Normally I would buy a piece of fabric just because it looks nice. I would have an idea who it would be for (M and/or J if boy print, R if girl print, or me), but would not have a definite piece of clothing in mind. This proves to be not such a good strategy, since I now have such a big stash of pretty fabrics and have no idea what I’m really going to make. I thought about coming up with a project before buying the fabric, but that plan got derailed every time when I saw some really nice fabric that I had to have at the time otherwise it would be gone forever. Anyway, I looked through some Ottobre magazines and tried to pick out something simple I could make and this is what I came up with:

It was quite easy to make, even though I had some problem with the binding and had to rip out seams quite a few times. The fabric is a cute C&C cotton interlock print. It’s very thin. I don’t know this brand of clothing well except that I have seen it at Bloomingdale’s and thought that they were a bunch of overpriced t-shirts. I just found out that they also make kids clothes and saw this tank top at Nordstrom for $48! I like this style since the straps can be adjusted. That means R will still fit into this next summer.

I got this top from Target while I was pregnant last year, when babydoll tops became very popular. The material is a very light cotton lawn and feels very soft. However, I didn’t like the neckline since it was done with some cheap ribbon and the gathered part never fell correctly. I have never worn this. Finally I had time to turn it into something else for R. I used thetutorial from Kuky Ideas, although I didn’t really follow all the directions. I made 2 horizontal cuts on the shirt, one to cut out the body of the dress and the other to cut out the material for the straps. The hem is untouched. I wound the bobbin too tightly the first time and had to rip out everything. I should’ve followed Kuky’s instructions and practice on some scraps first.

Since I was limited by the width of the top, the dress came out to be a little bit too tight on DD. After having it on to model for me (enjoying the process for the first minute and getting impatient very soon after), she had some marks on her back from the elastic thread. Overall it was a good exercise on shirring. I’ll definitely do this again, but not sure about this year, since summer is almost over and there are other things I want to try to sew. Here’s the dress in action (sorry for the bad photography and for being too lazy to put a diaper cover on her):