The Toe the Line Dress Knock Off

Wow. I cannot believe it has been soooo long since I have posted. What can I say though one packed up house, several good bye parties, one 2 hour flight, one 5 hour flight and one 13 hour flight later we are at our hotel in CA! We found have found the secret to righting your children's body blocks in one day. Just get off the plane at 6:30am and be at Disneyland before 10am! The Crawford's are officially righted ha! This has been soooo much better then on our arrival in Timor where we spent days playing trains and watching cartoons in the wee hours of the morning, ughhhhh. I have some really fun details to share about our last few days in Timor but I wanted to make sure I got this up before we headed off on our Cruise. So here it FINALLY is the Toe the Line Knock Off tutorial.

This is Che Che. She was our amazing housekeeper/ Nanny/ Friend for the entire time we were in Timor. She was so fantastic and was a huge part of No Mans Land. There is not way I could have posted so much if it hadn't been for Che Che working so hard. I wanted to make sure she had something to remember us by and I had talked about doing a giveaway of this dress I made. I decided to go a head with that idea only give it to Che Che instead of a reader. I asked her to measure her under the guise of making the dress for my little sister. When I finished sewing it was on a day that was particularly chaotic and begged her to let me take a picture of her in it claiming I had no time to ask anyone else. She obliged. When I was done taking pictures she asked if she could have the pictures that I had printed out to help me knock off the dress so she could have one made when she went home to the Philippines. I told her I had made it for her so that whenever she wore it she would think of us and she started crying, I then of course started blubbering and it was a mess ha!

If you would like to make your own it is actually a fairly easy and straight forward dress. The neckline is the only tricky part and that will come together easily as long as you take your time and think before you stitch. I do have to say though that the fabric I used was ordered site unseen. I thought I was ordering a nice Chambray and it ended up being a blend and was chambray but pretty stretchy. Next time around I would certainly use a lawn/poplin cotton or a chambray without spandex in it ha! If you would like to learn how to make the dress click tell me more :) If not then I will see you in a week when my feet touch American soil once again!

Maternity High Waisted Skirt at Be Sweet

Amanda over at Be Sweet is doing a fantastic week full of Mothers day inspired crafts! I was so excited when she asked me to participate. I needed something to get me in the Mothers day mood... okay to actually remind me that Mothers day was this weekend. It is really hard to keep track of American holidays when you are out of the states and I would have been mortified if I missed the chance to gush to my mom and mother in law about how fabulous they are! Any who since I am preggy I wanted to make something for us mommys who are stretching our waistbands and need a little boost to our wardrobe. I get so sick of my maternity clothes and wanted something fun and usually none maternity, something I love, a high waisted skirt.

I just love them and am always bummed that I can't wear them
while preggers. I decided to set out and make one that is comfy to
wear, well at least until you are REALLY REALLY showing.

You can dress it up with a nice belt and boots

Or make yourself a cute belt out of fun notions

This skirt is extremely simple with no need for a pattern and whips up
super fast! Be Sure to hop over to Be Sweet and check out the fantastic line up Amanda has going, you'll love it I promise!

Instant Gratification Top

Last night I broke down and ordered this top from one of my fav stores. I just loved it to much not to order it. I then headed to bed, at the super late hour of eh he 8:30 and laid there thinking about how much I wanted that new top and how I would have to wait 6 weeks and when it finally got here I would probably have to stretch it out over my preggy belly. I became determined to simply make one myself! Now, I am sure you have noticed my posts have been more spread out lately. This is due to my absolutely dying if I stay up later then 9pm. I am literally crawling to bed usually immediately after tucking the kiddos in. This has put a MAJOR damper on my sewing time since I usually shoved everything in during my 9-1am crafting hours. I really try not to ignore the kiddos, but this morning I REALLY wanted to make the shirt ha! So, we made home made play dough and I dumped out every single play dough toy we own PLUS all my cool cookie cutters. By the time I was done the kids had made various play dough creations (don't mind Evie's disheveled hair and runny nose, we have been one sick household)

and I had my top!

It is soooo embarrassingly easy and so fast that I already have everything cut out to make two more in different colors! Thankfully I received a package a while ago from Heather S. contain a ton of wonderfully stretchy and super soft jersey fabric. I decided to try first with the navy blue. I must admit I was very hesitant as I don't usually sew with stretchy fabric. It makes me nervous, it's unpredictable, it puckers and tucks. Turns out it is fabulous... as long as you are patient. I grabbed a tank I already own and used it as a guide. First I folded the jersey fabric and laid my folded tank on back and followed the outline of the back of the tank

The back has a much higher neckline:

(I also made mine a bit wider on the bottom for my ever increasing belly and longer to stretch over it)
I then folded the back of the tank so that I could follow the pattern of the front


I then laid the two pieces right sides together. I then pinned the heck out of the two sides and shoulder pieces so there was no chance of movement :)

Sew up both sides and across both shoulders. I was really worried about serging it. I thought it would go all wavy and puckered. But I just fed it through steadily and slowly and it only waved a tiny bit, totally unnoticeable

Once you are all done you can hem up the bottom. Again I pinned this, which I have not done in as long as I can remember but it made it an easy job. I also skipped hemming the arm pits as I never plan on wearing this tank without some sort of cardi, you know modesty prevails! Plus that is the fantastic thing about jersey knits is they don't fray woo hoo! Once you are done turn everything right side out:

It was at this point I was asked to take a picture of a "super cool and very expensive spider"

Now I cut a LONG (super long) strip of jersey.

I originally cut it about 5 inches wide but it was WAY to wide and I cut it down to about 3. I stitched a gathering stitch all the way down the center of the strip and gathered it up until it was the same length as the circumference of my neckline

At this point it was requested of me to take a picture of a snowman so I had to take a break

I now pinned the ruffle, lining up the center with the neckline of the top.

I then topstitched along the center line, removing pins as I sewed.

Taddah!!! You are all done! How easy was that! I absolutely LOVE how it turned out.

I wanted to make sure to get a picture ASAP before I spilled anything on it, which meant I didn't have time to get anyone else to model, just me, and man am I a horrible one. I totally do the opposite of everything I suggest, I hunch, I squint my eyes and do a huge ridiculous smile, but hey, the top is cute right? And making it gave Sawyer time to create his playdough surfer dude:

While I am still excited to get the original top the instant gratification of having one right away sure is sweet!

Sewing the Merry and Bright dress and Holly Jolly belt preview :)

There are only a few hours left to vote over at Sew Much Ado for the knock off prizes... its not lookin' to good for my entries but the other ones are fantastic I don't feel all that bad :)

Alright so before we start sewing I want to answer a few questions posed in the comments. As for choice of fabric I would suggest a cotton. Poplin would be lovely. If you can find one with a touch of spandex for stretch that would work well (when I say a touch I really mean very little). I don't think this would work well with heavy fabrics. They way the dress is folded on each side would make sewing through the heavy fabric very hard and probably involve broken needles ha! I would die to see this dress in a stripe. (Bare in mind it is summer in my neck of the woods) a gorgeous yellow strip or turquoise... heaven! I think I am going to try and pick up some stripy fabric in Bali next week and if I am able to I will make sure to post the results. As for sizing. This pattern runs large. Sewing with 3/5 seam allowance will make this dress a large 6 or small 8. If you would like it smaller I would sew with a larger allowance and keep it standard through out. If you need it dramatically smaller or larger I would take the printed pattern pieces to a Kinkos and enlarge or shrink them. I have found that 20% seems to go up a size or down a size. If you would like a ten I would enlarge it 120% if you would like a 4 I would shrink it by 80%. It also is LONG. A nice chunky hem is what makes this dress hang so nicely. I would HIGHLY recommend ironing your hem as it has a bit of a curve to it. 

As for downloading I re uploaded the patter pieces had mentioned they had problems with and was able to download them from 3 different computers. Media Fire is not the best hosting company. I have not been overly pleased with their service but it is super cheap a month and since I don't do advertising or charge for the patterns I need to keep it cheap. 

Lets Start Sewing!!!

First you will need to make your LONG belt pieces. I did not make a pattern for these because it depends you your taste. Do you want a SUPER long belt that wraps around a bunch of times? Then do it! Do you want a thin one or a thick chunky one? All you HAVE to make sure is that one is shorter then the other as only one wraps all the way around your waist.  All you need to do to make the belts is cut a LONG piece of fabric, double as wide as you would like the end result to be. Once you have cut it fold it in half lengthwise. Sew all the way along the raw edges. You only need to "finish" one end. All I do is once I get to the opposite end then I started from, with my needle down in the fabric I lift my foot, twist the belt and sew at a sharp angle back to the folded side. Turn it right side out and you are done!

Merry and Bright Dress: Cutting & Taping the Pattern

Alright, after lots and lots of work I am done with Merry and Bright pattern and ready to show how to cut and tape it together.

Sorry it took so long but over 24 pattern pieces takes a while :) You can down load the pattern pieces HERE. If you already printed off the pattern I might encourage you to print it off again as I made some changes in an attempt to make it easier. Unfortunately I didn't fix everything so here are some house keeping items about the pattern:

There is no patten piece "Y"... I dunno how I missed it but I did 

(so any pattern piece then says tape to "Y" disregard that ha!) 

On the "O" piece it says tape to "M" that is wrong, tape it to "N"... which makes more sense anyway 

There is a pattern Piece 2, it is the back part of the bodice. You will see a pic of it soon 

There are two pattern pieces labeled W, one is just W and one is Wb. 

W is taped to V and Wb is the top of piece 13 and taped to X, Z & AA

There are 13 pieces not 14... me no count good.

If I don't go over the pattern piece here it is  because no taping is involved

Pattern Piece 1

Pattern piece 1 consists of pattern pieces E,F & G all taped together.

Pattern Piece 2

Pattern piece 2 consists of pieces C & D

Pattern Pieces 3

Pattern piece 3 consists of H,I,J, K & L

Pattern Piece 4 

pattern Piece 4 consists of pieces A & B

Pattern Piece 6

Consists of pieces N & O

Pattern Piece 10

Consists or R & S

Pattern Piece 12 

Consists of V & W

Pattern Piece 13

Consists of Wb, X, Z & AA

Pattern Piece 14

This is the biggest one and consists of: BB, CC, DD, EE, FF &GG

When all the pattern pieces are cut out it should look like this: 

Don't mine my super dirty deck. Alright so now that yo have your pattern pieces cut out follow the cutting instructions on them. I am sure there are more mistakes I didn't catch... this has been a hard process. Lets just say if it doesn't tell you to cut 2 or more then you just cut one. Cut all those lovely pieces out and be ready to sew up a storm tomorrow! I really encourage you to make this with me I am going to try and be SUPER clear in all my instructions and there is really nothing tricky about it!

White Tee's cont: All ruffled up dress

Remember the top that was left after the Crunch Crunch dress? I hope you kept it! (And if yours was like mine maybe used some advice I received and oxycleaned those arm pits ha!) What is so FABULOUS is that I received a call asking me to come pick up a big box in the mail room, yippie for mail! It was from Heather (she will be doing a guest tutorial next week!) and it was chalk full of fabulous knits! I was in HEAVEN. I have been DESPERATE for knits and look at these colors!

There was also this GORGEOUS Anne Marie Horner fabric.

I have never been able to use any of her fabric. I really started loving her designs after we left the states and my rule prevents me from ordering online so I was thrilled when I saw it! Immediately got to work making this fun mommy tuxedo dress:

Again I think it would be better with funky boots and a fun sweater but whatcha gunna do right? ;)

What you need:

The top of your white T shirt

Some fun jersey knit (about 1/3 a yard)

Some fun funky fabric for the middle (just a tiny bit cut in a rectangle as long as your shirt is and as wide as you like, but not to wide I made that mistake and it looked totally weird and I had to unpick it all UGHHHHH)

And old skirt (I found mine at one of the many CRAZY old clothes market for a buck!)

Sewing Machine

Scissors

I am currently listening to the new Sarah Barellis when I sew. Really diggin it!

One White Shirt, 3 Dresses: The Crunch Crunch Dress

There are soooo many things you can do with a boring old white shirt that I thought I should share some. I might recommend buying a NEW white shirt as the one I am using has appalling underarm stains (seriously I debated on whether or not to go scour the island for a new one but just didn't have the time, it is a very old shirt I never wear so PLEASE don't judge me to harshly ha!) This tutorial also would not have happened if it hadn't received a package in the mail from Teresa F. This dress while simple takes a bit more fabric and I had grown somewhat weary of using solids found here. As soon as I opened the package and saw this:

I was totally inspired and rearing to go. Not to mention I am making 4 local little girls skirts out of it! They are all sisters, twin 8 year olds, a 6 year old and a 3 year old. They go to church every Sunday like the good Catholics they are and thought they needed some church skirts. Their kind mom promised to let me take pictures when I am done! Thank you thank you Teresa it is GORGEOUS fabric! I am thinking I should give the dress to their mom so she can match her girls but I had to take some pics in it first ha! Today and tomorrow we will be making two different dresses with only 1 white t-shirt (You will have enough shirt material to make a third dress if you like of the same sort) The first is a bib dress or what I call the Crunch Crunch Dress. I have been seeing these all over the web for fall and I am VERY jealous that you can layer them with chunk y sweaters and wooly knee highs and boots. My boots and sweaters are all in storage so I had to make-due with what I had. Also once again I made this booty short for some unknown reason. Luckily I did a HUGE hem so I went home and unpicked it making it to my knee so I can actually where it out and about ha! (It seems that Peep Toes are all the rage and I thought these green ones were fabulous! Thank you Rachel!) We only took a quick pic because it was LASHING rain! I was actually put in contact with a Timorese girl who will be modeling for me from now on so I can have some fun photographing what I make for moms! ANYHOO:

You can download the pattern HERE.

What you will need:

1.5 yards of fabric

White T-shirt

Buttons or other embellishments if you wish

Sewing Machine

Scissors

Iron (if you are like me :))

Sunshine, Daisies, Bottom Mellow: A Mommy Dress Tutorial

Since I made Evie a new fabulous dress for her party (tutorial to come) I thought it only fitting I make one for myself. My inspiration as always came from Anthropology (love their stuff hate their prices ergggg) and my addiction for the color combination of yellow and grey. (Keep in mind my lovely model is a good 4 inches taller then me ha!)

To further help direct me in designing a new dress I have been talking with Shannon from Luv in the Mommyhood, she is so awesome, the type of mommy you can be yourself around and not worry if an "I almost lost it yesterday" slips into the conversation because guaranteed she has a hilarious story to top yours! I about fell off my chair giggling when she did a post about someone going potty on her couch. I have been blog stalking her for it seems like forever and finally got up the courage to contact her when I started No Mans Land. She was sooooo sweet and patient with me walking me through the whole process of being "featured" (I just got chills) on Luv in the Mommyhood. I love these amazing blogs who are willing to take time to spotlight a newbie who has no real idea what she is doing ha! After kicking around a few ideas she requested a dress that us post baby mommies could wear to hide that oh so awesome mommy muffin that hangs around so rudely post baby (yes Evie is a year and mine has not disappeared ugh). I happen to be going to the second hand (or twelfth hand) market that afternoon and found a "vintage" grey striped mens shirt. I decided to use the fabric for a much better purpose! I had some yellow fabric I had picked up a few weeks ago and when I laid them next to each other I was in love! So without further ado the Sunshine, Daisies Bottom Mellow Dress.

What you need:

BMellow pattern found HERE

Half a yard fabric for the top

3/4 yard fabric for the bottom

One Button

Sewing Machine

Scissors

Straight Pins

I must apologize profusely for the first pictures. I messed up a tad so for the first step make sure to read the step not just look at the picture.

Print out and cut out all your pattern pieces. Make sure to cut the "skirt" portion of your dress to be as long as you like. Also this is made to have pleats, if you don't like pleats or REALLY like pleats increase or decrease the width to your liking. Now take both your front bodice pieces and your bodice support pieces. Lay down the bodice piece right side facing you. Align the bodice support right side DOWN with the center of the bodice piece (the center of the dress). Sew JUST up the middle to attach them to each other. Now flip the bodice around so that wrong sides are facing each other and topstitch what you just sewed.

(DO NOT sew the top like you see in this picture, I had to unpick it all later ha!)

Repeat on other bodice piece. Now take your back bodice piece and we are going to attach the two front bodice pieces to it at the shoulder. (Don't mind that my stripe fabric is crazy old and thus frays like there is no tomorrow)

(See how I had to unpick what I had done, so silly of me) Now take your two collar pieces and place them right sides together (I am really into big collars so if you want to tone this one down that is understandable) Starting at the left corner sew up, all the way across and down leaving the longest side raw. Flip the collar out so right sides are facing you and topstitch what you just sewed, folding over the little bit at the end.

Now we are going to attach the sleeve. Go a head and hem it up to your liking. Now gather a little bit at the top just enough to give it some shape :) Now pin right sides together sleeve to dress

Sew acros making sure to back and forth and make it nice and sturdy. (You have to pull this dress off over your head and it seems like this part takes a beating) Repeat on the other side. Ohhh it is shaping up nicely!

Now for the super easy part. Grab your skirt bottom and fold it in half. Lay it right next to your bodice. Now we are going to make little pleats on both sides until it match's up with the bodice.

Now you are going to attach it to the bodice. Place right sides together and pin if you like. For the center of the bodice make the front portion where they meet overlap ever so slightly. Sew around either serging or zig zagging after you straight stitch. Flip the whole dress right side out and topstitch over what you just sewed. At this point you can attach a button where the bodice meets or just leave it plain. You are so close! All you have to do now is hem up the arm holes

Now hem it up the bottom to your liking! You are all done!

Now go strut your stuff. No one will ever notice you don't have abs of steel! I can't wait to wear mine to Evie's party.

Cheers!

Kelly

PS that Fedora was a present for my B-day a few weeks back from my girlfriends here in Dili. I am trying to work up the courage to wear it at the party, I think I can I think I can ha!