The Easiest Dress You'll Ever Make

This little dress is known around the craft and sewing world as "the pillowcase dress."  Pillowcase dresses are very popular at the moment and now I know why.  This is hands down the easiest piece of clothing I've ever made and since it uses less than one yard of fabric, it's also one of the cheapest. 

I threw this one together for Bailey during one of Jake's afternoon naps using this pattern and photo tutorial at Little Big Girl Studio for reference.  Next time I'll cut the armholes just a smidge bigger.  I used a piece of orange ribbon for the tie, but I have plans to switch it out for a hot pink ribbon as soon as Halloween is over. 

Beach Towel Bath Robes

Before we left for our Florida vacation, I promised to give more details about the beach towel robes I made for the kiddos.  Better late than never, right? 

As soon as I saw this pattern for beach robes on MADE, I knew I wanted to buy it and make one for each of my kids to use after swimming.  Now that summer has passed, we still use them for drying off after bath time. 

I purchased two beach towels at Target for less than $5 each.  These thin towels were the perfect thickness to work with, not too bulky at all.  Ignore the single fold bias tape you see in the photo.  I had never used store-bought bias tape before and didn't realize until after the fact that what I really needed was extra-wide double fold tape.  Lesson learned.

I have to say, the $8 I spent on this pattern was money well spent!  The pattern comes in three sizes (9-18 month, 18 month-3T, and 3T-4T).  I made Jake's robe using the 9-18 month size, and Bailey's is 3T-4T.  The pattern includes detailed instructions and step-by-step photos for many different options...short sleeves or long sleeves, partial ties or full ties, lined hood, or no hood at all.  I chose to make my robes with short sleeves, unlined hoods, and partial ties (meaning they are sewn into the sides of the robe instead of wrapping all the way around through loops like a belt).  My towels were large enough that I only needed to use one towel for each robe, but I barely squeaked by on Bailey's.  Had I decided to go with long sleeves or the full tie, I definitely would have needed a second towel.  This is such an easy, versatile, and affordable pattern...I would recommend it to anyone! 

My kids love their bath robes!  I'm thinking of using a version of this pattern (no hood and long sleeves) to make some snuggly fleece robes for the wintertime, maybe as Christmas gifts.  I will be keeping an eye out for more great patterns from MADE!

T-shirt Refashion

One day while strolling through the kids' clothing section at Target I saw this dress...

This adorable little sweater dress cost $15.  Not a fortune, but more than I wanted to spend at the time.  Besides, the dress is so simple that my first thought was "I bet I could make that."

Later that day I had a brief flash of brilliance.  I found this t-shirt hanging in my closet...

It was light brown and had a similar gathering along the neckline as the little sweater dress.  The idea was that I could refashion it into a dress for Bailey that would look pretty darn close to the sweater dress in Target.  I hadn't worn the shirt in a good while, so I was willing to sacrifice it for the sake of preschool fashion.

My plan was to keep the original neckline, hemline, and sleeves so those parts would look "finished."  Using one of Bailey's summer dresses as a guide, I cut the t-shirt up each side the entire length of the shirt, removing the sleeves.  I carefully trimmed the excess material from each sleeve and set them aside to use later.  Then I adjusted the neckline and length of the dress by sewing a new shoulder seam.  I reattached the sleeves, then sewed down each side of the dress and it was finished!

It's not exactly the same as the sweater dress from Target, but it's still cute.  And it was free...bonus!  I experimented with putting elastic in the sleeves, but then decided against it.  The pink flower is actually a hair clip that I just clipped on for the photo.  I need to make a pink fabric flower pin using this tutorial so the flower can be removed before washing.

Someone with more experience sewing clothing probably could have finished this in a half hour.  It took me nearly all day...yet another reason why I wouldn't last a day on Project Runway.  Sewing clothes (especially those made of stretchy t-shirt material) is so much harder than sewing quilts!  All in all I am pretty satisfied with it, although next time I will probably just buy the Target dress.  My little supermodel loves it, so that makes me happy!  :)