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. 

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!

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...

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!

The clothes have finally been worn...

Lately I have posted a lot of winter clothes I made for Littleheart, but the weather was always too warm for her to wear them and take pictures. Then we went on our trip to the States, and she finally was able to wear everything, so I thought I would share some pictures with you! I am sorry, they are not all good quality, I don't know if it is just me, but I find it really hard to get good pictures of an active 2 year old...

Pleats, pin-tucking and smocking - all in one outfit!

Fleece Jumper with a pouch

Corduroy Pants

Fleece top with a zip

Thanksgiving jumper with removable turkey tail

Have a nice day!

Holiday Jumper with removable Menorah/Christmas Tree

My Thanksgiving jumper with removable turkey tail was a great hit, and a lot of fun to make. My sister and I were talking about it one day, and found that the options are never ending! We came up with so many new ideas, so the next project for Littleheart's holiday wardrobe is the Hanukkah (Christmas) Jumper with removable Menorah (Christmas Tree). This one can definitely have the interchangeable ruffle like the Thanksgiving jumper with removable turkey tail, but to change things a bit the interchangeable piece for this dress will be snowflakes and a snowman.

Fleece top with a zip

As you have probably noticed, I like to make every-day clothes. I don't like to make things that are worn only once, I like to see them worn and feel like it was worth all the hard work. 

I got some pretty fleece a couple of months ago. My first project was a coat for Littleheart I made during KCWC. I discovered it is actually really easy to work with fleece, and was excited to go on to my next project.

This time I searched the internet for some inspiration. Mostly I found fleece jackets and coats (which I did not need, since I just made that), but I did stumble across this cute fleece sweatshirt from Old Navy. A simple sweatshirt, but the bottom part is gathered, which makes it very feminine. I looked at it closely, and decided, it is actually really easy to make. I just needed to trace a simple bodice piece, cut two rectangles for the bottom part and of course the sleeves. I left out the collar, since I myself don't love collars.

And this is how I put it together:

Mom's perfect fit shirt - the winter version

This summer, when my mom came to visit, she brought along her favorite t-shirt, and I made her a couple more by tracing the original one. When she came back for Littleheart's birthday, she confirmed that they were officially her favorite shirts! Unfortunately, it is now too cold in Switzerland to wear them, so I decided to surprise her with two more, only this time I made them with long sleeves. 

If you would like to make Mom's perfect fit shirt - the winter version then download the basic shirt pattern here and the extra pieces for the long sleeves here.

Follow my tutorial for the summer version here and you will have a winter long sleeve shirt in no time!

I will be linking up to some of the link parties on this page . 

Dropped waist sweater dress with over-sized pleated pockets

I mentioned to you a few days ago that I was chosen to participate in an exchange program with fabric fascination. I chose two fabric pieces called Nest Fabric Bundle by Valori Wells, and received half a yard of each to complete my project.

Since my real "thing" is sewing clothes, especially for my daughter, I decided to design something for Littleheart to wear this winter. I am always torn between practical and pretty. I would love to make Littleheart pretty blouses and cotton dresses, but they are not comfortable, and not suitable for daycare. And she really doesn't have many opportunities to wear them. She wears them once or twice and then they get too small. So I tend to stick to the knits, at least most of the time. So this was a bit of a design challenge - how can I integrate these pretty cotton fabrics into Littleheart's normal wardrobe style.

Thanksgiving jumper with removable turkey tail

Project Run & Play week 5 - Holiday wear. As I told you last week, I finally joined in on the Project Run & Play sew along. Last week was boys week (I entered my Lego Man Shirt) and this week is Holiday Wear. I was actually really excited this was the topic, since I had this idea in my head, and this gave me a push to realize it. 

See, I am planning a little trip with Littleheart, to go see my family in the States. We will be spending Thanksgiving with my sister. A few weeks ago, my sister sent me a picture of a little turkey outfit she got my nephew for the occasion, thinking it might be a little tacky, but I loved the idea of dressing up for Thanksgiving, and told her I would make Littleheart something to match!

The only problem is, we don't celebrate thanksgiving here is Israel, and turkeys don't really have any meaning here. So I thought I better come up with something that could be used after thanksgiving too....

And this is what I came up with...The thanksgiving jumper with a removable turkey tail that turns into a ruffle! The jumper turned out just what I imagined, and I am really excited for Littleheart to wear it for thanksgiving. And hey, she even let me do a photo session in the park (she is wearing it without anything under it, since it is still hot here, but the idea is to wear a long sleeve shirt under it).

Rainbow Circle Skirt and Rainbow Applique

Remember my post about these pretty sleeves?

I promised you that I would show the whole Birthday outfit, once it came together. The birthday party was so much fun, as you can see we had a rainbow theme, and everything looked great. I will write about the party soon, but here is a tutorial on how to make the rainbow skirt:

I made this skirt for Littleheart using scraps of lightweight cotton fabric, since it is still pretty hot here. I made it big so she can wear it next year too. Since many of you are slowly going into your colder seasons, I bet it would work really nicely with thicker materials too (like different colors of corduroy). 

So do you want to learn how to make the rainbow circle skirt? Read on…

Mom's Perfect Fit Shirt

My mom came to visit us in August, since Littleheart's daycare went on a two week break. It was great, we had such a nice time, and of course it went by way too fast. My dad also came for a long weekend, here is a picture we all took at the port in Tel Aviv.

(by the way the dress Littleheart is wearing is from this lovely tutorial).

When my mom arrived, she showed me some of the things she bought in the States when she went to visit my grandfather. She pointed out one of the shirts, and said it was the perfect fit for her, she just loves it! So I said, hey, let's make you a couple more!

I traced the shirt to make the pattern, and I have made it available for you here (seam allowance not included). It is size large/extra large. (Make sure when you print your page scaling is set to "none". Otherwise your printer will shrink the pattern.)

In the end it was actually a really easy shirt to sew. I made my mom two, and she was really happy.

Here is how you can make the perfect fit shirt!