Knight's Pleat Sleeves

Littleheart's second Birthday is coming up next month, and I want to make her a special outfit for the occasion. I am planning on making her a rainbow birthday party, and am designing her outfit accordingly. I will post about the finished outfit when it is done, but today I would like to show you how to make a Knight's Pleat Sleeve (which I am using for her birthday shirt). I saw this sleeve on a woman a while back, and have recreated it from my memory (so I am not sure if it is like that shirt, but I like the outcome, so who cares, right?). I call it the Knight's Pleat Sleeve because it reminds me of the armor the medieval knights used to wear:

This sleeve works for any shirt, adults or children.

Want to make it? Here is how!

Pintucked Shoulder Shirt

Here is the tutorial for the last shirt in my "One Pattern - Three Shirts" series. If you missed the other two you can find them here and here. I call it the pintucked shoulder shirt. The neck in a loose, hanging neckline, so you need to wear it with a tank top underneath. I think it looks really nice with a lacey top, but plain would go too.

Shirred Front Shirt

This is the second shirt in my "One pattern - three shirts" series. I call it the shirred front shirt (I know, not very original). 

Pleated Neck T-shirt

This is the first out of a series of three shirts I made using the same basic pattern. 

What you will need

1.5 yard of lightweight, knit fabric

Fusible interfacing

Download my basic pattern (for size medium) or draft your own using my tutorial. 

One Pattern - Three Shirts

Now that Littleheart's summer wardrobe is more than complete, I have been working on a few pieces for myself. At first I was a little intimidated about sewing for me, but I have found that it is actually really fun, especially when you are on a budget and can't go out shopping whenever you feel like it. You just imagine what you would like to wear and try it out!
After looking around for inspiration, I came up with three shirts I could make out of a single pattern! Each shirt starts out with the same one pattern, which gets altered for each design. In the next couple of weeks I will show you how to make each one of these shirts. If you are size Medium you are welcome to download my basic pattern here. If not I will show you how to draft your own, it is not hard.

Update: I have now posted all of the tutorials for the shirts above. This is where you can find them:
Pleated Neck Shirt
Shirred Front Shirt
Pintucked Shoulder Shirt 

Kodak Moments...The Red Sea

It was my Birthday last Friday so we decided to take a little trip to the Red Sea. It is about a 4 hour drive, and I must say Littleheart did amazingly well both directions.

It was a wonderful little trip, and we got a lot done in four days...

The outfit that started it all...

You might recognize this outfit, it is the shorts outfit I made for "Shorts on the line" this summer. This is the outfit that gave me the push to start my own blog. I had been thinking about it for a while, but I had the usual concerns, "am I interesting enough?", "is my sewing good enough?", "can i commit to it?"...So I kept on putting it off. Then Melanie, who writes a monthly column for Sew, Mama, Sew! contacted me and asked me if she could use my picture in an article she was writing about sewing trends. She said she would link the picture back to my blog. Of course I was thrilled, and told her she was welcome to use it, but that I didn't have a blog of my own yet. So Melanie linked my picture back to my flickr picture and that was it. I told myself, if she chose my outfit out of the many, then maybe I do have something to offer. And so here I am...

The Lani Overalls

In the beginning of the week I showed you how to make the shirred appliqué on these cute overalls and today I will show you how to make the overalls. What I love about these overalls, and all you toddler mothers will probably agree, is that there are snaps at the bottom so you do not have to take them off to change a diaper. 

Cosmetics Storage Baskets

Our "new" apartment (we have been here a year - wow the time flies!) is a work in progress. Over the past year I have made a few decorations to make it feel more homely. For example these drapes for the kitchen window, with matching pillows for the couch.

Shirred Appliqué

The overalls you see on my banner are what I call the "The Lani Overalls - The baby version" (Lani is what we call my sister, and she was the inspiration for them).

See the cute Truck design on the front bodice? Today I am going to show you how to make the design. I call it Shirred Appliqué which is basically the two techniques I used for it. I know - more shirring! But I can't help it, I am hooked!

Dresses for Daycare

So Littleheart is in Daycare (which we call "Gan" - Hebrew for Garden) when I am at work, and she loves it. I am really happy with her progress, I feel that it is really good for her to be with other children. She learns a lot of social skills, and her language is really developing nicely.

I have two problems though: