I am being featured on "Cut out + Keep"

Just a quick hello to say some of my projects are being featured on Cut out + Keep this week. Come take a look!

Design your own sheets!

My little girl is into all the little girl characters like Dora, Hello Kitty, Princesses, Winnie the Poo, etc. One day, she wants a princess bed, the next day a Dora bed. It is hard to keep up.

I went to the store to see what sheets they had, but obviously it is either princess or Dora, so I decided it was time to get crafty.

I purchased a plain set of light pink sheets, and using fabric markers drew all of her favorite characters on it (leaving some more room, just in case we start liking a new character). The sheets are a big success (I have to wash and dry them while she is at daycare, because I am not allowed to take them off of her bed!).

Car Seat Strap Covers

It has been a long time again. I am now 35 weeks pregnant, and am allowed to get up more. In two weeks I get the stitches taken out, and then pretty soon baby girl will be on her way...

I can't sit for long at a time, but I can sew a little bit, so I have been working on smaller projects that don't take too long. 

Another knitting project

As I am laying here on bed-rest, I have started to think about Littleheart's winter wardrobe. It is still really hot here, and it will be for probably another four months or so, but once the baby is born, I wont have much extra time, so I might as well use my time now. Littleheart loves dresses, she actually will only wear dresses at the moment. For summer it is great, she has a bunch of lightweight sundresses, and chooses what she wants to wear every day. Who knows if she will still be into dresses in the winter, but it is definitely more challenging to make winter dresses. I found this knitting pattern for a cute dress, and thought it would look really nice over a long sleeve shirt and with some bright colored tights. 

It is a great pattern, very clear and easy to follow, and the best thing is, it is all knit in one piece, so no sewing together! It actually didn't take me that long, maybe two weeks, but I was pretty much knitting all day long.

My mom went out to buy me beautiful cotton yarn in nice colors for the fall/winter. This is what my version looks like:

It might be a bit big on Littleheart, but then she can wear it next year too. I hope she likes it (she is VERY picky about her dresses).

If you are interested in some of the other knitting projects I have pinned, you can visit my pinterest board here.

Have a nice day!

Baby blankets and bedrest

You have probably been wondering where I went and why I haven't been posting sewing tutorials. Well, the truth is I am almost 29 weeks pregnant and have been on bed-rest since 23 weeks, two of which were in the hospital. All this due to a weak cervix that needed to be stitched up with a cerclage. So far the procedure has held nicely, but you just can't know, and that is why I am on bed-rest pretty much til the end. I must say, it is not easy.  I mean, the two weeks in the hospital were pretty awful (although thanks to my amazing husband and family, it was much easier than it could have been). But being home, and staring at all of my beautiful new fabric, and not being able to sew - well, torture! My mom is spending the summer with us, which is just amazing, she has completely taken over the whole household, and she and my husband take care of littleheart. 

Anyway, I won't complain. Fist of all, things could be much worse, and second of all, it is a limited time and for a good cause.

Being me though, I couldn't go completely without being crafty, so I did think of a few projects I could do laying down.

4th of July

We don't celebrate the 4th of July here, but my nephew in the States does, so I made him this little holiday outfit for the occasion. I just took a simple T-shirt and soft knit pants pattern, and added a pocket in the front of the shirt, and two pockets in the back of the pants. I used a blue and white stripe knit as my main fabric, made all the edges red and used a fun blue and white stars knit fabric for the pockets. It is a little hard to get pictures of my nephew these days, but I think you see the outfit on these.

 

 

I hope you all had a Happy 4th of July! Stay well.

 

 





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:

Ruffle Leg Shorts

This is the first tutorial for my "You are my sunshine" outfit. My ruffle bottom shorts were inspired by these shorts I saw from the Gap:

I didn't gather the pockets (wasn't quite sure how) and left out the bow, but otherwise, I think they turned out pretty similar. Want to make them? Read on...

You are my sunshine summer outfit

You must think I am crazy, but honestly, I am sick of sewing things for the winter. I find it difficult to find thick fabrics (other than fleece), and well, short sleeves and shorts are so much faster, not to mention how fun it is to make sundresses…

So, even though it is February and cold, I decided to get a head start on Littleheart’s summer wardrobe. I surfed around the net for some inspiration and then started making these sketches:

I really hope I can try out all the ideas from my sketches, and bring you lots of fun, new tutorials.

This first outfit I made for a fun series called Sew in tune. It is actually the winter version of the series, but hey, people in Australia are not going to be sewing winter clothes right now, right? Anyway, you are supposed to sew something inspired by a song. I actually had the outfit idea first, and then realized it was perfect for the series, because it fits the song “you are my sunshine”. My grandmother, may she rest in peace, used to call me her sunshine, and I feel the same way about Littleheart. So this is the perfect little outfit to start off my summer sewing.

I will post both a tutorial for the top and shorts. My pattern is as usual, the size of Littleheart (3-4T) but you can easily make both with any top and shorts pattern.

So come back soon to find the tutorials for the “You are my sunshine” outfit.

Update: You can now find the tutorial for the shorts here and for the top here.

More Baby Presents and Softie Bunny Tutorial

Here is the rest of the baby presents I made for my friend’s baby girl (the first one was a Black Apple doll).I love how the set turned out, and it is nice and girly!

The overall is a pattern for the ottobre magazine 4/2012. I added the lace around the chest, to make it real girly (her first child is a boy, so this time around she needs lots of lace and ruffles!).

The hat is a free pattern from Zaaberry. This is a great tutorial, and really easy. I lined the hat so there wouldn't be any rough seams on the baby’s head.

The bunny is my own creation and the tutorial appeared on Gritsand Giggles in December for a “Becoming Mommy series”. I am bringing the tutorial “home” in case you missed it…

Black Apple Dolls

A while back I mentioned that I was doing a lot of "present sewing", and today I am ready to reveal the first outcome.

I stumbled across the pattern for these handmade dolls from Black Apple on various blogs, and thought the dolls were so cute. It is a great basic pattern, and I have seen so many fun ideas that have developed from it. 

I think the doll is great for any age, but I think it is especially good as a "first doll", since the entire doll is soft. Yesterday I gave the purple one to my dear friend who just had a baby girl two days ago. I hope it will bring a lot of joy to her little princess. The other two are for a friend that also had a baby girl a while back (I made one for her 2 year old daughter too). I will be giving them next week hopefully.

I basically followed the basic pattern (which you can find here) and added two things:

1. Hair on two of them (just took a bundle of yarn and sandwiched it between the two head pieces.

2. I made a little circle skirt for all the dolls following this tuturial. I used knit fabric for the skirts and made a lettuce edge for the hem using this tutorial.

I really had fun making these dolls, and I think this is my new favorite present for a baby girl. The next babies due are boys, so I will have to come up with other present ideas...:)

The Circle Skirt Tutu

I have started Littleheart's costume for Purim (a Jewish holiday where all the kids get dressed up). After being a dog her first year

and a rainbow sunshine her second year (see tutorial here)

I decided that it was time to be a princess. I looked around the internet for some inspiration, and decided to make her a princess dress with a separate tutu under it, so that Littleheart would have the tutu after Purim to play dress-up. She doesn't have any dress-up clothes yet, but I think this is the time to start her a dress-up box, so this will be the first item in her box!

Simple fleece skirt with elastic waist

Ok, first of all - Happy New Year! I hope you all had a good holiday season and as we say in Swiss German "E guete Rutsch" (a good slide) into the new year!

The past two months have been a little slow on my blog. I did get some sewing done, but mostly presents, which I cannot reveal until they are given to the people, so we will just have to wait a bit.

Remember how I told you here that I love to sew with fleece? Well, I made myself a skirt out of the left over fabric from Littleheart's fleece coat.  
This is a cute and easy skirt I can wear with leggings and boots. It was so fun and fast to make, I whipped up two more for my sister and cousin!