Pillow Case Dress DIY

So a friend from colorguard...yes I was a band geek, go ahead and joke all you want, but it was AWESOME, has a sweet darling baby girl that she would love to cloth in adorable pillowcase dresses without the "boutique" price. So, here goes my second DIY tutorial...I know you are all anxiously waiting the diaper bag tutorial...but alas, my local walmart and I had issues with finding people to cut fabric that I wanted for the bag until just recently! Hopefully, you'll get that post soon, and since it's a beach bag made over...it'll be seasonally appropriate!

So, before we begin this tutorial, I will go ahead and say, that I talk sweet nothings to my sewing machine, offer it lots of praise (and would probably bring it offerings of oil for it's lovely little innard parts) and hope that it decides to play nice. I am a firm believer that sewing machines have personalities...feelings...and can make your life MISERABLE if they so wish...so I treat mine nicely and hope that it likes me. The night before St. Patty's day...it liked me  A LOT! See that cute lil dress up there.

<~Slevage.

 I laid my fabric out and cut in such a manner that the slevage (that nice finished edge that won't fray) would be my bottom hem when covered by some sweet ribbon, and I folded my fabric so that my daughter's dress would only have one side seam.

 See how it's folded.

 Some would call it cheating...I call it being smart! Please note that this was cheap fabric ($2.77 for a yard which made a dress a skirt and has plenty should I decide to do something else with the scraps), so I didn't mind the waste.


I eyeballed all my measurements. Meaning that I laid my fabric out, thought about my sweet Anna and cut what I thought would be a little larger than her width (because the girls find my sewing measuring tape amuzing...I can never find it!).

Making your arm holes
 Then about four inches down from the top of the fabric (the non-slevage end) I cut tiny little dashes to serve as guides for making my armpit holes.

Then, using a circular guide...also known as Kaelyn and Anna's airplane flying book, I marked off a perfect curve for the armpits. You can also use a salad plate, or anything round...they do make special sewing tools for this, but why waste your money?

And Repeat on the other side!

Here is what your dress should look like. See how my finger is showing you that the fabric is indeed folded over!

Now you are almost done cutting, you just need to cut one or two long strips about 2 inches wide for your bias tape. What's that you ask? Well, I never used it before but it sure does make your dress look purty!
Making Bias Tape for finishing your arm holes
Take your two long strips about two inches wide and lay them out on your ironing board with a very hot iron.
Fold each strip in half (don't worry about cutting in straight lines, in the end, it'll all work out) and iron down.

 

Open up your fold, and use the center crease as a guide to fold the ugly ends of your fabric in. Iron those down.

Repeat on the other side...then fold in half with the ugly ends tucked in and iron down for good measure.

This is what your finished bias tape will look like.

 You will use this to finish the ugly arm pit holes...Open up the bias tape fold and place it over the armpit hole and sew a simple seam all the way down. I cut my bias tape AFTER sewing it to the armpit hole to make sure I have PLENTY of tape.

This is me attaching the bias tape to the unfolded armpit holes.

This is what the fabric looks like prior to adding bias tape after you open the fold! Now, this is how you add the bias tape for a better understanding.

See how you tuck the dress into the fold...then just sew it closed and viola you have finished edges!

If you want the inside of your dress to be pretty, do this! If you don't care...skip!

Now, this is the point that I make all my remained edges of fabric pretty by folding the unfinished edges in, ironing them down, and then folding them once again and ironing them down. Once they are ironed neatly, I sew a simple straight stitch all the way down.

To finsh your hem with ribbon

Once again, I don't cut my ribbon until after it's completely attached to my dress to insure that it's long enough! So, start on one end, cover the slevage edge and leave some ribbon hanging slightly over the edge....and you'll get this nice adorable ribbon hem without all the folding/ironing/sewing involved in making your own hem...

Do you see the pretty edge that will be the inside seam of my dress in my hand? Also look how I let a little of the ribbon lay over the fabric...just some extra that will be trimmed off in the end.

To close your dress

Make the two open sides meet with the pretty fabric folded ontop of each other. Sew, starting at the ribbon bottom up...this way your hem is always even!

To make the neckline and ribbon sleeves

Fold the top of the fabric over so that there is enough room to allow your ribbon to slide into the hole easily.

Iron it down and then sew with very little seam allowance (which means as closely to the end of the fabric as possible).

See how my finger can easily slide into the slot. Repeat on the other neckline. Then place a safety pin on the end of your ribbon and thread through both openings!

Cut to desired length! And now you have a lovely dress! I'll share my favorite skirt as soon as I catch my kids who decided to run around naked outside of towels...Please feel free to ask any questions

DIY Beach Towel Bag with it's own mat

Martha Stewart has these great tutorials for making a Beach Towel Tote Bag with a Mat out of a bath towel and a 2 hand towels. Here is the link for her instructions.

Now, I followed her instructions to the best of my ability, but they sure are confusing. So here is her instructions plus my pictures to make it a little bit more accessible. I also cheated and added an additional hand towel because it made it easier for me although I did find the end result to be very thick for using on my sewing machine. I also altered her design slightly by adding two seams on the half finished bag to create three pockets so that the bag wouldn't be as cavernous. Here goes my first DIY Tutorial.

To do this craft you will need
2 hand towels (the length should equal the width of your bath towel)
1 bath towel
a sewing machine
I used 1 yard of Twill Tape instead of her suggested webbing, but will be using longer amounts for future bags to get a tote bag length.

First lay out your hand towel and decide which side will be the "inside of the bag".  I choose to put all the tags "inside" the bag. Opposed to cutting them off, I kept them to make it easier to determine which side was the inside of the bag and which side would be the exterior. I eyeballed the appropriate placement for the handles and placed the twill tape on the tagged side of the towel. I pinned them down and used this as a guide for my other hand towel so that the handles would "meet up".

 

I sewed on the twill tape and back-stitched  over the twill tape to reinforce them. Don't sew the two hand towels together, just put the handles on each one.

 Now this next part took me a lot of thinking, because you are now adding the towel to the handtowels. For the first hand towel addition, take the hand towel and lay it face up (tagged side down on the towel) onto the bath towel. Sew the two sides and bottom seams...Also, if you'd like to add the two vertical pockets now is the time to do it! Just pick the size of pocket you would like and sew the appropriate number of seams to create your pocket(s). I choose to create three pockets.

As you can see here is the three pocket side. The towel is fully extended and acts as your mat.

To add the final hand towel, lay it face down tag side up on top of the pocketed hand towel.

 You can see both handles at the top of the bag...the non-pocketed hand-towel is laying on top of the larger towel. The bath towel is at the end.

Now the tote was so thick that I couldn't keep thin seam allowances, I had to move above the previous seams to be able to sew with the foot down. If you choose to follow Martha's instructions, you probably won't have this issue, but I didn't follow Martha hear because, we'll she lost me and I liked the idea of pockets. So, once again sew along the two sides and bottom.

You will now flip the bag so that the tags and handle seams are inside the bag. Now, the mat can be tucked into the larger pocket formed by the LAST hand towel.

 
I don't have my finished picture because, well, I lost it. But you can see the semi finished project with the mat extended. When the mat is folded up inside the bag it looks just like Martha's.

This would make a great Mother's day gift or a welcome to warm weather present!

My next project from Martha will be this canvas bag turned baby bag for a friend who is expecting her third and needs LOTS of room!

Kool Aid Playdough

I have always wanted to try and make my own dough, but have never had a reason since Kaelyn was always so responsible and tucked her play dough away after each use. Now, after YEARS of use, the dough is drying out and I decided since Anna doesn't "get" that you can't eat dough, I should try my hand at a food based dough that would be "safer" for her to ingest! This dough is just the ticket. Did I mention that the consistency, smell and texture are to die for, not to mention that it makes a TON of play dough for minimal money!

2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup salt
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cups boiling water
2 packages unsweetened Kool-Aid  (we used cherry!)

I mixed all the dry ingredients in a bowl while my water was heated for about three minutes in the microwave. We added them all together and Anna mixed while I measured out   eyeballed three tablespoons of oil.

Let it cool before you try kneading it. I ended up having to knead in about a 1/4 cup of extra flour to get a dough consistency that allowed you to play with it w/o getting your hands covered in gunk! Anna enjoyed helping!

This recipe makes enough to fill a large sour cream container...so I hope you like the smell!

 

And if you get tired of it, you can always use it to make beads! Just cut out shapes with a cookie cutter, use a skewer to make holes and let it dry over night. The color does "fade" or turn "ashy", but it's a fun craft for the kids!

A 1 yr old, 2 yr old, 3 yr old and 23 yr old all approve!