Sewing for Boys

Today the temperature is supposed to be around 90 degrees.  It’s one of those days I look into my youngest child’s closet and realize I don’t really have many appropriate clothes for this upcoming season.  The good thing is that a few of the items he wore the last time it was warm, he can still fit into.  That makes me realize that his clothes can last a couple of seasons around here, which means I might be able to start making him things.

In looking around for inspiration ideas, I noticed I was leaning a little towards the Asian trend.  For some unknown reason, I really think the harlem pants for little boys are adorable.  I can’t wait to sew up a pair and see if I like them on Oliver.

As far as shirts I have always been a fan of little polo shirts on boys.  Then again they get so dirty so quickly, that the staple around our house is t-shirts.  I think making a few sleeveless shirts for this summer would be a good idea.

I also have a sewing book from the library "Sewing for Boys", I have had it for many weeks and can’t seem to find the time to make anything from it.  I have renewed it a couple of times, and think that I have expired that option, so I really need to make something from it in the next week.  The pattern I am leaning towards making is called the Treasure Pocket Pants.  They have a large deep pocket for keeping all sorts of things in, I would like to make them into shorts, similar to this.

Well that’s all for today.  Now to find the time to actually sew something!

Bridesmaid Dress into Lace Dress

With only a couple of hours to spare I finished up the dress for the wedding we attended this weekend.

To recap – here was the inspiration photo from Pinterest.

Here was the bridesmaid dress I owned in it’s original form.

Here was the dress after I altered the skirt portion to remove the gathering/pleating at the waistline and hemmed it up.

And here are pictures after I added the lace and coordinating trim/ribbon.

Here are a few pictures from the wedding.  The reception was held downtown on the 8th floor of an “industrial space” building.

Which made for some pretty incredible views.

Work In Progress

I have begun to alter the bridesmaid dress.  I thought I would show you the progress to date.

From the front, the original pleating looked better and if shortened the dress would have been cute.

But the big difference is from the side.  With the new changes, the dress looks 10 times better.

Now I only have two days to add the lace detail to the top.  Down to the wire!

Island Pictures

I have a few “in action” shots of the clothes I made/altered for our vacation.

I got to wear my Easter dress again, which is a success for a handmade garment in my book.

The second night I wore my remade dress/swim suit cover up.

The third night I broke out the new stripped maxi dress I had made.

And lastly, I snuck in this swim suit cover up I made using a self drafted pattern.  It’s hard to tell what it looks like exactly in this picture, so I will have to do a separate post on it sometime this summer.

This picture was taken at our favorite little dive snack shop on the island.  Definitely the best milk shakes!!

I did wear my other swim suit cover ups I had altered, but didn’t get any snap shots of them.  I will have to admit that even though I felt like I was running out of time, I really enjoyed being able to hand make or reuse items I already owned for this vacation.  I did not buy a single thing for this trip (In fairness I did spend $10 for the striped gray fabric you see above and $5 for trim to alter one of the swim suit cover ups).

If you would like to see the full post about our whole vacation trip to Cayman Brac….go here.

Vacations Over

We are back from our wonderful vacation.  I’m currently getting our photos downloaded and hope to have a post showing some of my beach creations in action during the trip.

Getting thrown back into the real world again, I have quite a few projects to get accomplished in the next couple weeks.  First this weekend is the wedding weekend.  The weekend where I wanted to make and wear this dress from my pinterest challenge.

I will give you a sneak peak at the dress I am modifying to hopefully look like this one above. 

This dress was a bridesmaid dress from my sister’s wedding a couple of years ago.  It’s not a bad dress, but a strapless dress is hard for me to pull off, and the length hit my legs at their widest part.  Not to mention the gathering that looks cute from the front, but makes you look pregnant from the side.

It's vacation time!

We made it down to the Caribbean and are enjoying our little time of relaxation. We will be back soon, but until them here is our little slice of heaven!

Personal Goals

I bought a pair of white jeans years ago.  Almost 6 years ago to be exact.  They were on clearance and I really like them, except they didn’t have my size.  Or what I thought “my current size”.  So I bought them even though they were two or three sizes too small, and decided they would be my motivation for losing all the baby weight.

They still have the tags on and I still look at them every time I am in my closet.  Now that I have had two babies I had kind of given up on ever wearing them.  My body has changed so much with each child.

In one last push I thought if I could get into them before our vacation, that would mean I had really accomplished my goal.  So I dusted them off and tried them on.

This time around I actually got them onto and up my thighs.  I even really like how they look from the back, which I don’t say about many jeans.

They are flared.  They were purchased before skinny jeans hit the Midwest, but I still sort of like that about them.  I could even get them buttoned.  But let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty or very comfortable, it still creates a muffin top of sorts.

So I will either have to wear them with loose tops or not at all.

Do you have an item of clothing that is your “motivation” piece?  Does it really even help?  I don’t think it has really helped me, but I still hold out hope that someday I will be able to cut the tag off!