Shirt Dresses

I had to tell you about this. This was originally posted on my personal blog, Containers and Compartments, but is definitely appropriate for here. Shirt Dresses are taking the craft blogging community by storm lately. I've seen many women making these cute little dresses for their daughters. So if you haven't seen one already, here are my first two.


The first shirt dress I made was a retired shirt from my husband's closet. He really liked this shirt, but he just didn't wear it anymore and I thought it would make a fabulous dress for my little Z. I must say I was impressed with my first transformation. It went relatively smoothly, even though I lost the elastic a couple times in the sleeves.


And because I made both sleeves for the dress from one of the man's shirt sleeves, I had an extra sleeve leftover to make a matching headband made from this tutorial. Z isn't exactly into headbands yet (but she really should be since I plan to help her grow out her bangs).


And since the first one was such a positive experience (even after elastic trouble), I hit the thrift store and found this man's dress shirt that was destined to be a little girl's dress.


I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but it's two different pinks and purple and a little bit of grey and maybe brown. Seriously, what man bought this shirt for himself to wear? No matter. The world has been set right again.


How sweet is that, eh? Love it. I definitely prefer these sleeves to the elastic ones. Less work, less elastic to lose in the casing. This one had a pocket on it that I had to pick off before I could take it apart. There are some small holes from the stitching where the pocket used to be, but I'm hoping those will close up the first time I wash it. I moved the pocket down, too. I wanted to move it to the right side of the dress, but Z wanted it on the left. Who am I to argue?


I decided to finish it with a cute top-stitching design instead of a straight hem finish, just for something a little special. I matched the detailing on the top of the pocket.

Here's my little model. It's possible the pocket's up a little too high, but I'm not going to worry about it. She's also got a bunch of blocks in her pocket, so that could be contributing to the wonky-ness of it.


The matching headband is probably a little too wide, but we can fold it over no problem. She's actually wearing it! Right now! As I type this! Yay!

Spring Chickens - Free Pattern from roman sock

I'm very eager for spring to arrive. There have been far too many cold winter days in March for my liking. I realize most of March is technically winter anyway, but it's supposed to be the end of winter and I'm just not prepared for such cold temperatures prevailing the whole month.


When I saw these cute crocheted chicks on roman sock, I thought they looked super easy and cute. They promise to stitch up quickly, just in time for Easter.

Spring. Good news indeed. Link.

Edit to add: I made a couple of these, too!  Here is my version. I thought he looked cute with a little tuft of hair on the top of his cube head.

Here he is with his buddy and the egg bunnies I made, all posing in front of the children's Easter baskets.

He looks a lot greener under the late night lights.

Craft Evangelist on Art Fire

If you came here from Containers and Compartments, welcome to my craft blog!

While I have an Etsy shop, I have since joined Art Fire. It's still in its beta stage, so it will be cool to be in on the ground floor of a new site and community there. Also, total bonus, Art Fire has no listing fees and takes no commission on your sales. You can list up to 10 items at any one time totally free. Or you can buy a verified account for $20US per month. Right now members can buy a verified account, however, for only $12US per month, for life. Since I heard they were going pretty fast and I can quit my membership at any time, I decided I didn't have much to lose. Right now, the items listed on Art Fire are identical to my Etsy shop, I copied all my listings to Art Fire.

Since I've paid for my first month upfront, it's also an incentive for me to get my online market presence re-vamped and get going with some of my new ideas, especially related to the mission of this blog.

If you are interested in checking it out, please follow this link Register on ArtFire.com because it marks you as my referral. If you want to sell your crafts or art online, what have you got to lose?