Heart Shirt, Heart Shorts

She love love loves these, by the way.

Olivia's been in need of some more clothes.  A lot of her shirts are getting too short.  She doesn't have nearly enough shorts for all the heat we've been having.  And she's also low on warm-weather PJs.  So, I've been trying to remedy the problem.



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Shirt Info: Dana's 90 Min Shirt tutorial + the pattern I made based on a 12 month onesie + extra length + a big red heart

Shorts info: Rae's Newborn Pants Pattern and tutorial (but, ya know, 2 year old shorts length) + some random alterations I made along the way + heart pockets
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Let me start by saying that ALL of the materials (except thread) for this shirt were free.  Well, the gray used to be an old shirt of mine, but I wasn't wearing it anymore.  So it was as good as free.  But, regardless of this, I still had to cut out pieces for two other shirts before I actually started sewing this one.  Because, you know, who knows if I really wanted to use that shirt for this part of this other thing instead?  You just have to cut out three or four of something to make sure, right?  Gah.  It is my great curse when it comes to actually cutting up and using materials.  It takes me forever to get started.

Once I finally did get started, it came together really quickly.  For the big red heart, I just cut it out and sewed it right on to the t-shirt front (before I sewed the t-shirt together, obviously).  Easy as that.

I also added this cute little scrap to one of the sleeves.  Same as the big red heart, I just sewed it right on to the sleeve before sewing the sleeve together.

And, of course, it needed a cute little tag to go in the back.  :)

Mommy: Lala, can you count the bricks?
Lala: Free, two, free, two, free.

It fits her great.  Plenty of length and super comfy/stretchy, so it goes on over her head without any drama.

And I love the way the little sleeve tag looks.  It ads just a touch of color and makes the world a little brighter, especially when she's turned around and you can't see the big red heart.  :)

Lala: Cheese!  ...Oh no!  Eyes!

Fear the flash, my friends.  Fear the flash.

These shorts were both a work in progress and a labor of love.  First I cut things out wrong.  Then I cut another piece out again... still wrong.  Gah.  Then I realized that, in order to salvage them, my only option was to have the wrong side facing out on two of the pieces.  Lovely.  Then I cut off the hem (since only 3 pieces had a hem anyway) since it just made the two inside out pieces way more obvious.  That, and I think there was just something in me that said, "These shorts are going to be trash anyway.  They might as well be cut-offs."  Always the optimist, right?

Mistake #27 came when I decided to sew through the elastic.  I did it meaning to prevent the elastic from getting all twisted around inside, like it tends to do after you put something through the wash.  Uhh... but I didn't really think through this properly.  Meaning, I didn't make my stitch length longer.  Meaning, it totally wasted 20" of elastic.  Cool.  But by this time I was actually starting to get mildly attached to the shorts and I still wanted to salvage them.  So I used my seam ripper to make a little hole in the front seam.  Then I strung the pink twill tape through the entire waist and tied a little bow.  Miraculously, it works!

The one great redeeming quality of these little shorts is, of course, the heart pockets.  Before sewing the pant legs together I just cut out two hearts from the left over scraps of jeans.  I sewed once all the way around each heart to help prevent too much fraying.  Then I just sewed them on around the bottom 3/4 of each heart.

Cute, no?

Despite the fact that I was about to trash them in the beginning, I really love them now.  

I kind of want to dress her in them every single day.

And I might.

So, there you have it.  Heart shirt, heart shorts.

For free!

See ya!