Firehouse Raglan Tee for Little Man-- tutorial

Oh, man... have I missed posting tutorials!  I'm serious, folks.  I really have.
Have Fall illnesses been kicking anyone else's butts?  Or is it just our little clan.

But speaking of Fall, here's a great little number for your little guy (or girl, really... it's gender-neutral) that's soft and comfy for those brisk days!

Materials:
shirt that fits your tyke
knit fabric
double needle (though it's not necessary!)
sewing gear

Instructions:
Grab a shirt that fits your little one and fold it in half.  Place it on the fold of your main fabric, making sure that it stretches from side-to-side.

You're going to cut a straight line from about halfway to the neckline to the armpit.  Use your shirt for the width measurement.  Also follow your shirt's collar as a template.  Cut two of these.
**FYI-- I cut my neckline way too high... I thought about fixing it here, but I wanted to show you how forgiving this shirt is.  So if you're looks like the neckhole is going to be too small, don't sweat it for now.

For the sleeves, you want that same angle that you had for your main piece.  However, cut them (again, on the fold) slightly skinnier and angle them in a little to where the cuff will be.  Use your shirt to determine the length of sleeve.  Cut two.

Here are your pieces, shown on the fold and opened up.

Place one body piece right sides together to the sleeve pieces and sew up.  Then sew the other body piece to one sleeve, but leave one seam open.  Here you can see how small my head hole would be.  If you have a pinhead baby, cool.  But if you have a child with a human head, you'll want to adjust this.

I just fold in half like this and trim away.  It's really that simple.

Whew.  That's better! :)

Cut a 2-inch wide piece of stretchy knit fabric (I used the same that I had for the sleeves... ribbed knit is good for this, too!).  You want it slightly shorter than the measurement of your neckhole.  Eyeballing mine, it was about 12 inches, so I cut my strip 10.5 inches by 2 inches.   (Sorry... not super detailed...  Again, this is pretty forgiving!)

Fold the strip in half and press.

Find the halfway mark of that strip and pin it halfway in between your two open edges, lining up the raw edge of the strip with the neckline edge.  You'll also want to pin the ends of the strip to the edges of the openings (not shown).

Using a stitch that stretches (zig-zag works), stretch your strip as you sew it to the neckline.  When you finish, it should start rounding out on its own, like this:

Pin that last seam together and, making sure your new collar strip is UP, sew up that side.

Here's what you've got!

If you have a double needle, here's a nice place to use it.  (A tip on threading a double needle that I haven't really seen many places: If you don't have a separate thread holder, make sure your two spools have the thread coming off of them in opposite directions; it keeps them from getting as wound up).  Sew the collar down, with one line of stitches on each side of the seam.  You can also zig-zag or just do nothing.

Since I have my double needle on, I press the sleeves over and hem them.  Again, you can use a zig-zag stitch.

Now fold your shirt in half, right sides together, and sew up the sides and under the sleeves. 

To hem, I pressed my seams out (you could finish them with a zig-zag, but with three small kids, I have to use my time wisely and "make it work").  Then I pressed my hem up and, again, used my double needle to stitch it.

I used red and blue thread for that because, well, I'm crazy like that.  I kind of wish I had used the red on the sleeves and neckline, too!

Last but not least, I like to press my seams of the collar strip and sleeves open and secure them with two straight stitches, like so...

There you have it!  A nice little raglan tee for Little Man!  He'll be thrilled... see? ;)

Easy-peasy Pirate Belt Tutorial

This one's awesome because 1) it's so simple and 2) it can instantly transform a regular white or black top into a pirate costume.  In fact, I may make one for myself, so I can dress up with the girls (with minimal effort! bonus!).  In these pics, the belt is over the Puffy Pirate Shirt.

You can use any kind of fabric, but I used felt and my striped pirate knit fabric.

Instructions:

Measure the waist of the wearer.  Subtract 2 inches from that and cut 2 rectangles of your main fabric that are that width by 5".  For this belt, my wearer's waist is 20", so my rectangles are cut 18"x5".

Round out the corners on both rectangles.

Cut a strip of your coordinating fabric that is roughly 4 times your waist measurement by 3".  This doesn't have to be exact, but you want it long enough to ruffle slightly.  You can sew two or more pieces together if need be.

Fold your strip in half and press.  Then run a gathering stitch down the raw edge.  Ruffle till it will go around your entire main rectangle with a little overlap.

Sandwich ruffle in between your two main pieces, lining up all the raw edges.  Pin.  Overlap the ends of the ruffle piece.  If you want to fold over the ends, so no raw edges are showing, do that.

Sew around the rectangle, leaving an opening to turn it through.

You'll have this.  See my pins in the top left?  Those are holding the opening closed.

Flatten that sucker out and topstitch around the edge.  

Attach your grommets at the corners of  both sides of the belt, following manufacturers instructions.

Lace ribbon or small rope through, and you're good! :)

P.S.  If you don't have grommets, you can EASILY just sew a ribbon horizontally down the center of the belt and tie the ends in the front.  That's even easier-peasier!! :)

Puffy Pirate Shirt-- Adjusting an Existing Pattern

Next up in the pirate costume series is the Puffy Pirate Shirt.

"But I don't want to be a pirate!"

Seinfeld, anyone?

For this one, we'll just be adjusting an existing peasant top to become an awesome puffy shirt.

So grab a pattern you like.  My Polky-Nots dress is a peasant top with short sleeves.  Go ahead and use that and just lengthen the sleeves, if you'd like!  Otherwise, there are a lot of great patterns/tutorials out there.

When cutting your pattern pieces out, you want to add 3 inches, straight up from where you would usually cut off the neckline.  I placed my straight edge on the sleeve piece, in the pic below, to show where you would usually make your cut.  You want to add 3 inches to both the sleeve pieces and the main/body pieces.

You also want to cut 4 facing pieces (two for the sleeves, to for the body) that are as wide as the top edge of your sleeve and body pieces and are 3" tall.  Again, if you look at the pic above, my sleeve piece is 8" (since it's folded in the pic), so my sleeve facings are 3"x8".

Sew your peasant top together as your pattern indications, sewing the curved edges together.  Also sew your facings together, using the same seam allowance.

Pin your facings, right side together, to the top of your main top.  Sew around the whole thing.

Then fold it over at the seam and press.  Also press the bottom edge under to eliminate the raw edge.  

Sew close to the edge, leaving a 1" gap through which you'll thread your elastic.  

The sew another line of stitches, this time all the way around, 1/2-inch higher than the first line of stitching.  Now you're casing is done! 

Now you can do the same thing for your sleeves, but cut 2-inch wide facings.  (It's also like this tutorial!)  Then finish your top as your pattern indicates, thread your elastic, and close up your casings!  Arrrrrrr!  You're done, matey!

Pirate Queen Layered Skirt Tutorial

Part 2 of the Landlubbers' Guide to Pirate Wear!  For the corset top, go here! :)

When Riley chooses her clothes (which is almost every day) and when there are twirly skirts in her drawers (which is quite often), she will almost always emerge from her room, decked out in one of said skirts.

So as I was sketching out pirate costumes for all the cousins, I knew Riley would need to have a skirt... preferably a circle skirt for its amazing twirl-ability.  So here's what I ended up with.  It takes only a short amount of time (especially if you use knit that doesn't fray-- no hemming!!) and it's great for a classy, twirl-lovin' pirate.

** This tutorial is only for the overskirt and doesn't include the tulle underskirt (which is just tulle sewn onto elastic)**

Materials:
black knit fabric
pirate stripes knit fabric (got mine at Jo-Ann's)
1-inch elastic, either red or black.

Instructions:
**My measurements are for a (skinny!) 4T skirt but can very easily be adjusted!**

Essentially, you just want to follow Dana's Circle Skirt tutorial, but one of your "circles" will be a square.

Fold your striped fabric in half horizontally then vertically.  Measure 10 inches from each edge and cut a 10" square. 

For your waist circle, consult Dana' s tutorial (from the link above).  My radius was 3.5".  Round out the corner of your square.  I wish I hadn't rounded mine quite as much.  Meh.

When you open it up, it'll look like this.  Make sure you forget to crop your pictures so that people will see your iPhone and know you have street cred.  Then mention how you KNOW you didn't crop your pictures, so everyone knows that you were way too lazy to go back and do anything about it.  

Now make a circle skirt with your black knit.  I measured mine out 14" from the center.  Use the same waist measurement you used for the striped piece.

Stack your striped square on top of your circle.

Cut your elastic for your waistband (mine was 20").  Sew together and sew the seams down.

Pin your two layers together, just so they stay put.  Then sew on the elastic how Dana taught you how!  Just make sure you're sewing through both skirt layers!

Easy, right?  And it's even better if you make a tulle underskirt, so it's twirly and full!  :)