Relief and Some Sewing Fun

Phew, there's finally been some relief from the crazy heat wave last week. In celebration of the great (and much cooler weather), I decided to sew some little clothes for my munchkin neice. She is just about 2 months old and is the most cutest baby ever (well, I think all babies are the cutest ever!).

Here are the first 2 dresses I sewed. The first one on the left is my absolute favourite. I added a heart applique and butterfly sleeves. I think little babies look wonderful in oversized butterfly sleeves. They look just angelic, don't you think? I added some other interesting details I will explain further in this post. The turquoise dress on the right is a simple peasant dress with embroidery from my sewing machine and a medium sized flower made of this ruffle lace my aunt gave me.

Here is a close up of the turquoise dress. You can see that I just created a spiral with the lace ruffle and it made a pretty cute flower. I hand stitched it to the dress.

Here is a close up of the other dress (my fave!). I just took several scrap fabric strips I had left over from my other projects and sewed them together. Then I cut it into a heart, fused it to interface and zigzag stitched it to the dress. Voila! It's a great way of using up all those beautiful scraps you have laying around but don't have the heart to throw away (I have toooo many!). I also added my niece's name with the sewing machine.

For some added interest, I stitched on this very colourful yarn I had laying around with a simple zigzag stitch. It really helped make the dress look more uniformed and compliments the applique.

This is the back of the dress. I used red bias tape all around the neckline and sleeves to add life to the pale dress. At the end, the dress looked rather frumpy and large so I just added a strip of elastic to the center back. To hide the stitch, I added the same yarn for an interesting appeal. Oh, I also added a tiny heart on the bottom of the opening. I just love tiny details!

This is a simple skirt I sewed and jazzed up with some pink ruffle lace again my aunt gave me. For added colour, I stitched everything in a cherry red thread. I think this would look great with a T-shirt.

Lastly, a dress I sewed with some left over fabric from my sister's outfit. I added a lining to the underside of the top yoke (is that what it's called??). I made the shoulder straps about 6 inches long so that it would be easy to knot them as shown. I sewed the bottom part of the dress over the yoke (?) so that you can see a little ruffle at the top. By the way, I love ruffles!

Here's a close up. Don't you just love the colour of this dress? Overall, the dress looked kinda plain so I added a strip of scrap fabric and spiraled it the same way as the turquoise dress. This one I sewed on with a machine. Since the dress was already sewn, this was a little challenging. I would recommend you add the flowers before you sew up the panels. Or you can hand-stitch it to the dress so you have more control over the fabric. Control is good..for sewing that is!