Sad Goodbye

Today the SimpleHeart household says good-bye to a much loved friend:

Yes, a swing. And no, I haven't lost my mind; its just muddled with sentimentality-itis. This has soothed and rocked both of my babies to sleep countless times. I know it looks old and tired, but I love it. Originally, I had a battery operated swing but spent all my time counting the clicks and worrying over how many batteries we would go through. This one is wonderful, just give her crank a spin and let potential energy do its thing.
Sadly, the baby is growing fast and doesn't use it anymore so its time to pass it on. Before we let her go (the swing, not the baby!) I decided a little makeover was in order. I didn't want her to feel dowdy sitting next to all the fancy swings with buttons for lights, sounds, vibrators, etc. Her cushion was pretty faded and thin:

So I picked a fabric from the stash that I thought wasn't too gender-specific and made a new one with lots of poof for a new tiny tushie:

I laid the old cushion on the fabric and traced around its three sections, with a little extra for seam allowance (about the width of my thumb, I wasn't being scientific). I cut out these plus matching pieces of white sheet for backing. A double layer of quilt batting was sandwiched between the print fabric and backing for the poof. I had some purchased bias tape that was really too narrow for this project but, with lots of grumbling, I made it work for the edging. The top has piping instead of a ruffle, which is a nice update. I made the holes that the straps thread through like a button-hole, except huge.

A new cushion and a fresh coat of disinfectant has her looking lovely. I hope she finds a new home where they love her as much as we have. *sniff, sniff*

Girl's Dress Refashion

I found a dress in the $1 bin at my favorite consignment shop and liked it except for the fact that it was a back-less halter style. I like to dress my little girls like, well... little girls. So it came home with us but found new life as a skirt. I took pictures as I went so I could share; I was thinking this would work equally well to salvage a favorite dress that has a stain on the top.

Here is the original:

1. I cut the bodice off and measured my little victim daughter to find the length of the skirt that looked best when sitting at her natural waist. It was a bit long so I cut a couple inches off following the curve of the original waistline (the full skirt is folded in half in the pic). Here we see the dissected dress nicely laid out:

No? How 'bout this:

2. Cut a piece of coordinating fabric for the waistband. Go ahead, interrupt whatever your daughter is doing to measure her waist; she won't mind at all. Buggy's waist is about 19 inches, I needed 2 in. for ease so it can be pulled over her tushie and an inch for seam allowance. So I cut a 22 x 4(width) in. strip of white material. Sew the short sides together, right-sides facing, with 1/2 in. seam allowance to form a ring; press seam open (oops, didn't get a photo of this).

3. Sew, using a long stitch, 1/4 in. from the top of the skirt, leaving the threads long. Pull on one thread to gather the fullness of the skirt to the size of the waistband. Evenly distribute the gathering and pin, right-sides together, to the waistband:

4. Sew, with 3/8 in. seam allowance, so this stitching is just on the outside of the thread used to gather. Press the seam so the allowance is toward the waistband. Also, fold over the other long edge of the waistband 1/4 in. as shown in the photo and press:

5. Fold waistband in half, lengthwise, with wrong sides together so that the pressed edge slightly (1/8 in.) overlaps the stitching of the seam you just finished. Pin in place, but place your pins so they can be easily removed from the right-side of the material (you'll be sewing "blind"!). Like so:

6. Sew veeery carefully just along the right-side edge of the waistband so that the stitching catches the pressed edge in the back. Stop short of sewing all the way around, leaving a 3 in. opening to insert the elastic. See how the raw edges are enclosed in the waist now? Very nice:

7. Cut a piece of elastic that is equal to the waist measurement minus about 2 in. (17 in. for this example). Thread elastic thru the opening. You can just overlap the ends of the elastic and securely stitch them together to form a ring or try this method: Cut a small scrap of material the width of the elastic and sew the ends of the elastic to it. This way it lays flat and eliminates the uncomfy bump in the waist. First side:

2nd side:

8. Tuck elastic ends into the waistband and do a little test run to make sure it slips on and off easily. If all is well, finish stitching along the waistband.

Ta-dah:

I had originally planned to use the dress top to make sort of a sash/cummerbund but couldn't get it to look right. So I unpicked the little flowers on it and attached them to the waist of our skirt with some pink ribbon from the stash. With a flower left over to sew onto a hair elastic: