Ok, back to reality…

My friend doesn’t know whether the baby is a girl or a boy so it was not easy selecting the right fabrics for the baby bibs. I tend to buy girly fabrics and that definitely doesn’t help. However, I did came up with a few combinations that I thought might work.

This is the first time I have made baby bibs. I’m not sure why I never made them for my kids. Maybe I thought they were hard to make. I feel bad for making my kids use old dirty baby bibs when they could have used some stylish ones. I know, they would become all stained anyway, but stained, stylish baby bibs are better than stained, ugly ones.

It turned out that baby bibs are quite easy to make. I took an old baby bib and made a pattern. To make it softer I put a layer of cotton batting in the middle. For closure I used snaps.

They came out okay, considering that this is my first time making them. I hope my friend can’t tell that the front and back don’t really match and will like them.

Front of each baby bib.

Corresponding back of each baby bib.

Question: Are polka dots only for girls?

Well, I’ve never owned a Barbie and I think to make clothes for Barbie I’ll need a Barbie to take measurements and make sure the clothes would fit. I wasn’t in the mood to pay for one so I asked a few friends at work to see if anyone has an old one that their daughters no longer want. The next day someone brought me one. That was how I got my first Barbie.

Ok, so making clothes for Barbie turned out to be so much harder than making clothes for real human beings because everything is so much smaller. I also realize that I need to stay away thick fabrics (like ribbed knit) for doll clothes.
After much fidgeting and fighting with Barbie I came out with a swimsuit prototype. I wanted a modest swimsuit for Barbie, something that maybe a 7-year-old would wear too.

I serged the top and the ruffles together, creating this big bulk and making it hard to turn the ruffles down.

I like the style of the swimsuit but noticed that the first one was too loose, so I made another one that is tighter. The fabric is from a 12-month tank top that R never wore because it was too tight.

I also fixed the problem with the ruffles. Instead of serging it I put it between the front and the lining.

With the remaining fabric I made a nightgown. I added a button for the back because it was not wide enough for me to put in velcro. The straps are taken from the tank top.

Too much makeup for bed? Never!

Finally, I thought I would make a dress for Barbie too. The dress has horizontal stripes, a big no-no for real people with real bodies. This is Barbie. There are no such rules. She looks good no matter what. To make it look neat I had to make a self lining. This made the hem too bulky after I serged it together and folded up to sew it up. I think next time I’ll try to use a bias tape to do the hem.

Always try to sit down to make sure the dress is not too tight.

At the end, I also made a headband, which is basically a piece of thin ribbon sewn to a little piece of elastic. I could definitely make more headbands if I could find more cute ribbons.

Overall, this was a very fun project because at the end Barbie will look good even in a potato sack. It was very frustrating since fidgeting with tiny clothes is no easy feat. I don’t know how others do it and have made extraordinary outfits for their dolls. Mine really look like homemade but I think I can do a better job once I get the hang of it.

I hope my friend’s daughter will have fun putting these on Barbie and not get frustrated trying to get those swimsuit bottoms on (which I had a very hard time doing and maybe they need to be a little bit bigger). I will definitely make more doll clothes in case R would like to play with them in the future. For now she’s happy with Barbie being naked and didn’t seem to want to put clothes on her.

Anyway, what to do when you’re so sick that you can’t function? Sewing, of course.

We have these hideous pillows that came with the fabric couch. They get very dirty and of course I’ve always been oblivious to dust/dirt/mess. They weren’t so bad when they were new but are now splattered (literally) with evidence of multiple kids (including and not limited to chocolate milk, apple juice, ketchup, chocolate ice cream, which could be from DH). Even I can see those stains!

I took the cover of one pillow apart and created a pattern. I used a cotton muslin (from Joann’s remnant rack) to create a plain cover and then used Ikea fabric (I think it was about $6-$8 a yard) to make the removable cover. One down, two more to go, but I need to get more cotton muslin first. I’m sure it will take months to finish this project…

Looking at the brand new pillow, my mother suggested that I should get this bright fabric for the slipcover. I should have when they still had this at Ikea.

I’m naturally drawn to blue, and combinations of bright colors.

Back of the cover. Too lazy to put in a zipper. It wasn’t so bad. I should have done this earlier.

Then I was discussing with my mother whether I should make some skirts with attached diaper covers for R and we decided that a diaper cover doesn’t cover enough when R goes to the park and climb all over the place. Then I decided to make a pair of capris for her. I copied a pair she has now and make these a little bit bigger. The fabric is a very soft Baby Lulu ribbed knit leftover from the play dress I made earlier. The capris came out a little bit longer than I would like. Ideally they should hit right below the knees. These are a bit lower. Maybe I’ll make some that are shorter.

This was my first attempt at rolled hem (done for the ruffles). It came out ok, but doesn’t look quite like what I see from store bought items. The stitches don’t seem to be close enough. Not sure what I was doing wrong since I was following the instructions that came with the serger.

I made another Ginger dress, this time for a baby girl who is 6 months younger than R but is pretty much the same height. A lot of improvements were needed for the Ginger dress, such as a bigger neck opening, bigger arm hole, better way to finish the arm holes, making it adustable, and on and on… Being my lazy self, I knew there was no way I can get this done if I didn’t cut some corners.

Here’s what I actually did:

1) Increased neck opening by make the yoke narrower (even though it would be nicer to keep the same width but that would mean redrafting the body).

2) Lowered the arm hole a bit because the first one was tight.

3) Decreased the length of the dress by 2 inches. I was going to just chop 2 inches from the bottom, but realized that wouldn’t work because I would just lose the coordinating hem on the bottom, which I really want to keep. I ended up having to move the bottom hem up (redrawing the skirt pattern).

Hey, I know it’s only three things but this already required a redraw of the pattern, but it wasn’t too much work.

The sewing part went really well, until I had to rip the completed dress out from the yoke, twice! I don’t want to go into details about how I messed up twice, since that would require some yelling and screaming on my part. Let’s just say I’m so glad this is over.

In terms of the fabric, I ran out of the Genger Blossom floral fabric and used this Alexander Henry fabric. It actually came out much nicer than the last one.

Anyway, I think I’m the last person on earth who hasn’t made this…until now. As for the name, I’m calling it Ginger because the fabric is from Ginger Blossom by Sandi Henderson. (Yeah, I know I should have tried harder.)

Front of the dress.

Back of the dress:

Front detail - there should be 2 snaps on one side, but my snapsetter is playing hide and seek with me… I know it will come out as soon as I buy another one. I tried to make the yoke wide so that it could cover R’s shoulders. She loves going to the park and that means more chance to be under the sun.

I should have sewed the side seams before the armhole facing (is that what you call it?) so that it could be a continuous piece from front and back. Oops, I haven’t finished cleaning up all the loose ends.

The dress was very easy to make. For some reason the armhole came out to be just fitting R, compared to the Gypsy Dress that was too big. I don’t remember changing the location of the armhole. Maybe I messed up when I attached the yoke to the skirt. I think I’ll have to change the pattern a little bit to increase the armhole so that this will fit R for at least 2 years.