Do a re-do: men's shirt into a girls dress

So some weeks ago my hubby and I decided to clear out our closet. And although we donated quite a bit of the clothes that don't fit anymore or we just don't wear anymore we I ended up keeping a bunch in my "I-have-such-great-redo-ideas-I-will-definitely-make-so-I-keep-way-too-many-old-clothes-we-don't use-anymore pile".
And I have actually been trying to make stuff out of those garments in that huge pile. Now that we have a child, it's easier to redo old clothes into new ones because you can just make a smaller version of everything :D
I'm also more motivated to make clothes for my daughter because I love seeing her in cute clothes :))
Anyways let's get into the business.





I took this shirt that didn't fit my hubby anymore. I used the basic guidelines of this tutorial. But I made it a bit easier by taking one of my daughter's dresses placing it on the shirt and tracing around it. I did the same for the sleeves.

 I made the neck casing and put a rubber band inside but I didn't put a rubber band into the sleeves or the waistband. Instead I just shirred the sleeves and also the waistband, much easier in my opinion :))
The little lady is walking on the grass bare feet for the first :)) She didn't find it very enjoyable ;P


















I already have a couple of other dresses in the making, I'll keep you posted on those :))
See you soon!
Ciao-ciao!

Granny Square Dress for a Girl

Ok, so I made this pile of granny squares I showed in my previous post...

 And then I started to put them together.I didn't have any specific plan or pattern I just started to crochet the squares together with a slip stitch. I crocheted the shoulder straps and added some buttons for the fasteners.

 

I also left the back a little bit open and added three buttons there, just to make it easier to put the dress on (it would fit on without the opening also, but it's less fussy like this ;D)

It came out bulkier than I originally planned, I should have used a finer yarn and a smaller hook but then I probably wouldn't have ever finished it (I'm not good with time consuming projects :P).
Maybe I'll be up for the challenge in the future, we'll see :))

I hope everybody is having a wonderful weekend!
Ciao-ciao!

Granny Square Madness

I've been making these granny squares for a couple of weeks now (not non-stop of course but almost every day at least a couple) and I finally have the amount that I need for making a summer dress for my daughter. Or at least I hope I have enough :)

 Anyways I will start crocheting the squares together and I hope I will achieve the look I'm going for as I'm not using any instructions or a tried out pattern, I'm pretty much just flinging it.

I already know though that it will be a bit bulkier than I intended but anything looks cute on a baby, so it's gonna be ok ;))
I'll keep you updated on the progress.
Ciao-ciao!

Two Sided Duvet Cover

I have long wanted to make a Duvet Cover for our bed and when I was searching for inspiration for making one I found two which I loved.
The first one was quite minimalistic and modern and the other one was very romantic and quite girly.
Both of the posts have instructions for making the duvet covers, so if you'd like to make one the instructions are there.
I wasn't able to decide which one I'd like to make and so I combined the two and made a two sided duvet cover. I didn't follow the instructions too strictly but I got my basic guidelines from them and then I just made some modifications to suit what I wanted to make.

For the minimalistic side I bought a bunch of linen in different shades of grey and also white. I cut it all up and organized the pieces according to the directions. After this it was all sew, sew, sew.

Seems relatively easy but it took me a looooooong time to do all of that. It was partially because of the pattern and partially because I just got tired of doing the same thing all over again and again and I'm not even talking about the times I messed something up and had to take it apart and start again. But I pushed through and got it done :)).

For the romantic side I bought a 220cm x 220 cm bed sheet to use as a "base" and for the ruffles I used some old cutup cotton sheet I had lying around. I started by cutting the base piece to fit the minimalistic side I had already finished (so about 200cm x 180cm). Then I cut out long strips of fabric in different widths. After this I hemmed all the long sides of the strips with the zig-zag stitch on my machine because I don't want the pieces fraying too much. And then I started ruffling the strips. I made the ruffles just by gathering the fabric while sewing at the same time, I found this to be the most efficient and fastest way to do it. I also made the ruffles in different widths to add some more dimension and versatility.

So I ruffled and ruffled and ruffled away until I felt that I have enough.(I ended up making some more ruffles after I had pinned the existing ruffles on the "base" because I felt that it needed at least 3 more rows of them) This was actually the funnest part of this project, to see the pile of ruffles grow bigger and bigger.

Then I placed the ruffles on the base piece and pinned them to place. After this I stitched all the ruffles in place with my machine. Some of the ruffles needed two rows of stitches to hold them in place the way I liked it.

After this I also made a long continuous ruffle by stitching 6 2m long (13cm wide) strips of fabric together. i did this to make the ruffle edge to the duvet cover because I felt that it needed some kind of trim or edge to finish the look I was going for. So I placed the minimalistic side right side up, then I placed the ruffled trim around the edges so that the edge of the trim that I wanted showing was towards the center of the cover and the other edge was even with the edge of the cover. And then I placed the ruffled side on top with the wrong side up. Ok, I know this all sounds very confusing, but I tried to do a little illustration to make things (maybe?) a bit more clear :P Please keep in mind that I really can't draw at all ;D The yellow parts indicate the ruffles.

Then pinned everything to place and sewed along the edges leaving approximately  a 30cm opening to the upper edge (where I didn't place the ruffled trim) to turn the whole thing right side out. then I just stitched the opening and ...

TA-DAA!!

 I absolutely LOVE how it turned out. I've never been so happy to finish a project :)) It gives our bedroom a very idyllic and kind of a fresh feeling. Anyways I love it!

Oh, and did I say already that I love it ;))

 

I hope you enjoyed and have great weekend!
Ciao-ciao!

A Summer Bonnet

I found this tutorial for making a bonnet and I knew right away that I want to make one for my daughter Tindra. And because we've had quite warm weather here in Estonia I thought it would be quite appropriate to also write about it.

I had bought this fabric from our local fabric store a while ago just because I liked it a lot and thought it was pretty. And when I found teh tutorial mentioned above I knew I would use this fabric for making it. (I only used a small part of the fabric so I still can make a dress or something else for the summer ;D )

I love the embroidery on the fabric.

There are much better instructions in the blog I referred to before but I will briefly take you through the process, too. Firstly cut out the pieces for the bonnet. The bigger crown piece is 18cm x 36cm, long side on fold. And the two smaller brim pieces are 9cm x 23cm, short side on fold. Also cut out two pieces of interfacing for both of the brim pieces. (Lets see how many times I'm able to write the word "piece" in this post ;D ;P).

After this iron the interfacing pieces on the brim pieces. Note that you will iron it on the wrong side of the fabric. I accidentally ironed it on the right side on one of the pieces, fortunately my fabric looks almost the same on both sides so it's not very noticeable.

Then sew the two brim pieces together with the right sides facing each other and leaving the long straight side open.Turn the brim right side out, cut the corners.

Fold the edge inside and press so it will be easier to attach the gathered crown piece between the brim.

Hem the crown pieces neckline (the straight shorter side of the crown piece). 

I forgot to take pictures of the last steps of making the bonnet, sorry.
Stitch the crown pieces unhemmed sides (from the neckline on one side around the curve to the neckline on the other side), pull the yarn so that it gathers the fabric. The gathered fabric should match with the pressed side of the brim. Then put the gathered fabric between the brim, attach it with pins and sew along the brim.

I attached a rubber band to the neckline (from one side of the brim to the other) because the bonnet was very big for my daughter.

Lastly I attached some ribbon so we could tie a nice bow and keep the bonnet from slipping off her head.
I really like the way it turned out, it's super cute and I can't wait for summer so she can wear it all the time :))
Also I think this will fit her at least two summers if not three, because of the gathered fabric and the rubber band at the neckline.She will definitely get a lot of use out of it :))

I secretly want to make one for myself also ;P. Too bad I'm not a cute baby who can pull it off ;P ;D

Hope you enjoyed it! Ciao-ciao!