diy dolman

I haven't had the best luck at making myself clothes. I have 4-5 skirts that I made last year, but every other attempt has failed. Earlier this week, I received yardage of jersey knit I had ordered from The Fabric Fairy {btw, Meg at TFF was amazing and helped me get just what I was looking for!!}. I had ordered light blue & red striped jersey and yellow & white striped jersey after I saw {this} tutorial at Make It & Love It. Looks super easy, right?! Well, I started off using the light blue & red striped jersey and attempted a dolman top twice and failed both times....badly. The part that was tripping me up was tracing around a shirt of mine - I couldn't get the shape right or the neckline. I realized I am more of a measurements girl rather than an "eyeball it" kind of girl!

I didn't want to waste all the jersey I had ordered, so I stopped and found {this} pattern from Fabric.com. Meanwhile, I had emailed another sewing mama to see if she had trouble with the tutorial. She passed on {this} link to another dolman top tutorial!

I had a few hours, so I decided to try it again! I used the Merricks Art tutorial for most of the shirt, minus the sleeve cuffs and I added the band at the bottom from the Make It & Love it tutorial. The neckline is wider than I anticipated, but I actually love this shirt!!! Along with the pattern I bought from Fabric.com, I also ordered four more yards of different jersey knit...I can't wait to make some more!!!

{lens cap pocket}

I can't believe I didn't think of this! It's genius! I was on Pinterest last night and came across a tutorial for a lens cap pocket on PetaPixel!

I changed her pattern slightly, making the pieces square rather than rounded and just slightly larger. I LOVE this!!

I am always leaving my lens cap somewhere! Problem, solved!!

Pants

Back to school for me means hemming my new school pants. I'm 5'2" and I can't wear regular length pants {even with tall shoes} without hemming my pants at least an inch, usually more! Not every store has short sizes, so I have to take matters into my own hands!

I tried a new tutorial for a blind stitch hem using a sewing machine this year. I found the tutorial at Make It and Love it - check it out {here}.

Seriously....a piece of cake! I love that! Especially since I have 4-5 pairs of pants to hem!!!

More Ruffles!

I mentioned in {this post} that I love everything ruffles!! I follow the blog Elle Apparel and her latest post was a tutorial for making a Ruffle Shower Curtain!!!! It is amazing and only cost her $20 in fabric!!!! Just one more reason why I need a ruffle foot for my sewing machine!

Strappy Clutch

A coworker asked me to make her a zipper coin purse over Christmas Break. I started looking for patterns and I found this tutorial at From an Igloo. I started making it and quickly realized that the end product would be much larger than a coin purse, so I decided that this would be the finishing touch to my sister's Christmas gift!! It was a little challenging to put together only because the opening was a little bit smaller than my sewing machine and it was difficult to sew the final step. However, I LOVE the outcome and will for sure be making more of these!!

And my sister loved it too!!!

Reversible Sundress/Shirt

This is the first piece of clothing I attempted to make my daughter. I found the tutorial at From an Igloo. The tutorial is super easy to understand and very clear! I think I made about four of these this summer!! Now that it's gotten cooler, I stick a long sleeved tee underneath {like the one below Target } and add some jeans or leggings and boots and she's golden!

To make the matching headband, I traced one we already had. I ended up cutting two pieces of fabric (one of each shown in the dresses above) that were about 1" wide at each end and 2" wide in the middle. The pieces were about 14.5" long. I sewed the long sides together, right sides together, and the turned it right side out. I sewed an edge around the whole thing, tucking in the ends and also adding a piece of elastic {4"long} in the ends. I like that you can easily stick a flower clip on the top to make more of a statement or leave it plain and functional!

What You Can Do With Washers!

I saw an idea for necklaces made out of two washers on UCreate over the summer. I immediately bought a stamping kit from here and then visited my local hardware store and purchased a handful of washers! This actually took me awhile to really get good at. The stamping was really hard! I started on the kitchen counter...not so great. I finally perfected the stamping in the garage on the floor. It worked so much better! And the step where you write over the stamped letter with Sharpie is a must...totally enhances the look of the letter! I ended up making Mother's Day key chains for nearly everyone I know! I put mine on a chain and it was pretty cute. If you have more than two kids or name that you want wear, I found it to be pretty much impossible! Here are some of the key chains I made...

And after the initial expense of the stamps {around $17}, the key chains are pretty inexpensive. There's the actually keyring, ribbon, the little bead thing and the washers. Not too shabby! I'm thinking about using these as Christmas gift tags too...since I have a stock pile of washers now!

The whole tutorial can be found here.