Maisie Dresses

I finally used up some of the oldest fabric in my stash. It has been sitting on my sewing table for about 8 years. My mom got a few yards of blue, Hello Kitty fabric for me to make something for my second daughter and I just never got around to it. She is 12 now, so I think the window of opportunity has passed. I have a niece who loves kitties and the color blue, so I decided to make a dress for her. I chose the Maisie dress pattern from Violette Field Threads. It was one of the patterns I chose as part of my Project Run and Play prize and I have been wanting to make one anyway. My 4yo is about the same size as my niece (they were born 2 days apart!) so she modeled it for me to take pictures. I was in a hurry and my camera settings were clearly off. So the pictures are a little funky, but I gave the dress away and couldn't take more. No amount of editing could save them.

The tie sleeves are cute, but my favorite part is the scoop back!!!

I actually ended up making two dresses, assembly line style, since I had so much of this fabric. I made the second for another niece of mine in a size 2T and chose the longer sleeves. I did make a mistake on one of the dresses, but I am not going to tell you about it. OK? Overall, this was a really cute pattern and I was happy with how they turned out.

More Key Fobs

My daughter decided to reinvest the profits from her first key fob sale to buy more supplies. We do some economics lessons as she plans out what she wants to buy. I like that she is able to learn multiple skills through this little "business". She has to do a lot of math, too. I won't help her and I won't let her use my calculator because I am mean like that. So, as before, I will link each pic to the shop if you are interested in purchasing any of these. If not, you can just scroll through and appreciate how cute they turned out!

She finally gave one to me this time, too! I don't mean to sales pitch them so much, but it does make it a lot easier to find my keys in the abyss of my purse if I am not wearing the fob on my wrist, too!

P.S. Link to my shop is HERE.

Kids' Sewing~ More Doll Clothes

My girls have sewn a lot of doll clothes over the past 2 years and they have gotten a bit more advanced. Some of these patterns I have created for them and some were freebies we found. Some of my patterns are available on the blog and some have yet to be published. (Vote at the end of this post for which one we should post next!) For now, I thought I would share which ones we like to use. These dresses were made using the Salina dress pattern from Pixie Faire. (They have free patterns available every Friday if you sign up for their newsletter!) We really like this one and it is an easy pattern.

The aprons were made using my free pattern. Available HERE.

These dresses were made using my own pattern. It is just a basic doll dress (like THIS one but in 18" doll size). Is there any interest for a tutorial and pattern for these?

Liberty Jane has free patterns for T shirts HERE. Hemming the neckline is hard, but the rest is pretty simple and the fit is great! We made our own leggings pattern that can be done on the overlock machine except for the hem.

We made our own PJ pants pattern, too. Any interest in a pattern for that one? Oh, and the eye mask was adorable; it is just decorative elastic sewed to felt.

My daughter wanted to buy this sparkle tulle so I came up with an easy way to make tutus. I think I have some that I saved to do a tutorial but haven't gotten around to it yet.

We made our own cardigan pattern. (OK, I am seeing a trend here of us just making stuff up as we go along.) This dress, though, is a pattern that I have had in the works for 4 years.

I have my own baby doll diaper patterns in a few different sizes and we use those for the dolls that wet themselves. I refuse to buy disposable doll diapers! My daughter used her scraps from THIS collection to make some sets.

Paired with a pillowcase top these are really cute for baby dolls! You can get a free pillowcase dress pattern HERE. We just shorten it for baby dolls.

My younger daughter started out with some simple sundresses. I modified some patterns to come up with our own thing for these, too.

Finally, my oldest daughter wanted to try cold shoulder tops so we made a pattern up for those. (I can't figure out where we got the shorts pattern.) Then, we made tassel necklaces to match.

Now it is your turn... Which free pattern should we release next?

Kids' Sewing ~ Doll Peasant Dresses

I mentioned last week that I have been sharing my sewing machines with my daughters. I want to make sure that my girls know how to sew because I want them to be self-sufficient adults one day and not bug me to do their mending. I hate mending. These doll clothes were sewn by my daughters. Doll peasant dresses are a really good beginner sewing project! It is one of the first things I teach my girls to sew. I usually have to help them with the elastic casings around the neckline until they are more experienced, but the rest of the dress is simple enough that they just need a little coaching.

Once you get the basic peasant dresses mastered, you can increase the difficulty with details like bows and trims.

Elastic sleeves at any length change the dress up with one simple addition. If you shorten it to a tunic length it is really cute with leggings, too.

Here are the patterns/tutorials if anyone wants to give it a try!

They can easily make a matching girls' dress, too!

You can also see more of the doll clothes my daughters have made HERE and HERE. For the full list of  my doll clothes tutorials click HERE.