Make It Monday: Make a Pair of Infant Pants

I'm a stay-at-home grandmother, caring for my lovely little granddaughter, Remy. She's in that phase where she's either eating everything in sight or growing out of all her clothes: 8 months old. Some time back, I made a pattern from a pair of pants I got at a thrift store, 9 months size. And then I pinned it on my board and left it there. Today, when mama dropped baby off, she said she'd had to buy a bunch of new clothes because Remy was outgrowing all her clothes so fast. I got to thinking, I'd better make those pants—fast!

Here's what I did.

First, turn a pair of right-sized pants inside out and trace them. Then trace around that pattern and add a seam allowance.

Cut it out and pin it onto your fabric, folded in half (the fabric, not the pattern). Now here's the thing. You can do it like I did and cut 2 fronts and 2 backs, or you can skip 2 seams by placing the outside leg side on a fold. Either way, what you are going to do after you sew the side seams is the same. But if you are cutting two pieces, then sew the two front pieces together and two back pieces together.

In some of the photos, you'll see red stitches. These are only so that you can see where pieces are sewn. In actuality, I used a zig-zag stitch in a neutral color, but you can't see it in the pictures. The reason I used a zig-zag stitch is because my material is stretchy, and this stitch helps the fabric stretch.

After you've sewn the two fronts together and the two backs together, sew from the waist to the crotch on each side. Your fabric should now look like the one above (unless you cut on the fold, in which case your center seam shown here will be missing).

Next fold the pants so it looks like a pair of pants, like in the next photo, so that the seams to the crotch are stacked one on top of the other.

Then, starting at the bottom of one leg, sew along the leg and up through the crotch and down the next leg to the bottom.

Next for the elastic casing. Fold over about an inch and stitch close to the edge, leaving a gap to thread the elastic through. Pin a safety-pin to one end of the elastic and thread it through the casing. Sew the gap closed.

One last thing to do now. Go to the bottom of each leg and either overcast or zig-zag stitch along the edge,  stretching as you go. As you stretch a sweet little ruffle is formed.

Make it Monday... on Tuesday

Did it again. Forgot it was Monday until it was almost Tuesday. I think I'm gonna have to tell myself the goal is Make-it Sunday, so I'll have it up by Monday. :(

My Craftsy group meets the last Wednesday evening of every month, and last time we were talking about making our own name tags that would not only give our names, but help define us, too. It's lovely looking at people's crafts and learning a bit about who they are! So I'm going to show you mine, and give you some hints on how to make one yourself.

1) Choose a shape. I chose round, because it is such a whole shape (or a hole shape!(; ). You can choose any shape you want because it needs to reflect who you are.

2) Gather your materials. This one is wide open. Maybe you want to sew yours, maybe to paint it, or stamp it. I wanted mixed media.

3) Go to it! Use the shape as a canvas to tell the world not only what your name is, but who you are as well.

4) Can other people tell something about you from your tag? I hope so.

I used a small embroidery hoop; an old one with a bent-metal spring at the top.

Here's what it looked like when the first piece had been positioned
and I had covered it with Modge Podge.

After it dried, the Modge Podge was crystal-clear, and the piece
was now protected.

Here's the final result. The dress has a button at the top, and there is string swirling all around the whole area. A pin with four girls dancing was pinned to the bottom. Half-rounds left over from another project were glued to the bottom of the hoop, and a button held the strings from a
small tag that has my name on both sides. Last, I tied a gorgeous old satin ribbon around the
spring at the top and made a "necklace" out of it. I can't wait to wear it to the next meeting!

Fix a Bad Hair Day in 5 minutes!

We all have 'em... days when our hair does everything except what it's supposed to do. Today was one of those for me, and after denial (mine—my hair just laughed at me), a period of mourning, and feeling grief for a life that included bad hair days, I decided to fix the problem.

Now, I used fleece, 'cause it's still cold here—even though I have no intentions of going outside where the cold actually is—but you can use any stretchy material. I've made some from old tee shirts, too.

I was making several at once, so my fabric is doubled.

First things first. Lay your fabric out so that the stretch goes long ways and lay your see-through 4" wide ruler on top. This is one of the things I really like about fleece; you don't have to worry about grain, just stretch.

Oops. I forgot the first first thing. Measure your head, and add 1/2" an inch. (Actually, I just kind of lay the fabric on my head and see if it stretches all the way around my head.)

So now you have a nice, even swatch of cloth 4" wide and about 22" long (your head might have more brains in it than mine does, necessitating a bigger headband). Take it to your sewing machine and sew the short ends together, using about a 1/4" seam. (It is very forgiving here, thanks to the stretch.)

Now, if your seam is larger than 1/4", trim it down to 1/4".

Cut a piece of the same fabric (or a coordinating one might look cute) to a rectangle 2" x 3". Wrap that piece of fabric around the headband, gathering the headband and hiding the seam. You can sew it together by hand here if you want; I headed back to the sewing machine. Pulling the fabric so that it holds the gathers in the headband, sew the ends together. Turn just that piece inside out, so the seam is on the inside, and you're done!

5 minutes, and you look like you stepped out of a vintage catalog!

I added a flower topped by buttons in graduated sizes to give this one more character.

Make It Monday: The Stacked Button Rose Headband

Okay, I was having a bad hair day, and needed to cover at least some of it up! Loving retro like I do, I thought of the beautiful hats and headbands that ladies in the 20s and 30s wore, and decided that I could fix it.

There are lots of tutorials on making gathered fabric flowers, so I'm just going to pretend that we have one the color I need (In fact, I do!)

(OTS, do you ever get so tired at your computer that you fall asleep and keep on typing? The only way I know it's happened is because what I write makes no sense. So now mu son the critic will "give me a talking to" about writing when I'm so tired! Anyway, if something pops into the sentence that obviously shouldn't be there, please send it home with some chocolate chip cookies and a pat on the head. Or run downstairs and feed your dogs and grab the kettle cooked potato chips your hubby bought you and swear you'll only eat a few. It all helps you stay awake.)

Okay, so here's how you make the headband. You need a large or extra-large tee shirt in a color you like. Mine's purple. Measure a four inch width that encircles the whole sleeve. Here, like this:

then cut it off. You should have a tube shape with a seam on one side.Next, find your ruffled flower and set it aside. I wanted one that matched the headband, so I just made it out of a bit of the tee.

Now the coup de gras! The button rose! I simply used various shades of purple (lilac, lavender, if you prefer) in graduated sizes, and sewed them to the center of the flower. Finally, attach the whole flower to the headband so that it covers the seam and you are done. Easy-peasy.  (I like easy, 'cause I can watch episodes of my favorite tv shows on half of my screen while I do something else on the other half—like this tutorial—or hand stitch something (yes, I like to hand stitch, but then again, I also like grammar!)

I hope this "tutorial" wasn't hard to follow. If you have any questions, please ask, and I'll try to get a pdf up soon.

Until next Monday, then... have a good one!