Stuffed animal storage floor cushion

Do your kids have tons of stuffed animals and you don't know what to do with them? Well, mine does, and she is not even three yet! She actually never really plays with them (yet?) and they are just laying around all over the place. I was searching the internet for some storage ideas, and came across this fun idea here - A big pillow that you can store all the stuffed animals in, but also use as a sitting pillow. How fun!

Ruffle Flap Top

A few months ago I saw a girl on the playground wearing a shirt similar to this one. I thought the idea of the ruffly sides was really cute. Unfortunately, since I did not know the child I could not just walk up to her and take a closer look, or even take a picture, so I made this from my memory. I actually really don't remember what the shirt looked like, but I think this one turned out kind of cute :)

Anyway, it is really easy to make, you just need to alter a normal shirt pattern a bit. I will briefly talk you through it, but I don't have to explain much, if you know how to make a regular t-shirt...

Soft baby hats for premies

My dear cousins just had a baby girl, 2 months early. Thankfully she is doing well, but she is pretty tiny. I remember when my nephew was born early, my sister was saying that all the hats were way too big, so I decided to make a couple of hats for my baby cousin.

These are really easy, most important you use very soft fabric. You want to line the hat, so no seams are touching the baby’s head directly. If you are making these for a newborn preemie, remember to wash your fabric with special baby detergent, before you make the hats.

I have included my pattern here. I was inspired by this wonderful tutorial for baby hats. I made the pattern smaller for preemies and sewed it up a bit different to have the whole thing lined…

I hope you can help some little tiny premies with some of these cute, soft hats!

Crossover Ruffle Sundress

Well, it has definitely been a while, lots has been going on, and I just needed to take a little time-out from writing tutorials (not sewing). But I did get a lot done over the last month, and the weather is finally warm (even hot!), so we are getting a lot of use out of what I have made. 

Littleheart is definitely in a dress/skirt ONLY phase (which means all of he pretty shorts are just put away in the closet). I try to keep up with her phases, not easy, since they change so fast. But I have made her a few new sundresses (luckily some of the ones from last year still fit) and have a few ideas for some more.

Anyway, this crossover ruffle sundress was inspired by a dress I saw online (I really don't remember where). Want to make one? Read on!

I am still here...

Wow, my last post seems like such a long time ago! I don't know where the time went! I do actually have a few tutorials lined up, the only thing I need to do is scan my patterns, and I just have not had time to do it. But I promise, I will get around to it soon...

I have been sewing, not tons, but quite a bit. I made some more summer outfits for Littleheart. The problem is, she is very peculiar about what she wears lately. For a while, it was dresses only, so I made a bunch of dresses, and now it is skirts. At least it is easy to sew up a few circle skirts at a time, and she seems satisfied with them. She is so into skirts, she wears them to sleep over her pajamas!

I also made a few very practical maternity skirts for some friends. It is a great pattern that fits everybody, and I will try and write up a tutorial for it.

I really need to get started on some more baby presents, there are just so many babies due this year around here, I am not sure how I will keep up!

So, you see, my lists are huge! And I really need to get some new material. So hopefully there will be some fun tutorials coming your way this spring and summer...

Anyway, here is a cute outfit I made, that didn't make the tutorial list. Littleheart calls it her "Copohots" outfit (polka-dots).

Giraffe Baby Rattle

I have seen a lot of these soft rattles around lately, and thought I should try and figure out how to make them, since they make a perfect little baby presents, and boy are there a lot of babies due this summer!

I think it turned out kinda cute, although he has a bump in his nose, I guess I didn't sew straight there. Maybe he looks more like a reindeer than a giraffe. But baby won't notice :)

Anyway, this one is for a friend that just had a baby boy, hope the baby will enjoy it!

Bias tape dress up cape and Superhero costume

Like I mentioned here, we celebrated Purim last week and I made my friend's son a costume. He loves this Israeli Superhero called Mr Tomato and we were looking at the costume you can buy which is very expensive, and made out of that cheap, scratchy costume material. I told her I could make it for him and was happy to take on the challenge.

This is the original costume she was going to buy:

We discussed it and decided that the pants with the tomato shirt, the cape and the mask would be plenty. He could wear his boots with it and it would look great.

So I went to work and this is what came out of it:

Princess Costume

Purim has arrived, and I finally finished Littleheart's princess costume. I mentioned last month, that I decided to make the costume in two parts - the tutu under the dress and the dress itself. This way Littleheart will have two dress-up pieces in her dress-up box. You can check out my tutorial for the circle skirt tutu here.

I must say, I cannot take credit for the entire design of the dress. I studied lots of wonderful tutorials before I decided what I wanted to do. You can find my inspiration on my "Sewing Costumes" Pintrest board.

Anyway, I didn't choose a specific Disney princess, since Littleheart really doesn't know them yet, but the style of the dress is definitely inspired by Snow White, Rapunzel, Cinderella...

I chose pink and white for the fabric, but you can really choose any colors. The pink is a "costume satin" and the white is just a plain cotton. I lined the bodice with a white knit fabric, so it would be nice a soft on the inside (I like soft).

I actually made the dress way to long, and then decided to leave it long, and hem it up by hand with a blind hem to the right length. This way Littleheart can still wear it when she gets a bit taller. If there is a line where the fold is on the hem, I can always sew on a pretty piece of lace. Unfortunately the day I actually put it on her I noticed the front is longer than the back, and the front is a bit too long...But she did ok with it.

Anyway, enough talking, lets get down to business - you want to make your own princess dress? Keep on reading...

You are my sunshine top

Here is my tutorial for my "You are my sunshine shirt" I will be uploading to the Sew in tune flickr group. It isn't really a full tutorial, I kind of just explain what tutorials I used to make it. But If you are an intermediate sewer you should be able to follow along....So here is how I made it: