KCWC outtakes

This is what happens when you take a sweater and say "I can totally make this into a toddler sweater dress" without measuring anything. The neckline didn't look that big to me and somewhere in my brain I thought "Hey, this neck hole looks like it'd fit her" because she and I totally have the same size neck??! Yeah... I don't know. It was on an evening when I'd tackled a few projects already so it was probably 1 or 2am and I wanted to whip out one more thing fast. Fast as in not doing any prep. A snip here, a snip there, no snips at the neckline... and this is what I ended up with. I tried it on the kook the next day and burst out laughing. And that was the day I learned I can never eyeball a pattern. I definitely need something to trace or measure against. The kook thought it was funny too. I have plans to cut this ridiculous dress up to make a sweater jumper most likely. Maybe I'll try it at 9pm with correct measurements next time. Sheesh...

And here's a mid-KCWC jig for you to enjoy. 

KCWC DAY 6 & 7: upcycled thermal nightgown & thermal tee fail

For days 6 and 7 of KCWC, I got out my pile of old thermals. First I cut the sleeves off of my gray one and blue one to make pants for the little man (which I haven't gotten to yet). Then I was left with a sleeveless thermal. I looked at the length and thought it might be the perfect length for a nightgown for the kook. I tried it on her in it's huge state and after she took a nap in it and played for a while, I made her take it off so I could actually take it in to fit a toddler. The length ended up being so perfect that I didn't have to touch the original hem. All I did was trace a slightly loose tee she has to get an idea of where to sew the top, and then extended it to dress length. I left the sleeves raw and took in the neckline to fit her, and that was that. Very simple and practical nightgown. When I was done sewing, I pulled out my fabric paints and spent way too long painting a little kitty friend for the kook. We're both happy with how it turned out. Soon I get to repeat the process with the rest of the blue thermal I chopped the sleeves off of. If anyone is interested, I can attempt a tutorial for you.

My next thermal project was pretending that I know how to sew a long-sleeved tee and learning that I don't. Time to invest in the Flashback Skinny Tee pattern by Made by Rae. I'm going to keep this tee around for her to play in and it may make it out of the house under a sweatshirt, but I definitely didn't mean to do a boatneck and dropped sleeves and my waist hem and pocket are pretty sad. Oh well. That's what happens when an over-confident beginning seamstress tries to make something without a pattern at 1am.

All in all, I'm happy with the sewing I accomplished during KCWC. It was my first time sewing clothing since a couple times in elementary school and I was able to pull only from my stash of clothes to repurpose which meant that I only spent a little bit of money on fabric paint and elastic. My list of things to buy for the kids' fall/winter wardrobes got cut in half and spending a week sewing has convinced me that I can probably make most of the other items they need on the list. Thanks to Elsie for hosting KCWC. I can't wait for the Spring one!

KCWC DAY 4 & 5: upcycled hand-printed leggings

The Kids Clothes Week Challenge is officially over, but I still have a few projects left to share with you, you lucky ducks.

A messy little toddler can never have too many leggings. When I was going through my closet to find clothes to upcycle for the kiddos, I found my collection of leggings from back when leggings were just coming in again. Three years ago I asked for 5 different colors of leggings for Christmas, and I got them all... and ended up wearing maybe 2 pairs. I was a little over-enthusiatic about the leggings trend. When I found them again, I immediately knew that #1- my leggings needed to go far away from my legs, and #2- where they needed to go was the kook's little legs. I used the same method as this tutorial to upcycle the leggings except I resized the legs to be thinner for little toddler legs by measuring against a pair of leggings that fit her well. Our legs aren't quite the same size. Oh, but I barely had to take the white pair of leggings in at all. And that was when I remembered I never wore them because they were so stinking tight. Toddler tight.

After I was done making the leggings, I decided they needed a little help and I got out the fabric paint and ended up with 3 funky hand-printed patterns on them that I love. I'll be sharing the tutorials with you this week.

Kook!

KCWC DAY 3: upcycled sweater leggings

Okay, I'm a total cheater. I actually made these on Tuesday, the million hour day of sewing. I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning because I was so stoked that the blouse turned out and I wanted to keep sewing. I sewed the blouse, eyeballed a sweater dress that turned into a disaster (I'll do a KCWC outtakes post to share my absolute sewing fails when this week is over), and made these leggings. I was partying hard. Babies asleep, Boy Meets World on the TV (I own the whole series. Don't be jealous.), a pile of clothes to upcycle. Ohhhh yeeeeeah. Anyway, the cheating is now coming into play as it is Wednesday night as I write this and I am fried after a long evening of sewing on Tuesday and a day of crazy kids and grocery shopping. I am just hoping that when I roll off this couch, I miraculously land in bed instead of trapped in between the couch and the coffee table. But, I digress... let's discuss these leggings.

I started with this American Eagle sweater from back in my American Eagle days (Did anyone else have American Eagle days? I am so not an AE girl, but lost my sense of personal fashion one year of college and turned into an AE undergrad clone. Oh, college...). I didn't go off of a tutorial because it was pretty easy to figure out, but this tutorial is the exact process I used. And that's that! It was super easy to do and I love that the kook will have some really thick and warm sweater leggings to live in during the winter. She had a pair of sweater leggings from H&M last year and wore them all the time. So cute. I'm definitely going to try to find some sweaters at the thrift store to make her more.

On a totally unrelated but equally exciting note, I currently have the cotton ball end of a Q-tip stuck in my ear. Darn you, cheap Q-tips. It just popped off in there and I must have twisted it in really good before realizing what happened. So wish me luck with my cotton ball extraction. Um, yeah... I don't feel stupid at all. I think I'll go ahead and shove a pea up my nose too. Might as well, right? Hubby said I'm a cotton headed ninny muggins. He's called me that before, but tonight... I really am.

KCWC DAY 2: upcycled blouse

On Tuesday I spent a million years sewing. Maybe not a million years, but it felt like it. I started with this Target blouse that I only wore a couple times because it just wasn't that flattering on me, and decided I'd try to upcycle it into a kook sized blouse. I spent the entire naptime measuring and tracing and cutting, and then noticed I cut it totally crooked. Not crooked shmooked crooked, but seriously crooked. So then I had to go back and cut the pieces straight, but that meant cutting a bunch off one side which meant that the blouse was now too narrow around the midsection. To remedy that I cut triangles along the side seams of the mama blouse to add extra material to the sides of the toddler blouse. I was totally flying by the seat of my pants there (I don't know where that expression comes from either). I pinned it all together and it worked to widen the midsection and it actually looked kind of cute- as cute as an inside out pinned together blouse can look. And then the kids woke up and I frantically picked up pins and scissors so I wouldn't have an Adelaide scissor/pin-hands walking around.

After the kook went to bed I started my sewing and was pretty crazy happy when it all came together to make a cute little blouse. A fly by the seat of my pants upcycled sewing success!

Don't you love her poof of hair? Her hair is growing SO SLOW and it's growing up or out. I wonder how big her fro will be before it's finally heavy enough to fall down to her shoulders. As you can see, she was totally giddy to go outside and take these photos. But giddy or peeved to be stuck standing in one spot, she's still a cutie in her new blouse!

KCWC DAY 1: loungies

This week I'm participating in the Kids Clothes Week Challenge hosted by Elsie Marley. Besides some matching pjs for my stuffed orangutan Punky Ponzo and I in elementary school, I have never sewn clothes for myself or the mini me's. I started sewing this last year to make some plush toys for the kook and her cousins and am pretty much just teaching myself as I go along. My mom taught my sister and I when we were young so I have some basic and very, very rusty skills, but beyond that, I'm learning by trial and error.

I followed Carla at Small and Friendly's projects through KCWC last year but had no motivation to sew anything besides softies and decorations. This year I had just purged my closet when I saw that KCWC was coming up in a few weeks. I happen to be needing some sweats and basic pieces for the kids' fall/winter wardrobes so I figure there's nothing to lose (besides my sanity) with just trying. If you want to participate, it's not too late. You've only missed a couple days and I'm pretty sure Elsie doesn't have any KCWC cops to come take your sewing machine away.

For day 1 I decided to start on a pair of sweats for the little man. I love this DIY for Low 'n' Lazy Loungies from Sophie of Cirque du Bebe so I gathered up a pair of long sweat shorts I had in my repurpose pile and went to work cutting out one side. As soon as I tried to starting cutting pieces for the other side, I realized a big ugly embroidery piece (the reason the shorts were in the repurpose pile) was in the way and there was no way for me to have enough material for both sides. Oops. Trial and error, I tell you. So I grabbed another pair of sweats in a coordinating color and cut a side out from them. In Sophie's DIY, she had a cute huge pocket on the front of the Loungies because the sweatshirt she repurposed had a pocket. I didn't have a pocket to repurpose but loved it enough to try and make my own. It isn't as big as I would like and I made it a bit low, but I still like it. Instead of sewing a waistband from scratch, I just used the waistband from my sweat shorts.

All in all, the Loungies fit well and will be great for fall weather. I hope to find some funky sweatshirt fabric like Sophie's to make some more for the little man and some for the kook.... and some for hubby... and some for me. C'mon, don't they look comfy? I think hubby might protest. He's not really a drop-crotch kinda guy. And really, anyone that is a drop-crotch kinda guy is very... special.

(If you'd like to see some of the other projects I'm dreaming of sewing up. Check out my KCWC board on Pinterest.)

WONDERFUL wee wonderfuls

I just love handmade softies but unfortunately I don't have a job to sustain my desire to fill little A's room with a never-ending supply of itty bitty friends. While I was at the fabric store this week, I found the book Wee Wonderfuls and instantly fell in love with all the doll and animal softie projects found inside. I thought, "I can do that!... Probably... Maybe... I think I can! I think I can!" And now that book is sitting patiently by my comfy cozy chair, waiting for the day when I get rid of my sewing-fright and decide it's time to make some Easter gifts for the girly. Luckily it is a beautiful and perfectly styled hardcover book so even if it ends up sitting in my living room for a year without being used, it will look lovely doing so.... Let's hope I didn't just jinx myself there. ;)

Hillary Lang is the brilliant mind behind Wee Wonderfuls. Check out her blog, and if you do have a job simply to sustain your softie obsession, check out these etsy softie shops: tiddlywinks --- Stitchface --- Contemori --- Koo & Poppet --- Sleepy King --- tiny warbler