D is for... Diaper Stacker--A Gift in the Guest Room For Only One Yard!

We had a lot of family in town last summer. I made this diaper stacker for my brother & sister-in-law & their Little One, who occupied a tiny guest room. This was a perfect space-saver to hang from a hook on the back of their bedroom door. I found the dimensions for the project from my "new favorite" library book: Little One Yard Wonders (see details below).

Little one-yard wonders : irresistible clothes, toys, and accessories you can make for babies and kids
By Rebecca Yaker & Patricia Hoskins
ISBN: 9781612121246
Physical Description: 359 pages : color illustrations ; 22 x 23 cm + 6 sheets of patterns.

The instructions were easy to follow. And what's amazing is this only took one yard of fabric!

C is for... Candy Corn Costume--Sew A Halloween Costume For A Child

Baby was born in the fall. I could not pass up the opportunity to dress her for Halloween. And what is more special than making the costume yourself? I loved that her little white hospital hat was "the icing on the cake" to complete Our Little Candy Corn.

There are several images out there for baby/toddler candy corn costumes, but the resource and tutorial I found most helpful came from Jenni at Snippets Of My Faith, Family, & Crafting, here.  Thank you, Jenni!

What I Did: Baby wore a long-sleeve white onesie underneath. Then I used materials I already had--white, low pile, soft, knit fabric left over from a baby blanket, sewed a casing on the front piece & one on the back piece for the ribbon ties, and clean-finished the arm holes so the fabric would stop shedding the little pile fuzz; orange felt; yellow felt; and some orange and yellow embroidery floss to add a blanket stitch for a little extra detail. And as I mentioned before, we had her wear her little white hospital cap she wore in the nursery.

The grandparents LOVED the costume!

C is for Card Table Tents--Sew Your Own "Princess Palace"

Good old fashioned card table play tents have made quite a come back in the last decade. You can find really any theme you can imagine out there, from castles & pirates, or carnivals, to quaint little shops & home designs, or even a car wash!

Favorite Tutorial For Card Table Tents: My absolute favorite online resource for card table tents is found here at Old Days Old Ways blog by Wendy. She gives measurements for walls, and shows you how to create the roof, along with several ideas for variations.

What I Did: Inspired by the second tent Wendy features on her Classic Card Table--With Variations blog post, I up-cycled an extra shear curtain I already had, and some scrap fabric--leftover eyelet from another curtain for the trim, and some pink satiny remnants for the roof, to create what we, at our house call "The Princess Palace." You can use a dowel or a paper-towel roll, or cut down a wrapping paper roll to the correct height to make the roof stand up. The photos here show our tent, indoors, but I loved taking it outside in the summer and watching the shear walls wisp around in the breeze.

I love how quickly a space can transform into imaginative play with a card table tent. Simple card table tents sew up relatively fast and make for great gifts too! They are a great project to use up your fabric or up-cycle other pieces if you have quite the stash!

B is for... Baby Blessing Dress--Sew something special for someone in your family

Sewing Something Special: This is the baby blessing dress I sewed for our first child. It is special for many reasons, one of which is that the designer and dressmaker who sewed my wedding dress let me have some of the scraps of French lace from my dress. I did not have quite enough to actually cut out baby bodice pieces the way I was familiar, so I simply took some of the pretty pieces and hand stitched them to the bodice, sleeves, and a border just above the hem band. While I was cutting out the dress, I realized that some of the white crepe I was using for the main body of the dress and hem band was actually leftover scrap fabric from my mother's wedding dress! Now talk about an heirloom! :)

Love & Don't Love the Peter Pan Collar: I love the peter pan collar, when Baby is not wearing the dress (except ironically in this picture it actually looks like it is laying pretty flat). Most of the time, the peter pan collar would not lay flat and she looked like a baby in the Renaissance Period with one of those big popped collars around her face! It probably is more telling of my skills than anything...I did not research sewing peter pan collars on baby clothes before I followed the commercial pattern instructions. Now I know better, "for next time." Other than that little misfit, the pattern was easy to use, and I like how it turned out.

The Pattern: Butterick B6045 I wanted the dress to be long, but not as long as the pattern indicates. I also opted out of making the sash and kind of did my own thing with a lace-y beaded ribbon in front, and added some ribbon on the side seams to tie into a bow in the back.

Butterick B6045

(Back) Butterick B6045

Where is Baby's Blessing Dress Now? Baby's dress is hanging on her wall next to her crib. I would rather have it collect dust there, than stuffed away in a closet. Size wise, it was a little big the day she was blessed, but looking at it now, my how fast she has grown! If you are considering sewing something special for someone in your family, do it!

B is for... Baby Blankets

Baby Blankets

 Basting spray was new to me at the start of this project. This project idea came from my cousin's wife who made a sweet blanket for her little one similar to the blue blanket here. She said she used basting spray to keep all the little flannel "patches" intact. Then you stitch around all the fabric patches--raw edges exposed! I did not stitch around every single patch individually, but rather I stitched a grid.  For the pink blanket, I stitched the grid through top part of the blanket and the batting, only, because it would have been too thick with what I used for the back. But for the blue blanket, I just used fleece for the back, so then I stitched the grid through all the layers.

It was fun deciding where the fabric patches would all go. Then sewing it up went relatively fast, especially for a "quilt". When the blanket is finished you run it through the washer & dryer similar to how you would "finish" a rag quilt, then trim up the fabric patch edges and then snuggle your precious baby. I do not recommend this as a quilt you would ever leave in a crib, in case of over-looked loose thread wads, but it sure makes for a soft "play mat" and cuddly blanket.

A is for...alphabet Scrap Buster Fabric Alphabet Letters

Scrap Fabric Alphabet Letters

These are fun. You can find a bunch of tutorials out there. I do not recommend any specific one.

Pattern: I used "quick letters", found near the poster board in stores, (see photo below) for a pattern for each of the letters.


What I did: Sandwiched a piece of lightweight batting between two pieces of fabric. The fabric was facing "right" sides out. Machine straight-stitched around the letters, about a 1/4" away from the edge. Then I took pinking shears to them, all around the edges.

Tricky Part: Getting the pinking shears to cut inside the holes in a, b, d, o, p, q, and r was a little tricky.

My Little Spin on Things: I have soooo much scrap fabric! And I love fabric and I love to sew. So...I decided to associate each letter with a type of fabric, or other wise some fabric characteristic, which ended up, for some, being associated with the first letter of the color of the fabric I used. See the larger photo and list below!

A--airplanes on fabric

B--blue fabric

C--corduroy

D--denim

E--eyelet

F--felt & flannel

G--green fabric

H--houndstooth design

I--interfacing

J--jersey knit

K--knit

L--lace

M--muslin

N--netting

O--orange fabric (felt)

P--pink fabric

Q--quilted fabric

R--red fabric

S--stripes on fabric

T--twill weave

U--upcycled an old soccer uniform

V--velvet

W--wool

X--black & white fabric--associate with 'x-rays'

Y--yellow fabric

Z--zipper

What Else? I decided to make the letter "z" have an actual tiny zipper pouch. I didn't have anything to follow. In the end I was glad I had sewn a little pull tab at the top of the zipper.

I wish I would have made a set of numbers while I was at it. I think I began in alphabetical order. By the time I got to the letter I--a simple rectangle--I thought why am I not making multiplies of these?? So I went back and made more.

If I did it over again, maybe I would follow Scrabble pieces as a guide, meaning: Scrabble tile letter distribution is as follows: A-9, B-2, C-2, D-4, E-12, F-2, G-3, H-2, I-9, J-1, K-1, L-4, M-2, N-6, O-8, P-2, Q-1, R-6, S-4, T-6, U-4, V-2, W-2, X-1, Y-2, Z-1.

Or depending on how you plan to use the letters, make sure you have enough of each letter to spell out phrases, words/names you will display.

What We've Done: We have a string above our kitchen sink, going across, and we use the teeny-tiny clothespins to hang up some of these fabric letters to spell out our family theme for the year. The rest of the letters, I store in a purse from the "dress up" bin. Our Little One loves 'in and out' right now. These letters are fun for her to hold and take out and put back, over and over again!