Repunzel Doll and Boy Shirts

I normally end up making hair bows for my niece for her birthdays, but I've been wanting to make a Black Apple doll for some time.  I wanted to make Repunzel, but wasn't sure how to make long hair hang down in the back.  After asking around, a friend suggested a wig, and I kind of like how it turned out.

 

 

Now she can be long haired Repunzel, or Repunzel with a hair cut.

 

And why not make a market skirt (minus the pockets) for the birthday girl to match her doll?

 

I've also been wanting to make a machine embroidered shirt using this technique.

 

It turned out to be harder than I expected.  Even with the stabilizer, the fabric shifted on me a lot.

 

This was a little easier.  I sewed diamond shaped t-shirt material onto the shirt and stitched stripes on top to make an argyle pattern.

 

It's hard to come up with ideas for handmade boy gifts...I can't imagine that clothes are really that exciting of a present.

 

I'd love suggestions for next years gift for a 9 year old boy.

The Other Jacket

I finally finished my other jacket!  I used one of my 3 year old's shirts for reference, but cut my pieces about 1 inch larger because I wanted it to be able to fit over other clothes.  I cut the bottom about 2 inches below the armpit thinking I was going to make a jacket with an empire waist, but after trying it on halfway through, my daughter and I decided it should be a bolero.

I folded my material in half to cut it out to make sure it would be symmetrical. (note: I cut out two of these)

I took one and folded it in half to cut the front open and lower the neckline.

I traced the sleeve of the existing shirt to get this cutting line too, but I made sure and lined it up with the hem of the shirt I was reusing.

No pictures of the rest of the process, but it was pretty standard.  I basically did something kind of like this link from Crafterhours, but there is no ribbing to worry about.  Then I made bias tape like this tutorial from Craftiness is not Optional, and sewed it all the way around.  Finally, I made a rectangle with 2 button wholes and sewed buttons on both sides of the front opening.

My 1 year old just won't stay away with her books, and you don't want to see the 3 year old's face...well, maybe I don't want you to see her face.

Book Page Wreath

I found a cute wreath tutorial at Living with Lindsey so when I went garage sailing last weekend I had my eyes open for wreath forms and paperback books.  I ended up with a straw Christmas wreath that I stripped bare, and a book about Princes Grace (I didn't want anyone admiring my wreath to think I allowed trashy romance novels in even if I wasn't going to read it).  The only thing I changed from the tutorial was to tie my hanging ribbon on before I started gluing pages (I used about 350 pages), and I covered the back with smashed page tubes as you can see in the last pic.

Here's how mine turned out...

I am going to be hanging this wreath in a window, so I did this to hid the back of the wreath.

Stylish Onesies

At the beginning of the summer it didn't seem like my youngest had enough going to town worthy shirts, but we had an overabundance of screen printed onesies.  So I decorated some of them.  See!

I got the idea for this one here.  Actually I've been reading Ruffles and Stuff.  Disney does a lot of clothing re-purposing and was largely my inspiration for all of these.

See the screen printing.  I wasn't fond of it.

For this one I cut a long thin strip of white t-shirt material, ruffled it by stitching down the middle on my machine's longest stitch length and highest tension.  Then I rolled the ruffle around itself as I hand stitched it to the shirt from the inside.

The leaf is a piece of green ribbed t-shirt that I machine sewed to the shirt down the middle.

For the green shirt I cut 2 long 1 1/2" strips of t-shirt material and pleated haphazardly one at a time on the shirt and zig zagged to attach.

The green one was my favorite until I soaked it in oxy clean and it faded in spots.  :(  Not go to town worthy anymore, but maybe I'll try it again sometime.  I liked it and it was a more gender neutral decoration.