A Frock for the New Girl

A new girl just moved into our congregation a few weeks ago. She is a sweetheart, and (bonus!) speaks the same Chinese my family does. That made her an instant bestie. Just to make sure her move was as non-eventful as possible, she happened to time it within weeks of her due date. As in…she is expecting her sixth! child! any! day!

 

Never a group to miss a party, a few ladies sprang into action and put together a baby shower. (Even though this is her sixth child, it is a girl….and her last girl was born 9 years, and three boys, ago. She gave up hope somewhere along the way, along with all of her daughter’s baby clothes.)  Friends in her previous congregation had already gathered stuff for her, and given her lots of hand-me-down baby clothes, so she requested that if we were inclined to bring gifts…..could they please be things for a slightly older girl?

 

Originally, I intended to make one of Made by Rae’s Itty Bitty dresses, but I couldn’t find my pattern. (The pattern, by the way, is a free download on Rae’s blog, and is SUPER adorable. It is a dress that will fit right at birth, hence the itty bitty part. A few readers enlarged the pattern and sent it back to her, so now it goes all the way up to 3T, I believe. Anyhow, it’s an adorable, and simple dress!)

 

My train of thought went something like this. I’ll make Rae’s itty bitty dress! Oh, I can’t find the pattern. I could probably make another pattern from memory…I can find a small t-shirt and make the pattern from that. Hrm…making patterns. That reminds me…I DID make a dress pattern a few years ago!

 

And thus, I made one of my Pretty Frocks for the new wee one.

 

This was made from one of my husband’s cast-off dress shirts. I experimented this time, trying to keep the shoulders a little wider. In past versions, after making a rolled hem on both the neck and the arm hole, the resulting shoulder bit was only about an inch and a half wide. This time, I used some binding that I had leftover from a small quilt to bind off the neck. The arms were still a rolled hem.

You can see here, on the back of the dress, the original button placket from the shirt.

 

I lined some of the more ticklish seams with binding.

 

The dress, honestly, came out quite a bit BIGGER than what I imagined it would. The pattern was drawn up to be 2T, but…it still managed to button around my 4 year old. Oh well – the new little one can wear it for YEARS. Heh. (Kim, if you are reading this, bring the dress to me when your daughter wants to start wearing it, and I’ll hem it to the right length!)

A New Pair of Trousers

During the week, I came across a tutorial over at KoJo Designs to make pants for your little one. (If you've never seen their site, by the way...GO. Gorgeous ideas for parties and weddings. So inspiring!) Hers, of course, were hip and eco friendly and awesome - she made a little pair of yoga pants for her dude out of one of her husband's old t-shirts.
Like I said - Awesome.

Here, the weather has turned chilly - we have a high of 56 one day this week. I needed something a bit more substantial than a t-shirt!

I dug through my stash and came up with a cheap fleece blanket I picked up at Goodwill last Spring. I had intended to cut it into strips to use as filling in my fleece baby blocks. Since I hadn't needed it up to this point, I figured the blanket wouldn't mind being a pair of pants before it became stuffing in a block!

I think the trousers came out rather cute! I used a pair of his sweatpants as a pattern.

The drawstring is three long narrow strips of fleece, braided together. (So, so clever!!)

The pants fit great, and kept my little dude warm.

Please ignore the bits of food on the floor. He's playing underneath the kitchen table right after lunch. How can I tell it's right after lunch? The ants hadn't finished carrying away the leftovers yet. Those little dudes are industrious! And fast. Very, very fast. No wonder the grasshopper wanted to free-load off of them!

Unfortunately, my fabric choice could have been a bit better. Crawling babies are rough on the knees of their pants. I'm seeing the wisdom of sweatpants material! (What is that stuff called?) By that evening, the pants were already pilling up. Oh well! They're fabulous around-the-house lounge pants. I'm thinking of making up a pair for me, next!

Burp Cloth Hack

Faced with a rather messy little newborn, I realized that I was woefully short on appropriate burpcloths. I looked around and found a few flannel recieving blankets that we'd never used. (Seriously, who has kids small enough to be wrapped in those tiny things?!) Perfect!

Here's what I did -



Fold the blanket in half. This will be the length of your burpcloth.



Now, fold it in half the other way, then again. This is the width of your burpcloths. Snip through the folds that are along the long sides. Now you should have four strips of cloth. (I hate to waste cloth - that's why I did it this way. I knew that every piece would be used if I simply cut the blanket into equal pieces!)



Take each strip, fold so that the right sides are together. Sew along the three open sides, being SURE to stop about five inches from the end of the last side.



Clip the corners, turn right side out, poke out the corners, fuld the unsewn bit under, and top-stitch all the way around. (I love topstitching...it keeps things neat, and makes the finished product look so much more...finished. I usually topstitch in a contrasting color, but...white was in the machine, so white is what I used! I tend to do ALL my projects in either white or black. It's my signature move. Ha!)



Voila! Perfect little burpcloths! You can find flannel recieving blankets at the dollar store for $1 a piece, or check out your local garage sales or thrift shops. A perfect little Upcycling project!