Sew much FUN!

The Christmas before last, Randy's mom and dad bought me a sewing machine.  I was  so busy keeping up with Ella and Noah who were 2 and 6 months old at the time that I got a little overwhelmed with finding time to use it.  I just put it out of the way and kept telling myself I'd pull it out soon and start playing around with it.  Well, fast forward to last month.  I got this idea that I wanted to make Ella and Noah coordinating Easter outfits and decided to finally learn to sew.  I made a trip to the fabric store, came home and read my entire manual several times, watched a couple of YouTube tutorials and got to work.  I'm addicted.  I'm definitely still a work in progress!  Still lots of mistakes, but I am learning more and more from each thing I make.  I feel like every time I screw up, I learn a better way to do it next time.  I'm having so much fun having an outlet for some creativity.  Only down fall is....I'm usually found at my sewing machine during nap time or after the little ones go to sleep...so I'm a bit sleepy myself ;)

Over the weekend I made Ella a little jumper type outfit that is really lightweight. It's a funky kind of design, but I've almost purchased them for her in the past off of Etsy and have been pretty pleased that I made her a couple on my own now :)

It's a little hard to tell on this picture, but it's not a long dress.  The bottom part has pant legs..

 I had a bunch of really small scraps and couldn't decided what I wanted to do with them.  I've been saving a lot of them to make into squares for a quilt, but I knew I probably had enough of this fabric to make another outfit.  I decided to make a little dress for my friends little girl Hailey.  It's hard to tell in this picture, but the dress is pretty small.  She's only 5 months old, so this was made to fit her.  I'd say it's probably technically a size 6 months because I think it may be a teeny bit big for her still.  Her measurements seemed so small to work with that I found myself adding a 1/2 inch here and there thinking it would be too tiny if not!

Here's the finished product!

 The top has little straps that come together in the back almost like a little halter.

 The back has a button hole for the straps to go through.  You can knot them or do a big bow.  I chose to knot them for now..

 One of my favorite things I have learned is shirring.  I used elastic thread on my bobbin so the whole back of the dress is nice and stretchy.  I'm hoping since it's stretchy she can use it as a dress this Summer and then as a long shirt with leggings in the Fall.

 I'm really trying to work on finishing the little details so that they will wash better, but some of it is so tedious! I've been trying to finish my seems with a zigzag stitch since I don't have a serger or anything like that to use.

 The hardest thing for me right now is attaching ruffles.  My sewing machine has a hard time chugging through the fabric and sometimes when I go back to top stitch I find little tiny parts that didn't get attached right. That's always nice and frustrating.....!

 Had a little bit of an oops on this part where I gathered it a little too much.  Thankfully, it's so ruffle-y that it's not very noticeable..

 It's still overall a cute little dress!!! I am planning to make Ella a couple like it for the Summer.  I already made her a shorter version of this same dress with a pair of matching ruffle pants.  Since it's getting warmer, I'm going to make the rest actual dresses instead of doing the pants now..

Can you tell I'm having "SEW much fun?!?!" ;)