Good Reads: Celebrating The 4th

Posted on | July 3, 2009 | 3 Comments

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Tomorrow is Independence Day so we’re headed out to go camping with my parents and some of my siblings. I’m hoping we get a little bit of a break from the rain but even if we don’t we’ll still have a great time. My dad was in the Marine Corps. so patriotism is something I was raised with. When we go to the parade tomorrow morning I’ll place my hand over my heart when I hear the national anthem, and show Chloe that she should too.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend. I’ll be back next week! If you get a chance check out some of my favorite reads from the past couple weeks. There are quite a few of them because I had a hard time choosing:

Powerful Ways To Improve Your Life from Five Cent Nickel
Car Maintenance Tips: Help Your Odometer Reach 300,000 Miles from Frugal Dad
Life Before Our Emergency Fund from Living Well On Less
Achieving Financial Freedom One Expense At A Time from Moolanomy (A great read if you’re closing in on retirement but your savings is a little behind)
10 Ways Being Nice Is Good For You from My Super-Charged Life
Why Recycle When You Can Freecycle from Frugal Underground (If you’ve never heard of Freecycle, check this out)
The First Three Steps To Financial Freedom from Get Rich Slowly
Things You Own End Up Owning You from My Two Dollars
DIY: Getting Dirty With Square Foot Gardening from Squawkfox
Can You Survive As A One Income Family? from The Wisdom Journal
Echino Oilcloth Grocery Tote, Molly’s Sketchbook from The Purl Bee (I really want to make this)

Things To Bake

Poppa’s Favorite Peanut Butter Pie from Mom’s Kitchen … And Stuff!
Strawberry Pie from Rocks In My Dryer

Things That Touched My Heart

The first two links are bloggers facing criticism and tough choices. I so appreciate their real-ness and honesty, that’s why I read them. The third is on a different note, a celebratory one, but worth mentioning because I love celebrating marriage!

This Is Me from Remodeling This Life
Christianity, Hypocrisy And Public Life from Mrs. Fussypants
Twenty Years! from RealNetta (Congrats on your 20th wedding anniversary!)

Why I do what I do ~ Chloe had several “accidents” today. I was frustrated and said, “Daddy’s going to be disappointed when he gets home and we tell him.” She said, “That’s ok. We won’t tell him.”

Category: Links

Girls Summer Top Tutorial

Posted on | July 2, 2009 | No Comments

Don’t get too excited. This is only my best attempt at a tutorial. I wanted to make a summer top for Chloe and given that July 4th (USA Independence Day) is right around the corner and Chloe’s favorite color is red I decided to make her a 4th of July summer top. (Do I have any readers in the childrens clothing industry? Girls like to wear red more than just at Christmas. Just saying … ) This is really inspired by the spring top I made for myself.

OK, let’s get started. The great thing about sewing kids clothes is that it takes very little material so it makes them really inexpensive. In this case, I used only material and thread that I already had, leftover from other projects. Really though, you could get the material from anything. Men’s dress shirts are great to recycle for kids clothes (maybe for boys more than girls) because the collars usually wear out while the body is still in great shape. Also consider chopping up some of those long, flowy skirts that aren’t in style anymore. You could get a ton of material from one of those suckers.

The way that I sew, I do all of my cutting and prep-work first so that when I begin sewing I can just keep sewing until I’m finished. I hate having to stop sewing to cut something else. Keep that in mind as you read through. My daughter is 3 and wears a 3T but I think this pattern could work for almost any size, you’d just need more fabric.

The pieces I’ll refer to will be “Upper Band,” “Lower Body,” and “Straps.” There isn’t a front or a back until you attach the straps. I also specify whether something is the width or length just in case your fabric has a pattern that needs to be oriented a particular way. I usually try to avoid those fabrics, they just confuse me. OK, let’s begin.

Measure

Measure your child around their chest, right under their armpits. Keep the measuring tape fairly level because the shirt is the same length all the way around and doesn’t taper at all (unless of course you choose to sew it that way). This measurement will be “A.”
Measure from their armpit straight down to the desired length, shorter or tunic-length, completely up to you. Add 1″ to this measurement and this number will be “B.”
Measure desired strap length. I angled the straps so they meet in the back. This makes it so they don’t fall off their shoulders but you can sew them however you like, even criss-crossing them. This length can vary quite a bit so be really generous. You can always cut off the ends but you’ll be annoyed if they are too short. Your generous strap length will be “C.”

Cut

In the formulas below I have “A/2″ which means “A divided by 2.” My “A” was 20. So A/2 would be 10 for me. A/2 + 7 would equal 17. Still confusing? Email me.

Cut 2 rectanlges for the Lower Body that measure (A/2+7″) x B (width x length)
Cut 2 rectangles for the Upper Band that measure (A/2 +1″) x 5″ (width x length)
Cut 2 rectanlges for the Straps that measure 3-1/2″ x C (width x length)

Prepare

Using an iron, iron the edges of the 2 Strap pieces and the Upper Band pieces (4 pieces total) over about 1/4 “. Then iron each piece in half. Like this:
Mark the pleats on each of the Lower Body pieces – there are 3 pleats on each piece. The front and back are exactly the same with the same pleats. Just make the piece that comes out the best the front Here’s how it works: lay a tape measure across the width of your piece and make two marks, marking the inch in the middle (if your piece is 20 inches you would make one mark at 9-1/2″ and one at 10-1/2″). Now move over 1″ from each of those marks and make another mark, now you have 4 marks – this is one pleat, your center pleat. Now move one inch to the right and make 4 more marks in the same fashion, and then the same to the left of the first pleat. Basically, you have 12 marks, all one inch apart, that make three pleats. Make the pleat in the middle first. If you picture all four marks in a row, take the first mark and match it to the second. Then take the fourth mark and match it to the third. Pin each of those folds in place. Do the same for the other two pleats. It should look like this:
Once you’ve pinned all 6 pleats, 3 on each piece, iron them to set them in place. Now all of your pieces are ready to be sewn.

Sew it!

Begin by sewing the pleats. Sew down about 1-1/2 or 2″ on each side of each pleat. Eyeball it to make them about the same length. You could measure and mark it if you like (I didn’t).
Once all the pleats are sewn, match up each Upper Band with a Lower Body piece. They should be the same width, or at least very close. Lay an Upper Band piece on top of a Lower Body piece, right sides facing, so that the open side of the Upper Band and the pleated top of the Lower Body are together. Pin them together and sew close to the edge so that you are sure to close up the open edge of the Upper Band. You could (maybe should) sew the upper band closed before this step but I didn’t see any need to. If you sew slow and careful it will sew together beautifully.
Open up each sewn piece and iron them to lay flat. You now have the front and back of the shirt completed. At this point you may want to harness your kiddo and match the pieces up to her. If she’ll stand still you can even pin them on. I just put each piece up to her body (she doesn’t stand still for these things) and thought it looked OK. Now you’re going to sew the front and back together. Place one on top of the other, right sides facing, and sew up each side with a 1/2″ seam. Now, try this piece on your kid. It should pull over her head snugly but without trouble. It might be a tiny bit loose (mine is) but remember you’re adding straps. If it’s looser than you like then sew it again a little closer in.
Once you’re happy with that, switch your machine to a zig-zag stitch and finish the edge of each side. You’re going to sew the stitch on the outside of the straight stitch so that the left side of the zig-zag stitch touches the straight stitch but doesn’t overlap it. (This is like fake surging, for those of us that don’t have a surger. It will make it so that the fabric doesn’t fray on the unfinished edge when you wash it). It should look like this:
Once you’ve zig-zagged each side, carefully cut the fabric right to the edge of the stitches making sure not to cut into them.
Now for the Straps. Be sure to switch your machine back to a straight stitch and sew the open edge of the straps closed. To make them look even, sew the folded side the same way. So there should be stitches down each side of each strap. Run your iron over each strap to make it nice and flat. Now, if you can capture your kid again you can pull the shirt over their head then you can pin the straps into place, making sure to fold under the ends. Place the straps however you like and sew them into place. I just sewed the perimeter of the strap where it overlaps the Band, in a square following the edge seams that were already sewn. Be sure to back stitch when starting and ending. You want them to be secure.
While you’ve got the shirt on your kid for step #6 fold up one part of the hem to the desired length and pin it (or just use the measurement you got in the beginning). Now sew your hem. Fold the bottom up about 1/2″ and then over itself again, hiding the raw edge. Pin it in place or iron it and then sew it. Iron over the finished hem and …. voila – a shirt.

If you have any questions I hope you’ll feel free to email me. I’d be happy to help you out! You can really make this unique. I’m thinking of adding buttons where the straps overlap.

Why I do what I do ~ I told Chloe my first make it up as I go along bedtime story while I was giving her a bath tonight. She was enraptured and my heart beamed. A little while later she recounted the story to David exactly as I told it. Amazing – how is it that she can remember every detail in that story and still “forget” that she isn’t allowed to get into the craft cabinet by herself?

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Good Reads: Celebrating The 4th