80's knit dress to Chanel-esque dress Refashion

I thrifted this big huge 80's coral cotton knit dress and jacket set last year. I thought it was a good deal of material for a few dollars. I had no idea what to do with them until I saw this:

I liked the look of the dress but I thought it looked a bit too fussy. My baby girl would surely like to yank on the front tie or the buttons. So I decided to refashion the coral dress into a simplified version of this Chanel dress.

I know it doesn't look exactly like the inspiration but I actually prefer the simpler version. The steps I used to refashion this:
1. The dress was HUGE. I first washed and tumble-dried it and it shrunk a bit in width and a lot in length. I cut off 4cm from the centre front, 4cm from the centre back, 3 cm from each side seam.
2. I sewed on a black grosgrain ribbon all the way down the centre front.
3. I redrafted the neckline and then sewed a piece of black ribbed knit to form the new neckline.
4. I ripped out the pockets from the jacket and added them to the dress. Unfortunately I damaged the pockets slightly when ripping them out. You can see that they are a bit wonky. I added black grosgrain ribbon to the top of the pockets.  I used the buttons from the jacket to add to the  pockets.

I usually wear this dress with leggings. It's super comfortable. The pockets are nice features as well as essential for a mom with 2 young kids.

As for the jacket, I have grand plans to make a tunic and pants for my baby girl for the Fall. There is still plenty of material for that.

ECing a 13 month old baby

ECing this past month has been okay. I have decided not to stress myself out too much to try to catch every pee/poo. Instead, I just focused on the poo because it's easier to see the signs when she has 'pressure'. She is pretty good now in telling me she is going to poo. She points to her butt and says 'ca-ca' (poo in French) to me. It's really cute! When I see that I quickly whisk her away to the potty, take off her diaper and sit her on it. I will then present some flyers, pamphlets for her reading pleasure. Usually within 2 minutes she would poo. I have about 80% success in catching her poo. Of course if we are out at restaurants or in the car then she would poo in her diaper. But in general I think she understands that she is supposed to poo in the potty.

I did try to hold her legs up in a public restroom but she wouldn't poo/pee. Perhaps I should remember to bring the potty everywhere I go now. It's kinda a pain because it's quite big. But I guess I shouldn't complain because she is 13 months old and pooing pretty consistently in the potty already! The next thing I need to do is to remember to catch her pees after a meal. She usually pees about 10 min and 30 min after a meal. I am usually too busy taking care of my son as well to watch her too closely for the pees. My son eats more food and more slowly than my daughter.

I took my new swimsuit for a Test-swim

I went swimming with my daughter this morning in my new me-made swimsuit. It held up well enough! Now I just have to see how well it fares after a wash. Chlorine can do a real number on swimsuits.....

Now I'm itching to make my next swimsuit! I just have to figure out how I'm going to modify the Kwik Sew 2690 pattern.....

I sewed my first Swimsuit!!! Kwik Sew 2690

I sewed my first swimsuit! I'm so happy! It's one of those milestones for us sewist, please understand. I have been reading blogs about sewists who had made their own swimsuits and I had been doing a lot of thinking and fantasizing and now I have done it!

I have never liked the RTW swimsuits. They never fit me properly because of my unusually shaped body. And now after 2 kids, there are many lumpy bits in the middle front as well as back fat. RTW are usually quite expensive and I haven't seen any that are fully lined front and back. The sewing on the RTW suits are usually quite sloppy. If I want sloppy sewing, I can do that myself!! LOL!

I used Kwik Sew 2690, a pattern that I bought a couple of years back. I used a basic black swimwear fabric that has 20% spandex in it. I didn't have any Powernet lining or anything like that so I lined it with the same swimsuit fabric. I wanted it to be snug and sturdy to hold back my lumpy bits. If I had used my body measurements, the pattern envelope would have had me make a size M. However when I compared my RTW swimsuit to the pattern pieces I found that it was more a size S. So I just made a size S to assess the fit. Good thing it's a wearable muslin.

The instructions are very good (Kwik Sew patterns are known for that). The adjustments I made include:
1. I didn't use the pattern to make a swim dress. Instead, I used the pattern pieces for the lining to make the actual body of the swimsuit.
2. I didn't gather the front tie all the way. I wanted more fabric to cover my chest area.
3. I didn't gather the straps in the front. I also cut off at least 2 inches of the length of the straps because I found them to be too long for my body. I also positioned the straps in different positions than what was suggested in the pattern.

If I were to make this suit again, I will make sure that I add more fabric to the chest area as my boobs are a bit squished. I will also add foam cups to the bodice. I messed up the elastics for the leg openings so I hope next time I will do a better job at it.

All in all I'm very happy with the fit of this suit. I will sew a few more swimsuits in the future. I don't think I'll want to buy another RTW swimsuit again!

2 Men's tees to 1 Dress Refashion

 I inherited 2 grey thin cotton undershirts. Both size XL. One has a plain front and one has a front pocket. What to do with them except to sleep in them? Well, I was inspired when I saw this picture:

 

I know I know. I only have 2 well worn tees. I was in a bold mood.

Steps:
1. Use one of my existing tees as a template, cut off the excess width from the men's tee. I made mine a bit loose.

2. Cut off the crew neck and fold the fabric in about 1cm. Finish the neckline.
3. Cut off the body of the other tee to make a skirt according to your own hip measurements. I made mine too short and snug due to miscalculations.
4. Use the remaining fabric of the 2 tees to make a tie and a faux wrap front.
5. Sew the top and the bottom together and tie the tie around the hip.

Voila! Not the most sophisticated thing I have done. It's quickly made and the body is a bit too loose.  But I can certainly wear it to the beach!

ECing a 1 year old

My baby girl is 1 year old! Where has the time gone? She is walking assisted right now and is more bossy than ever~! LOL! What a little diva! She fights with her brother for toys even though she can't really walk yet. She antagonizes him at every turn with a grin on her face. I have 2 very lively kids keeping me busy at all times!

ECing this past few weeks has been hits and misses. She only fought me on the potty 50% of the time. I would catch 1 poo and miss 1 poo each day. She would pee in both of the potties in the home but only poo in 1 of them. Don't know why! She did pee at Starbucks, the library and Ikea without complaining. I have no idea when she would fight me on the potty. I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and hope for the best!

Another Men's shirt refashion

I love refashioning Men's shirts! This is an extra large jean shirt I inherited. I immediately thought of making an outfit for my baby girls upcoming birthday.

I drafted a simple dress shape and a pair of bloomers. I used the shirts' button front as the back, and the bottom of the shirt hem as the dress hem. No extra hemming required. Yay! I also made a pair of bloomer shorts from this shirt fabric. I used remnants of the yellow polka dot fabric and made bias tape with it to add some contrast. I also used that same polka dot fabric to make another pair of bloomers for a mix and match style. The whole outfit didn't take long to make and it was really fun. I love making clothes for my kids! I can't wait to see her in this outfit!

Simplicity 4243 - Baby summer romper

So I made a wearable muslin using Simplicity 4243, with this yellow polka dot craft fabric that I have in my stash. Again I didn't position the pleats over the dots correct so they don't match up in the front.

Changes I've made:
I added length to the waist because my baby is quite long-waisted. I used ready made snap tape for the crotch. It didn't take too long but I made some errors putting on the snap tape so I had to redo it.
Also, I added buttons to the shoulder instead doing a zipper at the back as suggested in the pattern. I thought the zipper would be too uncomfortable/scratchy for my baby's bare back.

The leg openings are too big and look a bit odd. So I'll have to apply some elastic at the leg openings to scrunch them up a bit. I used size L and it's very roomy for my baby. I'm hoping after I add the leg opening elastics my baby will get to wear it for this entire summer before outgrowing it.

Simplicity 4243 - Baby summer dress

The weather is getting warmer and I realized that my baby girl doesn't have enough summer clothes. So I went through my stash patterns and stash fabrics and found Simplicity 4243 and some remnants of a checkered fabric (I used the same fabric for my son`s shorts last year - he can still fit into right now...Yay!). After cutting and sewing 15 minutes here and there, I finally finished in 3 weeks. The pattern is actually not difficult to sew at all. It's just that I don't have much time these days. So the starting and stopping dragged the project out to 3 weeks.


I didn't read the instructions but just winged it by looking at the front and back pieces of the pattern. The pattern calls for a back zipper but I changed it to a buttoned back. I used stash denim double fold bias tape to finish the neckline and the armholes. I didn't curve them enough so they stand up a bit. I consider them 'features' of the dress! LOL~!

When my baby girl tried it on, she was not very impressed with it because she is not used to wearing dresses and she found that the dress impeded her crawling! I hope she will get used to it soon.

I like the pattern well enough. It's pretty simple to sew and it's easy to make design changes. I think I'll make the rompers in the same pattern next time. My baby girl is too busy crawling, standing, walking, and climbing to wear a dress. The rompers should be more practical for her.

Ecing a 11 month old baby....and toileting a toddler

My baby girl is 11 month old today! Wow! Soon she will be a year old. ECing this month has been.....nonexistent. She refused to sit on the potty or be held over the toilet bowl at home. She would scream, stretch and cry every time I try to put her on the potty or change her diaper. I tried different potties, different bathrooms in the house but no luck! However, I went to Ikea and Starbucks last week and she peed in both public bathrooms (with me holding her over the toilet) without any protestations. So I don't really know what I'm doing wrong at home. I've been cleaning up so many poopy diapers that it's getting really annoying. I read in other EC moms' blogs that the babies do rebel going to the potty once they can crawl or walk. Perhaps this is her time to rebel?? When will this go back to normal again? I miss my 'toilet-trained' baby.......

My toddler son on the other hand, is now fully trained for pees when he is awake. He will run to the bathroom or tell us when he needs to pee. He still wears a diaper when he naps or sleeps. And he doesn't like pooing in the toilet yet but we are working on it. We did an intense toilet training for him over March break. I knew he could do it a long time ago but he has to be forced to go to the toilet to pee the first few days. After that he found the diaper to be scratchy and was enjoying wearing underwear more and more. He still hates going to the washroom when he is playing hard or watching TV but we made him go anyways. He hasn't had any accidents at school at all and only had a couple of accidents at home in the last few weeks. I think the toileting has made him more confident and the teachers think so too.

Ugly Men's shirt to Ladies' top Refashion

Another men's shirt refashion. What to do with an ugly 80's short sleeves men's shirt?


Turn it into a unique ladies' top of course!

Summer is coming and I need something loose and breezy to wear. I drafted a loose tank top using the button front of the shirt as the top's back. I use the back of the shirt, cut out the top front that includes a few pleats in the centre. I used red bias tape in my stash to jazz up the neckline and the armholes slightly.

Another quick and dirty refashion!


A close up of the pleats and the neckline and armhole details.


I have more refashion ideas for the stash of men's shirts I have inherited in my sewing nook!

ECing a 10 month old baby

Well, my baby girl is already 10 months old...where did the time go? I guess she won't be a baby much longer. I have to keep reminding myself to treasure the last bit of time I have with her as a baby. She still loves to cuddle and be held. When she can walk on her own she might not be as cuddly anymore.

We were out of town for almost 2 weeks this past month and I was worried about her ECing in an unfamiliar environment. She proved me wrong. She diligently poo/pee in a regular toilet with me pulling her legs up at the same time each day. As soon as we got home, she started to refuse using the potty or using the toilet again. She had already pooed a few times in the diaper this week, which was frustrating for me. Why would she poo/pee with no problem in a strange place, and fussed so much at home? I guess that's what kids do. Sometimes we as parents just have no clue why they do certain things. I'm hoping she will go back to the routine soon if I keep taking her at the usual times each day.