I am loving these cool pillowcase dresses. I finally found directions for making them if you guys want to check out this great blog "A Safer Pillowcase Dress"
I made this one for Maylee in no time. I found the cool fabric on sale for 2.95 a yard, and it only takes half a yard to make one. You have to buy bias tape and trim too so the total cost for this lil dress was about 5 bucks. Not bad! I had enough fabric left over to make her a matching headband and fabric cuff...I even made me a fabric cuff too so we can match when she wears her dress.
Here is a picture of her wearing the dress:
She is crawling away from me but you get the idea LOL In this picture she is headed for the garbage can...she LOVES the garbage can...and she tries as hard as she can to crawl into the bathroom too. She is quite mobile nowadays!
If you make a pillowcase dress out of regular fabric and not an actual pillowcase you can just lay the fabric flat on its original fold where its like 22 inches wide...dont open it up to the full 45 inch width. Keep it folded at 22 inches and then fold it again so it will be like 11 inches, then you can cut out both the armholes and they will match perfect. I go down about 4 inches and cut out the "J" shape three inches into the fabric, so you measure the edge of the fabric 4 inches down, and make a mark then measure three inches into the fabric from the side and make another mark Make sure the marks match and then cut out your "J" shape for the armhole.
You would want to go bigger for a bigger kid. My sweetheart is in a size 12 months right now and this measurement seems to work for her. Of course it would need to be smaller for a newborn and bigger for a toddler. Use your own judgement.
The bias tape is so easy to put on its almost a sin. You could cut your own and save a 2 bucks but I am lazy so I buy it premade LOL. I make the straps about 7 or 8 inches long.
The elastic you put in the top of the dress is so easy too. I dont do it like most people cause I hate threading elastic thru a casing, I take the full length of elastic and sew my casing around the elastic...kinda hard to explain...I never cut the elastic off the spool till I have sewn the casing, and then scrunched the fabric up around the elastic to the desired width....on this dress its about 6 inches, but I think I should have made it be about 5 inches wide. After your scrunch up the fabric around the elastic then you sew in down and THEN cut it off the spool. This saves a bunch of time and makes your casing perfect every time cause your folding and sewing around the elastic as your going...hope I didnt confuse anyone LOL. Its a trick I learned from my mommy. She used to do it like that after I heard her cussing a whole lot doing it the other way where you cut your elastic and put the little safety pin in the end and try to thread it thru...yeah, mom cussed like a sailor many times cause she would make the casing too small or too big and then she started doing it this way and the cussing stopped. A cure for cussing!!! YAY!
I have been wanting to take pics of different ways I do stuff and post more tutorials I hope to get that done someday! I want to make one on soap. I would love for you guys to see the process of soapmaking. It fascinates me still and I would love to share it with you.
Well Maylee has her foot caught in some embroidery thread and she is headed for the kitchen.I hear her unwinding the spool as she crawls... I better go get her....
I have this friend...I mentioned her before here. Her name is Sara. She is 16.
I befriended Sara and I instantly loved her with all my heart and soul. I found her about a year after Aurora died, and I thanked God for Sara. She eased my pain a bit and made me wish she could be my daughter...the feeling is also mutual. She calls me,"mama". Just like Tyler does. We have often been asked if I have "any other" children when me and her is out together LOL I guess she looks like she could be my kid too.
Sara is terribly poor. Her mother lives off of a meager disability check and with a boyfriend who smokes weed and drinks like a fish and cant hold a job, its hard to do things like put clothes on your daughters back...some things are more important after all. I have made Sara a few things but she isnt much into the "Hippie" thing...she thinks she is Gothic...I am cool with that. Whatever makes her happy makes me happy, and she does look cute with black lipstick on....
My newest listing is for these cool three tiered capri pants:
Sara has a social worker (surprise surprise!) and this lady was so sweet, she took her to a couple of thrift stores to get her some clothes. Sara is down to like three or four articles of clothing now since she has put on so much weight from being on the Depo shot her mom put her on...I can kinda understand cause Sara is having "relations" with a young man, and the last thing she needs is a baby but still..its really packing the weight on her quick and she has nothing to wear!But anyhoo, the social worker gets her some clothes and your not allowed to try them on in the stores you just have to buy and pray basically, so Sara gets home and nothing fits. Its ALL too small for her. She happened to pick up a piece of fabric..the fabric the pants are made from, and she was able to get the social worker to buy it along with the clothes. She told her I make clothes and would make it into something for her so the worker went for it...Sara HATED the fabric but thought it may be something that I would like or that may sell...she brings it over to me and I LOVED it of course LOL The only problem I had with it is its a synthetic fabric. I like cotton myself but I see some things on Etsy made from synthetics so last night I cut out these pants and I got them finished up early this afternoon.
Sara dont know I made them. She dont know she is getting all the money if these sell...she dont know nothing yet. I want to surprise her. I am gonna take her to Hot Topic (KMart for goths) and let her get as much stuff as she can get for the money...if nothing else we can hit this lil shop I know of that sells plus size clothing fit for teens. Maybe she can find something there. I hate to see her have to dress like she is my age or older just cause she has got chunky. She is still only 16 and wants to look cool. She reminds me of the one big reason I started sewing in the first place.I hate looking like my mom when I go out...mom looks fine dont get me wrong but mom is like 68 LOL
So if you guys got a minute, go check out Sara's pants on Etsy. They are fun to look at if nothing else. That fabric sure is pretty!
To whomever purchases these pants, we thank you in advance for helping a young girl have clothes in her closet..nice clothes that fit her and that she LIKES. This is so important when your a teen...you guys remember, It aint been that long ago for any of us!
Sara brought me other fabric I am looking at right now...there is a piece in there with Buddha on it...I can make it into a short skirt for someone thin.I got a couple of other project to get done before I can get to that one but its definitly coming up!
Thanks for reading guys...
So, ya finally signed up for RME (Revolution Money Exchange) and ya need to spend some money..where to go!
I KNOW!
Check out the Etsy RME blog with a massive list of shops in all categories that take your handy dandy new RME as payment!
You can even add your own shop into the list too if ya got an Etsy shop! Its as easy as leaving a comment.
OR you can go to this squidoo page made by momwithahook
You can add in your shop there too on her page. Be sure to favorite it, and clicky clicky the stars to rank it. The higher it ranks, the more likely the search engines will be to pick it up and the more likely YOUR shop will get hits!
Of course Maylee's Garden and Auroras garden takes your RME payments too so dont forget us for all your plus size clothing and soapy goodness needs!
And if you havent yet signed up for RME, feel free to do so using this link. I get a bonus of 10 bucks for each referral and that helps me keep Maylee in pretty clothes. She is growing so fast I can hardly keep up! So keep a baby looking pretty, sign up today!
I tamed the beast that was my soap, and now I have many wonderful and amazing soaps to show off!
First I got to show you the watermelon soap. I love working with the PVC pipes I use for molds. I can do so many cool things with it! Like this:
The seeds are poppy seeds and they are just on the top of the soap, they are not inside of it. I wanted to make it look as much like a watermelon as I could. Each of these soaps weigh about 2 to 3 ounces each. Of course y
ou can find them in Maylees GardenI used food coloring (cheap I know) to color the green and pink soap and I rolled the pink into a tube and rolled the green out flat and wrapped it up. I squished it all in the round mold and cut it into slices once it sit for a little while.Soap is so fun. I just love playing with it! This one smells of course, like watermelon.
Then the other soaps are more generic but still cool! This one is the Dragonsblood soap.
It was made with some Moroccan Red Clay as a coloring for it on the top layer, and the bottom is
the plain creamy color. Pretty cool huh? And that top layer is gonna be so nice for your skin too. I love that clay!
This blue one is not colored from ground up smurfs, its colored with the same generic food coloring and boy is it bright! This one is scented with Pearberry. It smelled blue to me so we went with blue. There are small chunks of soap that I didnt get mixed up real good in it so its got a swirly look to it, like the ocean or something...pretty cool! The Pearberry dont smell like pears....it smells kinda like berries though. Its a nice fruity floral scent. I like it a lot.
This one is scented with "English Rose" Its just a plain ol white soap but smells real pretty like roses...Mmmmm.I like rose scent, its hard to find in stores, but you can find it here!Tyler is still working on his sticks for our new soap holder thingy's. I have seen these everywhere and they look so nice, but I figured we could do one too but a bit different. He is using sticks that have fallen off trees and carving the bark off, and cutting them to the right length so he can glue them together to make a soap dish that holds the soap and lets it drain real good. If it dont drain it gets soft and mushy on the side that sits in water and thats just gross. Hopefully we can get some of these listed this week.All the soap you see here is in Maylees Garden!Come check it out if ya got a minute!
