Camera Strap Cover

I thought my camera strap needed some pizazz so I made a cover for it! I searched the web for some ideas and in the end I made my own version!

I cut 4 strips of black jersey knit - 2 1/2" wide by 24" long (the length of the strap plus 1/2). I placed two pieces of the jersey knit together and zigzag stitched all around it (to make it one piece). I did this to the other two pieces too. (I did it this way to give the strap cover some cushion without being bulky!)

I cut a piece of printed jersey knit that was 1.5 times longer than the strap length and 1 1/2" wide. I changed my stitch length on my machine to the longest it would go and sewed a straight line down the length of the fabric, without back stitching at the top & bottom (gathering stitch).

I pinned one end of the ruffle to the middle of one of the black pieces and gathered the ruffle evenly. I stitched again down the length of the ruffle, attaching the ruffle to the black piece.

Then I put the two black pieces together, right sides together, and stitched the long ends together. Turning this right-side out was slightly harder because the ruffle is on, but not horrible.

Then I put my camera strap through the cover and tucked in the ends to match the width of the strap hanging out. I stitched across the ends just to keep the cover from moving. These stitches can be removed to replace the strap cover or wash it!

I love that my strap is no longer black with yellow stripes!

Ruffle Love!!!

About a month ago, I bought a yard of black, pre-ruffled fabric and I've been waiting for the perfect project for it ever since! On Friday, I took the kiddos to the mall and I found a flutter-sleeved tee at Old Navy that seemed to be the perfect top to a ruffle dress!!! I also picked up a similar tank for lil miss, just in case I had enough left over! I will say, cutting ruffle fabric is not very easy, but it was so worth not having to ruffle the fabric myself!! I cut an a-line shape for the skirt part of my dress, making sure it was long enough for me to wear to school if I wanted. I sewed up the sides and attached the skirt to the shirt and voila!!

Now I just need a wedding or party to go to!! Lil miss's dress turned out very similar, a little more fancy than everyday wear, but cute just the same!!

I also finished a dress for a co-worker this weekend...

Super cute!

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!

Ruffles!!

If you look at my wardrobe, it would not surprise you to hear that I LOVE ruffles!! I think I'm in love with the website {Ruffle Fabric} that I discovered yesterday! My mind had been going crazy with all the ruffley creations that could be made with some of their fabrics!

Lil Helper Apron Tutorial

I'm hosting a Pampered Chef cupcake decorating party for some of my friends and their kiddos. What better party favors than lil aprons for the lil helpers?! I made up a pattern for what I wanted the apron to look like and I'm going to share it with you!!

Here's what you do:

-Right click on the next two pictures (pattern pieces) and save the files to your computer and print them out (full page print).

-Tape the "a" and "b" together to line up the pattern. There are two ways to make the apron...the simple version or the ruffle version.

-Cut out your fabric using the pattern. Be sure to follow the directions for the fold.

- Cut lengths of ribbon according to the pattern for your neck straps and waist straps. My neck straps are pink and waist are green in this example. Make sure you treat the ends of your ribbon before starting. I run a lighter past the ends quickly to seal them. Fray Check also works well, just allow for drying time.

-If you are adding a ruffle, cut a length of coordinating fabric that is 50" x 3".

-Zig zag both short ends and one long side of the ruffle fabric.

-Fold those same sides in 1/2" and pin. Sew a hem on all three sides.



- Change your stitch options to the longest stitch possible. Stitch down the length of the unfinished side. Do not back stitch before or after this stitch or you won't be able to gather your ruffle! This is your gathering stitch.


-Pull one piece of thread on one end of your gathering stitch. Push the ruffle down to the other end until you have a uniform ruffle throughout the length of the fabric.

-Pin (right sides facing) to the bottom portion of your apron, from underarm to underarm.

-Pin the straps (right sides facing) to your apron also. You'll have a ribbon, ruffle & pin mess!


-Stitch your ruffle to your apron. I used a 5/8" seam allowance.


-Zig zag the edges of the entire apron. You'll finish the ruffle edge as well as the rest of the apron's edges in one step. Be aware of the ribbons! There were a few times when I *almost* stitched a ribbon end to a ruffle or side of the apron!


-Your apron should look similar to this by now:

-Fold down the upper apron edges 1/2" and pin. Make sure that you've notched the neckline (in the pattern) so the neckline hem lays down smooth.

-Top stitch the whole apron to finish it off. Make sure that the ruffle edge is flat and your topstitch secures it to the apron, like this:

-Voila! You're done!!

So far I've had RSVP's for eight lil helpers to be at this party...here's the eight aprons I've made:

I love that this apron does not take a ton of fabric. I was able to make four simple version aprons out of one yard of fabric! This is the perfect project for scrap fabrics or (in my case) fabrics that I had purchased without a project in mind. Those fabrics usually end up sitting in my bin for awhile!

I also like that you can be super creative with your straps...all four different colors, same colors, prints, solids, thin, wide...the possibilities are endless!! If I was making this for an adult (not only would I have to make the pattern larger) but I would add some fabric rosettes, and possibly a pocket to spice it up a bit!

**If you are having trouble with saving/printing the pattern pages, please shoot me an email at bierbaur {at} hotmail {dot} com and I'll email them to you in a PDF!**

Hippie Chick

I finally picked out N's birthday theme...it's hard for me because she's not super attached to any certain character or hobby, like B is. Although I'm sure she'd love a Dora party, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go there yet!!

I found this at partycity.com and I really liked it!

I thought I was going to have N wear this dress that I finished this weekend with a brown knit ruffle...but you can imagine my surprise when I found this fabric at Jo-Ann's this weekend!!

It is so similar!! So of course I went back for the coordinating stripe fabric and made a new birthday dress!!

There is still a month to go before her actual birthday, so let's hope this is the last birthday dress for this year!!

Pretty Panel Dress Tutorial

One of my favorite summer dresses is this.....

from Matilda Jane. I love everything about it and wear it all the time over the summer! I was looking at it's overall structure this past summer, and came up with this for N.
I LOVE IT!! So here's how to do it.....

#1 - Find a tee (long or short sleeved) or tank. I've only used Old Navy brand, but I'm sure other brands will work just as well. I tried the shirt on Natalie and made two marks. One mark is where I'd like the skirt to start and one is about a 1/2" lower than that, where I cut the shirt. Cut the shirt on the lowest mark, all the way across.


#2 - Stretch the raw edge of the shirt as far as it will go and measure. This measurement is going to be the width of your skirt. Divide that measurement by 6 (the number of panels you'll need) and add 1/2". This final number is the top of the panel measurement. Mine ended up being 5.5" wide.
Double the top of panel measurement to get the bottom of the panel width. Mine was 11" wide.

#3 - Pick one or two or even more fabrics for your skirt. Decide how long you want the skirt to be and cut your fabric that length. I cut mine to be 16" long. Use the bottom of panel measurement to cut the width of your fabric, mine was 11" wide.
Fold your fabric in half. Divide your measurements in half and cut your slanted line. I cut my top at 2 3/4" and bottom at 5.5". Do this 6 times for all 6 panels.

The panels you've cut should look like this...



#4 - Arrange your panels how you want them to look on the skirt.

#5 - Lay one panel on top of the other, right sides together, and pin. Do this with all 6 panels. They will look like this....

#6 - Stitch down the raw edge of each panel pair, using a 3/8" seam allowance. Serge or zig zag the raw edge to finish it off.

#7 - When all 6 panels are sewn together and serged, open the top and place the shirt inside, right sides together. The raw edge of the skirt should be lined up with the raw edge of the shirt. Pin all the way around. You'll have to stretch the shirt to get it to lay flat against the skirt.

#8 - Stitch all the way around the skirt, using a 3/8" seam allowance. Serge or zig zag the raw edge to finish it off.

#9 - Your dress, inside out, should look like this. Make sure the serged egde is laying flat against the shirt, not the skirt.

Top stitch the seam to the shirt, close to the seam.

When you're done, it will look like this....

#10 - Find the recipient of your creation (or get her out of bed since she wasn't sleeping anyway!) and try it on! (Love the jammie-bottom-legging-look she's sporting here!)

I didn't finish the bottom of my skirt...yet. You could fold up the bottom 1/2" and sew a seam, serging or zig zagging the raw edge and call it a day. You could cut a ruffle to add to the bottom, (3" long x the width of your entire skirt bottom multiplied by 2.5"), which is what I plan to do as soon as I get some brown jersey knit!

#11 - I added a fabric & button flower embellishment. I got the tutorial from here.

All done!

This is also a good way to recycle tees/tanks that have been stained or torn on the lower portion.

LOVE it!!

Pretty in Pink

Last week at Hobby Lobby, I found a fat quarter (five 1/4 yard pieces of coordinating fabric) in these light pink/brown fabrics. I love, love, love the pink/brown plaid!! Three of the remaining four fabrics were cute too, but one was just not cute at all! Since I didn't have enough fabric with the ugly one out of the picture, I made a top instead of a dress! I love how it turned out, especially the ruffle at the bottom! N usually has bolder colors/prints, so this was a nice change of pace!

Ruffle Pants

I found this blog Sew Sensible and I fell in love with the Boutique Bottoms! I purchased the pattern PDF and it was emailed to me within a few hours! This was the first time I had attempted bottoms of any kind...and it was surprisingly simple! The pattern had to be printed off my computer (from the email file she sent me). I would recommend having an adequate amount of ink because I didn't and the photos were not easy to see - and I'm a very visual person! Anyway, I had to tape the pages together to get a pattern - again, very easy to do with the way she labeled and organized the PDF. I started them in the late afternoon and by dinner, N had a brand new pair of ruffle pants!! I made these capri length, specifically to go with a tank she had (pictured above). I love the Matilda Jane ruffles, but I'm not going to spend $37 on pants she'll grow out of in a month!! These were so inexpensive to make...about $13 total, for the pattern, fabric & matching thread. Obviously the MJ pants are probably better quality, but mine got the job done! I've made about three other pairs in different solids and fabrics. I like the jersey knit the best because they are super comfy and you don't have to zig-zag the edge of the ruffle {can seriously take forever} because the knit doesn't fray!! I also like that you can determine the length of the ruffle. I think I mad these a little smaller than what the pattern originally called for, but you can make them as long or as short as you want! It is worth checking out Sew Sensible - she has lots of good stuff!!