Pillowcase Skorts

I've been sewing long enough now that many of my friends are aware one of the best ways to show me love is to gift me fabric. Oh the blissful feeling of free gifted fabric. You have no idea. So when one of my longest friends (22years of friendship!) who works for Lorraine Lea, offered me some of the pillowcases from discontinued linen designs, I jumped at the chance. 

Suddenly, so much more fabric to inspire me to sew! Hooray! 

Not long after receiving these, I had a spontaneous trip to Ikea with my mother-in-law, Maria, and I noticed a print in their fabric section that I knew would match perfectly with some of the pillowcases that I had been gifted. It was meant to be. 

The Ikea fabric is the floral on the left of this photo, the white, pink and green are all pillow cases, deconstructed and ready for sewing. See how perfectly the pink and green match! 

I knew the girls (being the strangely tactile creatures that they are) would love the fringe from the pillow cases, so I took that off first to add to the skirt. I wanted to make Rachel a skirt with shorts inside (using the plain backing fabric from the pillow cases), and Sophie a pinafore/overall dress type number, but Sophie just wanted a skort too, so I rolled with it. 

Sorry for the night time sewing photos; I know they're not the best. Anyway, trim on, skirts and shorts sewn and the girls are rocking their skorts. 

I did try to talk her out of the white shirt that doesn't really go, in favour of one that complimented more, but Sophie was determined to wear it. Kids right? 

Surprise shorts!

The pillow case fabric in these is so soft and comfy, and the girls love their skorts. Hooray!

Kindy Shorts

Hugo starts kindy next year, so obviously I wanted him to have something cool to wear to kindy, just like the girls had. I had just enough material for a pair of shorts from the coloring in material that I'd gotten from Ikea.

It has made three dresses (see Sophie's, Sonia's and Rachel's), and was used in the Table Tent, and now all that remains are some scraps. Goodbye fabulous material. I hope I can find something similar again in the future, because wearing something you've colored yourself, is a pretty special feeling.

Anyway, because there was such little material left, it was a bit of creative cutting to get the shorts out; some of the pattern is upside down, I'll admit. And I accidentally cut one piece out facing the wrong way, so I had to trace everything through the material and color it a second time. Luckily, these are going to get trashed at kindy anyway, so it really doesn't matter.

And I don't think you can really tell. They just look fun to me. Crazy, but fun.

Rachel's Kindy Dress

Since Rachel has started kindy, it's only fair that she too, have a kindy dress. So I have made one. Actually, I made it at the start of the year, but I made it big, and she's only just getting into it now. Sophie was so excited that Rachel was wearing her kindy dress today, so she wore hers too.

Of course, I told Rachel we would need to take lots of photos, so that I could blog about it, so as I hearded her out the door to take them, of course all the kids came. Sophie bought her own camera, and was very serious about taking photos of all the kids.

I used the standard pattern and had the girls colour it in. Then had mum put the buttons on, because I dislike buttons like there is no tomorrow. Such pretty buttons.

This is the only photo I have of the back. In the chaos of four kids all trying to get in photos at 7:45 in the morning, there was a limit to what you can do. Rachel's dress looks so clean compared to Sophie's.

Here is my little gang. Love these kids!

And this is Rachel at kindy in her kindy dress. Ready to wear it in.

I have just enough of the Ikea material for a pair of shorts for Hugo next year.

Kindy Dress

Sophie asked me if she could wear a dress to kindy before the holidays, but she had such a great time at kindy playing and painting, that whatever she wears is inevitably going to get completely trashed. She has plenty of dresses, but they are all pretty lovely, either made by me (like this one, or her Easter Dress, or her Bear Dress) or my mum (recently this gorgeous new Japanese-print dress, and a dinosaur dress), and I wasn't ready to risk any of them just yet.

Enter the Ikea fabric that I'd bought a long time ago. We are talking a long long time ago actually, like, in the Time Before Children. I bought it so long ago that they don't even stock it anymore. It's so cool though. I made the most basic dress I could, (which I've made before, here and here) and then let the girls colour it in.

I helped with the colouring too.

After it was coloured, I sewed it up, iron it and washed it, as per the instructions (to set the ink). Now, Sophie has a kindy dress!

It's perfect. She wore it the first day back after the September holidays, and also the second day back, which was photo day. Yes, two days in a row. It was totally trashed after the first day (as all of her kindy clothes are) and I had to wash it, but she was pretty insistent about wearing it for photo day, so I didn't mind too much. I mean, when your kid really wants to wear something that you made for photo day, you can't complain right?