Knit Baby Dress

Well I get the award for worst Christmas vacation photographer EVER this year. Seriously. I have less than 20 from the two weeks we were on vacation. We did really enjoy being with family, I just didn't turn my camera on very much. I thought I'd share one of the presents I made this year (that I actually remembered to take a picture of).

I used the Warhol Dress Pattern from Made (you can find it here). I love how this dress turned out. Since it's knit fabric it seems so comfy. It shouldn't surprise you that I forgot to take any pictures of my niece actually wearing the dress. All I have is the dress on a hanger and a tiny picture cropped from a family picture.

 

This dress was fun to make - you know how some projects are really great once they're finished but during you're thinking you were crazy to make it and you wish you hadn't already cut out the fabric? This isn't one of those. It came together pretty quickly if I remember right.

I did have an almost project-ending mistake though. The knit I was using was very thin (thinner and stretchier than tshirt material). Of course I didn't practice with it much ahead of time because that would've been smart. A piece of the armhole got stuck IN my machine. I was definitely sweating those few minutes, but I managed to free it with minimal damage to the fabric (and by minimal I mean there was damage but it was hide-able).

So if you do make this dress, practice with your fabric first (or just be better at sewing than me). I did make an adjustment to the pattern. I added trim to the bottom hem similar to the yoke of the dress. I thought it looked nice and my material was really thin so it was easier to sew with an extra layer of fabric.

I'm hoping that this dress will last for a few months (or more) because there's room to grow at the top and as it gets shorter it can become a long top instead of a dress!

Pillowcase dress for baby

Guess I'm on a little bit of a baby clothes making kick. I decided to make a top similar to a pillowcase dress for myself, got halfway through and decided to make a pillowcase dress for a friend at church who's having a baby girl soon. Too bad my top won't be able to compare in cuteness since it's hard to beat a tiny dress with a bow like this.

I think I may like this one even better than the last baby dress I made. And it's even easier! (I just hope it fits...I didn't exactly use a pattern and didn't have any baby clothes to compare it to : / ) I looked around a little bit at patterns/tutorials for these, but wasn't seeing exactly what I was planning on doing so I basically threw everything out the window and just did my own thing.

Here's what I did, I'll update the post after baby gets to try it on and tweak the dimensions if I need to. Cut 2 rectangles 10"x15" (I would suggest cutting more like 12"x15" because mine looked really tiny). Cut curves out for armholes; I used this template. I scooted the template down about an inch from the top, like this:

Then I sewed the two rectangles together on the edges (right sides together). Hem the bottom; I folded the edge up 1/2" then up another 1/2".

I used this tutorial at Prudent Baby for finishing the armholes with bias tape. I think it really took the dress up a notch as far as looking more professional. And made me wish I was doing that on the shirt I started for myself haha.

For the top you need a tube to feed the ribbon or fabric tie through. I folded the edge under 1/4" then down about 1" and sewed along the edge. Kind of like the picture below.

Then you just feed your ribbon through and tie it in a bow.

Then say "aww that is so cute!' in a little baby voice. Oh wait, I guess you don't have to do that part, but I'm pretty sure that's what I did. : ) I was taking pictures of the dress for the blog, and you can really only take so many pictures of a dress hanging on a hanger. Since I don't have any spare newborns laying around I had to rope Fred into trying it on.

Sorry Fred.

I have to say, it does look pretty good, even on a monkey. Which means it should be even cuter on a little baby girl (assuming she can fit...). Stay tuned for possible pattern updates. The concept of the dress is really simple though, so you can just adjust the dimensions based on the size of the girl.

Have a great weekend!

Lena Beth and the tiny dress

I thought I'd share some pictures of the dress I made my niece! And share some pictures of her because she's adorable, and who doesn't want to see pictures of adorable babies?

I used the pattern from Made by Rae for the Itty Bitty Baby Dress. I used the bigger size since "little" Lena was 8lb. when she was born. I also enlarged it to 105% or 110%, I can't remember. I wanted her to be able to wear it for a while and since I haven't seen her in person (*gigantic sadface*) I didn't want to err on the too small side.

(See the tiny hanger? We didn't have any baby hangers and it was too small to fit on a normal one so I took one of those pants hangers you get from the cleaners, took the cardboard tube off and bent it to form an itty bitty hanger for an itty bitty dress hehe)

The dress came together pretty easily (read: no zippers on buttons to slow you down). But it did involve piping and bias tape, which I had never used before. And I still haven't used piping...I kind of just rigged the bias tape to work for that since I didn't have any on hand.

I untied the straps for a picture so you can see what the straps look like.

I also added an itty bitty tag so you could tell which was the front and which was the back (you might be able to see it better if you click on the picture to enlarge it). The front and back patterns are identical, so it wouldn't really matter except I put all of the seams for the bias tape/piping on one side and I wanted that to be the back.

Her Mommy and Daddy were sweet enough to take a picture of her wearing it for the first time!

I'm glad it's a little big, maybe she'll still be able to wear it when I visit next month! Now for a few more baby pictures because I'm a proud aunt : )

the happy family

It seems like whenever she is awake, she's looking around at everything. Especially in the top right picture, haha! My sister-in-law said she sat like that for a few minutes! I seriously can't wait to visit! A big thanks to everybody who's been snapping pictures and sharing them, I love seeing them.

If you have a baby girl or are related to one or remotely know one, I would really suggest this dress. The pattern was easy to follow, I finished it in an afternoon, and it doesn't require a ton of fabric since it's itty bitty. And it's tiny and cute - does anyone else notice that the tinier something is the cuter it is?