can be ruffle-ized. booo...

So, here are the very unofficial steps to make this jacket. I totally made this up as I went along and I probably would do it slightly different next time.


Supplies: jacket, scrap material, thread, sewing machine, sewing supplies

Steps:
1. I first cut my scrap material into long strips that were 2 inches wide. Why two inches? It just felt right!



2. Once cutting the strips I realized my 'just felt right' size was too large. Plus I didn't like all those raw edges hanging out ready to fray at a moment's notice. So I folded each strip wrong sides together and sewed down the open edges. I sewed with dark thread thinking it would add to the 'edgie-ness' of the jacket but I probably would have used a thread that blended better next time around.




3. I then sewed my strips into one long strip. Not sure I like how that long strip looked when I sewed the short strips together. I probably should have sewed the strips together before sewing them in half!



4. Now comes the ruffling part. WOOHOO! Setting my machine to the longest stitch length possible and making the tension super tight, I sewed down the middle of the long strip of material. This just ruffled the strip right up like magic! It was so fun! Seriously- if you make a ruffle and that doesn't cause you to want to just ruffle everything in sight, you might be abnormal. Or maybe I am abnormal?


**This picture doesn't quite show how ruffled this is. You will have to trust me that it was ruffled!**

5. Using your ruffley goodness, pin into a peace sign on your jacket. This was just took a little adjusting as I went and I used about a million pins so that way it didn't shift when I went to sew it later. I put the folded edge of the material towards the outside so that way the frayed edge-y part of the material was on the inside of the peace sign.




6. I then sewed the peace sign right down the middle line where I had previous sewn to make the ruffles. Don't forget to reset the stitch length and tension your machine!

7. Since this jacket was obviously for a girl, it needed a little something for the front. So, of course I thought 'MORE RUFFLES!'. So I made another ruffle strip and sewed it around the edges of the front, including around the hood. I am not totally in love with how the front came out, but I think it is because I don't like the color pattern I chose. I should have used more colors like I did on the peace sign.







And there you have it! A ruffle peace jacket just as sweet as can be!





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Pumpkin shirt for ME!!!

So, I hardly ever make anything for myself. I really wanted something cute to wear at the pumpkin patch with the boys so I quickly threw together a pumpkin shirt. Then after making this shirt, I realized that since I don't have any daughters to make cutesy stuff, I can make it for myself!






To make this I just used a black shirt I already had (that I got for TWO DOLLARS at Old Navy!!) and some black and white fabric that I bought for a shirt for John. Throw in some heat and bond and some embroidery floss and call it a day! I like that it is cute but not too dorky and I can wear it for Halloween or just during the fall. I also ALWAYS wear black, so I figured the black/white/grey pumpkin suited me pretty well. This shirt was easy for me to make and took me all of an hour to make one night. What do we think?


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Craft Show this Saturday in Keller, TX!

We are down to t minus 2 days until the craft show. I am working on my last item as I type (letting the paint dry) and then I am ready to go! If you are in the DFW area, the craft show is at Central High School in Keller, TX from 9-5. Free admission and free kid activities too!

Here is a taste of what I will have at the booth. Hope we get lots of visitors!!

I {heart} Mom shirt!

Mother's Day is just around the corner! I hope my husband remembers so he can help John plan something fun for that day. {Hi Brad! I know you read my blog!!} So, in honor of Mother's Day, I made a new shirt for the craft show that is THIS WEEKEND! (Live in the Keller area?! Come see me!!)

I started with this:



and ended with this:



This was all done with just a t-shirt, freezer paper, a small piece of scrap material, and a sewing machine. Easy! Here are the steps for those of you who want your precious kiddos to show some love for their mommy. {Please excuse the different color shirts in the pictures. I made two of these at the same time!)

1. Use freezer paper to make an 'I' and 'MOM' stencils. I used a Cricut to cut these out, but you could use an x-acto knife to cut out the stencil. Then iron the paper to your shirt (shiny waxy side down!).



2. Place some sort of protection layer in the shirt. I used an old magazine. This is so the paint doesn't leak through to the back of the shirt. Use fabric paint to paint in the letters. I used about 4 coats of white, waiting for each coat to dry completely before adding the next coat. This does take a little while, so I just did lots of random things around the house in between coats. Obviously, after the paint dries, take off the freezer paper to reveal some super cute lettering.





3. I made the heart using the reverse-applique method. (Is that really a method? Sounds fancy.) Use a coordinating material to prepare the heart. I used my marking pen to draw a heart on the back of the material.



4. Turn the shirt inside out and pin the material in place so that the right side of the heart material is facing the wrong side of the shirt. I pinned both inside and around the heart tracing.



5. Sew along the heart you drew or slightly outside the line.

6. Turn the shirt right side out. Use small, sharp scissors to CAREFULLY cut away the shirt inside the heart. Be sure not to cut the material you just sewed on the inside of the shirt! This will now leave a heart reverse-applique! How fun! (Sorry that I don't have pictures of this step. oops!)

7. I threw the shirt into the dryer for about an hour to heat-set the fabric paint. I did this with a load of John's laundry and it turned out fine. Some people use an iron to heat seat their fabric paint, but I haven't had good luck with that so far.





The blue one I think turned out cute but the red one has a very oddly sized and oddly placed heart. Obviously the red shirt was my first try at sizing the heart. Oh well- I am all about trial and error. My sister suggested adding some ribbon or ric-rac around the heart to make it look better so we will see if I can make that work.

And how cute would this be to make for grandparent's day with I heart Nana or something?