Taggie Blanket - I made it!

When we first started fostering Miss D, a group that I volunteer with gave me a monogrammed coordinating taggie blanket and burp cloth. She has loved this tag blanket to death. But, also Miss M takes it from her all.the.time. I have been meaning to dust off the machine for a while since I haven’t really sewn for a long time. I brought it out last week to make tutus (I only had to sew the elastic together) so I figured I needed to make this taggie sooner rather than later for Miss M. Oh don’t worry I bought enough fabric to make six, who knows what I will do with six or when I will have the time to make another 5. I have a problem when I walk in Joann’s Fabric. I buy fabric for all these great projects that usually don’t come to fruition. I still have fabric for the reusable sandwich bags I keep meaning to make.

Well, the taggie ended up being a pretty good bargain if I make at least two. They sell for around $15 for a small ten by ten. Miss M’s is sixteen by eighteen (not including ribbon) and I included this really, really cool flower embellishment.* All for a measly $20.04, 2 hours time, and 562 pin sticks on my fingers. I really think she will love it though. I did luck out and had a cool button Christie gave me from our tutu making session and my friend Kathy left her paisley ribbon for me because she said it is so me, yes I am a 70’s child and I love paisley.

I followed this tutorial and I got sidetracked looking at all the ribbon on that site. Mine doesn’t coordinate as much as that one, I just bought the fabric that was cute and on sale and the fleece was 50% off so I lucked up and I really like the purple tie-dye. As usual, I think I will be a lot faster the second time. I think I might need to invest in some finger protectors though before I make another.

I had been eyeing the taggies for sale on Pearhug Studio, so if you want one and aren’t motivated to make one, hers are really cute.

For the flower embellishment. I cut the extra fleece in three squares each progressively smaller. Then I cut those into circles with a wavy border. I then cut one small piece to look like the center of the flower. I stacked these and added a large button. I sewed these directly onto the fabric for the tag blanket. I think the flower is a really cool touch and Miss M will love it and stop stealing the babies blanket.

The finished blanket:

The finished blanket with the purple fleece showing:

The flower embellishment:

*Miss M is past the choking stage I probably wouldn’t include it if you had a much younger child. I did reinforce it super duper well, though.

Dress Shirt to Toddler Dress

I have been taking a sewing class and have recently put some of what I learned to practice. I had seen this link a while ago about making a toddler dress from a men’s dress shirt. I decided not to raid hubby’s closet and instead went to the Goodwill and spent $3 on a shirt. Pretty good bargain after searching for other things to do with the shirt. From the one shirt I made Miss M a dress, a pair of pants, and a head scarf. I didn’t have bias tape and wanted to use what I had, so I just improvised on the scarf. Bias tape would have made it a 5 minute project, it turned into more of a twenty+ minute project using the fabric. The pants were super easy. The dress was a tad hard, but I think I could make another in less than 2 hours.

I am so pleased with the results and look forward to shopping for some more shirts. Sewing is pretty fun.

Miss M's Dress:

Here is my dress I made over the past few weeks in sewing class:

Crafting Away...

I decided to get crafty today. I made a tutu from a tutorial here. I will give it to Gabby, Elysia’s little cutie pie. After making the tutu, I decided to make something for C. I had this cool red shiny costume fabric from an old uncompleted project and decided to make capes. I made one for C and one for Gabby’s brother Derrick. I made the necks too big and that fabric was really hard to sew, but they will be alright.
Here is the tutu and C modeling the cape.

C funny of the day (well not that funny, but he was trying to be funny): He decided that he wanted to make-up a joke. So he said, “Why did the boy sleep with his legos?” I said I don’t know. He said, “So he could play with them when he woke up silly.”
Here he is with Eamon showing off the ships they built.