Continuing on my baby sewing kick, I made matching Market Skirts for A and her soon-to-be baby sister. I love the Red Letter Day print from Lizzy House and of course it had to be pink for Allison. I also got the orange version of this but decided to make both skirts the pink. Now I just need to come up with something sort of coordinating for brother. I don’t think pink geese would work and he would look like a crazy old man if I made pants or something from the orange. So, still thinking about it. I will actually try to get a picture of Allison wearing the skirt and the goal is to have family pictures after the baby comes.

I modified the length on the big skirt, since A is 4 and has long legs. I left the waistband the same size, increased the print length to 12″ and the bottom band to 5″. The bottom was a little long, so I should have only made it 4″. I left the width of each tier the same. For the approximate newborn size, I shrank it both length and width-wise. For a 14″ waist, I cut 2 each at: waistband was 11″x2.5″, middle band 18″x5″, bottom band 21″x2″. I also did the construction a little differently. For the bottom band, I cut two pieces 21″x4″, sewed them together at the sides and folded them in half  to get the double thickness like the tutorial suggests. That way, I didn’t have to hem it. (I did this with the big skirt, too, but ended up hemming it since it was a little long). I also sewed the bands into circles and gathered them that way. It’s not any harder to gather in a round than in a straight line and this way your side seams match a little better and the bottom folded over band doesn’t have an exposed seam.

I only did the pockets on the big skirt, but I might try to shrink down the pattern for baby skirt and only put on one. I love how they turned out.

I wanted to try out a retro Simplicity pattern to see if I would like it as a blessing dress for the new baby (although that would mean actually deciding on a name sometime before July). And after seeing one made on A Feathered Nest’s blog (on my sidebar) I went for it with one of my coveted Heather Bailey Freshcut prints. I have such a hard time cutting into my stash of designer fabrics, but I can’t buy more if I don’t use what I have, blah, blah, blah. It’s not the best picture since the quilt I used as a background is too busy, but I did like how it turned out. Not quite what I had in mind for a blessing dress, but still cute. It has pleats on the front and I think I want pintucks instead. So, I’ll keep looking around and maybe try to modify this pattern before I use the Swiss batiste I bought. BTW, my mom made the quilt in the background for my birthday using 30’s prints that I love.

I finished Allison’s Easter dress last week. I used some Amy Butler Love fabric that I got from the new fabric store in town, The Fabulous Fabric Shop, as well as some fabric from my stash. Shirring is my go-to technique lately, and I really like using a different fabric for the skirt. I got a few cute pictures of it, hopefully will get a few more on Easter. The tutorial I used was from Fave Crafts Sewing Crafts from Bloggers eBook. I sort of changed the construction order, but it was a really easy dress.

I wanted to jump on the bandwagon of making a cute lapped-neck t-shirt like Dana from MADE for boy month. Well, it wasn’t quite a 90 minute enterprise. Actually, it was kind of cursed from the start. I didn’t have a onesie in Ian’s size that I could take apart, but I did have a Simplicity pattern of a lapped-neck t-shirt. But, it was only a medium and I knew it wouldn’t fit. So, I had to make sure I cut the pattern bigger, and especially longer. As cute as his little chubby tummy is, I’m not a fan of it hanging out of his shirt. And I wanted to try it on something other than the nice green knit fabric I bought. I found a NASA Langley t-shirt I had been holding on to, but knew I would never wear again. Perfect. I cut out the short sleeve pattern, cut the ribbing for the neck, then went to serge the edges for a bit of decoration. Apparently, my old, slightly cranky serger doesn’t do knits. I thought that kind of was in the job description of a serger. But I ended up with a skipped stitch every inch or so down the ribbing. Not pretty. I pulled out the stitching (because I’m a cheapskate and hate wasting fabric) and went ahead and sewed it to the neck edges. Except I forgot to take into account that the pattern calls for folding down a 5/8″ hem at the neck instead of ribbing. The neck edges ended up too high up and covered part of the logo on the shirt, which was the whole reason for using that particular shirt in the first place. Picking out the stitches was not an option: I had used the knit stretch stitch on my machine and it is a pain to pick out. So, I wasted the ribbing after all by just trimming the neckline and starting over with new ribbing. And long story even longer, the shirt wasn’t quite long enough to do I deep enough hem to lay nice. Oh well. It turned out cute in the end.