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!

Quilted Autumn Rainbow Dress

 

So this week's challenge for Project Run and Play is Fall Holiday Wear.... my favorite fall holiday? My eldest daughter's birthday!

Her 5th birthday is coming up in a few weeks and every year I take my kids birthday photo. I like to make them something special to wear for this photo op.
Here are the last year's: Jaden, Julia and Jace.

 

So for this year I thought I would kill 2 birds and use this week's challenge to get Jaden's birthday dress finished.

And thus the Quilted Autumn Rainbow Dress was made.

 

 

After cutting all the diamonds I sewed them together into strips, then sewed the strips together.

I ironed all the seams flat then sewed around all the diamonds onto a thin lining material.

 

 

I used Simplicity Pattern 3511 but "thinned" it out a little bit. I have made the pattern several times before and it is always so big and loose (Bias Pattern Remix and Simplicity 3511) so I made this dress a size smaller and then took off about 3 inches in the width of both the bodice and the skirt part.

 

 

I am throwing Jaden a rainbow / art party so this dress fits in perfectly with my plan.

 

This is my first attempt at quilting, not too hard, but defiantly time consuming. I couldn't imagine making a quilt to fit on a bed- but this rainbow pattern would really look good in a little girl's room.

 

Hope you all have a great weekend! Check out the other Fall Holiday Outfits in the Flickr group.

~Jessica

Boy's Week

 

This week's sew along challenge for Project Run & Play was creating an outfit for a boy. I love making stuff for my son, but as he gets older I have to check and recheck that I am not doing something that will cause the outfit/bag/etc to be unused and labeled uncool.

So my challenge this week so to create an outfit for my 8 year old son....

 

I used the Peek-A-Boo Pattern Shop's pattern for skinny jeans, thinking they are cool now right? Well, he is 8 but I made a size 10 so that they would be not so skin tight and I a giggling now thinking of his look when I had him try them on =) They were SO tight, an 8 would of never even been pulled on!

 

 

So my fix? I added a tuxedo strip down the side. They increased each of the legs 1.5" and the but/crotch area 3". Now they look more like straight leg pants instead but I got the thumbs up from him and he was able to sit down without busting a seam.

 

I freezer paper stenciled an understated, over sized Mushroom from Mario onto his shirt.

 

 

His jacket I made by refashioning an old shirt of mine. The hardest part was making the shirts darts into less of a woman's shape and more boxy like a cargo jacket. I fully lined the shirt and added pockets and button flaps onto the shoulders.

 

I wanted to paint or applique something onto the back of the jacket, but like the yellow shirt, my idea was shot down.

 

Check out other Sew-Along participates at the Flickr site.

Have a great day!

~Jessica

White Trench Coat with Silver Painted Doodles

 

 

 

This week's theme for Project Run & Play is the White Sheet challenge. Luckily I had this thick, beautiful, expensive white sheet that my sister had given me when she took her full bed out of the nursery.

 

 

I decided to make a trench coat of sorts. Something with a modern twist, making it white.

 

 

The entire jacket is lined and the zipper is hidden. This was a very exciting project for me. Not only did I make up the whole pattern but I had to figure out what needed to be done first, next etc.

 

 

I hand drew some doodles/stars and painted them with silver fabric paint.

 

Added a Mandarin collar and a silver button.

 

I have about a million things on my to-do list today so I have to get moving. Check out the Flickr group to see what every one else did with their white sheets!

~Jessica

Project Run & Play: Fashion Icon Week

 

It's Week 2 of Project Run & Play Sew Along! This weeks challenge/theme was Fashion Icon. I thought I would go retro and choose Twiggy & her 1960's style to base my run and play outfit off of.

 

 

Twiggy is best know for her short hair, androgynous looks, skinny frame and thickly mascaraed eye lashes. But in terms of her style, Twiggy popularized the shift dress in the '60s- a dress that had a firmly rectangular tilt, guiding rather than conforming to a woman's body. Also widely popular at this time was bright psychedelic patterns and colors.

 

 

So here is my interpretation:

 

 

 

The dress is made with a thick gray cotton and the geometric design is appliqued asymmetrically onto the side of the dress.

 

 

The 3/4 sleeves and the boat neck collar also are fashion trends of the 60's.

 

 

I drafted this pattern myself.  I don't have a really have a good tutorial for it because I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out.

 

 

 

The neck scared me a little but it turned out exactly how I planned it so I couldn't be happier!

 

 

Jaden likes it too, so it will at least get worn =)

 

 

And it will work perfectly for our Texas winter!

 

 

Always my go-to model, Jaden is really stepping up her game by posing while jumping... I might be creating a diva!

~Jessica