Quilted Girl Peacoats

 

These adorable girls are my friend's daughters and my daughter's best friends. I made them some coats this year and because of so much interest taken in them I decided to sell a couple on Etsy.

 

 

 

I made the jackets with a black quilted fabric for the outer lining and a modern cotton print for the inner lining.

 

 

 

I changed up the inner lining on each jacket and made the buttons color coordinate with this fabric choice.

 

 

 

I had made this jacket before for my own daughter 2 years ago. Because of the loose style and the rolled sleeves the jacket is able to be worn for a lot longer before it is out grown.



 

Adorable, right?!

The jackets and the girls!~Jessica

 

 

 

Tween Sewing for Boys

Re-Posting a guest post onto my site:

Hi, I'm Jessica from My Inner Need to Create, I have three kids, ages 4, 5 and 9. And to be perfectly honest when I got the email from Sally inviting be to contribute to this site I said (out loud) "WHAT, I'm to young to be a mother of a Tween!" Oh, where has the time gone!!
Well, unlike the previous guest bloggers, I haven't had many fit issues with my Tween, he seems to be a pretty standard size, with him it is more of a style issue. Almost all of my last years' sewing projects for him have sat in the closet, untouched.
So I approached this project differently. I knew what I wanted to make him, a military cargo jacket. So instead of starting this project on my own, I included my son. I showed him pinned jackets, let him choose a style, gave him a choice of the fabric, etc.

Then I got to work...
There are A LOT of pieces to this pattern but I promise it isn't that complicated.

 

PATTERN

These aren't to scale but the measurements are on them if you want to try out making this jacket for your tween. This is size 10 and you will need to add seam allowances.

 



STEP BY STEP

1.       Sew back top and back bottom pieces together, of both the fabric and the lining. Top stitch the seams flat. Sew the left and right side of the back together to make one piece. (Do this for both the fabric and the lining).

2.       Assemble the hood, both fabric and lining. Then attach the 2 with right sides together, flip and top stitch around.

3.       Stitch pleat into all 4 pockets. Fold under all raw edges and baste. On top of the pockets roll completely to hide exposed raw edge, stitch across.

4.       For the pocket flaps I made the buttons invisible by making 2 flaps each for each pocket.

Roll under and stitch one of the long sides of each of the pocket flaps (8 total).
Sew two button holes into one of each of these pocket flaps (4 total).  

Then put two flaps together (one with button holes and one without), wrong side, right side and stitch around the other 2 sides of the flap. Flip and top stitch the two short sides.

5.       Attach the pockets to the front pieces of the jacket.

6.       Sew the front pieces to the back piece at the side and shoulder seams. Do the same for the lining.

7.       Hold sleeves in half and stitch up the side. Attach sleeve from fabric to the jacket from fabric and the sleeve from lining to the jacket from the lining fabric.

8.       Fold collar in half. Sew the hood, collar and lining to the jacket. You might need to baste first depending on your fabric choices. Flip.

9.       With a separating zipper attach zipper to the left side of the jacket by putting it between the lining and the fabric of the jacket.

10.   Sew the second half of the zipper to the other side of the jacket, lining only. Then hold the front button panel in half and sew that piece to the fabric of the jacket, from the top of the collar all the way down to the bottom of the jacket.  Then sandwiching the zipper between the fabric and the lining sew the zipper into the jacket.

11.   Roll under the lining and the fabric of the sleeves and sew around to create a cuff.

12.   Roll under the bottom of jacket and sew around.

13.   Sew button holes into the button panel on the front and sew all 14 buttons onto the coat.

DONE!

 

He seems to like the jacket so I am hoping he wears it.... I will have to wait and see though, since I live in Texas and it was 105 degrees today!

 

 

Thanks for inviting me to contribute to this blog! It is a great idea and with 2 more kids closing in on tween status I am sure it is to become a very important resource for me!

Have a great week!
~Jessica

A Monster of a Birthday Party

 

My adorable daughter turned 6 right before Halloween. We decided to have a monster party this year...

 

 

With a monster cake...

 

I used marshmallows for the eyes and pre-colored teal frosting so the cake came together quickly.

 

 

I made the girls each a monster bean bag (well they are filled with rice and not beans) I made them just with scraps of felt.

 



 

I also made each girl a monster shirt to match their monster bean bag. I got the shirts from the 99cent store and then using my Cricut and freezer paper I painted a monster onto each.

 

 

I sent the girls on a "Monster Hunt" (scavenger hunt where one clue leads to a monster and the next clue) until all the girls had matching monsters. Then they lined up for a bean bag toss...

 

 

I just made the bean bag toss target out of a cardboard box. I used acrylic paint for the body and white & black construction paper for the teeth and eyes.

 





 

 Also for the birthday girl I made a Bubble Ruffle Tutu Skirt using this tutorial from the Creative Vault.

 

The girls had a great time and were all pleased to be leaving with a monster shirt like the birthday girl and a little baby monster to play with.
~Jessica

Sew Cool for the Tween Scene

So the two amazing ladies from Without Directions and Daisy Chain Creations have some together to create a new blog: Sew Cool for the Tween Scene.

A BlogSpot to spotlight a missing link in the pattern industry: Tweens. They are not physically ready or mature enough for adult clothes, and thus adult patterns; both in the big name patterns and Indie patterns that we love.  Even when there are sizes that fit our girls, they are not designed with a pre-teen in mind.  So these ladies will act as curators for pre-teen patterns and pre-teen sewing ideas!

And as a kick off party they lined up some guest's to post.... And I am one of the chosen few so head on over there to check out the Military Cargo Jacket I made for my Tween.
~Jessica

Rainbow Butterfly Skirt

So I was looking around Pinterest yesterday and realized that all the pins for my Rainbow Butterfly Skirt were going back to Project Run and Play, where I did a guest posting and the tutorial. This made me realize that I never posted the tutorial to my own site, so I am fixing that mistake....

Flickr Friends: Jessica from My Inner Need to Create

Hi y'all! I am Jessica and I blog over at My Inner Need to Create. I am a stay-at-home mother to 3 kids (8, 4 and 3) but once a upon a time I was a web and graphic designer. Though I am not doing this as my career right now, I see this side of my style bleed through into all my crafting. In fact I like to think of all the clothes I make as a canvas waiting for me to make it into a piece of art. I like to do this in many ways but love the look of appliqueing...

Here is a recent appliquéd project: Rainbow Butterfly Skirt.

To start I took a skirt of my daughter's to use as a pattern. I chose a thick gray knit as the fabric for the skirt (it was left over from my Superhero Circle Dress from Week 1 of the Sew Along). I just made a simple A-line skirt with no seem allowance for the top since I planned on using 1.5 inch elastic for the exposed waistband.

After the front and back of the skirt was cut out, I sewed one of the side seems together and laid out the skirt flat. Next I drew out the butterfly design, I used the skirt shape to dictate the cropping on the butterfly.

Take your design and trace it on to Iron-On Fusible Interfacing, make sure that you reverse the image!

Iron the butterfly onto the black fabric.

Next- cut it out.

Peel off the paper from the back of the butterfly, you will need this for a template in a minute.

For my butterfly I wanted a rainbow, but at this step you could use a cute print or a solid color. I choose my colors and sewed them together in 1.5 inch strips.

After the strips are sewed together and ironed flat, use the paper backing off of the Iron-On Fusible Interfacing as a template and cut out the wings.

Iron the black part of the butterfly onto the colors. Take another piece of interfacing and iron it onto the back of the entire butterfly. Then iron that piece onto the skirt.

Next you have to zigzag around all the black raw edges. I sewed with black thread...

but with a gray bobbin thread so that I didn't have to line the skirt.

I sewed the skirt together at the other side then I attached the 1.5 inch black eleastic as the waistband.

The skirt turned out very eye-catching with the bold, big butterfly but it is a really simple jersey knit skirt with very limited sewing skill needed (the zigzagging around the pieces of the appliqué takes the most practice.)

My daughter loves the skirt and wears it everytime she finds it in her drawer clean.

I took these photos with her wearing a black leotard as her top but a 3 year old wearing a leotard all day is really not ideal for going to the bathroom. So I refashioned a slimming black tank top from an old (very old!) tube top if you hop over to my blog you can check out the tutorial!

Thanks for inviting me to guest post during this month of Flicker Friends! I am so glad to be able to get in on the fun! I hope everyone is having a great summer!