Month: June 2012

Sewing: Recycling my white shirt into cute toddler size shirt

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After the success of recycling one of my shirts into a shirt for my cute baby girl, I wanted to repeat the experience using the same type of shirt that I had in white.

I used this white long sleeved t-shirt

White shirt ready to be recycled

I used the same pattern that I had made for the red recycled shirt, and it all went well until I ran out of thread…

Running out of thread in the middle of a seam

I didn’t want to stop sewing while waiting for finding the time to go buy some more thread, so I decided to start adding the collar. I wanted to try a different approach than I used last time, so I used white thread and kind of sewed the collar bind piece of fabric first before attaching it.

Binding neckline

Then I sewed it to the inside of the shirt.

Binding neckline

And then I basted it to the right side of the shirt.

Binding neckline

In stead of using a straight top-stitch I decided to use a decorative stitch to secure the collar edge. I quite liked the end result, but I think there must be an easier way to attach an edge to a neckline.

Anyhow … here is the finished shirt!

Finished shirt

I added quite a few nice details to the shirt; here are some close-ups:

Detail

Detail

Detail

Detail

I am really happy with the result. The only problem is that I have had to remove the decorative buttons because my cute baby girl likes to use her new teeth on everything and managed to bite one of the buttons off the shirt after having worn it for just half an hour! And safety goes before fashion, so the buttons had to be removed.

Stay tuned for my next sewing adventure…. a stuffed toy!

🙂

Sewing: Recycled shirt with a touch of ladybug

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After the success of sewing the Ladybug pants, I wanted to try to sew a long sleeved shirt for my cute baby girl. I didn’t have a pattern, but I thought “how difficult can it be to make my own pattern” and went right ahead and did just that.

Shirt in the making

I used one of my daughters shirts as a template.

Template shirt

As this was my very first attempt at sewing a shirt, and even also just making it up as I went along, I didn’t want to use some nice expensive fabric, so I recycled one of my long sleeves shirt that I never use.

Original shirt

Shirt in the making

Shirt in the making

I also wanted to try out some of the fancy decorative stitches on my new machine, so I tried making a square using a leafy stitch and writing my daughters name in the middle. It wasn’t so easy getting it nice and centered, but it all adds to the MadeByMum look. 😉

Fancy stitching

Fancy stitching

I used some of the ladybug fabric, leftover from the pants, for a detail on the inside of the shirt.

It's all in the details

I wanted to try using the twin needle for hemming the sleeves, but I realised I needed two spools of thread for that, so I just top-stitched twice.

Sleeves

Attaching the sleeves was actually easier than I had thought.

Sleeves

And it was so easy to use an over-lock stitch to them on.

Over-lock stitch

And before I knew it, the shirt almost looked like a shirt. If you look closely you can see that I added a little detail on the side of the shirt (a little tag made from the ladybug fabric).

Almost a shirt

Now the neckline was not so easy to do. I’ll try a different approach the next time I make a shirt.

Neckline

The last touch was double hemming by top-stitching twice as done on the sleeves.

Almost finished

And… tadaa….

Finished shirt

My baby girl just loved it!

I love my shirt

Here are some close-ups of the details I added.

Details are important

Details are important

Details are important

And the shirt in action.

A shirt fit to play in

😉

Sewing: The Ladybug pants are finish! (… using my brand new sewing machine)

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First I want to introduce you to my brand new toy sewing machine: the Janome 4120 DCQ

New toy

It can do 120 stitches incl. seven 1-step button holes, and it also does letters, so I can write names and such. But my absolute favourite feature so far is actually the button you press and then it cuts the threads – I think I am in love with this button. And another thing that came in handy is that you don’t need to use the foot pedal, which is a great help for me now because baby girl is getting around a bit more now and wants to play with mum’s new toy, so I removed the foot pedal and am using the sew by button method.

Before I start to tell you about the Ladybug pants, I’ll show you what my old machine looked like. (I traded it in for a discount on my new super fancy machine.)

Old sewing machine

 

And now … my very first sewing project for my baby girl … the Ladybug pants.

The instructions in the book were lacking in helpfulness, so I had to use my inexperienced common sense to make the pants. I am not sure I will recommend the book for others, definitely not for newbies like me.

Attaching the binding feature…

Ladybug pants

 

Attaching the yokes…

Ladybug pants

 

I didn’t have my new machine at this stage, otherwise I might have used one of the decorative stitches to do the top-stitching in stead of this old boring straight one. 😉

Ladybug pants

 

The pants are slowly taking shape…

Ladybug pants

 

Trying out the overlock stitching on my new machine. 🙂

Ladybug pants

 

Sewing is so much faster using my new fancy toy!

Ladybug pants

Ladybug pants

 

I though sewing the two legs together would be difficult, but it actually wasn’t. What was difficult was to get the yoke/binding seams to align – as a photo further down will attest to.

Ladybug pants

 

And a bit of notching. (I also added some zig-zag for fraying later.)

Ladybug pants

 

Making a casing for the elastic waist.

Ladybug pants

 

Double hemming the legs.

Ladybug pants

 

And tadaaa!!!

 

As a first try at this, I am really pleased, but next time I think I will pay a bit more attention to aligning critical places. Just look at how off I was here:

Ladybug pants

 

I tried to take a picture of cute baby girl wearing the Ladybug pants, but she wouldn’t stand still. She is 8 (and a half) months old and thinks she can walk and want’s to explore everything. The pants a 1 or 2 cm too long still, so there is plenty of time for her to wear the pants before they get too small. I’ll try to remember to post a photo  of the pants being worn when I get a nice picture.

🙂