Schultüte - A German Tradition

In Germany we have the tradition that kids get a "Schultüte" (school bag?) at their first day of school. This bag is shaped like a giant ice cream cone and typically filled with school supplies and maybe some sweet treats. 

this is just a random picture I found (here) while google-ing the term "Schultüte" (Berlin 1930)

Now, what has all this to do with me and this blog? My niece is entering first grade this summer and I am the lucky one who got to make her her very own Schultüte!
Because you can´t buy the ice cone shaped card board dummies here in the US, and because it would be hard to ship the whole thing to Germany, I just have to ship the cover and my sister has to do all the assembling. But for now, here is what it looks like: 

Can´t wait to see my niece posing for her first-day-of-school picture with her Schultüte!!!

Freezer Paper Stencil - More Projects And Lessons Learned

I was very happy with the outcome of my earlier projects with Freezer Paper stencils on t-shirts so I kept going and made 6 (!) more.

Here is what I´ve learned: 

// The design should not be too intricate (the killer whale design didn´t turn out as nice as the rest).
// Don´t take too much paint. If it looks good after the first time, don´t paint a second time (I have the feeling that the paint cracks faster if the coating is too thick).
// If you choose glitter paint (like I did with my first project), it looks stunning, but the glitter will come off the more you wash it.

Two dinosaurs

Two more squirrels in the making

Have fun making your own!

Freezer Paper Stencil T-shirts

I was looking for a way to add images to plain t-shirts for a while now. I´ve tried screen printing and also thought about iron on vinyl.

And then, I came across another Pinterest project - Freezer Paper stencils! It sounded easy enough and I already had some Martha Steward Crafts Multi-Surface Acrylic Paint which works for fabric as well. 

And here is how: 

First, print you designs and transfer them onto Freezer Paper (plastic coated side down).  

With a craft knife, cut out your design. 

 These were my color choices.
 

And here is what I chose for my first two t-shirts.

The magic about the Freezer Paper is, that you can just iron it on your shirt! Please make sure, that the plastic coated side (that is the shiny side) is facing down toward your shirt. You can add another layer of Freezer Paper inside your shirt, at the backside of your design or you can put a piece of cardboard inside.

Now, you can start brushing your paint onto the fabric. I chose to repeat that one more time after the first paint was dry. 

After letting everything dry over night you can remove the paper. You might want to iron over your t-shirt with a protective fabric layer on top. 

And this is my result! Very nice looking, right?!

(Red), White, and Blue Leggings

// Sorry, if the title is misleading - there will be no red legging here - but it is a nice coincident that I finished this project on Independence Day // 

As my daughter´s clothes change colors (less pink and purple), her leggings have to do the same to go with all the new skirts, dresses, and t-shirts. 

So, I went through my fabric storage and found these blue and white knits. White is probably not a wise choice for a 4 year old but it goes with everything - we´ll see how long it will last.

I used the same pattern that I used for the gray leggings I´ve made earlier (OTTOBRE 6/2012).

The dark blue one turned out a little shorter because I ran out of fabric...

Hoddie Dress

Two years ago, I fould this super cute dress on dawanda.de (the German equivalent for etsy.com). At that time I put in on my favorite list to maybe order the dress for my little girl. 

Now, two years and lots of sewing projects later, I found it again and still loved the look. So, I decided to give it a try and sew it myself.

To have a starting point I took a hoodie-sweater pattern that I had and did a lot of alterations from there. Looking back, I am not sure if I really needed the pattern, but I had to start somewhere, right? 

Next, I took one of my daughters shirts to adjust the body width and eyeball the shoulder width. 
 

After cutting my pieces, here is what I got (2 hood pieces and 2 body pieces). I left a seam allowance where needed - no seam allowance at the front of the hood and at the arm holes.

After closing the shoulder seams and hood seam, I put some contrasting fabric around the arm holes and on the hood front. Before attaching the hood to the body piece I checked if my daughters head would fit through the neck hole (it did not!!), and I cut the neck hole much larger before sewing the hood to the body. Next was closing the side seams and then another fitting to determine the length. 

My body piece turned out to be 29 cm long with a 5 cm waistband in contrasting fabric (same width as the body piece). For the skirt I cut my fabric 1.5 times the width of the body piece. The skirt turned out to be 24 cm long after hemming. I took all those measurements after a couple of fittings with my little model.

And here is the super comfy, super cute summer dress! I am glad the dress turned out exactly the way I was hoping for, because I am waiting for a super cute fabric delivery from Germany. I can´t wait to make another one of these!!

Insulated Preschool Lunch Box

A long time ago, when we first tried to introduce our little boy to daycare, I got him a cute lunch box. Now, that he finally uses it, I had to find out that it is way too small. It fits a Tupperware but that´s it. No water bottle or anything else. 

So, I looked at my favorite online place for inspiration (hmmm, which one could that be?) and found a tutorial for an insulated lunch box that I used as my base, and I went from there.

 

I started by measuring my Tupperware and water bottle and determined the size of my lunch box (23 x 8 x 42 cm). By adding a 1 cm seam allowance I came to my minimum fabric measurements: width 23+8+1+1=33 cm, height: 42+42+8+1+1=94 cm. 

I used oil cloth/laminated cotton for the outside and lining fabric with an thermal batting in between. The thermal batting was a left over from this previous project. 

All 3 fabric/batting pieces had the same rectangular size being 35 x 95 cm (14 x 37 inches) - I rounded the measurements up slightly to add some room.

The next step was to fold the lining fabric in half lengthwise right sides together and close the side seams.  

To form the bottom of the lunch box, I marked two squares at the bottom corners, ensuring that my 23 cm width are between those two squares. By pulling the marking lines together at the corners I could stitch down the line of each corner (the tutorial I followed roughly used bobby pins to hold the oil cloth in place without pinning holes in the fabric - genius!). 

After trimming the corners I put my Tupperware and water bottle in the lining to test the size - perfect!

After finishing the lining, I did the same for the outer fabric with the batting on top. In addition, I added a piece of 1 inch wide elastic before closing the side seams.

Almost done! Here you can see both bags together with bobby pins at the top. You can also see why I added the elastic.  

The very last step was to add bias tape to close the bag top and to attach lining and outer fabric.

Done!

Now, our little guy can take everything he needs with him to preschool!

Jeans Into Skirt

We have a lot of knee-hole jeans at our house (no surprise with two little kids) and even if I´ve never tossed them, I sorted them out waiting for an idea to jump my mind.

 
And one day, there it was: I found several similar tutorials on pinterest on how to re-purpose an old pair of jeans into a girls skirt. There were different approaches and it was hard to pick one to try first. I´ve decided to go as simple as possible with not too many ruffles. Here is the picture of the skirt I liked the most. 

It actually is a zulily.com sale item - so no tutorial behind the link. 

But after seeing many other tutorials, I was confident I could whip up something that could work - and if not? No greater harm done, because who is going to miss a pair of ripped jeans?

First, I cut off the legs. Further into the process I cut off even a little more. 

Next, I cut one piece of fabric (6 x 29 inches), finished both long sides with a rolled hem, and serged the short sides together.

After that, I did the ruffles by sewing around the upper edge with a wide stitch (baste) and pulling one of the threads. I also serged around the bottom of the jeans.  

Here is a closer look.

Next, I pinned the ruffled rolled hem to the OUTSIDE of the jeans part. You could also choose to put both parts right sides together to make the seam disappear (if so, you don´t need the rolled hem at the top of the ruffled part).

Just for the look, I added a rick rack ribbon on top the seam. And here is the (almost) finished skirt!

As a little extra I will add two little rick rack flowers to the skirt, but I am not sure yet how and where to attach them. To learn how to make those flowers please check out my next blog post.