What a Great Idea!

I just have to share with you one of the BEST IDEAS EVER!!!  My little sister is a GENIUS!!  You have to go check out what she did with her old couch!  This is the ultimate in Re-Purposing projects!!

I never would have thought to do that in a million years.  But now I am in LOVE with the idea!  And I am in love with the colors and finishing details she did.  I'm sure you will agree--She is AMAZING!!!!

CLICK HERE to check it out! 

Does anyone have an old couch that they are not using?

Little Lady Leg Warmers

As I have mentioned before--I have a little lady that LOVES to wear dresses and skirts ALL THE TIME!!! 

So as we are heading into the fall and winter months--we usually start shopping for tights for her to wear.  But then I remembered seeing these leg warmers made from ladies knee socks--and decided to make some for my little gal so her little legs will stay warm and cozy this winter.

So I started with a pair of long socks.  I found these ones discounted at Fred Meyer--they were around $2  and I thought the little ruffle would be fun on the bottom of the leg warmers.

Next I made three cuts.  I cut the sock right before and after the heel and then cut off the toe.

Next I used the middle part left over from the foot of the sock and folded it WRONG SIDES together to make a cuff.  Then I tucked in the cut edge of the long part of the sock inside the cuff matching all three of the cut edges.  So it looked like this:

Then I sewed around the edge. 

 I used a zig zag stitch on this pair--but on others I used a regular stitch and both work great.

 I did the same thing to the other sock and in about 10 minutes from start to finish--My little lady had a new pair of leg warmers!

 She thought they were pretty awesome too!

They were so quick and easy--that I had to make a few more pairs.

I wonder if I'm too old for a pair?

Linking to THESE parties.

Baptism Dress

Wow--how time flies!  It is already September and my little girl just turned 8!!!  In our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) children are baptised when they turn 8.  So this was a VERY SPECIAL birthday for our little Nicole.  She has been counting down the days until her birthday and her baptism (which happened to be on the same day!).

So for this special occasion I made her a little white dress.  Lately I have seen many wedding dresses that have a colored sash--and I LOVE the pop of color it brings to a pretty white dress.  So I decided to try the same idea with her dress.  I used THIS tutorial (from one of my favorite gals--at Make it and Love it) for the base of the dress (and yes--the top is a t-shirt)--and then I made a bunch of changes and embellishments of my own.

And this is what I came up with:

We paired it with her Ruffly Socks I made HERE.

And I made a flower hair elastic to match the flowers on the front of her dress.

And here she is with her Daddy before the baptism in their baptismal clothes.  Notice how the smallest suit had to be rolled up a few times for her to fit into it!!!  When I refer to her as my LITTLE girl--I am speaking quite literally!!

Here she is with a few of her friends--and YES--they are the same age!

Here we are: Our cute little family:

And here we are--our cute bigger family:

(We were very blessed to have BOTH sets of Grandparents AND my Hubby's Sister and Her Family there to celebrate this awesome day with us!)

Happy Birthday My LITTLE Nicole!  We love you and are proud of you!!

Girls Ruffled Socks

My daughter is almost 8 and still just ADORES anything pink, sparkly and/or ruffly.  She also LOVES wearing dresses and skirts--its sometimes a fight to get her to wear a pair of jeans!  (What is wrong with her?  Her Momma LOVES jeans!!  Oh well!)  Because she often wears socks with her little skirts and dresses instead of hot, itchy tights (see--she really is my daughter!) I decided to jazz things up and bring some of those ruffles down to her feet!  

I got the idea to do this a couple of years ago--and made her a couple pairs of socks--but I just sewed some lace to her socks with regular thread--and forever after they were SUPER hard to get her feet into--as regular thread does not stretch!!!  Duh. 

So--When I was using ELASTIC THREAD for the SHIRRED DRESS and SHIRRED BEACH COVER UP that I made--I got the idea to use the elastic thread for her socks too!  Brilliant, I know.  Why didn't I think of this before?

So here is how I made them.

I started with the elastic thread that I was just talking about:

And I hand wound it around a bobbin until it was full.

Next I found two coordinating colors of knit fabric (I happened to find some great knit shirts at the Dollar Store--so I used those).

I cut a couple strips of the outer fabric 3" wide.  The inner fabric I cut about 2 1/2 " wide--on the hot pink one I cut it about 1" wide--you can make them whatever width you like.

Next I layed the narrow strip of fabric in the middle of the wider strip of fabric.

(Notice my cutting is not perfect--as I was cutting thru a shirt--but it doesn't matter--it all gets gathered up and you never notice).

Next I sewed a basting stitch (set your machine to the longest stitch length) using your elastic thread in the bobbin--sew down the center of your strips.  I like to backstitch at the beginning--but don't backstitch at the end--instead leave yourself a little tail of threads. 

Here is what my stips looked like after basting:

Cute--but I wanted a little more ruffles--so I pulled the little tail of elastic bobbin thread--until it looked like this: (Sorry about the shadowy picture--DARN CAMERA PHONE!!!)

 

After getting the ruffles as full as you like them--I tied a knot in the end of the threads to help keep them in place.

Next I pinned the ruffle in place on the sock.  Her socks were the fold over kind--so I made sure to place it on the part that was folded over (so you actually sew it to the inside side of the sock).  I always start pinning in the back of the sock so the seams are less noticable.

Then I pinned the ruffle all the way around the sock.  I made sure to lay the edge of the sock so that I would catch it when I sewed along the same line of basting stitches.  Also--you don't need to pull or stretch the sock or the ruffles at all--just lay the ruffle nicely on the sock and pin it where it lays.

At the end I had a tail:

I simply cut it off about 1/2" longer--then folded the edge and pinned it down--overlapping the first edge that is already pinned down. 

The great thing about working with knit fabric is that you can leave these edges raw and they won't fray. 

Next I sewed the ruffle onto the sock.  I used another basting stitch with the elastic thread again.  This ensures that it will have enough stretch in it for your little girl to get her foot into the sock!  (TRUST ME--THIS PART IS IMPORTANT!)  However--Backstitch Well at BOTH ENDS.  This will keep it securely attached to the sock.

I sewed right on the same line of stitching.

I trimmed my threads and I was done!

These make a little Girl's Feet VERY Happy!

Linking up to THESE parties.

T-Shirt Hats

A little while ago, I saw THIS post as I was paroozing through blogger-land.  It is a tutorial for making the most adorable hats out of t-shirts!!  That gal AT SECOND STREET is amazing!  After reading this--you need to march yourself right over to her blog and check out her awesomeness!

So because I wanted to try out her tutorial--I went on a hunt to find a t-shirt to use for this project.  I saw this guy hanging in my closet:

I really LOVE stripes--but every time I wore this shirt I felt like I should be appearing on Blue's Clue's!  And notice the grease stain in the middle of the shirt!  So I decided this would be a perfect shirt to turn into this:

(Once again, I apologize for the HORRIBLE pictures!!! I am getting so frustrated with my missing camera and with having to use my camera phone in bad lighting with-out a flash!!  AARRGGG!!!)

ANYWAYS, I loved sewing the first hat up so much that I decided to use some of the left over scraps from this project:

To turn into this for my little gal:

Once I got started making these little babies--I just couldn't stop!

I found this t-shirt in my fabric stash:

And turned it into this little baby (Which is my FAVORITE one):

Did I already mention that I HATE my phone camera?

After doing all these GIRL hats--I used THIS post over at I AM MOMMA HEAR ME ROAR (another of my favorite blogs!) to help me make a brim that was better shaped for a BOYS hat.

Then I started with an orange shirt from the Dollar Store--my son LOVES orange--and when I saw an orange shirt in his size at the dollar store--I snatched it up!  But then when he was loving on all the hats I was making--I decided he needed and orange hat more than an orange shirt.

In the t-shirt tutorial she uses a large men's t-shirt.  I just used whatever I had.  Because the pieces to go around the head need to be as long as the circumference of your head--these t-shirts weren't wide enough.  SO I am going to show you how I pieced the sleeves together to make a long enough piece for the circumference and still have enough fabric for all the hat pieces.

I started by cutting off the finished hem on the bottom of the shirt.

Then I cut 3 1/2 inch strip off the bottom for a children's size hat (4" for an adult).

Next I cut off the sleeves.

This next picture is the sleeve turned sideways and then cut into pieces.  You can see the piece on the right is the long piece that I just cut off the bottom of the shirt and placed there so I can make the sleeve piece the same width--3 1/2

Next I did the same thing with the other sleeve so I now had 2 extra pieces of the same size.

Now I sewed all three pieces together.  Then I pressed each seam with seam allowances apart and then top stitched on each side of each seam. 

Next I measured this new long piece and cut off any extra.  My circumference for my little guy's head was 20" so I added a 1/2" for seam allowance and so I cut this strip down to 20 1/2". 

Then I sewed both ends together so it makes the band into a circle for the hat.

This is what the seams look like from the right side:

Next I used a Tupperware lid (that was the right size for the top of the hat) to trace around and I traced the brim of a hat that already fits the little guy.

Sorry--I actually ended up tracing the hat brim onto paper and then cut it out of the fabric.

Then I cut out a smaller brim out of heavy interfacing and tucked it inside the two layers of the brim fabric.

Then I sewed around the curved part of the brim several times to secure the interfacing and for a decorative look.

Then all that is left is to put all three of these pieces together.

So I sewed them together using the middle seam on my band as the back of the hat.

Once that hat was sewn up--I notched out the seam around the top to make the hat lay nicely when it was turned right side out.

Then all that was left to do was add some fun to the front--and find a cute boy to put it on! 

Which is what I did.

On this next picture you can see one of the 3 seams.  The other is directly at the back of the hat and the 3rd is equal placement on the other side.

And it actually didn't fit as snug as I wanted so I took a tuck out of the back to make it fit better.

Now go search YOUR closets and find yourself a T-shirt to make into a HAT!

Linking up to THESE parties on my Link Up List.