"Hunky Pool Boy" Terry Cloth Romper Shorts

I've had this idea for awhile, and I wanted to make Gabe something for the summer to wear on the patio or around the kiddie pool. I made the shorts from two brand new terry cloth towels I found  super cheap at the second hand store. The pockets are leftover from my mens shirt to boys shirt refashion seen over here.  The stenciling is freezer paper stenciling. Heres the short process in pictures:

I cut out my pieces using a pair of his shorts

I made my pockets and stenciled them

I sewed the pockets on first and then assembled the shorts

And done :)

Um, model much?

Now try to keep your hunky pool boy away from the girls this summer!!!

Little Cowboy Gun Holster Tutorial

Every little cowboy needs a holster for his six-shooter!! Over time you might learn that we are country loving people... We dress it, (mostly my hubby and son), we listen to it, we love rodeos, horses, farms, ranches, on and on!! In fact, we both grew up in the country. Especially me being from cattle country, I used to ride horses daily. So naturally we wanted to pass it on to our kids.

First B-day. I made the cowspot cake!!

So anyway, on to the tutorial! I started with some scraps of cow print cotton canvas. As you can see I had to sew two pieces together for it to be big enough... I laid his play gun ON A FOLD and traced the shape I wanted on the WRONG side of the fabric.

I unfolded it, and BEFORE sewing the sides, I hemmed the top and bottom. It's easier that way.

 Next I sewed the sides together and turned it right side out to make sure the gun fit how I wanted.I wanted to make it really cowboy-ish so I added some fringe :)

To make the belt loops, I measred my belt  and cut my strips accordingly so they would be big enought to slip on the belt. Just fold and iron like so, and hand sew the loops on tucking under the raw edges.

AND WALA!! He's ready to cowboy up!!!

I also made the vest, and the cowboy pants.... The tute for that is RIGHT HERE.

How To Draft A Basic A-Line Skirt Pattern

For this maternity skirt, I actually drafted a very simple pattern using an old well-fitting skirt. I bought the material from Jo Ann's remnant bin for like three bucks and used the bottom half of an old stretch tank top for the waist band.

For this pattern, I cut along the fold so that both front and back panels would be cut at the same time. I laid my skirt on my fabric to cut out the general shap I wanted. I kept in mind that the skirt I was tracing was stretchy, so I did measure my fabric at the top to make sure it would fit me, as this fabric had NO stretch. I just took my measurment at the hips, and added three inches for ease.

I cut both panels, sewed seams up both sides and tried it on to make sure it was right...

Now for the waistband, I cut my waistband from an old shirt so that it already had seams :) I am a Cheater!! I cut it 9 inches long, so that halfed it would be about a 4 inch band.

 Fold down the band so that the seams are on the inside.

Give the band a stretch to make sure that it will stretch to the length of the skirt body. I'm assuming you know this, but you want the waistband to be quite fitted so it doesn' slip down!! So naturally it willl be several inches smaller than the skirt body. Sew on your waistband, stretching as you go, until you make it around. To be sure that you stretch it the right amount to perfecty fit over the skirt body,  you could match the side seams up from waistband to skirt body and stretch and pin all the way around. I am too impatient for that. Once the band is attached, push the seam down towards the bottom of the skirt and sew the seam down.

It will give a nice fnished look on the inside and the outside.

Then I hemmed it and tried it on, perfect fit!!!

There are so many great tute's on skirt making... i'm not very professional at it, so this is just a little "how I did it" post.

Recycled Jersey Hoodie = New Pants For Gabe!!!

Since Gabey was born, I haven't been able to fit in my old clothes... At least no pants, and probably half of my shirt. Just one of those things you dont bank on when you get pregnant is how much weight you'll actually gain, and how easy it'll be to lose it after the fact.  And I haven't been working on losing weight nearly as hard as I need to for MY body. It takes ALOT of discipline and focus and work for me to lose serious lbs. That's no excuse however, and I'm doing something about it now before I get the next set of two pink lines!! ANYWAY, with all that said, most of the old T's and shirts and some pants I had went into my scraps pile to recycle... and most of them have already been made into something else!!! Some refashioned for me, but mostly clothes for Gabe. Today I decided to finally do something with a gray and black striped jersy short sleeved hoodie. And this time I did some more pants for him. Hopefully they can be worn util 24 months, because I made them big on purpose.

What I did was fold a pair of  18 month sized pants in half and placed the "non-crotch" side on the outsde fold of the hoodie, as you can see in the pic. That way you get one less seam to sew!! Do that on both sides so you get two pattern peices out of it. Then just cut around the pants giving yourself an 1/2 in seam allowance. I did more because  I wanted a bigger size for him. For the rest of the pants follow this easy tutorial...

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1DANmGTnx38/SwI8iBJk06I/AAAAAAAABBw/oHYZwnQRivk/s1600/DSC02143.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.slipstitches.com/2009/11/baby-toddler-t-shirt-pants-tutorial.html&usg=__ju6iVFqMsohBFZsCoijQGmyiP8g=&h=1200&w=1600&sz=165&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=U2xwjY6s-chVhM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbaby%2Bpants%2Btutorial%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1R2SKPB_enUS360%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

Wow, long link!

And here's the boy!

Jailbird baby! Sorry for the bad quality pic...

while we have no camera i'm using our camcorder for pictures :(

Man, I miss my real camera!!!