Men's Pajamas

Grade: A

Difficulty: Beginner

Pattern: Simplicity 7071. 

This is an old one, so here's link to what it looks like : Simplicity 7071. You may be able to find it online through various sources. I would try Ebay, Etsy, or maybe Amazon.

This was the first time I've used this pattern. I did this for the hubs because it is sized to fit men and women, so I figured it would be better fit-wise than the womens' pattern I used in my last post. The only thing I didn't like about this pattern was that on the back of the envelope, there wasn't a yardage chart for just the pants. Because it's pictured with the top, the yardage was given for both. Luckily pants are too hard to estimate for. I got 3 yards, and had plenty of room for these, plus was able to squeeze (literally, they barely fit) in a pair for Miss E as well.

As you can see, we had a theme this year for jammies. I loved the pink, but figured Michael would appreciate the blue a little bit more!

Close-up of the print.

Overall these are very very easy to sew! Five seams, and two hems, the waist and they're done! They turned out as pictured, fit true to size, and Michael keeps wearing them, so yeah! As with the pj's in my last post, I also did a tag with ribbon on the back-center so that they fit right when they are put on!


As always let me know what you think! Sorry I didn't do a direct link to a source for the pattern. The only ones I could find were on Ebay and Etsy, but those are usually just a quantity of one, and once they are gone, the link isn't good!

Women's Pajamas

Grade: A

Difficulty: Beginner

Pattern: Butterick 3314

Sorry, it was freezing when I went outside and took these pictures, so I didn't take the time to lay the legs out flat! They are straight and square.

Alrighty all you readers, I'm finally getting around to updating, and I have tons to do from all of my Christmas sewing, so definitely watch for posts a little bit more often!  Since I have no idea what order these all went in, I'm just going to put them up as I get the posts written.

A close up of the print.

So these pajamas are a pattern that I go back to again and again. I got the pattern in high school when I took a clothing sewing class, and they are a staple! I love this pattern as it's sized for women, so if you are on the small end, it will fit better than if you used a unisex pattern. I also love that is has lots of variations to try!

I measure as a small, but make a medium and use an extra inch to make my waist casing. This makes it so the pjs are loose and comfy, but the crotch doesn't hang down to my knees! I have done the small before (which is what I measure as) and they fit just fine, but not as loose as I like. I also added pockets on this pair, but I'm not going to go into how I did them. They are just in-seam pockets, so if you already know how to do those, try them on this pattern for and even more prefect pair of jammies!

Quick Tasha-tip for you: I like to cut a 2-3" length of ribbon, fold it in half, and stitch it down in the center back when I sew the elastic casing. It doesn't have care instructions or anything, but pajamas have a definite front and back, and this helps to not put them on backwards and then wonder why they feel weird!

This pattern is very easy beginner, 5 seams total, plus three hems, and you are done! The only curve is very big, so it's easy to do. They turn out as pictured on the pattern envelope, even if you are new to sewing and make some goof ups.

Miss E got a pair of matching jammies in her size, so watch for that tutorial as well! As always, enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Toddler Thanksgiving Outfit, Part 2

Toddler Skirt

Grade: B

Difficulty: Beginner

Pattern: Twirly Girl Skirt Tutorial

As you can probably tell, this is the skirt I made first, then used the scraps for the matching shirt featured in my previous post. Sorry to break up the matched set, but I felt like the first post was long enough without adding the skirt to it!

Anyways, this skirt was very simple to make, and turned out beautifully! If you have already clicked over to the pattern source site, you will notice that author there only gives the measurements for a size 4 and a size 6. I made mine a size 2, so I will tell you the measurements I used to make it, as well as how to use that math to figure out your own.

Regardless of the fact that I had to (and you probably will too) do  some math, I still gave the pattern a B. The directions were very straight-forward and her pictures are awesome! The only thing I didn't get was her strange opening to put the elastic in. I simply sewed all three of my skirt pieces (both the under and outskirts) into their own continuous loops, then attached them to the respective side to the waistband pieces. Because I didn't stitch the two skirt layers together anywhere, the opening for the elastic was still accessible. So you essentially have two skirts, just attached at the waist. Hopefully that makes sense! Other than changing that, the only thing I did differently was to use some pregathered eyelet lace instead of the gathered chiffon that she used.

The whole outfit! She's already worn the skirt too, cause really it's for all of fall!

This pattern is all straight lines, the hardest thing really is is putting on the trim at the bottom, and the elastic casing. Easy for any beginner to do, and if you are wary about doing trims, this is the perfect project to do them on the first time, as the rest of it is so easy!

So the math. For this you need your childs waist measurement, and a measurement on how long you want the skirt to be, once it's finished.

I cut my skirt pieces as follows:
    Waistband: 4" wide by 28" long, Cut 2
     Skirt pieces: 6" wide by 18" long. Cut 3 each of the outer and inner skirts
    Small band: 2.25" wide by 18" long. Cut 3 pieces.

So this is how I worked the math out.

•   Waistband length:  measurement of childs waist + 10 to 15 inches, depending on the age and size. The smaller the kid, the closer to 10 you probably want to be, and visa-versa.
• Waistband width: you want this to be about 3/8 of your desired skirt length, plus 1/2" for seams.
• Skirt width: You want this to be approximately half of your desired skirt length, plus 1/2" for seams.
• Skirt pieces length: This is the waistband length minus 8-10 inches, depending on how full you want the skirt to look. If you are doing your waistband 15 inches bigger than your childs waist, doing the skirt pieces 8" smaller than that would probably still give you a very full look. Remember that there are 3 of these pieces, not 2.
• Small band width: Cut as directed in the pattern, unless you are doing this for an older child, in which case you may want to add 1".
• Small band length: cut these the same length as your skirt pieces, so your seams all match up nicely!

Hope that helps you figure out how to do one for your own little darling! And now I have mine recorded somewhere semi-permanent! I would love to see your versions!

  

Toddler Thanksgiving Outfit, Part 1

Shirt

Grade: A

Difficulty: Beginner

Pattern: Described below

To start with, this is a two-part project, the shirt here, and a skirt. The skirt will be in it's own upcoming post, so you don't have so much to read/ wade through at once. I'll put a picture of the two together on the second part.

So I've seen shirts for sale with this saying on it, and decided it would be really really simple to make my own! The saying is simple to do, and you can pretty much do anything you want. Here's how I did it, and the supplies you need.

 Supplies
 -1 shirt, desired size. Mine started white. I used some orange Pekoe tea to dye it a cream color.
- Fabric scraps to make applique
- Heat n Bond Lite (Make sure to get the lite if you plan on stitching the fabric down. If you don't want to stitch, you can use the Heavy Heat n Bond, but in my experience it will peel off after several washes)
- Diagram of your saying, if you want to use the same fonts I did, here's the document: Gobble doc
-Matching thread
-Sewing machine

Since I dyed the shirt, I had to thoroughly rinse and dry my shirt. If you do something similar, you want to use as little laundry product as possible  (No soaps or softeners). This will help the glue in the Heat n Bond stick as much as possible to the fabric.

In the process of tracing. I like to have a stack of pens next to me, so I don't have to move anything if (and when) the pen stops working on my cold windows. Also, if you want to thicken any of the letters, this is the perfect time to do it!

All traced, backwards!

 After prepping my shirt, I traced my words onto the Heat N Bond. Remember that you want to put the Heat N Bond on the back of you fabric scraps, then on the front of your shirt, so you need to trace the letter BACKWARDS onto the paper side of the Heat N Bond. The easiest way to do that, is to put your paper right side away from you on a window, then put the Heat N Bond sheet paper side facing you on top. Then trace.

After tracing onto the Heat N Bond, cut approximately around the letters.

Follow package direction to apply the Heat N Bond to the back of your fabric scraps.

You will notice that I left the dots for the 'i' and the exclamation point attached. I cut them out last thing before I ironed the pieces onto the shirt.  Also, if you are using my template for the words, I highly recommend starting your cutting with the holes in the centers of the letters. I cut mine entirely with a pair of scissors. I suggest borrowing or buying and Exacto knife.

Cut carefully on your traced lines on the paper side of the Heat N Bond.

Place fabric as desired on front of shirt.

Follow packages directions to apply fabric to shirt.

Stitch fabric as desired with matching/coordinating thread of your choice.  The nice part about this, is that your letters are essentially glued down, so they don't move while you stitch, and you don't need 1000 pins! Beware that the Heat N Bond may eventually come undone from the shirt or the fabric. If you want the letters to stay exactly as they are now, you will need to stitch as closely as possible to both edges while still staying on the fabric. I thought about trying to use my darning foot on this as if I was doing free motion quilting, but the knit shirt was just too stretchy for that to work! So I used my regular foot and did lots and lots and lots of pivoting.

Voila! A custom shirt, for whatever your little heart desires! All you really need for this is a good font to use that fits the project, and those are easy to find for free! There may even already be some goodies living in your computer! After that, it's just picking the colors you want, and knowing the easy steps to do it! This is also very, very simple to do with shapes!

A close-up of the finished stitching.

Toddler Dress

Simplicity Toddler Dress

Grade: B

Difficulty: Intermediate

Pattern: Simplicity 2461

So I bought this pattern one of many times that JoAnns had them on sale this year, for $1. Can't beat that! The fabric is a 100% cotton, from Fabri-Quilt Inc., circa 1995. It's kind of old so you aren't likely to find it anywhere, sorry.

Pinafore and dress together, from the front

I gave this pattern a B for a couple of reasons. Overall, it was fairly easy to sew. There were a couple of times that I read through the directions, and wished I had a translator. Luckily, I actually found the pictures in this one very helpful. I love the way that the pattern directs you to use a piece of bias tape in the inside of the neckline to give it a nice, flat, smooth finished edge. No itchies! Mostly the B grade comes from the overall fit. I know I have a skinny toddler, but I feel like it's way too big around on her!  Maybe if you have a chunky to super chunky kid, it would fit just like you want it to though!

 Together, from the back.

Nevertheless, I will be using this pattern again for sure! The finished product looks very nice without too much hassle! The dress pictured is a size 1 (approximately an 18 month). Next time I'm going to try making a size 2, but only cut it to the size 1 width (if that makes sense) so that it isn't quite to big! the only downside, is that I find I need to iron it after most washes. Bleh. But that's what old cotton will do I guess!

Difficulty-wise, you need to be okay with some curved seams, hems, putting elastic in casings, attaching buttons, and putting in a zipper.

Just the dress, front view.

In case you are wondering, I got this fabric for free from my Grandma's stash. She had a bolt of each of them, which I, ahem, borrowed with permission. That plus getting the pattern for $1, means I bought the zipper, and two little spools of matching thread. So less than $5 total. Yay for Grandma's stash!

Pinafore, from the front.

Lastly, Miss E loves it! Lately she wants to wear dresses almost every day of the week! This one looks cute with her little leggings, that help keep her warmer now that it's decided to get cold, or with her tights if she wants to wear it to church. Or I've even put it on her with pants. She grew a little after I cut it out. It's not tunic length on her yet, but given how big around it is on her, she can probably wear it that long! I love that it looks cute with or without the pinafore too! If it still fits her next spring, we may try the pinafore over a short sleeve shirt with some bloomers or a diaper cover.

Pinafore back. Hard to see, but it is split down the middle. Also, no buttonholes! You make loops of fabric to button them through! So far the loops have worked just fine to hold the buttons.

Let me know what you think! Also, if you try this one out, I would love links to see pictures, or to hear what you thought of this pattern!

Nine Patch Quilt

Nine Patch Quilt

Grade: A

Difficulty: Advanced-beginner

Pattern: None!

The whole quilt in all it's craziness! Not sure if you can tell, but I tried to do diagonal rows of color to give it a little bit of unity. I also tried to alternate the darker and lighter colors.

So this one, I'm kind of not sure how to review for you, because I didn't use a pattern!

The best I can do, is share and explanation as well as some approximate measurements.

A close up of some of the blocks.

Firstly, I chose to do this quilt with solid blocks, no sashing, so the numbers I give you will be based off of the same. If you want to do sashing on your particular quilt (less cutting and piecing!), with nine patches, take a look at one of these: Crazy Mom Quitls Nine Patch
Alternately, you can stagger nine patch blocks with blocks of solid fabric like this: Staggered Nine Patch

Secondly, if you want to do bigger blocks and pieces, you are going to have to do your own math to figure it out! My numbers are only for the top, so nothing for backing or batting.

Another close up.

I cut each square of the blocks 2.5". You then sew three pieces together into a row. You sew three rows total, then sew the three rows together into a block. You can make it so that you alternate your colors, giving each block a checkerboard look, or you can make them totally random! Once you sew them together into a nine patch  (3x3 squares), the block is 6.5". Finished, the blocks are 6". This means there are tons of individual pieces! I can't tell you yardages, because as you can see, it's very, very scrappy!


I did do one 2.5" border around the edges of mine, just to give it a little bit of balance so the eye had somewhere to actually rest. The numbers below will give a yardage requirement for the same size border, as well as the finished size listed will reflect how big the quilt is with the border added.

If you need more specific help on assembling the nine patches, try doing a Google search. It's a very common quilt block, so you should be able to find lots to help you!

What a stack of 224 quilt blocks looks like before they are sewn together.

Queen size quilt:

14 blocks across x 16 blocks down
224 blocks total
2016 pieces
Border requirement: 7/8 yard chosen fabric.
Approximate finished size: 81.5 Wide x 94" Long

Full size quilt:

13 blocks across x 14 blocks down
182 blocks total
1638 pieces
Border requirement: 3/4 yard chosen fabric
Approx. finished size: 82" W x 88" L

Twin size quilt:

11 blocks across x 14 blocks down
154 blocks total
1386 pieces
Border requirement:  3/4 yard chosen fabric
Approx. finished size: 70" W x 88" L

Throw size:

10 blocks across x 11 blocks down
110 blocks total
990 pieces total
Border requirement:2/3 yard chosen fabric
Approx. finished size: 64"W x 70"L

Soft Book of Colors

Soft Book of Colors

Grade: A

Difficulty: Beginner

Pattern: Baby's Soft Book of Colors

Front cover. I thought about doing my little's name here, but decided to just make it generic girl. That way, if there are more, I don't feel obligated to make one of these for each of them if I don't want to!

So I started this cute little book for Miss E, intending to give it to her for Christmas. And then she went and started learning her colors on me, so I pushed it way up, and she is currently loving it! There are a couple of other blogs that have used this same tutorial. I added one extra set of pages so that I could do more colors, and omitted the ribbon closure. Miss E has a quiet book that has a velcro closure, and while I love that it closes the book up tight, she hates it!

 

The pattern really is simple, all you do is sew straight lines! I loved it because it ate up some of those awkward scraps I had! I also made sure to put lots of different textures in, just for fun! You can use piece of fabric however big you want, if you only want three pieces per color, that's fine! If you want to do 20, go for it! It's totally up to you!
Other than the minor adjustments mentioned above, I really didn't do anything else.

On the Blue-green, if yours will be next to each other, I recommend doing a definite piece of each color on what will be the seam line between the two, so they don't 'blend' together. Otherwise that distinction can be hard for little eyes to make out!

As with most things, I'm a little bit more OCD than you probably suspect, so of course mine is in color order! Go bust out your scraps though and make one of these for your little cutie!