Edit your jeans

Big announcement: I'm pregnant! I thought I'd preface the post with that for a few reasons: 1 - it might be a little weird if I randomly showed up with a baby on the blog later this year. 2 - I wouldn't want to keep you people in the dark forever. And 3 - I wouldn't have bought new jeans if my old ones hadn't become too small because I love my old jeans. Oh and 4 - now I can tell you part of the reason I've been posting so sporadically is the ridiculous tiredness that is the first trimester (glad to be done with that!).

I really didn't want to pay full price for something that can't be a permanent part of my wardrobe, so I've been hitting the sales and clearance racks. I found a pair of jeans that fit great and were comfortable, but the legs were very flared. A little too flared for my taste. I think they were on clearance for $15, so I didn't want to pass them up since I was pretty sure I could fix them.

And I was right. Yay! This is how you can take flared jeans and change them to bootcut (or skinny for that matter). From pinning to having everything done, I would guess it took me less than 30 minutes. Definitely worth saving more than 50% in my opinion. Bootcut vs. original flared leg

I didn't cut my jeans so if I decide I want them flared again at some point I can just take out the seam. This gives you an idea of where to pin (disregard the random black spot + blue blue dot, no idea how those appeared):

I just folded the excess on the inside and pinned it so the original seam went more straight down instead of coming out to the front (not sure that made any sense at all). The bottom seam was too big to fit in my sewing machine, so there was about an inch at the bottom I hand sewed. I didn't really worry about making it super sturdy since the rest of the leg was already sewed on.

You can kind of tell from the picture above that I just kept the original seam and sewed over it. You can't tell unless you're really inspecting the seam up close and this way it looks like the jeans were made that way. I guess this wasn't the most detailed or informative post ever, but if you want more details feel free to get in touch. You could do this with any jeans, not just maternity. Here's the finished product:

Thanks for staying with me since I've been so spotty with posting. I actually already have another project halfway finished, so hopefully I can share that soon(ish)! Aaand I'll work on getting some better pictures for that one too : )

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!

Super Easy Headband

Bad hair day? Wake up with crazy bangs? Run out of time to wash your hair? Yeah, me too (hopefully not all three on the same day, but I can't say it's never happened). So I whipped up this headband to hide my hair. And it really couldn't be faster. I think it took me about 3 minutes. Faster than you could buy one at the store really.

Measure your head around where the headband would be (in other words, don't measure it like you're buying a hat because that won't help you). Mine was about 22". Find some knit fabric. I have some that's a little lighter and stretchier than a tshirt, but I'm sure a tshirt would work.

While holding the tape measure at 22" grab the fabric in two spots and see if it will stretch to 22".  I was going to take pictures of this but I don't have three hands, so pictures of me holding/measuring the fabric are pretty impossible. Here's kinda what you do with a paint picture:

Example: Hold the end of the fabric and tape measure; also hold fabric about 16" out and the tape measure at 22". Stretch the fabric until the tape measure is taught. Make sense? Hope so because I'm out of ideas for explaining/illustrating.

Cut a rectangle out. Mine ended up being 5" x 16". (Keep in mind my knit was stretchier than a tshirt, so if you're using a tshirt you might need it to be longer)

Sew the short ends together.

This is what it looks like after you sew.

And this is what it looks like turned right side out.

No, this one is not for my head. It's for a much smaller baby head. But it still stretches a lot, see?

(just ignore my leg in the picture, I was running into the whole not having three hands problem again)

Put it on your head (or somebody else's head).

And you're done. No need to sew up the edges because knit fabric won't fray. I see more knit headbands in my future! What's your solution for bad hair days?

Ugly chair turned...less ugly

We moved. That's kind of old news now, but I thought I'd give you a little background on why I'm redoing a random chair. We knew ahead of time this would be a temporary move (6ish months or less) so we only brought what we could fit in our cars. We planned on renting a furnished apartment, even had one picked out.

Unfortunately that place fell through and we couldn't find anything furnished for such a short time. So we moved into a different apartment and had absolutely no furniture! Thanks to cheap stuff at Walmart, thrift stores, and some very kind people we now have enough furniture for the time we'll be here. I picked up a couple office chairs for free on base (which is great because I'm pretty sure sitting in a camp chair to work for 8 hours was going to get old quickly).

I also grabbed a duvet cover for free and planned on using it on the futon or something once we were reunited with our furniture. But I really wanted to cover the chair and I really didn't want to use the fabric I brought with me (yes, I brought fabric but mostly just what I was planning to use for christmas presents). So the duvet was elected to be the new chair cover. I'll quickly run through the steps...

Cut a piece big enough to cover the bottom and have plenty to overlap on the bottom. Don't bother ironing because it will be stretched out anyway and getting the iron out seems like wayyy too much trouble. Staple once on each side just to hold the fabric in the right spot while you flip the chair over.

I didn't want to take the chair apart, there were way too many things undone in the apartment for me to create another undone thing. So I leaned it precariously against the wall as I worked. Get your stapler ready for the next part!

Pull the fabric tight and staple like there's no tomorrow. I just used a regular old stapler, but a staple gun might be more effective because I did have some staples that didn't take the first time.

After you've stapled the whole thing, trim the excess. Then flip your chair over and marvel at the fact that your bang up job looks somewhat presentable.

My chair was upholstered even on the back of the seat, so I could use the "staple haphazardly" method for the seat back.

I pinned two pieces of fabric together over the chair, right sides together. (Because I seem to vaguely remember someone using this method to reupholster a couch so it seemed like the professional way to go...at least compared to stapling fabric all over the place.)

If your chair tapers in toward the bottom like mine did, you shouldn't pin all the way down. Unless you don't want to put it on after you sew it. I only pinned about halfway down so it wouldn't be so small at the opening that it wouldn't fit over the top. Sew around the edge and turn it right sides out then slip it on.

Now how to sew up the bottom half of the seat cover...that's a good question. My method involved some hand stitching and a safety pin on one side. I plan on coming up with a more permanent solution eventually, but for now I'm good with the finished product. (If I was doing this over again I would hem the bottom edge of the seat cover so I didn't have to worry about sewing it close.d)

Is it perfect? No. Is it exactly what I need for the next several months? And is it way more pleasant to look at than a stained brownish/pinkish chair? Yes and yes!

So what could you not move without? Tonight I was wishing I had my George Foreman grill that didn't make the cut (and wishing I'd remembered to pack the salt and pepper...guess I'm headed to the grocery store again!).

A quick sewing fail...

...to show you I still care. I would love to bring you an awesome sewing project that I finished on my awesome new sewing machine. But that's not how it always works out (unfortunately!).

A couple things to share before I get to the embarrassing pictures. Saturday Hubs and I went to the Air Force Ball. It was fun, see?

(Side note: I wish I had a recording of what was said at the ball about those families that can't be with their loved ones. It was really touching and they had an empty table set for POW/MIA. We took some time to think about the sacrifices others have made for our freedom. I know I completely took that for granted before Hubs was in the military and I wish everyone could hear things like what was said at the ball. Sorry I'm not better at recreating the sentiment!)

But I didn't plan ahead very well and ended up with way too much to do on Saturday. Friday night (I think, could've been Saturday morning I'm not really sure now) I knew I needed a bag for the ball and I didn't have anything. Yeah, no black or silver clutch or small bag. You'd think with all the bags I have ONE of them would work. Nope. 

No problem, I've made clutches before and it's pretty quick. Except I had no nice fabric or neutral fabric. So I went to my closet. Not a whole lot there either. Apparently I'm more of a casual fabric kind of girl. I found a dress that was in the "goodwill, oh wait I might use that for a project so don't take it yet" pile. Too small for me but black and lacey (lacie? who knows...). Anyway I cut and I sewed. Quickly.

It was bad people. I had never sewn with lace or such thin stretchy material. I had never sewn with that sewing machine before. It roughly resembled the shape of a clutch.

I knew I needed to use interfacing because it was way too flimsy but I didn't want to get out the ironing board so the floppyness of it is totally my fault. I will say the machine did an amazing job of sewing the stretchy fabric. It even had a stitch specifically for stretchy fabric!

I didn't have the hang of manuvering the stretchy fabric in the sewing machine though so I didn't even catch the lace in some sections. I ended up using a tiny black wristlet that was only big enough for my id and lip gloss. Maybe my experiment would work better as a hat...

Nope, definitely not. I forgot to tell you the rest of the reason why I couldn't just try again with the clutch. It was about 3pm on Saturday (we're leaving at 5:15...or so we thought) and I remembered I needed something from the store for Bible class the next day. So I went to the store and Hubs went for a run. After, he needed a haircut. So I'm cutting his hair at 4:20. Then he remembers he needs a rope sewn onto his jacket. I put a few stitches in to hold it on and figured I could finish in the car. Then I got ready because it was close to 5pm at that point. I get dressed and put on mascara (couldn't find concealer) and go back to sewing. So I'm standing in the office, in my dress, sewing a rope on a jacket.


Probably was pretty funny. The moral of the story is plan ahead. And dresses don't always make good purses. But you can still have fun even if you were super rushed and have no bag. See? That's the look of fun people.

Did ya miss me??

I've been neglecting my blog a bit lately, and I do feel kind of bad about it. Hopefully I can pick back up on the frequency of my posts soon (although I can't make any promises since we may or may not be moving sometime in the next 2 months...yay for "planning ahead" in the military!).

I would show you a cute little skirt I made for my niece, but I forgot to take pictures of it. My bad. And it was way too big, so I won't have a picture of her in it for a while. Apparently I have no concept for how big or small babies are. It is really cute though! It's kind of along these lines:

But obviously much better. Hah! The fabric has tiny flowers on it and looks kind of vintage-y. I was in Memphis last week visiting family and meeting said niece. She's even better in person (although smaller) than I expected.

I kind of hogged her since I'm not there very much. Hopefully she didn't get too spoiled by me holding her even when she was napping sometimes : )

It was so much fun to see family and spend time hanging out (ok, she napped and I smiled at her because she's cute) with my niece!

In other news...I GOT A NEW SEWING MACHINE!?!  A Brother CS6000i (whatever that means). So I'm going from one stitch on my old Singer to 60! ...60!? What will I even do with all of them? I was so tired from the trip I didn't even open it when I got home last night.

But that didn't stop me today! I started reading through the instructions (boo!!) because honestly I don't even know where to begin with this thing.

I did find it funny that they pointed out you shouldn't drop or hit the machine if you want it to work well. Was that really necessary? I guess they're just covering all their bases (probably thanks to those people who sue because they burned their mouth on the coffee they ordered because it didn't say "Caution: Hot" on the cup).

I got all the way to page 16 (meaning I read how to wind and load the bobbin and thread the needle) before I threw caution to the wind and started trying out stitches! It's like magic people! Leaves, squiggles, asterisks, loops, criss-cross...you name it, the machine will do it! (Also, I need more thread. I didn't even have enough to completely fill a bobbin since these bobbins are bigger than my other ones.)

And now I need to get to work on the sewing table so I have somewhere other than the living room floor to put it. Any thoughts on what my first project with the new machine should be?? I have more projects than I can make several projects pinned on some of my Pinterest boards, but I haven't picked anything yet.

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!