simple kids clothes, patternmaking & quick alterations

Ok here are some examples of patternmaking from finished clothes, the red shirt was my pattern for the three following shirts for my daughter!

oh and here are some simple ideas.... for old footsie pjs, ore onsies, cut them off to make into shirts or cardis!

family illustration # 3 tall men and cute petite girls

here is another family! Love how the guys are so tall and the girls are so short and cute! great style too!

family illustration a dog, a cat, a cute girl, and a hat

here are some recent pictures of some illustrations I have been working on!

DIY: upcycled Princess dress

Up-cycled tshirt into a princess dress

 



OK. So being a mom of two little girls, I have a lot of duplicate items, out-grown items or otherwise "ruined" items due to messy eating/ play/ ect.

I am always finding ways to recycle/ up cycle and mend/ repair items that most people would usually throw out. Its a skill that I have grown to love, it tests your creativity not to mention can save you lots of money in the long run. Well, my latest little project I took an old tshirt my daughter had, which was a little two long for a shirt, and too short for a dress, and made it into a little princess dress for her birthday. This was a pretty simple project, the base of the dress is the tshirt, and I just added some fun sparkly fabric, and some embellishments, to turn it into a special dress up costume.

 Here is how I did it:

1. First I took the tshirt I was using and removed the whale embroidery with a seam ripper, be careful when removing machine embroidery as the littlest mishap can create tiny holes, luckily I was planning on covering up the embroidery so I first removed the whale, then mended any holes with my free-motion embroidery foot on my machine.

2. Next step I removed the top tier on the shirt, creating a "waistband" and a longer silhouette, (more of a princess dress not a babydoll top) I simply took scissors and cut the top tier off, as close to the seam as I could (instead of unpicking the seam, I just cut the ruffles off so I wouldn't have to do more sewing. I saved this material for step 3.

3. Because the top was too short as a dress, I simply attached the strip of fabric I removed from the top tier and added it to the bottom tier to create a longer "dress"

4. Next I gathered some blue sparkly knit fabric and added it ontop of the two tiers, serging then hemming the bottoms.

5. I then pinned loose pieces of fabric over the top pannels, one section on the bodice, and two on the back panels, using my sewing machine, I sewed the sides on, then trimmed any excess fabric leaving a raw edge.

6. To really secure the pieces and to add some detail, I went over the top fabric with stitching with my free-motion foot, adding some fun embellishing stitches & rows.

7. Next I created an elastic waistband by doing rows of zig zagg stitching with elastic thread on the empty "waistband" panel.

8. Last I cut out a bunch of fabric flowers, and sewed them onto the dress, layering with paillettes (from Magzoolum Beads) creating loose flower applique clusters.

All done!