The Very Hungry Caterpillar Costume

The theme for week four of Project Run and Play's season 10 was to create something using "My style".  My style is to create costumes and all other reasonable requests by my grandchildren or their parents..  I started creating costumes a long time ago and have continued this practice for my grandchildren. 

This year's costume making started a few weeks ago.  Let me explain a few things about this three year old in the above photo. She loves, loves, loves books.  She is also learning to read and is doing really well at it... it's really quite amazing!  Luckily, she got to spend several weeks at my house this summer while her family was in-between moves. 

When I asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween, her first response was to be a princess. She quickly changed her mind when she saw a picture of the "Very Hungry Caterpillar". Creative, right?  We had to purchase green fabrics for this costume and I wanted her to help me in the selection. So, I took her to a fabric store and oh my, she was in heaven! She had never been to a fabric store before and loved touching all the fabric and seeing all the sparkly things.  It was quite entertaining to watch her delight as she explored.   

The logical next step to make this costume was to search the internet for a pattern. But wouldn't you know, after quite a bit of searching, I came up empty handed. Then I decided to wing it and see if this grandmother could figure out how to make a caterpillar all on her own.  I started by making a long dress with a green bodice and ruffled layers of three different green fabrics.  Then I added a little elastic vertically and then horizontally to make the costume poof-up.

Next, a sparkly band of wide green ribbon was added because she loved the ribbon!  I added brown fleece sleeves to keep her warm on Halloween night.  I sewed six extra legs onto the costume because a caterpillar has six legs attached to it's body and 10 pro-legs attached to it's abdomen.  That's a lot of legs!

 

Onto the body of the costume I sewed six more puffy parts to make her look like she was a long caterpillar.

The first time she put on this costume, she crawled around my house like any creeping caterpillar would do.  She fully played the part of a long, creepy bug.

For her hat, I originally wanted to purchase a red knit one but I couldn't find one in August...go figure!  Then it dawned on me that I had some red fleece left over from making my long legged Santa's.  I figured I could make a hat from that fabric and use left over fabrics for the eyes and nose.  The antennas were made from sparkly purple ribbon sewn together over pipe cleaners.  And voila! There you have it!  Another Halloween costume for the books!  I love how it turned out!  And my granddaughter did too, thank goodness. 

This hungry caterpillar indicated she was very hungry and needed some bread.  Good thing I brought along some bread to feed the ducks on this photo shoot.

I hope you enjoy this costume because my style is to be creative and what better way than to make a costume. Below are a few other costumes I've sewn over the years:

  

  

Happy creating!  xoxo Grandma

Linked to: Project Run and Play, 2 Crochet Hooks, The Dedicated House, Crafty Allie, Nap Time Creations, Project Run and Play Halloween and as seen on Sewing Gossip

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Easy Fall Baby Dress - a Refashion & Tutorial

Here's a super easy idea on how to make a fall dress from a women's top.  I stated this project with a three-fourths length sleeve, Banana Republic women's shirt.  Below my granddaughter is modeling the top before I refashioned it.  Don't you think, it's so stylish over her pajamas?

I'm going to use this tutorial to show you how to turn a women's top into a baby or toddler dress:

From the shirt you're going to refashion, cut off the sleeves and set aside.  

1. Fold the shirt you are going to refashion in half & lay on top of that shirt a shirt that fits your child.
2. Use pins to mark where the arm hole needs to be.
3. Cut out the armholes where you marked them.
4. Pin the shoulder seams and the side seams.
5. Sew the shoulder seams and the side seams.
6. Pin the arch of the sleeves.
7. Cut the arch of the sleeve out where you pinned it.
8. Even up the sleeve seam so that it's straight.
9. Turn the dress right side out.
10. Sew the sleeve seam.
11. Pin the sleeve to the arm hole and sew.

That's it, your dress should be finished.  If the dress is too long, you can cut off part of the hem.  On the navy dress, I used two stripes of the hem which were 2" wide, sewed them together to make one large ruffle along the bottom of the dress.  I think Banana Republic should have a line of children's clothes, what do you think?  This shirt turned into one adorable Fall dress with very little effort.

Styling her new Fall dress with her new peacoat.  (To see more photos of this peacoat, go HERE.) I know I've said it before, but isn't she so cute in her new Fall dress?

Two lessons learned from making a dress like this:

1. If the child is still in diapers, make the back of the dress a little longer.
2. If you want to take photos of one of your grand daughters in something you've made, do not attempt to do this right after their parents return from a week without said grand daughter.  It  will result in plenty of tears, maybe a tantrum especially if that child is a two year old and no photos of the plum dress on this child.  (That is what I tried with the plum dress & it was a disaster.)

xoxo Grandma
Linked to: Nap Time Creations, Threading My Way, Creating My Way to Success, Lou Lou Girls, Crafty Allie, The Dedicated House

Falling for Denim

Take one vintage pattern: 

Change it up. A lot.  And you get the cutest Fall jean jacket! Here's my granddaughter modeling my latest creation (and her newest piece of her Autumn wardrobe):

I started this project with coral denim fabric that a friend gave me and added denim colored Rit Dye to get this lovely, rich plum color.  I wanted a peacoat style jacket but being frugal, I resorted to using this pattern by deleting the mandarin collar, making the bodice one piece, adding a pleat in the back and taking the gather out of those sleeves.  It would have saved me hours of labor if I would have just purchased a pattern!  I know, I'm a little crazy... but this jacket turned out great and that's what counts, right?

I lined the jacket in adorable owl fabric that I found at Hobby Lobby.  

 I think she really likes those owls!

She even tried her new easy-sew fall dress under her jacket.  It's always nice when a jacket looks great with more than one outfit.  For more photos of that dress and a tutorial on how easy it is to sew together, go HERE.

If you look closely, you'll see the cute woven design on the jacket's buttons. I love them! They are from La Mode and are called "Hook."  I love that these buttons resemble wicker and are washable. So many buttons I looked at for this jacket were dry clean or hand wash only.  Really, who would send a child's clothes to the dry cleaners? I can bet none of the mothers of young children have time to hand wash their children's clothes. So these buttons were a perfect find! 

Now to reveal what she was wearing underneath that cute denim jacket: 

The next part of this Fall outfit is the stretch denim leggings which were refashioned from a pair of my daughters old "jeggings."  She purchased them online and when they arrived they were too small and she just never got around to returning them.  So, she handed them over to me to refashion. 

If you'll note the above photo... this little nine month old model of mine is teething big time. The drool coming out of her cute little mouth is never ending! It made me laugh seeing it captured in the picture and ready to plop on her new outfit. Oh what a mess, but so cute in her new outfit, right?

Lastly, I sewed up a mustard, long sleeve top, which has denim piping and a little mustard colored lace inserted into the bodice.  This top was refashioned from one of my camisoles that was too big for me when I purchased it. I thought it would shrink, but it never did.  So why not use it to make this darling girl a complete Fall outfit?

So there you have it, week 3 of Project Run and Play's denim challenge.  I'm falling for denim this time of year, aren't you?    xoxo Grandma

Linked to:  Threading My Way, Nap time Creations, Project Run and Play, Lou Lou Girls, Crafty Allie, The Dedicated House

Vintage Tea Dyed Onesies

I originally shared this post at Mother's Niche but just in case you missed it, here it is for you too.  Here's how to made these darling, vintage, tea dyed onesies.  They are classic, simple to make and are perfect gifts for a newborn.  

You'll need some white onesies to get started.  I used a variety of onesies that were my grandsons.  Follow the instructions below to doll up those boring onesies. 

The first step is to tea dye the onesies which is a good way to hide any stains which a previous baby left if you're using a refashioned onesie: 
See photo 1 - Place black tea packets into boiling water.  Let the water turn dark brown.  Drop the onesie into the boiling water and gently stir with a wooden spoon. (I used 6 packets to dye 4 onesies.)
See photo 2 - Rinse onesie in really cold water for about 15 - 20 minutes.  Next, throw in your drier to heat set the dye.

The next step is to decorate the tea dyed onesies with lace and buttons.  I wanted my daughter to help with this, so before I left for my flight to her home, I gathered a few supplies like lace trim, left over lace remnants and buttons and tucked them into my suitcase. So, gather your supplies and get creative as you decorate your onesies.  

To form the lace skirt, cut the lace into a rectangle.  Along the bottom edge of the lace, add trim - see photo 3.  Now place a gathering stitch along the top edge and pin the lace in place onto the onesie.  Along the top of the lace skirt, pin on lace trim, making sure you tuck the unfinished edges against the onesie. Zig zag those layers onto the onesie.  If you want some bum ruffles, this is a good time to make those - see photo 4.

If you like the look of the random buttons, pull out a variety of buttons - this is a great way to use all those spare buttons you've collected, or even the extra buttons that are attached to newly purchased clothing. Now with a washable fabric marker, place dots evenly about 1/3" above the top of the lace.  These dots are your placement marks to sew the buttons on evenly.  Now, thread two strands of thread through a needle and fold that thread in half so you only have to sew through the button, twice per hole. Securely sew your buttons in place.

That's it! Your vintage tea dyed onesie is good to go!

 xoxo Grandma 

NEEDED FOR THIS PROJECT:

                                                                                                                          
Linked to: Lou Lou Girls , Nap-time Creations , Project Run and Play, Creating my Way to Success

Hand-Me-Down Blues - A Refashion

I had just refashioned this cute sailor dress from an old skirt when Project Run and Play announced week 2 of Season 10 was to make something from a hand-me-down.  So, there we have it. What perfect timing for me. Turning this skirt into a sailor dress was one of my favorite refashions so far this year. 

This came about when my youngest daughter came home this summer for a visit before moving to Japan. She brought home this baby blue skirt that I bought for her years ago.  

She asked me if I could remake it into something for her little girl because she has always loved the color of this skirt and the detail on the bottom of it.  I pulled out this old pattern from Butterick and we agreed that it just might be a cute choice for her baby girl if I could just figure out how to cut it out and still use the beautiful detail near the hem. 

Vintage 1960's Butterick #6494

I first used the skirt's lining to make the diaper cover. (Sorry, I didn't get a photo of the diaper cover and the whole outfit has been shipped.)  Then I laid out the pattern so that the middle of the front and back took full advantage of the skirt's wide center pleats.  I eliminated the buttons down the front that the pattern called for and hoped that the dress would go over a one-year old's head by tweaking the pattern just a little bit.  

In my pile of giveaways was a white shirt which became the sailor collar. I even had to break-up the sleeves due to a lack of two larger pieces and inserted some of the cool border... I simply loved how that little detail made the sleeves wonderful!  The pattern called for grosgrain ribbon for the tie but I didn't like how that looked. I had a little leftover red cotton from binding this quilt which I sewed together. I loved the fullness this fabric gave to the knot.  The red ribbon I used on the collar was also leftover from another project.  So this dress didn't cost me much to make.  The only thing I had to purchase was some interfacing for the collar.  Total cost for this dress was $2.00.  Are you hearing me sing the hand-me-down blues right now?  It's quite a happy tune!

Using a hand-me-down 1960's pattern from a second-hand store seemed the right choice for this refashion.  Don't you agree?

My 9 month old granddaughter modeled this dress for me and hallelujah, it fit!  This little girl can stand up all on her own and is just learning to walk.  I simply adore babies at this stage, don't you?  

xoxo Grandma

Linked to:  The Dedicated House, Creating My Way to Success, Project Run and Play, Lou Lou Girls, Nap-time Creations

Smurf-in Hoodies

 When I took my five-year-old grandson shopping for fabric to make him a fleece jacket, he choose a color that I'll simply refer to as "Smurf Blue." I tried to talk him into another color, but he wouldn't budge. This is what he really, really wanted.  I let him carry the fabric to the lady to cut it and you should have seen the huge smile on his face. He really loved this color!  He was in heaven smiling all the way to the front of the store to have the cashier ring up his fabric. 

Not only did he get to pick the color himself, but he also wanted to help me make his jacket. I had to get pretty creative coming up with jobs for him to do. I cut the fabric out and let him be in charge of pulling out the pins and putting them into my owl pin cushion.  I also let him help with the foot petal, which was his favorite part. Here's a photo he snapped of himself helping with the foot petal:

Oh this boy is so funny!  He actually got really good at knowing when to stop the sewing.

We didn't just stop with his jacket, we made one for his cousin too, and then another one for his five-month-old little brother.  If I recall the Smurfs cartoon, there were always more than one working and playing together.  So, here's another "1980's Cartoon Inspired" piece for Project Run and Play season 10. 

Enjoy these three cute grandsons of mine in their lovable, goofy, adventerous Smurfs inspired hoodies. xoxo Grandma

Linked to: 2 Crochet Hooks, Project Run and Play, Lou Lou girls, Nap-time Creations