The Owl Dress

I found this remnant at JoAnn's last time I was there. I rarely even go there because it is so far away (Hobby Lobby is much closer), but I was so excited to find this corduroy covered in sweet little owls. The pinks, greens, and oranges offset the blue and brown in such a cute way that I just couldn't resist.

I finally decided to make E a dress out of this fabric. My first thought was to make a purse/bag for myself, but figured I would tire of the trendy owl pattern too soon to make it worth the work. Toddlers can get away with wearing anything!

The other fabulous thing about this remnant is that the bottom was already hemmed. Less work for me!

This is the very first garment I've ever done without a pattern, so I was extra nervous about that. After reading some fabulous blogs in the last few months, I finally felt confident enough to tackle this project.

I took a dress that E wore this summer (brand rhymes with Barter's ;P) and laid it out on the wrong side of the fabric and traced the front and back, respectively. I'm doing the top of the dress, the pockets, and the straps in a coordinating pink fabric.

This project is even giving me a chance to try out my button hole stitch for the very first time!! I am such a geek.

I'll have to update with a final picture when I finish it. I still need to do the straps, button holes :), buttons, and pockets. E has done multiple fittings for me and she loves it already!

Restyle Fail

I love the concept of restyling old clothes into new ones. It's incredibly eco-friendly, but even better than that--it's budget friendly. Heaven knows budget friendly is exactly what I need right now!

So I set out to try this t-shirt to ruffle cardigan first. How hard could it be? It went pretty smoothly until I tried to attache my ruffles to the cardigan. Here were my problems:

1. I couldn't get my ruffles evenly dispersed. No big deal, I thought, because they're ruffles. And it's a t-shirt. Doesn't have to look perfect. I moved on.

2. Once I got the ruffles attached and did the top stitching, I realized that the ruffles were still...moving around (for lack of a better term). I guess I should have used a stretch stitch.. I dunno.

3. I think the biggest issue was the kind of shirt I used. Too stretchy. Too little (should have just goodwilled it!).

There will be no pictures of this project. I'm adding it to the "do better next time" pile, and will cut the shirt up for cleaning rags. We live and learn!