T-Shirt into Baby Dress

I had two very old tank-tops that I was about to just throw away but I decided to change them into a baby dress. I used two because the fabric was worn out in some places so I just doubled up the whole thing.

Materials:
~ Old T-shirt
~ Current dress
~ Sewing machine
~ Design for the front (opt)

First I took a dress she currently wears and used it to cut out the new dress. Make sure you leave enough room for a seam allowance.

I hate hemming so to get around it this time I just used the hem from my old T-shirt. To do this, cut about an inch of extra fabric below the neckline and cut a strip long enough to go around your needed edge (ie: the sleeve). Fold the strip around your edge, leaving the already finished hem on the outside of your new edge. Make sure that the extra fabric (the non-hem) will be facing the inside of the dress. Pin in place and sew all around using a zig-zag stitch to give yourself some breathing room with moving the fabric around. I did the same thing to finish off the bottom of the dress.

I needed a little bit more scoop in my neck so I traced a lid and cut out a neck.

To finish the neck I cut three strips of fabric from my T-shirt and braided them around the neckline. At first I started sewing it on with a zig-zag stitch but that was way too busy so I unpicked that and just did a straight stitch.


The main reason I made this dress was because I wanted an outfit to add this cute little saying I found...

Yep, I'm gonna have another baby! I'm so excited! We find out boy/girl in mid-April so I'll either be making more girl stuff or I'll delve into little boy :)

I found a T-shirt at DI with this on the front so I just cut it out and stitched it onto my dress.

Here's a close-up of the finished sleeve and neckline. This can give you an idea of how using the hem from the T-shirt and using a braid look.

And the finished product...

Total Cost:
~ Old T-shirt: $0.00
~ Current dress: $0.00
~ Sewing machine: $0.00
~ Design for the front (opt): $2.00

T-shirt Baby Dress: Total Cost ~ $2.00

Baby Leggings

Little M has a lot of cute dresses but her knees get all red from crawling around with no protection on them all day. I've used tights in the past but wanted to have leggings so her cute little feet wouldn't have to be covered up.

Materials:
~ baby tights
~ scissors
~ sewing machine

I didn't take step-by-step pictures but it's really easy.

1 - Cut off bottom of tights (her tights were 14 inches, I cut off 1 1/2 in)
2 - Sew around the edge of the tights

And you're done!

Now she can wear dresses, crawl around and protect her knees :)

And be super stylin!

Baby Leggings:
~ baby tights: $0.00
~ scissors: $0.00
~ sewing machine: $0.00

Baby Leggings: Total Cost ~ $0.00

Baby Block

C. and I found out that we're having a little baby GIRL :) We are so excited! I wanted to make something for my little girl but don't have a lot of big pieces of fabric in my scraps. I was going through all the baby projects on makeit-loveit.com (awesome site! See her original project here) and I found this project. Perfect for my small scrap pile!

Materials:
~ 6 squares of fabric
~ batting

The first thing to do was cut my 6 squares of fabric. I cut mine 4" x 4" but obviously you can do any size you want.

Next, take two squares and sew along one edge right sides together. Do this until you have 4 squares sewn together, all right sides facing inward.


Ok, now take a square and snip away 1/4" block from each corner. This block will become either your top or bottom and the block you snip away will help it lay nicely with the others.


(This part took me awhile to figure out!) What you want to do is pin your top/bottom piece so that you will have a 1/4" seam all the way around. The raw edge of your top/bottom piece and the raw edge of the side piece should be sticking out. Their right sides will both be facing inward and will be facing each other for that 1/4" that will become your seam. I hope that makes sense!

Now turn it inside out, stuff it with batting and hand-sew the last few inches up. I was ready to do this but didn't have any batting! I was at Ross buying maternity jeans and decided to look for some batting I could use. Here is what I found...

Isn't this gross?!? This is a dog-chew toy. I felt so ridiculous buying it, the picture doesn't do it justice!

I quickly pulled out my seam ripper and went to work tearing this thing apart. I got the batting that I needed and transferred it to my block. (I only used about half of it too! I now have batting for another project down the road. All of this only cost me $3.00)

Here's the finished product!

Now baby girl has a brand new block to play with, throw around and chew on :) I just have to wait until she gets here!

Total Cost:
~ fabric: $0.00
~ batting: $3.00

Baby Block: Total Cost ~ $3.00

Diaper Case

My sister is pregnant so to celebrate I made her a cute little diaper case! I've never owned a diaper bag but I've seen a lot of mothers fishing through looking everywhere for a diaper! (And sometimes it's kind of an emergency to get a diaper out for that little guy!) I found this tutorial for a diaper case on makeit-loveit.com (here). I was so excited when I found this idea, but I'll be honest, her tutorial is kind of confusing. She was doing all this in-and-out, double-sided, flip-a-roo stuff and I thought, why can't you just stick the two pieces of fabric together?" So I totally simplified it!

Materials:
~ Fabric: 2 pieces (one that is 8 x 12 inches and one that is 8 x 15 inches)
~ Sew-on velcro
~ Extra fabric for any fun additions you want!

Here are my two pieces of fabric

Make sure you fold under the raw edges along the top and sew those under. Then lay the two pieces of fabric RIGHT sides together and sew along the top and two sides.

Once you've sewn your two pieces together clip out the two bottom corners. Get close to the seam but make sure you don't snip through your thread!

This is the extra 3 inches on the back piece on the top. I wanted it to be the same width as the bottom section and I wanted to get rid of the raw edge, so I folded it under and sewed it all up, matching it to the bottom section so it wouldn't poke out when I folded the flap down.

Next just sew on the velcro! You can just do one piece or you can two if you want it to be extra secure.


I wanted to add a little pazzaz so I made two fabric yo-yo's and put them on the back bottom corner. I just safety-pinned these on because I wanted her to be able to take them off to wash the diaper case. If you want it to look a little more professional but still want the yo-yo's removable you can also do more velcro. I also cut out this thin piece of fabric (same as the yo-yo) and, with raw edges pressed under, sewed it along the edge of my flap.

Finished product (front view). What do you think?! Now it's easy to find diapers in that notoriously messy diaper bag and if you ever have a babysitter you can just whip this out and hand it over!

Diaper Case:
~Fabric: $3.00 (rough guess...I don't remember exactly. But this gave me enough fabric to make at least one more, maybe two)
~ Sew-on Velcro: $3.00 (something like that...but again, this gave me enough velcro to make 2)
~ Extra fabric: $2.00 (same thing...gave me more than what I needed)

So, even though the total that I spent equals $8.00, since I have enough materials to make at least one more, I'm going to say that this one diaper case cost me $4.00

Diaper Case: Total Cost ~ $4.00

Table Runner

I am finished with my first quilting project! I made a 3 foot table runner and finally finished tonight. I'm very excited! I started this with my sewing teacher but had to finish on my own. It took me awhile to finish but I finally got some batting and fabric for the back as well as the binding. I don't have step-by-step pictures, sorry, but I do have a picture of the final product :)

I definitely learned a lot on this project. I got the pattern here but it was a little confusing because they want you to buy a package from them so they don't give you all the measurements. Luckily my teacher was able to help me figure them out and we actually did the hourglass blocks a little differently. The method I used saves you a lot of fabric and a lot of time! It's a little confusing to just explain so I'll put up pictures of this next time I do it.

When I bought the fabric for this I got 10 fat quarters which cost me about $20. However, it gave me enough fabric for 3 table runners. So if you decide to make one of these, you could lower the cost either by getting fewer patterns or just putting gift money towards the fabric and then giving away your two extra (or even all three). I also had to buy the batting and the fabric for the back (which is the same fabric I used to make the binding). This cost about $10 I think, but again, this was for all three. So I'm guessing my cost for this table runner was about $10, give or take.

Table Runner: Total Cost ~ $10.00

Re-covered pillow #4, Weaved Pillow

I had one last pillow that came with our couches and I wanted to save it for a really good idea. And I got it! I'm way excited about this pillow and it's definitely my favorite. I got the idea from an old lady's dress :) haha Here it is...

Materials:
~ Old, ugly pillow
~ Fabric
~ Ruler
~ Pencil

I knew that I wanted a plain back for this pillow and a solid color underneath all the weaves in the front. I decided to do white in the front and red in the back. But when I went to cut out the white I realized that I didn't quite have enough fabric! So I decided to just cut up the stuffing of my old, ugly pillow to match the size of the fabric that I had left :) Problem solved! Now it's a kidney pillow instead of a square one.


Next was to measure how many strips of fabric I would need for my weave. You can do this with just one color but I decided to alternate red and gold. I took a ruler and drew out lines everywhere I wanted a weave strip to be. I drew this all out on the wrong side of my fabric (although since it's a solid color it didn't really matter which was the wrong side).

Then I measured how many pieces of red and gold I would and how big they each needed to be. I ended up doing 14 red pieces and 12 gold pieces. I sewed right along the edge and then turned them inside out.Two quick tips about sewing these strips together. When you're sewing a bunch of stuff all right after the other don't worry about cutting the thread and re-starting your sewing line for each one. Just sew them all on one big seam. Does that make sense? So when you get to the end of one piece, leave a little space and start the next one. Here's what you end up with, go ahead and just snip the extra thread in between each piece. This saves a lot of time and headache!
Tip #2: Most of you have probably seen this. If you ever have to turn something small inside out pin a safety pin to one side of the fabric at either the top or the bottom and then push the safety pin all the way through until the fabric is totally right side out. This saves even more time and headache!
Once I had all my strips of fabric right-side-out and ironed down flat I pinned them onto my fabric. Then I sewed all the way around the outside edge.

To make sure that the pieces of fabric stayed in place once the pillow got on my couch I tacked them down in the back. Every time the strips crossed each other I tacked down the bottom piece, making sure to not poke through to the top piece so as to keep my thread hidden. The back is ugly but this ended up in the inside of my pillow and it didn't matter what it looked like :)

After that was done I sewed the front and back together, turned it inside out, stuffed it, and hand-stitched the last few inches. That's it!! What do you think?!



Cost:
~ Old, ugly pillow: $0.00
~ Fabric: $0.00
~ Ruler: $0.00
~ Pencil: $0.00

Re-covered Pillow #4, Weaved Pillow: Total Cost ~ $0.00

Re-covered pillow #3, Multi-Colored

I wanted to do a pillow that was more than just that tan/gold I've used (see my other pillows here and here. I do like that color, but it's nice to add a splash of something else too right? The same color can get boring if it doesn't have anything else with it! So I decided to add some red in a pillow. I've mentioned before how much I like red--it adds so much to a room even if it's just something small.
Sorry, this post doesn't have very many pictures. I didn't do very well with picture taking on this camera. It starts out just like my other two pillow cases though, you need an old, ugly pillow :) Most people have one of those right?! And if you don't, go to a thrift store and I'm sure you'll find one real soon :) haha

Materials:
~Old, ugly pillow
~Fabric

This time I took two pieces of red fabric (the same fabric I used on my shower curtain shown here) and placed a white strip in the middle. I sewed the white onto the back sides of the red pieces and I decided to be a little bold and use some dark tan thread on the red fabric! I like it a lot!! There are two reasons I did this: 1-I'm feeling more confident in my sewing abilities and have always liked the look of thread that's a different color than the fabric, 2-I didn't have any thread that matched my red fabric. Haha :) Creativity comes out of necessity right?

Well, next I cut out two strips of a gold fabric I have, different that I used on my other pillow cases but same basic color. I cut them out zig-zaggy to add a little s.t.y.l.e. to my pillow. I tried adding little bows on too, to bring in more of the gold color, but it looked too kid-ish so I took those off.

Anyway, sorry for the lack of pictures throughout the process, but here's the final product. What do you think?



Total Cost:
~Old, ugly pillow: $0.00
~Fabric: $0.00

Re-covered Pillow #3: Multi-Colored, Total Cost ~ $0.00!

Re-covered pillow #2, Gathered Pillow

I re-covered one of our old pillows a few months ago and just did a simple pillow cover. It looks fine (click here to see that project), but it's the only pillow that I did and it looked awfully lonely sitting there on our couch... So, I decided to give it a companion! :)

I wanted to make this one a little fancier so I decided to do a gathered pillow. This was my first time doing a gather on anything! I was kinda n.e.r.v.o.u.s. but I decided to go for it! I followed this tutorial here on Make It and Love It.

Materials:
~ Old, ugly pillow
~ Scrap fabric

To start off with, I needed to cover up the ugly pillow I started with. Even once the original cover was taken off it was pretty ugly, and since the fabric I used it kind of see-through I went ahead and just made a really simple, white pillow case.


The next step was to cut out the fabric that I wanted to use for the gathering part. I wanted mine to end up with the measurements of 15 x 16. Whenever you gather something you want to double the length of the gathered part. So I cut out a piece of fabric that was 15 x 32. I figured out where I wanted my gathers to be, roughly every 2 1/2 inches apart for me. I placed pins every 2 1/2 inches at each end and in the middle of the fabric, just to make sure I stayed pretty straight :)
To make a gathering stitch, make sure that your machine is set to the basting stitch (usually just the longest stitch it can do) and sew straight down so that you've sown a straight line down the fabric every 2 1/2 inches. Make sure that you DO NOT back-stitch at the top and bottom!

Once I sewed all of my lines down the fabric (with OUT back stitching) it was time to start gathering it :) To gather, take the top thread and just pull to gather the fabric together. On the first one I did the other end came out! whoops!! So after that I started pinning down one side to a new piece of fabric that had the dimensions of what I wanted my finished gathered pillowcase to have (15 x 16). Then I just pulled away and adjusted so that the gathers were even.
Now that the gathers were all done, I needed to make sure that they would stay in place. So I sewed the two pieces of fabric together (my gathered top and the extra 15 x 16 piece it was pinned to) right on top of the gather stitch. I had some excess fabric left over so I just c-u-t that off. If you do this make sure you don't cut too much off :)

Now all I needed was to add the back! :) I cut out yet another 15 x 16 piece and placed right sides together. Then I sewed around the edges leaving just enough room to stuff the pillow inside. I turned the pillow case right-side-out and then hand-stitched the last few inches.

Voila! How do you like it!

That looks much better than one lonely pillow doesn't it? Especially since this one has PeRsoNaLiTy :)Cost:

~ Old, ugly pillow $0.00
~ Scrap fabric $0.00

Gathered Pillow Case: Total Cost ~ $0.00! Wahoo!

Tank Top

Sorry I'm just now posting this. It's hard to take pictures of yourself! But, here they are. I know you've all been dying to see it! :)

(it's a little scrunched up, sorry)

This is a picture of the top where I have elastic on the left (for the back) and interfacing on the right (for the front). It's also a good close-up so you can see the fabric better. The color showed up a little more orange on camera than it really is. It's more of a dark coral.

I love this fabric! I didn't do a perfect job, but I did do a good job! I'm very proud of myself and I'm excited to have something that I made! It feels good :)

(And sorry...I bought this fabric last fall so I don't remember how much it was. But I can promise you that I spent much less on this than I would a new tank top at the store!)

Re-covered pillow

My husband and I bought our sofa and loveseat on ksl classifieds for $50 total! They're quite comfortable and you can't even tell they're ugly with the couch covers we bought. (FYI--couch covers are expensive! We paid more for them than for the couches! Luckily we still had gift cards at BB&B so we didn't have to spend any of our money. Beware of this in the future to anyone thinking about couch covers!) They did come with pillows, but these were ugly too. I wasn't going to have pillows but I decided that I really like the added look that pillows can give to a couch--especially the way cool pillows I saw on Make it and Love it! (Click HERE to check out her pillows!) Tonight I used my new sewing machine for my first project! (Hallelujah! I didn't even have to unpick once! I honestly think that's the first time for me). Here is my first pillow. There will be more to follow.

Materials:
~old pillows that need re-covering
~scrap fabric

I kind-of followed this tutorial but I did change it a little bit. First, take off the existing cover on your pillow and measure it. Add about 1/2 inch on all sides for a seam allowance. Cut out two pieces this same size and pin them right sides together. Sew around the edge leaving about 5 inches to stuff in the pillow. Turn it right-side-out, stuff the pillow in and hand-stitch the remaining 5 inches of the pillow case. (The main fabric I wanted to use is quite sheer so I made two pillow cases--just a white pillow case first and then the gold one to go on top.)

Old, ugly pillows.


Sorry this is blurry but this is my white pillowcase that I made first to go under the sheer gold one.


My Bernette hard at work! :)
Can you tell that I'm WAY excited to have this?!


My beautiful new pillow that matches my couch and adds a spice of home to my living room!

Cost:
~ old pillows - $0.00
~ scrap fabric - $0.00

Re-covered Pillows: Total Cost ~ $0.00!