My daughter hates dresses with a passion. The poor thing gets her knees caught up while she's crawling and roars in fury. So, cute though little dresses are, I decided to try something my little lady could actually wear nowish (not now now--but once it warms up). Enter: The Romper!
I apologize that there aren't any straight-on pictures--but I wanted an outfit baby girl could move in and in that I can say it was a success. I couldn't get her to stand still! It's a wee bit big, which was on purpose (honest!). I want her to be able to wear it all summer and at the rate she's growing, I wanted to make sure she had plenty of room. It's also a little more bubble-dress than romper, but I'm hoping that'll change as she grows into it, and anyway, I still think it's pretty cute! |
The romper was made from a pillowcase from my mother in law, then I followed this shirred sunsuit tutorial from Made by Rae. The only change I made is that I prefer a wider, straight strap, so that was easy enough to fix.
I did make an "oops" that I am going to have to fix. I'm not really sure what I did wrong, but the leg holes didn't shrink up quite as much as I needed them to in order to fit snugly around her legs. You can't tell in the pictures, but I have safety pins on the outside of the leg holes making them smaller until I get a chance to fix it. I was too impatient to take pictures to fix it before hand (plus the sun was pretty that day!), but I'll update the post once I get a chance.
I think the too-big leg holes could be because of one of two things:
1. Rae's pattern is for a smaller baby than mine, and when I increased the size, I didn't alter the pattern correctly. Basically I think I may have needed a wider crotch-panel (and hence, smaller leg holes) since my fabric (and baby!) is wider.
2. You're supposed to shirr on your longest stitch setting--to catch the most fabric, I'm assuming, and therefore make the resulting shirred area shorter. My sewing machine only goes up to 4, and think 5-6 is pretty common.
It could be both, or it could be a third problem I don't know enough to diagnose. I'm thinking it will be easy enough to fix--I'm planning to take in the sides of the leg holes where I currently have safety pins.
I did make an "oops" that I am going to have to fix. I'm not really sure what I did wrong, but the leg holes didn't shrink up quite as much as I needed them to in order to fit snugly around her legs. You can't tell in the pictures, but I have safety pins on the outside of the leg holes making them smaller until I get a chance to fix it. I was too impatient to take pictures to fix it before hand (plus the sun was pretty that day!), but I'll update the post once I get a chance.
I think the too-big leg holes could be because of one of two things:
1. Rae's pattern is for a smaller baby than mine, and when I increased the size, I didn't alter the pattern correctly. Basically I think I may have needed a wider crotch-panel (and hence, smaller leg holes) since my fabric (and baby!) is wider.
2. You're supposed to shirr on your longest stitch setting--to catch the most fabric, I'm assuming, and therefore make the resulting shirred area shorter. My sewing machine only goes up to 4, and think 5-6 is pretty common.
It could be both, or it could be a third problem I don't know enough to diagnose. I'm thinking it will be easy enough to fix--I'm planning to take in the sides of the leg holes where I currently have safety pins.
I'll have to cut through the elastic thread, so we'll see how that goes--it might loosen the whole leg band and I'll have to re-shirr, but that was pretty easy, so I'm not worried. Maybe I'll get lucky in the new stitches will keep the elastic in place. I'll let you know how it goes!
Here are some great tips on shirring that I used from Makeit-loveit.com. I was surprised how easy it was. I definitely recommend using Guterman and not Dritz elastic thread. The Dritz didn't pull up nearly as much, and it was really...sharp is the best way to describe it, inside the leg--not good for little baby skin. It may have been operator-error, but I didn't have thee same problem with the Guterman.
Once I finished the romper, I noticed I had some nice lengths of fabric left--just the right length to make some pretty fabric rosebuds...the kind that would look perfectly sweet on a little headband.
Here are some great tips on shirring that I used from Makeit-loveit.com. I was surprised how easy it was. I definitely recommend using Guterman and not Dritz elastic thread. The Dritz didn't pull up nearly as much, and it was really...sharp is the best way to describe it, inside the leg--not good for little baby skin. It may have been operator-error, but I didn't have thee same problem with the Guterman.
Once I finished the romper, I noticed I had some nice lengths of fabric left--just the right length to make some pretty fabric rosebuds...the kind that would look perfectly sweet on a little headband.
For the roses, I followed this tutorial over at Cherry Street Cottage. Her instructions are darn-near idiot-proof. For attaching the roses to the headband, I sewed them on with some heavy-duty button & carpet thread. I highly recommend doing this and not hot gluing or using regular thread, unless your baby happens to be a lot more amenable to headbands than mine! The poor thing took a LOT of abuse in the short half-hour she had it on!
UPDATE: Doctoring the "Oops"
So I had a chance to doctor my romper this weekend, and it went really well. Pretty much I drew a line 4 inches up on the outside of the romper, then connected that mark with the safety pin--since that was how much I had to tighten to fit on my daughter's leg. I stitched the line, then stitched back and fourth over the elastic thread a couple times on a #1 length, hoping that would avoid having to re-shirr--and it WORKED!! WOOT! Then I snipped, finished the edges (zig-zagged with an over-edge foot), and pressed. Then I slipped it back onto baby girl and VOILA! A properly-fitting romper. I think I'll be making more of these, and I think these might be a good candidate for baby gifts since the shirring allows for some leeway in fit (though I'll stick to the sizes in Rae's tutorial!). |