Without Further Ado, I Present the Slit Plackets

First the good news! The slit placket on the last green kid’s shirt that I made came out of the washer and dryer with flying colors. It did not fall apart like the first one did. The fabric, the slit placket, and the interfacing did just great. The next step was to complete the shirt. But before I could do that I had to decide what design I wanted to embroidery on the shirt. It wasn’t so much my decision but the husband’s. I needed the husband to decided what design he wanted on his shirt, and then I would know what design to put on the kid’s shirt. If the husband picked a design I needed to try it out first before embroidering in on his shirt, and so the kid’s shirt became the best place to try a sample.

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The husband narrowed his choices down to two designs, a panda bear and a tiger. Since the tiger design was too large for the kids shirt, I decided to just put the panda on it and see how it turned out. When I finished embroidering the panda design, the husband like the design on the green fabric enough to pick the panda design without trying the tiger design first.

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After completing the husband’s shirt and the green kid’s shirt, I decided to go back to the first shirt with the placket that fell apart in the washer and see if it could be salvaged. With a little skill and a lot of luck, I was able to restitch the placket and get something useable from it. Since I had been viewing several panda designs, it was easy to pick a design for this shirt.

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After the husband’s shirt, the kid’s shirt and the trial and error samples with the green fabric, there were only scraps left, but enough to make a size 1 t-shirt with long sleeves. So, rather than putting the scraps back into the stash, I decided to just whip up this little t-shirt instead, and since all the embroidery thread and supplies were out I decided to try a design that was up for consideration on the kid’s green placket shirt. I like the design quite a bit and plan to use it again.

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Now that the my slit placket adventure is over, I am glad I went through it. I learned a lot and improved my skill of sewing slit plackets quite a bit. But, I am ready to move on and sew something else besides green fabric and slit plackets.

Thanks for the Memories

My niece recently posted some pictures on her blog of her kids in clothes I made for them many years ago. It is always great thrill for me to see new pictures of the kids. But to see them in the clothes I made is extra special, and it sent me on a trip down memory lane.

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The first picture was of her two youngest boys. She has 4 now, by the way. The older of the two boys in the picture is wearing a jacket I made for her oldest boy’s 3rd birthday, 7 years ago. Both boys looked so cute wearing the jacket. With a little reminiscing, I remembered the construction of this jacket. It was the first time I had made welt pockets. I did not want just patch pockets on this jacket and I remember reading about welt pockets in one of my sewing reference books.

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I remember sitting at the sewing machine hurrying to complete the pockets because they were coming to see us, and we were going to a local craft show at the high school. I remember hoping that the little guy would like the airplanes on the fabric and that he would be able to zip up the jacket by himself. I remember being concerned about the zipper because it was a smaller tooth zipper than I wanted to use but the color was right.

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The second picture that my niece posted was of her youngest boy in a shirt I made for the oldest boy back when he was just one year old. All 4 of her boys have wore this shirt now. I am amazed it lasted this long. I made this shirt just after I got my very first embroidery machine. I used the scraps from a shirt I had just made for my husband.

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In fact, there ended up being enough scraps for two shirts in size 1. One shirt was embroidered with Mickey Mouse and the other shirt with Donald Duck. Donald Duck is my niece’s favorite Disney character so you can see which one the little guy is wearing in the picture. On these shirts, I put ribbing around the sleeves. Each time I see I picture of one of the boys in these shirts, I regret adding the ribbing. To me, the ribbing gives the shirt a feminine look and I have not added ribbing to the sleeve of a boy’s shirt since.

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I would like to thank my niece for posting the pictures and for taking care of the clothes, I made so that each boy could enjoy them and I could see them wearing them.  Now that she has 4 boys and the oldest is a tween and is becoming very particular about what he wears, I have not done any sewing for them recently. But, with as much as I love sewing for kids, it might be time to get back to the sewing machine and get some new clothes made.

And Last In Box Number Three…

The contents of box number 3 is what made it easy to send a box of fabric to Good Will. Box 3 contained a lot of scraps. Although I find scraps useful to hang onto because I sew a lot of kid’s clothes, over the years I have found it easier and easier to just throw scraps away or to discern if there is any usable length to donate or use. Box 3 contained all three types of scraps, some went right to the garbage can, some went back into the stash but most had enough yardage to go into the donation pile.

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In box 3 was some useful gray fleece scraps that were just perfect for some kids sweatshirts. I love gray sweatshirts and they are also so much fun to embroider on because almost any design looks good on them. So, these scraps made it to the sew now pile.

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I laid out the gray scraps on my cutting table and then got out all my kid’s sweatshirt patterns in sizes 1 to 4. I started to arrange to pieces and quickly found that one size 1 shirt and one size 4 shirt fit the best. I cut out the pieces for them and then moved to the embroidery machine to get to work putting something fun on them.

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Since many designs would look good on the shirts, I had a difficult time picking just two designs. But, in the end, I turned back to my Peanut’s designs. I picked two designs that I had never stitched before, one for a girl and one for a boy. The gray fleece embroidered beautifully and the designs turned out great. But then again, all Snoopy designs do in my opinion.

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I then went back to the cutting table and picked colors for the ribbing which was easy after the embroidery was done. The sewing of sweatshirts went quickly and was great fun. Kid’s clothes are always fun to sew for me. They are usually simple and the results are always so cute.

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Now, as I look at the pile of scraps destined for Good Will, I begin to second guess myself. The gray scraps were transformed into such cute clothes. Couldn’t the rest of these scraps turn into the same? Yes, they could, but I think I will let someone else have the fun of making those scraps into something. And so off to Goodwill they go!

Embellishing Baby Towel Bibs – Part 2

With the first appliqued Snoopy bib completed and the end result turning out fabulous, I quickly started to embellish another bib. This time for a little girl. And so with another piece of Snoopy fabric in hand, I got started.

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This time I wanted the back ground peace signs of the fabric to be part of the embellishment. Having already done a square, I decided to try a circle. I hunted around the sewing room and the kitchen for the perfect circle but I could not find the right size. I finally remembered the circle cutter I had purchased many years ago. This is one of those craft items that you use about once every 3 years, that you really shouldn’t have taking up space in your closet but are so happy you have when you need it. I quickly cut the size of circle I wanted with the circle cutter, and then traced and cut out my fabric. Next I needed to fold and press the edges over evenly.

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I decided there was no way I could free hand the folding of the edges and get anything that still resembled a circle. So, I pulled out the seam 2 seam. I cut a smaller circle of the seam 2 seam and applied it to the back of the applique circle. I then snipped the edge of the circle and started to fold the edge over sticking it to the seam 2 seam as I went.

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This worked out fabulously!

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My end result was an almost perfect circle. I then applied the circle to the bib, holding it in place with the seam 2 seam, and stitched around the edge. I wish I had matched my thread color better to the fabric, but the stitching was very simple so it worked out ok. I stitched around the circle twice for a fun look.

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At this point the embellishment was done, but I was really not pleased with my end result. It was just a big circle on a towel. Even though it was a Snoopy in a circle on a towel, it still needed something else.

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I returned to my sewing closet and stared, hoping for inspiration, when my eye drifted to the far back corner where my old fabric paints lived. I have not used these in years. I was afraid they would be all dried up, but with a little shaking, the paint began to flow again and then the fun started. I created several peace signs in different sizes and colors with the fabric paints and they looked great!

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Adding some pink ribbing around the neck was the final touch for this bib. The end results are so cute. I can’t wait to give it to some little girl.

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As I pulled the fabric paints from the closet, ribbon, lace and various trims fell to the floor. As I picked them up, my creative mind went crazy. Pink Disney princess ribbon with pink matching lace. Disney Cars ribbon with car tracks made from fabric paint. Rainbow Snoopy ribbon with many more Snoopy appliques. A whole new use for my leftover scraps from my other sewing projects. The possibilities became endless, and I became very excited about what to make next.

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I will definitely be making more baby bibs and embellishing them with and without my embroidery machine and maybe a combination of both. Let the fun begin!

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If you want to see my original baby bib post you can find it HERE.

And I hope you all had a great Summer of LOVE and PEACE!

Embellishing Baby Towel Bibs – Part 1

I am spoiled. Very spoiled it seems. When it comes to embellishing the baby towel bibs that I make, I simply move over to my embroidery machine, pick a design and stitch away. The bibs always turn out so cute, and I have a chance to try a new design that I have always wanted to. But, what if I did not have an embroidery machine? Would I still make the bibs? How would I embellish them without it? Would it take a lot of time and be a lot of work? And would it be more time and work than I would want to put into a bib? After giving these questions way too much thought, I decided to embellish a couple of baby bibs without using my embroidery machine to see how they turned out.

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My first thought was the simplest thing to do, apply a store bought applique to the front of the bib. So, I dug through the closet and found my small selection of appliques. Needless to say, I don’t have many and they are not really suited for a child or baby, plus most of them are small, so I was not really impressed with my store bought applique as an embellishment.

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When my store bought appliques did not pan out, I decided I would make my own appliques instead. As I dug through the closet, I ran across my last Snoopy fabric purchases. Yes it’s true, I am the world’s biggest Snoopy fan! They would make great appliques, especially the black Snoopy pirate on the bib with the black ribbing.

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Not wanting to use all my fabric on appliques, I only cut a small square from the corner of the fabric, but tried to get all the designs out of it. At this point, I had to make a decision. Just how much time did I want to spend embellishing baby bibs? I decided that I did not want this to be an all day project or  to be difficult, so I cut the designs in squares rather than cutting out the actual designs.

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The next step was to attach the designs to the bibs.

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I started by  folding the edges over and pressing them down. This worked fine but I quickly learned two things. First, I needed a little more edge to fold over, so next time I will cut the squares slightly larger. Second, I need to spend a little more time cutting and measuring. This does not mean I have to spend all day doing this or have it perfect, but a little more time centering the designs and folding the edge over evenly would have givien me a little more professional look. But, for a baby bib that the kid is going to spill mushy peas down the front of, my appliques were just fine.

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Next I sprayed my squares with some spray adhesive. If you don’t have spray adhesive, you can just pin the squares to the bibs, but I am all about the easy way. I then arranged the designs on the bibs and took the project to the sewing machine where I quickly stitched the squares to the bib. This is where the larger edges would have been helpful.

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I think the end result of this bib turned out great. The bib is just so cute! The time factor was minimal but the fun factor was off the charts. Now I can’t wait to make more bibs.

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If you want to see my original baby bib post you can find it HERE.

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$0.25 Apiece

It was time to make a couple of baby sleepers for gifts. As I dug through the stash for just the right piece of fabric for the sleepers, I came across a nice piece of gray velour. This piece was purchased from JoMar’s $0.50/yard table in Philadelphia. The edge was stained from the machine that rolled it on the bolt. When I saw and felt the piece I knew it would make beautiful sleepers. I was not really sure about the stain or just how much room I had in my suitcase to take home fabric for sleepers, so I only purchased 1 yard.

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My first step was to wash the fabric. Before washing, I pretreated the stain just to see if it would come out. After pretreating, the stain still would not come out making my next step to cut off about 6 inches along the edge where the stain was. I knew there would still be enough fabric for at least one sleeper, so I started to cut. I cut out a size 0-3 month.

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When I finished cutting the first sleeper, I noticed that I still had plenty of fabric remaining. As I laid out the pattern pieces to cut a second sleeper, I noticed that I would still have plenty of fabric left after cutting out that sleeper too! Wow, maybe this piece of fabric grew in the washer! Since I had enough fabric, I decided to make a size 3-6 month sleeper for the last one. This finally left me with just scraps.

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The sleepers sewed up fairly easily. The zippers and the velour wanted to fight a little, so that required some patience and time to get right. I hate to unpick, but I did on part of one of the zippers to try and get a better look from it. The embroidery designs were easy to pick. The gray velour was perfect for a mostly white design, and that made it easy to pick white for the ribbing and zipper.

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The polar bear design slipped a little while stitching it but a hot iron helped to fix that problem and it washed ok, but it still bugs me as a seamstress when I look at it since it isn’t perfect. I then used some of the web knit on the back of the designs so it was soft for the babies skin and it seemed to help the problem as well. It is just so vexing when your sewing projects don’t work just the way you envisioned them to.

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Even though these are not my most favorite sleepers  that I have ever made, they sure are cute enough. Plus I think any baby would be happy to wear them and any parent happy to have their child wear them. What do you think of them?

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Towel Baby Bibs – Neck Binding Tutorial

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Due to the popularity of my previous Towel Baby Bibs posts, I have recently received several questions regarding the baby bibs that I make for my friends and family.

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Because of this I am going to do a couple of new posts answering those questions and give a little more detail into the construction of the bibs so that people new to sewing will have less trouble figuring out how to make them. Then in the next few posts I will get creative and show you all the fun things you can do with the bibs once you have made them.

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This first post is a tutorial of how to apply the ribbing to the neck of the bibs. I am going to be using black ribbing with white thread. Hopefully, this will make it easier to see how to sew them together properly in the pictures. Just in case you didn’t know already you can click on any of the photos below to make them larger if you are having trouble seeing them.

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So here it is in just 10 easy steps:

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1. Cut the ribbing 10 1/2 inches by 3 inches. If the ribbing has a lot of stretch, cut it a little shorter. If the ribbing is not that stretchy, cut it a little longer.

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2. Place the circle pattern on the towel and cut the circle from the towel. I like to center the circle from side to side and place it about 1 inch from the top. You can place the circle anywhere you want but be careful not to place it too close to the top. Make sure  to leave enough room for your seam. I cut the circle out with my rotary blade so I don’t trace the circle first. If you are going to cut the circle out with scissors, it might make it easier to trace the circle onto the towel and then cut it out so you can pick the towel up. Plus, even though I have given the dimensions of my circle, you can be a little off from that, so don’t worry about the exact size too much. (I kept the circle I cut from the first bib that I made and serged around the edge, so I could use it as my pattern for bib making.)

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3. Fold the ribbing, right sides together, matching the width, and then sew the ribbing together.

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4. Fold the ribbing lengthwise, wrong sides together,  to form a ring.

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5. Pin the ribbing into fourths. Start by pinning the ribbing in half. To do this, I hold the seam in one hand, fold the ring flat and pin at the end of the piece. Then I place the seam and the first pin together and pin at each end.

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6. Pin the circle in the towel into fourths. I do this by folding the circle in half and pinning the sides of the circle. Then I fold the towel side to side, matching the pins, and pin the top and bottom of the circle.

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7. Matching pins, pin the ribbing to the towel. Make sure to put the seam to the top of the towel which is also the back of the circle.

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8. Stretch the ribbing and sew between the pins. Make sure to have the ribbing on top, this will make it easier to sew.

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9. Finish the edge. I use an overcast stitch in my sewing machine to finish the seam. I could use my serger but I like the cleaner look of the overcast stitch.

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10. Trim the edge next to the overcast stitches. Of course, it you serged the edge, the serger did this part for you.

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And now you have finished applying the ribbing to the neck of the bib and now it is complete!

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Congratulations on a job well done! This is what it should look like once completed.

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Stay tuned for my next posts on the fun part of embellishing the towel baby bibs.

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If you would like to see the ORIGINAL Baby Bib post you can find it HERE.

.Burda Design Baby Bibs

Outgrown

Does anyone remember the monkey applique blog post I did several months ago? Well, the mother of the little girl who received the shirt with the applique on it, told me the other day that her little girl was quite distressed because she was unable to wear the shirt any longer. She said that not only is it getting too hot to wear a sweat shirt, but that she is starting to out grow the shirt and it will definitely not fit her next year.

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It tickles me to find out that something I have made is being worn and liked, so I went home and found some fabric to make a summer monkey shirt. This yellow piece of fabric has been hanging out it the stash to be made into sleepers, but I had plenty for t-shirts as well. I cut a size larger than I think the she is but cut it a little shorter. I wanted to make sure it would fit her well.

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I chose a different monkey applique for the front of this shirt than the last one. I learned a lot from the first monkey applique I did. I applied those lessons to this applique, and then I learned a couple of more things along the way. The thing that I learned the most was that I needed to practice doing appliques, to perfect the technique. Good thing I have more monkey appliques to try it out with. The applique turned out too cute. The rest of the construction of the shirt was very straight forward and I am pleased the the results. I am so excited to give the shirt to the little neighbor girl.

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Unlike sleepers, I do believe that if you are making one kid’s t-shirt, it is just as easy to make two, so you can sew from one to the next. With that in mind, I cut and made a second yellow kid’s t-shirt. I put this Woodstock design on the second shirt because it is one of those designs I have always wanted to try but did not have anything to put it on and it is a summer design. I did not have enough ribbing for the sleeves in the particle blue color I used for the neck, so I just hemmed the sleeves instead. I wish I would have known this when I cut out the shirt. I would have just cut the sleeves a little longer for the hem. All in all, the second t-shirt is just too cute too.

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I love to sew kid’s clothes. They are just way too fun to make and I can be as creative as I want with them, plus fit is generally not as much of an issue as clothes for adults. Making these two t-shirts has me excited to sew more of them.

Just Sew Something Already

I wandered and I wandered. I wandered in and I wandered out. I wandered around and around. I finished my latest project and could not decided what to start next. I have so many things I want to sew and create, that I just can’t decided what would be best to do next. Yes, this is a reoccurring theme with me.

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I finally threw my hands in the air and they landed on a remanent that I purchased on my last trip to M&L fabric. Looking at the fabric, I grabbed it and threw it on the cutting table. I then grabbed the sleeper pattern. I did stop here for a moment to contemplate if I wanted to use this piece for sleepers or something else, but I refused to go back to wandering and wasting what precious sewing time I have, so I started to cut. This got my creative juices going. I started to line out my next project and then the next and then the next. I hurried to write down the list. I am so excited to have a plan again!

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I finished cutting out the sleepers and sewed them up. As always, they were a lot of fun to sew. It has been a long time since I have made a sleeper that I did not embroidery on, but this fabric was just too busy for an embroidered design. I made two sleepers because that used up the entire remanent with nothing left to put  back into the stash. To make them a little different, I used different color ribbing. It is amazing to me how much a small change like different color ribbing changes the whole project. The green ribbing is all boy, but a girl could wear the red ribbing as well as a boy.

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I have already started my next project with no wandering needed. From now on I have decided to keep a piece of fabric for sleepers next to the cutting table, for those times when I can’t decide what to do next. That way as I am cutting them out and I have burst of creative thoughts, I can put the sleepers away and get started on those other projects. Then I will use the time sewing the sleepers up as another boost to get things going again when needed. Hopefully, my plan will work and the wandering will stop. Hopefully…

BS

BS – Bibs and Sleepers.

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I ended up being able to do some creative stitching at the side seam and foot to save the original sleeper I mentioned in my previous post.

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Thank heavens for the small piece of fabric that you sew to the bottom of zipper. It became the extension that I needed for the crotch piece. As I sewed the other foot together, it was messed up too. So, the feet on this sleeper ended up being smaller than on some of the other sleepers I have made. I don’t think that anyone will notice though and it should not affect the wearing of the sleeper. I am pleased with the end results of this sleepers although it was a challenge to get there. The other sleeper sewed up great and was fun to make.

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They say it takes less time per sleeper to sew two sleepers at once. I don’t know if that is true. Yes, at first as you stitch the sleeves, you can sew and serge from one sleeper to the other without cutting off, but after that part comes the details. Zippers, ribbing, feet, seem to take the same amount of time whether you’re making one or two or more sleepers. So, in my opinion sewing two sleepers at once might end up saving 5 minutes or so. Oh well, I guess that is 5 minutes that can be used somewhere else.

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Of course, with all the embroidery supplies already out for the sleepers, I figured I might as well make some bibs for the babies too. I love to make bibs because it gives me the chance to stitch a usable sample of a design. The Mickey and Minnie design that I picked out ended up being so cute on the bib that I can’t wait to put it on a shirt for me.

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If you want to see my original baby bib post you can find it HERE.