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Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Upcycle: From a Boys' Button-up to a Little Girl's Dress




Who's ready for another creative upcycle? You are going to LOVE this one! Today we have a guest tutorial from one of our fans, Lindsey Jones, who loves to sew for her little Chick. (That's her above!) Lindsey wowed us in our patterns group with this little dress she made for her daughter using her big brother's shirt. We asked Lindsey to share the steps with us today. You'll soon see that she did a fabulous job making it easy to follow! Here is Lindsey with today's tutorial:


Step 1: To start off with, the shirt I used is American Eagle men's extra small. It was a shirt that my older son outgrew. This was the perfect size shirt for me to make Journee's dress. She wears 2T on a regular basis. Obviously, a bigger shirt will be needed for a bigger size dress. 


Tuesday, April 29, 2014

How To Tuesday: Fabric Bookmark

You should never judge a book by its cover. It's true. But that doesn't mean that a book can't look fabulous while we're reading it! Today we are making a quick project that is both functional and fashionable. How about a fabric bookmark? 

What I love about this bookmark (aside from being totally cute) is that it can also hold my pages in place as I'm reading.  If the phone rings or one of my kids needs me suddenly (like every two minutes) I can just set the book down and go! When I come back, it will be right in place waiting for me. Because it is stretchy, this bookmark will fit different sizes of books. If you find it necessary though, it is easy to add or subtract a little length from the elastic before you make yours. It might even be a good idea to make two different lengths while we're at it, since they're so easy! 

Here's our wonderfully creative Morgan, with today's free tutorial!  


To get started you will need:

Two pieces of fabric that are each 5.25" x 3.25" 
One piece of fabric that is 2" x 10" 
One piece of fusible fleece that is 5.25" x 3.25"
 7" of fold-over elastic.


To start you will iron your fusible fleece to the wrong side of one of the fabric scraps.


We are now going to be doing a rolled hem on the top and bottom of the ruffle. This is easiest if you have a serger, if you do not have a serger, we are still able to do it, it will just take a little longer. To do a rolled hem on a sewing machine we will fold the fabric back 1/4", sew, then turn it back another 1/4", and sew. It's very simple, just time consuming, but it is worth it!




We are now going to gather our ruffle to sew it on. Set the sewing machine on the longest stitch length possible. Sew directly down center of the ruffle making sure not to backstitch at the beginning or end.
 
Begin gathering the ruffle by pulling the 2 top threads and moving the fabric back so it is gathered together. 

We will then center the our ruffle to the other piece of fabric and sew directly on top of the gathering stitch, as shown below.




Next we will lay out the elastic on the  ruffle (right sides together) and pin or baste stitch it in place.




We will then put the last fabric piece on top of everything with right sides together and sew along all 4 sides, making sure to leave a two inch gap.


Clip the corners and flip it right side out using the two inch opening.  Top stitch along all the outer edges, making sure not to catch the elastic underneath. 



And just like that, you're done!  





Happy sewing  -- and happy reading!  ~ Morgan

Monday, April 28, 2014

Getting Started with a New Serger


I've been sewing for a long time but I've never used a serger. Is it terrible to admit that? Well there it is. But the one advantage to this confession is that I can do a Beginner Serging series on the blog and you know it's going to be on a true beginner's level! I am very thorough though (just ask my kids) so even if you've already been serging, you might still be able to learn a thing or two. Plus I'm bringing in lots of helpful tips from the rest of the staff at CKC. 


We have had a lot of requests for this series on our blog! Apparently I'm not the only one who has bought a serger and not taken it out of the box yet!  I ordered my serger last summer and couldn't wait for it to arrive. Then I opened it, saw the pile of STUFF all wrapped up and thought "I don't have time to figure this out today. I have too much to sew."  Besides that, I needed to order more thread for it and get a table that would fit both my machines. So I closed the box back up, piled some fabric on top of it, and that was the end of it.  I'm awesome. 

Fast forward eight months. Do you think maybe it's time to get on with it? Yes, so do I.  So here we go, getting started with baby steps, for those of you who are like me: 



STEP 1: Put your new serger on a hard surface.  Don't wait for a dual sewing table to magically appear. It's not going to happen. My desk above is not ideal, but we're going to make it work anyway for now.


STEP 2: Open the box. Despite what you might think, nothing horrible will happen. In fact your husband and sewing friends may even applaud you. 

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Adjusting the Back Rise on Shorts and Pants

We have so many cute new shorts patterns available for this spring and summer! (And even more on the way.)  We recently had some questions about the "rise" of our shorts patterns so today we're going to talk about what that means, why we do what we do, and how you can make adjustments if you want to. 

http://www.createkidscouture.com/laynes_girls.html

First of all, the "rise" is the distance from the bottom curve of the shorts to the top of the shorts, as shown in red in the picture below. Shorts sometimes have a higher rise in back than in front, to give more room for the bootie. We do have CKC patterns like this such as Kelsey's, Libby's, Quinn's, Patrick's, and most of the Tweens' patterns. But there are also times when we decide that it is better to make the front and the back of the shorts share the same pattern piece with equal rise so you don't have to print as many pages. It also makes the cutting process quicker. On patterns such as bubble shorts and loose-fitting pants it is completely fine to have the rise the same in the front and back. We test all of our patterns in every size and if we feel the need to change the rise then we do. We make sure the pieces are perfect before we release them! So we are confident that you will be happy with your CKC shorts patterns as they are written. 

If you do want to make adjustments for your child, we are happy to help you achieve that too. We have done a blog post here on how to adjust the rise if it is too high for your child.  And now I'm going to show you how to adjust the rise if you want the front rise to be shorter than the back.   


To start out we will cut and sew our pieces as instructed in our chosen pattern and get to this point shown above, having sewn along the red lines. We are now ready to adjust the front rise. 


With the shorts pieces laying flat, find the center along the top and mark it with a pin as shown above. 


Now on one of the sides (whichever we choose to be our front) we will measure down 1.5" along the side edge and make a mark. My mark is blue in the center of the circle above.  

Note: I am making a size 7/8. For sizes smaller than 4T you may want to do 1" or less. If you want to know the exact difference for your child, you can measure on them from center front to waistline and center back to waistline, and then subtract for the difference. This number is how far you want to measure down for the side mark.


Now we will use a ruler to draw a straight line from the edge where our center pin is to the side edge where our mark is, as shown above.


Now we will cut that line. 


Turn the shorts so the seams run down the center front and center back. We can see that our front rise is lower than our back rise, just like we wanted! Now we can continue on with the rest of the pattern as it is written.  It really is that simple! Your rise is now adjusted. 


As you can see, we still fold the casing exactly the same way. I was a little nervous the first time I did this but it turns out the same, just slightly curved when you get to the front. 


And there we have it. Totally cute!  As I mentioned earlier, tweens tend to like having a lower rise in front. Your child may too.  But for the most part you can count on the designers at CKC to decide whether a pattern is just as fantastic with both pieces the same, so we can all cut down on the pieces we need to print. (We can take all the money we save on paper/ink and buy more fabric!) 

Let's Create! ~ Kristen 

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

How To Tuesday: Bodice on The Bias

How To Tuesday with Morgan

So what happens when you find a super cute stripe and you are wishing it was chevron? Well you make it chevron of course! Now this trick is nothing new in the quilting world but was something totally foreign to me. So I headed to up to my favorite local quilt shop Quilter's Square and got some help from my good friend Kela on how to cut on a 45 degree angle.


After toying around with some different options we agreed that the easiest way to teach this trick was to use an 8.5" square ruler.

To start you will want 1/3 yard of a stripe fabric. With the fabric laying on a flat surface we lined the 45 degree line of the rule on the left edge of one of the stripes.


You can see this step more clearly in the below photo. Note that our 45 degree line is lined up with edge of the gold stripe. 

Monday, April 21, 2014

April's Fan of the Month

Every month we choose a CKC fan that stands out to us and today it was extra hard to choose with all those adorable Easter outfits you're all sharing!  I couldn't pass up these little cuties though: 


Congratulations to Ashley Belew, our CKC Fan of the Month! Ashley loves sewing clothes for her kids and I love that her son gets just as much lovin' as her daughter in that department!  In the photo above her daughter is wearing Paris' Party Dress (a favorite for Easter this year) and her adorable son is wearing his Emmett's bow tie and William's suspenders. What adorable little matchers! 


 I asked Ashley to tell us a little about herself and her sewing. Here she is: 

"I have two kids. Emma who is four and Grayson who just turned one on Friday.  I started sewing about 2 1/2 years ago because I love boutique clothes and wanted to start creating them for my daughter. Never would I have guessed that I would love sewing so much! Something that started off as a small hobby has taken over my life. LOL."


"I squeeze in sewing time whenever I can. My first CKC pattern was Mia's that I used for my daughter's 2nd birthday and I was hooked!  My all-time favorite thing that I have made is my daughter's Easter Primrose from last year.  I don't know that I can pick a favorite CKC pattern but I really love Nicolette's, and Bethany's has quickly become my go-to pattern."

Thank you, Ashley, and congrats! We love having fans like you who truly enjoy sewing for their kids.  



Such adorable children and clothing!  If you want to see more of our fans' Easter outfits like Ashley's, be sure to join our CKC patterns group where we all share our ideas and photos. It's a fun place to talk sewing and show off what we've made. 

Let's Create! ~ Kristen 

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Printing PDF Patterns with Windows 8

 Don't you love it when life is going along smoothly and then suddenly something you have always been doing doesn't work right anymore? Yeah, neither do I.  

Well that's exactly what is happening to many of us lately as we are trying to print out PDF patterns!  They look right on the screen but they don't print out the right size.  WHY?!?!  

I will tell you why. We finally figured it out. It seems that many programs are seeing the value of PDF's so they're coming out with their own reader apps to use within their programs. That sounds like a great idea for them. Except that there's a difference between reading/viewing and printing accurately. The generic reader apps don't always print to scale. The biggest hit (but not the only one) is with Windows 8 that recently came out with their own reader app.  If you have Windows 8 there's a good chance that your sizing is off a teeny bit even if you haven't noticed it yet. It is possible for us to change the default and go around it, but a lot of people don't know it's even a problem.  If your 1" square is printing out at 15/16" then your whole pattern will be too small!

 I will explain a little more and then how to fix the problem in Windows 8. The important thing to remember is that your patterns may have been printing fine a few days ago but that doesn't mean that they will today. In the picture below, you can see the "Reader" that is circled.  This is the new Windows 8 reader.  It is the default when you double click your patterns. It's brilliant for them but a nightmare for us if we want to print accurately.  


The main problem is that the Windows Reader opens the pattern up to be viewed in a window like this one below.




 It looks great and we can certainly read our pattern instructions that way.  But when it comes to printing, notice at the bottom that there are NO options for whether we want to print to scale.  We can print but we don't have much control over how it prints. (This may depend a little on your PC and version.) 

So instead of using this Windows Reader App, or even a mini app version of Adobe, we want to make sure we are opening our patterns in the most recent version of Adobe Reader, as circled below. If you don't yet have it, I will show you how to get it.  If you do have it, you'll still want to keep reading because there's a step you need to do in order to make it your default. 



When we open the pattern with the full version of Adobe and tell it to print the pieces, we are brought to this print screen below, where we can choose "Actual Size" or something similar on our computer. We need to be able to tell the printer to print in actual size and not to shrink to fit! 



 Okay so now we all know we need the full version of Adobe Reader.  If you don't yet have it on your computer, you can get it for free here: 


It may not be a bad idea to make sure you have the newest version, even if you have an older version. Following the steps at the link above, you will see the following screens: 






 Once we follow through with these steps to get it downloaded and installed, the Adobe icon should now show up in a drop-down menu when we RIGHT CLICK on a pattern that we want to open.  See below. 



At this point, after right clicking, we can see several options for opening the pattern, including both readers.  What we want to do is select "Choose Default Program" as circled above, and set the Adobe Reader as our default program. If all goes well, that will make it so when we double click our pattern it will open in the full Adobe version rather than in an app. 

If we're ever not sure if it opened in the right program, just remember that we need to be able to select for it to print actual size. Just because the 1" square looks accurate on the screen does NOT mean that it will print out correctly.

Is this all clear?  I realize there may be differences based on computer models and operating systems. If the helps above don't solve your problem or you have a completely different program you're fighting, it may help to google your problem. There's a good chance that you're not the only one struggling with it.  This just shows how important it is to ALWAYS measure the 1" square on our pattern pieces. Having the square look "close enough" will result in clothing for our kids that "almost fits". 

I want to give a huge thank you to Connie Ridgeway from Cranberry Ridge Designs for helping us out with the step-by-step photos today!  I borrowed her as one of our pattern testers and turned her into a computer tester. (She is very patient.) Connie also has a fun blog here that you will want to check out.

Let's Create! ~ Kristen  


Tuesday, April 15, 2014

How To Tuesday: DIY Knit Hippie Headband

I love seeing what styles people flock to. Recently when I posted this photo of Miss A in her lace Hazel's Hippie Dress with a matching headband, you ladies went crazy asking how I made her little headband! Below you will find the how-to so you can make your own. One size fits Miss A who is almost 2 years old, and myself.




To start you will need two scraps of knit fabric that measure 5" x 20". 


Take both pieces and fold them into thirds. Place them one on top of the other to create an X. Then meet the ends together so that you now have two loops that are looped together, as shown below.





Then take all 4 edges and sew them together .5" from the edge. 


Press the seams open and fluff the headband.


Now it's ready to wear! How quick and easy was that?

Note on adapting the headband: If your knit is thin and rolls easily you may want to add 1" to the width when cutting. Fold the strips in half with right sides together to create two long tubes. Turn them inside out and then go from there.  That way thinner knits won't roll, which is especially important if you have a directional print. Also, some women may want to add 1-2" to the length if you think you'll need a slightly more roomy headband.

Happy Sewing, Y'all, Morgan

Monday, April 14, 2014

Monthly Mash-Up: Lorelai's and Yvette's

It's been delightful seeing all of your Easter dresses in the patterns group! Today I'm excited to share our latest mash-up with you - also perfect for Easter. We have our wonderful Deborah Koch here, from Ma Cherie Kids, to show us her newest creation using two of our favorite CKC patterns. 


Isn't it pretty?!  To make this dress, Deborah used Lorelai's Tiered Ruffle Neck Dress and Yvette's Stripwork Knot Dress. Here are what the originals of those two dresses look like: 



They're both adorable and by putting different parts of the patterns together Deborah came up with a completely new dress!  Let's take a closer look: 



First of all, Deborah used the top of Lorelai's to get the beautiful neck ruffle.  She added 2" to the bodice length so the dress would end up the proper length when put together with the new skirt. 


She also added a pretty accent flower that's attached with a pin so it can be removed for washing. 


The Yvette's skirt is so pretty with it's wide stripwork and trim band. I think it goes perfectly with the ruffled bodice. I also love Deborah's fabric choices here! For the mashup she didn't have to make any adjustments to the skirt measurements to make it work with the bodice. 


Finally, Deborah added a sash that ties in a beautiful bow in back.  I like how this is a small detail of chevron that looks dainty along with the rest of the prints of the dress. 


The dress can also be worn without the removable sash. It's almost like having a completely new look! Both ways are so pretty. 

Thanks again to Deborah Koch for our monthly mash-up! There are no limits to our creativity when we take great patterns and throw our own unique ideas into the mix. I hope we all have a great week finishing up those Easter projects. 

Let's Create! ~ Kristen