Fit to Be Tied

My sister-in-law and I hosted our other sister-in-law's baby shower this weekend. We put together a basket of essentials for the first few months, including some fun touches like these applique onesies. You can transform any shirt with whatever shape or print your desire. All you need are a pair of scissors, fabric, a shirt or onesie and fusible interfacing makes the job easier. Next time, I would use a backing fabric for the inside of the shirt so that I don't have skipped stitches like I did with the bow tie. If you're planning to use a straight stitch, you don't need to worry about it!

I wanted to do ties, so I just folded the material in half (so that my free-hand would at least be symmetrical) and then cut out an approximate neck tie and bow tie shape from two different fabrics. Iron on the material, stitch around the edge of the design to affix it to the shirt, et voila! 

I love this flannel bug print. I've had it in my stash since H was a babe!

Since I had my sewing machine out, I decided to bust out another project I've had in my queue for a few months. I have enough of each fabric to make two maxi skirts (I didn't realize this when I ordered) so I'll get creative. However, It should be noted that I did not use a tape measure or any other official tools (not even my rotary cutter) I just eyeballed it, which caused me to do the side seam twice after I realized it was several inches too large. The waistband is a foldover yoga waistband, which I did by folding a piece in half so that the folded dimension was about 6-7 inches in tall, then put all the raw edges together with right sides facing and sewed around. Because it's a knit fabric, I made it a little snug in the waist, so there are slight puckers where it attaches to the skirt body. Had I done an official measure, I'd have been able to do the side seam once, and angled it from a wider bottom to the smaller top. Since I didn't it's a little restrictive at the bottom, so I'll be making this first one a knee length skirt and then taking what I learned to make the new one the correct width. This knit fabric is from a really fun website Girl Charlee Fabrics, which has a ton of really cute knit fabrics to choose from at really reasonable prices. I have four different prints, including the bold neon stripe I used to make the shirt I wore in our family photos (below). The one tip I have for working with knits is to use a light hand in moving the fabric through the machine so that you're not stretching it as you go.