Refashion Therapy– tiny pants fast

Looking for the A Miracle For Maverick auction? You can find it at Emily’s blog, where you can find more of his story, the auction, ways to share, and even enter to win a door prize for helping spread the word.

Today’s refashion is pretty gender-neutral. I’ve got these on my middle daughter here, but this method could just as easily be used to make a pair of trousers for my son. In fact, I’ve used this method to turn a pair of women’s black dress pants for my oldest daughter, when she was a toddler, and I can see myself doing the same to make my son a pair of affordable Sunday slacks I haven’t invested enough time or money in to be afraid of him trashing.

If you’re like most people, you’ve probably got some clothes around that just never fit right, or that were well loved but just aren’t wearable any more. There are a few common solutions – jeans into shorts. T-shirts refashioned and redecorated. Or even – gasp – just giving things away, which I often do, but sometimes things aren’t even give-away-able. In my house we tend to ruin pants in such a way that most of the leg is actually fine, but the pants are just toast and can’t be used for shorts.

For example, if you manage to rip them in the inner thigh or across the crotch or butt.

Thankfully, this particular pair of jeggings wore out when I was getting back INTO my van at the oil change place. Like, laughing hysterically with gratitude most of the way home type thankful, because the thigh just BUSTED open. But I digress. I’m not here to discuss my brushes with humiliation, I’m here to discuss refashioning.

More specifically, today’s post is about taking a pair of old jeans, trousers, jeggings, leggings, or even an old skirt – anything with a finished hem – and turning it into a finished looking pair of pants for your little one. In my example I did the 30 minutes or less version, but if you were to put pockets on the bum, even fake ones, this could be taken up a few more notches yet and still be saving you time, money, and effort over buying or even sewing from scratch.

This is another example in a cream coloured pair of pants, refashioned from women’s khaki trousers. They took about 15 minutes, made in a leggings style with elastic waist, but you’d never guess that from looking at them. The professionally finished and often slightly distressed or stylized hem of the original pants is the biggest factor in that.

To do this, you’ll need to start with a pair of pants and a pattern. You can trace your own pattern, or you could buy a pdf. Some I’ve heard nothing but good things about are the Hosh Pants and Skinny Jeans for a closer fit and Clean Slate pants for a looser fit. (not affiliate links, just honest truths.) In the photo below I’m using my own leggings pattern for Olivia, and a leggings pattern will work as well, but you’ll need to add in a lot of ease if you’re using a non-stretchy material or a little for a stretch denim like I am in the tutorial.

The first thing you want to do is grab a seam ripper or a pair of scissors and open up the pants on the inside seam and lay one leg out flat.

Next, lay out your pattern piece on the first pant leg. If you have a seam on the outside of the leg, you want to center your pattern based on that. I’m known for my extreme professionalism as far as pattern weights are concerned (These are mason jar lids and a book, I’ve also used things like a Little People castle in the past.)

My home made leggings pattern did not have a hem allowance, but if yours does, you are going to want to subtract that length from your pattern or your pants will be too long. You don’t need to add a hem in later, remember? You’re going to use the one that’s already there!

Cut around your pant leg, and then repeat on the other side. Flip your pattern over when you’re cutting the other side. That gives you the left and right legs with the appropriate front and back.  Because I’m using stretch denim with a legging pattern in my example, I cut extra ease. If you’re using a pants pattern, that’s totally unnecessary.

From here on you’ll just be following your pants directions as usual, outside of the fact that you will not need to sew up the hem. If you’re using a self drafted pattern, then my preferred method is to sew both pant legs inseams, then turn one pant leg right side out and place it inside the other so they are right sides facing. Sew up the crotch seam. Finish your waist, whether by making a casing and threading an elastic to it, sewing an elastic to it and then flipping that inward, or creating a waistband and sewing that onto the pants.

Whatever your finishing method – and if your child always wears their shirts untucked like mine, it hardly matters as long as it stays up – your pants will be finished in a fraction of the time that it looks like it took. “Wow, you made those yourself?!” pants in “Did you make those yourself?” time.

Easy-Peasy Dolly Shift Dress

Here’s the repost of my guest post from Naptime Crafters Dressing Up Dolly series.

My middle child – a bit of an international superstar for being absolutely crazytown – loves dolls. She will drag them around, give them the baby’s things, and maybe share them with the baby (or the baby with them, more likely.) Since I haven’t made anything for the dolls since my oldest was into them, it was high time I got back into it, so Dressing Up Dolly was the perfect push. I came up with this Easy Peasy Dolly Dress, which works as a nightie on small dolls and a shift dress (with or without the elastic belt) on bigger ones.

I wanted too keep a few things in mind. I wanted to be able to use up scraps, as my scraps are getting a bit out of control and doll clothes are the perfect opportunity. I wanted something that could be made fairly quickly, so I could pound a few out to cover up some of the shameful doll nakeness that’s going on around here lately. I wanted something that could work for a wide size range of dolls. And most importantly, I wanted something easy enough for Olivia – my crazy middle child, a tiny little two year old – to get on and off the dolls herself. She’s not quite up to closures yet, so I wanted to use elastic.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PATTERN

So, if you’ve got some shameful dolls or small hands, lets get to work! Start with the printable pattern for the dress. Cut it out, then cut out your pieces. Don’t forget to mark your notches on the sleeve so you’ll know which side goes on the body, the curve is slightly different on the sleeve side. I cut my dress body on the selvedge so I wouldn’t have to hem it, but you can add some length to it for a hem. Another suggestion I have is using cast off shirts, and lining up the bottom of the pattern with the hem of the shirt.

The cut out pieces (I notched my sleeves but not the body of the dress.)

Press down the top of the dress piece to form a casing. (finish the edge as desired) Cut out two 3.5” pieces of 1/8” elastic.

Stitch the casing, making sure it’s wide enough for whatever you use to thread the elastic. I like to use diaper pins, a tip I picked up somewhere that’s made threading things through casings much less painful. If you look above you can see that to save time, I threaded the elastic partway through and then tacked down the one end of the elastic to make sure it stayed put.

Pull the elastic the rest of the way through, then tack it down on that side as well. Do this with both front and back of the dress.

Okay, I’ll try and explain this properly. Take the body pieces and one sleeve piece. Right sides together, pin front and back to the sleeve, overlapping slightly at the neckline that will meet at the middle/top of the sleeve where the fold was. Here are two more photos to try and illustrate what I mean:

Above shows half of the dress lifted to reveal the sleeve underneath. Below is where the front and back are intersecting with each other a whee bit, like a lapped shoulder.

It sounds batty, possibly, but bear with me. Sew the seam, and when you flip it right side out, you will have the following:

So, sew and finish your seam.

I have a serger, but it’s being finicky, so I sewed and then zig zagged it to prevent unravelling. This seam in particular may receive some rough handling.

Repeat on the other side, making sure that your front and back overlap in the same way. After you pin, flip and double check before you sew, if you’re not totally sure. Then press your seams.

Press and finish your sleeves before you go on to finish your sides.

Pin and finish your sleeves and side seams.

If you used a selvedge or existing hem, you’re done! Otherwise, finish the bottom of your dress, press and press and press to make any little errors melt away.
(like what happened to that seam above left? Ugh.)

Now, if you’d like to create a belt, cut a piece of coordinating fabric 2.5” w by 12” long. Fold it right sides together lengthwise, then sew and turn to create a casing. Thread a 3/4” elastic through it (using the same method as for the neckline) and then sew the raw edges together securely.

Create a flower either by stacking up a pile of wacky circles and tacking them together in the middle and then scrumpling them up, or whatever wonderful flower tutorial you’d like. (There are so many fabulous ones out there!) Stitch it onto your little elastic belt over the spot where your ends met to cover it up and add some finesse.

And that’s a wrap! Thanks for having me, Amy, and bless you for putting up with my comedy of errors in trying to get this blog post live.  Feels like whatever could go wrong, did!

Be sure to check out the rest of the series!

Guest Posting for Dressing Up Dolly

Have you seen the Dressing Up Dolly series at Nap Time Crafters? It might seem like a lot of work to make doll clothes, but trust me when I say, your children will look at you in a whole new light. I don’t care if you’ve made a ballgown that you’ve woven with spider silk and it lights up like the stars when they dance. If you make it for their doll, it is scientifically proven* to be 65.7% cooler.

There is just something very satisfying about making a tiny little garment and having your kids think you are the best thing since sliced bread. For a quick and easy little dress pattern, check out my guest post for the series by clicking the image below.

*science may or may not be a loosely applied term here

Sour Soother Valentine

I thought I’d share the cute little Valentines we made for Nicole’s preschool class, and the printable we created for them. Kind of last minute, but if you want to use them you still have time!

I thought I had cardstock but I was wrong, so we wound up just printing these on regular printer paper. The front is a pale pink heart (made of many hearts) with the words It’s hard to be SOUR around you, Valentine! and the back features a funny little kissy face and plenty of space to write who the Valentine is for and who it’s from, and we also added a foamy sticker to each one. The heart and kissy face were both graphics that come loaded in Adobe Elements 10.

We took Jumbo-sized sour soother candies that we picked up at Costco and put one (but could have easily fit two) in a 6 x 3.75 treat bag. If you’re worried about the elements, the top of the bag can be sealed off with a curling iron, but we’re giving them out today so we just cut out the four Valentine’s from each page, folded in the center, and then after filling in the back, stapled them onto the bags.

You can click on the above graphic to get the full-sized sheet. When printing, be sure to deselect ‘fit picture to frame’ or whatever similar option changes the sizing of the graphic to fit the paper, this should fit your typical printer paper without adjustment and will be way easier to cut that way. (I got my hubby to print it off for me and forgot to mention that, and it’s possible but way more fidgety and your Valentine’s will be inconsistent sizes)

Re-New Recieving Blanket - Sharp Crochet Hook

So Santa (aka the mailman) brought me a Sharp Crochet Hook for Christmas. Let me say, as soon as I saw the idea, I was smitten. I pinned it immediately, and then when Santa (aka Google Chrome) asked me what I wanted for Christmas, this inexpensive little hook was in the mail in no time flat.  To take it for a test run, I decided to take a cute but slightly worn receiving blanket from Olivia and add a sweet little pink cotton shell edging to give it life for the new baby. (Granted, I could have a boy. I plan on doing a boy one as well.)

Basically, the sharp crochet hook is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of a curved hook, the tip is sharp so you can poke it through fabric. I’ve wanted to play with edging with crochet for a while, but the idea of first doing a blanket stitch or punching holes with an awl bored me to tears. My ADD would have none of it. Now this, on the other hand, I can do. It took a bit of getting used to, for tension for example, but after a bit of playing this was my first project. The sharp crochet hook comes with a pattern booklet. Did I follow it? Hahaha, good one. The patterns are adorable, and I’m definitely going to try some of them. But for round one, I went with a continuous 8-shell.

If you’d like to make your own, here’s the pattern:

Receiving Blanket 8-shell Edging

You need:
-sharp crochet hook
-3.25 mm (USD3) regular crochet hook
-cotton yarn for size 3 hook

sc = single crochet
ch =chain
sl st = slip stitch
dc = double crochet
sk = skip stitch

Round one: sc with sharp crochet hook about 1/4” apart around the perimeter of a receiving blanket. Sl st into first sc to end.

Round two: with 3.25mm regular crochet hook, ch 3, do 7 dc in the sl st, sk 2, sc, sk 2, 8 dc in next st. Repeat  (sk 2, sc, sk 2, 8dc) around. End with a shell, sk 2, sc, sk 2 (or flub it a bit, skipping one or three, to make it fit) and then sl st into the ch3.

Feel free to ask if that is at all unclear and I’ll try fix it up for you, and if Santa happened to forget that you’re a hooker, at $10.99 with the book and $6.99 without, the Sharp Crochet Hook is barely a splurge so much as skipping a coffee or two.

(disclaimer – I was not paid for, asked for, or given free product for this. I – uh, I mean, Santa – bought it and loved it.)

A Christmas Dress

I meant to get this post up a bit earlier in case anyone was interested in making a Christmas dress for their own little girl, but after I took the pictures I kind of forgot! However, obviously this dress style is suitable for all year round, it’s just the fabric that makes it Christmassy.

This dress was made for Nicole’s first Christmas concert. Of course, an hour before the concert I was down in the craft room finishing the last bits! But it was done in plenty of time and she was very excited to show it off. The best part, in my opinion, is that because it’s cottons she can play away in it. She’s worn this dress about every other day for the last week or so, mainly with jeans underneath. It’s got some nice twirl to it, but not so much that you could see her underwear if she were to twirl with nothing else underneath.

The formula for the dress is pretty simple. It starts off with this peasant top tutorial, but I chopped a good 3 or 4 inches off the bottom of the shirt. (For a size 4, I had three fabrics and half a meter of each. I still have enough scraps to make an Olivia-sized tunic, although it’s a bit late since it’s Christmas already.)

This is more of a guideline than an actual tutorial… use the sizing for the bodice for the top, and for the height of the tiers, use your own taste. Because this is a winter dress I made it tea-length, but for summer I’d have likely made shorter tiers and had it hit below the knee. As to the width, I think the widths I give you here would likely work for up to a size six or seven, possibly even eight, and down to a two (it would just be super gathered on both tiers, but quite cute.)

For the top, use the plainest of your fabrics for the main bodice and the fabric you want to use for your first tier for your sleeves. You can sew the bodice up to completion here, don’t forget to do any topstitching you’d like to do as you go along.

For the second tier, I used the full 45” across from selvedge to selvedge. I didn’t gather this tier so much as sort of vaguely pleat it as I went along, since it wasn’t hugely ruffled. It would have probably looked better had I ruffled it, but I was running out of time. For the bottom tier, I did 1.5 the distance from selvedge to selvedge. To save time, I just ripped the piece twice and then ripped one of the two pieces in half.

First I sewed the two pieces for the bottom tier together to create one long circle, then I hemmed it. I went with a wide hem because that’s what I like the look of. Then I also sewed the top tier into a circle, gathered the bottom tier, and sewed the two tiers together. Finally, I sewed the skirt part to the bodice.

This is where I did a few finishing touches. I sewed a matching ribbon over the seam between the bodice and the skirt. I top stitched the bottom tier. Then I made a long patchwork sash, measured on my daughter where the sash would hit on her sides, and then stitched the sash on to the side seams of the dress. This made the sash slightly tighter than the bodice in the front, keeping it in place nicely.

Let me know if you’d like a real tutorial rather than this basic guideline. Nicole and I both really like this dress on her, so I’ll likely be making it again!

Summertime, and the Living is Thrifty–Shannon of Luvinthemommyhood

Today’s guest is Shannon of Luvinthemommyhood. Fellow Canadian, great friend, funny lady, cute kids, what else could you ask for, really. I think this calls for an acrostic poem!
She
Has
Awesome
Needles
N…….. okay, you know what, there are three N’s in Shannon. Acrostic abandoned, that was just poorly thought out on my part.
Here’s something fun though, aside from the other things we have in common, our girls are the same ages! Yes, Shannon is definitely playdate material. And girls night out material. There’s just the little manner of a few provinces in between us. We like to talk that we’ll both attend a blog conference together someday and give us Canadian gals a bad awesome name. Somebody get on having a really awesome conference that everyone attends on this side of the border. Winnipeg is pretty much the most central location, you know. And we aren’t even the murder capital this year. Just throwing that out there. Just… lock your car doors.

 Hi everyone! I'm super excited to be part of "Summertime, and the Living is Thrifty"!  I adore Laura, and summer, and thriftiness, and sewing...and....well...just about everything that this fun theme month stands for.  Laura is one of my fave bloggy pals.  She's freakin' hilarious and I love chatting with her.  Also, we're both Canadians who cannot live without coffee and chocolate chip cookies so we've bonded for life...sisters from another mother we are now.  Us Canadian gals gotta stick together eh?  LOL.

When Laura told me about her theme month I knew right away what I was going to make for you all.  I've got bags filled with old yoga pants and even a few old bathing suits of the girls and I'm always looking for new ways to refashion them.  The other day I was out shopping (will not name the store) and spotted this cool running cuff designed to hold your key and some change (maybe a bus ticket or something else small like that) and really wanted it.  This thing cost way more than it should have due to it's "brand" and I thought to myself "girl....you could totally make that...don't buy it - just sew it".  That little cuff stuck in my brain and rattled around in there until Laura emailed me and then "poof" the "BUFF Cuff tutorial" was born.

I set out to sketching out the cuff and the best way to make it and then dug through our refashion pile for a 4 way stretch that was breathable and light and away we went.  I love mine.  It's light, fun, fashionable and for me, while running (ok....my boobs are just way too big to run...I jog..and walk..and jog), I don't like to carry anything and want as little as possible to be strapped on me while pushing my giant running stroller with 2 kids in it and the buff cuff passed the test.  The key stayed in, it didn't irritate me to wear it and I think it looks pretty darn cute!  What do you guys think?  You could embellish, applique, adorn to your hearts content.  I live for projects that you can take a base and go customize the crap out of it to suit your personality.  So here ya go...get those stretch and knit fabrics out...it's time to get BUFF (in shape...not naked...unless, of course, that's your thing..than go work it girl)!

Materials: - 1/4 yard or less of any fabric that is lightweight, breathable and preferably has 4 way stretch. - needle and coordinating thread (optional) – scissors

Instructions:
1) Start by measuring your forearm from the start of your wrist to about 2" from your elbow crease (or desired length).  Note: This is the length that your buff cuff will be so if you want to hold something longer than a key extend your length here.  Mark this measurement down as "A".  Do not add any seam allowances unless you want a more finished edge.
2) Measure the width of the widest part of your forearm where the buff cuff will be worn.  Mark this measurement down as "B".  Do not add any seam allowances.
3) Take your "A" and "B" measurements and cut your fabric.  If your fabric doesn't have 4 way stretch make sure your stretch goes from left to right not up and down.
4) Finish the edge of one of the short sides (B) with either a serger or on my machine I used one of the mock overlock stitches for stretch fabrics.  If you don't have a mock overlock stitch you can choose to zig zag stitch this edge as well using the settings for your machine for stretch fabrics.  You can also choose to just leave this unfinished but it is the edge that holds the key and I preferred to have it be a bit tighter of a fit.
5) Sew the long side seam together right sides facing (A) with a 1/4" seam allowance.  I used the zig zag stitch for stretch on my machine for this.  *Note: I did a trial test for a perfect fit by not back stitching at either end and testing out my sizing.  I had to seam rip out the first one as it was too baggy and I'm picky about those things.  You could also pin your side and then try on the cuff as well.  You want the cuff to be very snug but not too hard to stretch over your hand.  Trim your seam allowance as close as you can get to your stitches without cutting them.  You could also serge or mock overlock this as well instead.

6) Try the cuff on with the right side against your skin...so the wrong side facing out.  Fold up the bottom edge the desired amount that you would like your pocket to be noting that you need to be able to nicely fold the rest of the cuff over to fully cover this.  I think mine was about 2 1/4".  Mark where the fold is or pin without injuring yourself of course :)
7) We're going to stitch the pocket down now.  I simply did a few back stitches at the top of the seam of the folded pocket and and at the bottom.  I didn't want to stitch down the whole seam on the side as I thought it would ruin the look of the cuff from the other side.  You could also hand stitch this very easily as well.
8)  I left the other edge that folds over unfinished to keep it soft because I love the cute little roll you get that just makes the edge soft against your skin.  That's it!  Rock the cuff or customize to your heart's content!  I added a bow with my leftovers on to sass it up a bit.  I simply took a long strip, tied it in a bow and then hand stitched it in place. here's how to wear it.  slide the cuff on opened and inside out.  slip the key in your already pre-folded section and then roll down the top:

  easy right?  now go kick some workout butt!

kaboom!!!!!!!! 

Use your leftovers and add a bow to increase your supermomma strength!

thanks for having me laura! luv ya! mwwwaaahhh!  have fun sewing ladies and if you're interested in sewing with more knits and stretch make sure to check out "sewing with knits mondays" on my blog luvinthemommyhood and on noodlehead! it's lots of fun!