So last week I was visiting a friend who has three daughters and she suggested that I make doll clothes for the 18 inch dolls, like American Girl and Our Generation dolls. I didn’t have to think about it for very long to realize that it’s a great idea! I pulled out my American Girl doll, brushed her hair (hasn’t been touched for 15 years or so) and started looking for doll patterns. I found some cute summer dress patterns that I’m going to start with and then go from there. I also want to be able to make girls clothes that match the doll clothes. Right now I have two dresses up in the store and I gotta say, Felicity is a great model. She stands perfectly still and never complains.

I’m already having too much fun sewing these little dresses and I can’t wait to add more. So here it is, my new little shop: Miss Delaney Dolls (missdelaneydolls.etsy.com).

So I cut off the bottom, leaving it in a circle shape and used some black knit for the top. Here’s what I ended up with:

I really like how it turned out, but it was missing something. I thought it could use a little color, so I took some pink knit I had laying around and made a little belt.

And the back:

I’m so happy with how it turned out. The t-shirt dress pattern is perfect because it’s comfortable and super easy to get on and off. And it’s super easy to follow.

And Emerson loves it. Now I just need to get her to stand still long enough for me to take a picture of her wearing it.

Working with ruffle fabric has its own unique challenges. For one, it’s super slippery and doesn’t want to stay put. And the layers of ruffles are a bit delicate, so I’m always snagging the fabric on my nails. But it’s definitely worth the hassle. So here it is, my Ruffle Tank Top.

 What you need:

• Ruffle fabric. I made my tank top in size 18 months, so I needed about 1/3 yard.
• Coordinating knit fabric for straps. It should be a stretch fabric, not cotton or bias tape because the shirt needs to stretch to fit over arms. I ended up needing less than 1/4 of a yard, but it just depends on the size of your shirt.
• A tank top or dress that fits. Something to use as a template for the shape.

Take your ruffle fabric and fold it over on itself, wrong sides together, and line up the rows. You want to line up the rows as close as possible. I hold the fabric up while I’m matching rows and let gravity help me keep the ruffles in the right direction and then pin them together to keep it from sliding around.

For the shape of the tank top, I used this dress that fits Emerson right now. I laid it over my fabric and cut out the shape.

I positioned the dress so that the top of the tank top will be right in the middle of a ruffle. When I cut it out, I lifted the ruffle up and cut the fabric underneath making sure to leave about 3/4″ above the next ruffle layer. At the bottom, I again lifted the last ruffle up and cut the in between fabric about halfway down. On the sides, I cut about 3/8″ or so out from the sides to allow for seam allowance. I didn’t measure it, I just guessed.

Then you should have two identical pieces. Just don’t do what I did and cut part of the ruffle off. Oops.

 Next lay them on top of each other, right sides together. Pin the sides together.

 When you’re pinning the sides together, it’s extra important to line up each row so that the seams look nice. Also, you want to pull out the bottom of each ruffle so that they get caught in the seam.

 I make sure to line up the tops of the ruffle row, pull out the bottoms and then pin at the bottom which also pins the next tops together. Confusing, I know. But here’s what it’ll look like:

I like to use lots of pins because the ruffle fabric slides around a lot and the seams will look much nicer if every row is lined up.

Next, sew the sides together, starting from the top and going down. It’s better to sew with the flow of the ruffles and not against them. I used my serger and since this is still a knit type fabric, I set my Differential Feed to 1.5 to avoid a wavy seam.

Since there’s no need to hem, the serger tails are just hanging out there. So I fold it back on itself and do a zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine to sew it into place and keep it from unraveling.

So after sewing or serging the seams, this is what you have:

 And, if you lined up the rows properly and pulled out the ruffle tails, then the seam should look really nice, like this:

Now we need to cut 2 pieces of the knit fabric to go across the top of the front and back. Here, I measured across the top which was 6 1/2″. Then I measured from the top of the top ruffle to the top of the tank top, which for me was 3/4″. Multiply 3/4 by 4, I get 3 inches, so I cut my knit fabric 6 1/2 by 3. Make sure the fabric stretches with the long side.

 Basically you’re going to use this as binding for the top of the tank top. What I did was take one piece and pin it to the back of the front at the top and serge it.

 Then you’re going to fold it and flip it around to the front. You’re going to end up with the raw edges tucked up at the top.

 Then I used a long straight stitch and sewed it down along the front, close to the edge, making sure to catch the back as well.

 This is what it should look like.

Then do the same with the back of the tank top.

Next, I cut out two more pieces of my knit fabric, this time 20″ long by 3″ wide. This is going to go under the arm, around the shoulders and tie at the top. The length of it will depend on the size of the shirt.

 This time I didn’t serge it down first, I just double folded it and found the middle. The middle of the strap will go right on the side seam.

 Put the strap over the shirt, making sure that the ruffles are laying down right and pin.

Then sew the entire length of the strap, close to the edge, using a long stitch. Be sure to catch the back side of the strap as you sew.

Then the side should look like this:

Repeat for the other side and then you’re done! The straps tie at the top in a bow, which makes it easy to put on and take off. Or, you could shorten the straps and put a button or snap on the top. And…since you cut the fabric under the last ruffle, there’s no need to hem!

 If you make this, I’d love to see it! If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave a comment or email me!

One of the first things I wanted to try on the Cameo is the rhinestones. I’ve never used rhinestones at all, so this was a fun experiment. I had ordered the Rhinestone Starter Kit from Silhouette, which came with everything I needed to get started including pink, black and clear rhinestones (my favorite colors!).

I started with a shape that I already made, just a simple peace sign. And since I have the designer edition of the Silhouette Studio, I’m able to create my own rhinestone designs. It was super easy. I opened my own image.

And used the rhinestone tool to create circles where the rhinestones will go. There are three options. Edge, linear and radial and each option will put the rhinestones in a different formation.

For this shape, edge gives me the best formation so that’s what I went with. After some fine tuning with the spacing tool, I loaded the template material into the Silhouette and let it do its magic. It does take a while because it’s cutting out about 200 little circles.

When it finished, I started peeling off the template material, leaving the little circles behind, but then quickly ran into a problem.

I wish that I had thought to put a bounding box around the image and have the Silhouette cut that as well so that this would just peel right off. Instead, I had to hold it and then cut around it so that I didn’t peel off a bunch of template material that I could save for later.

After I got it cut out, I stuck it to a backing board and went to work putting the rhinestones in.

Then I used the transfer tape to pick them up and put them on my onesie.

Following the instructions, I put a cloth over the tape and put the iron on it for about a minute. Then flipped it over and ironed from the back side to pull the glue through.

All done, except one final step. I had to get pictures of my model wearing it.

All that was my trial run because what I really wanted to make was a shirt for Emerson to wear when we pick John up at the airport. It’s been a grueling 6 month deployment and I wanted her to wear something special, so I went back to the Silhouette software and got to work.

First I made a stencil for some fabric painting, which is my favorite thing to do with the Silhouette.

While that was drying, I got my design set up to cut out another rhinestone template. At first, I used the same techinique as the peace sign. I used the text tool, typed out my word and then converted it to the rhinestone format. But I wasn’t thrilled with how it turned out. Something about it just looked off. After some looking around, I found this great technique from Lil Blue Boo which is awesome. I used her grid of circles, then put my text over top of that. Then all I had to do was delete the circles that were outside of the text. In my opinion, it looks tons better.

And, I didn’t forget the bounding box this time, which made it much easier to peel off. The great thing about this is that you can use your template on the board over and over. And you can buy refills of the transfer tape separately.

So once I got all the rhinestones arranged on my template and transfered it to my shirt, this is what I ended up with.

I like how the clear rhinestones look on here. This is the second shirt I made, the first time I used black rhinestones and wasn’t really happy with it. But I love this and now Emerson has the perfect shirt to wear.

It is a lot of steps to make your own rhinestone design, but I think it’s well worth it. But if you don’t want to go through all that yourself, you can always buy them here.

Funny thing is, most places don’t sell thread racks that have dowels tall enough to accommodate the spool and the bobbin. But after much searching, I found this thread rack at TornNotions. (I don’t see this in her shop right now, but I’m hoping she takes custom orders and can make another one because I’m running out of room on this one.) I love it because I can put my bobbins right on top of the spool. And, I can even fit 2 bobbins, which is wonderful when you want to use 2 bobbins with a twin needle.

My other problem is the loose thread hanging off all over it. I’ve been looking for a solution for the bobbin thread and finally came across this great idea on Pinterest from Schlosser Designs. I love it! All the information for making these is on her blog. I found some tubing at Lowe’s for $0.37 a foot. I bought 2 feet (which was way more than enough) and spent a whopping $0.74! These are better than some of the hard plastic clips out there because they are flexible so they are easy to put on and take off. Also, they work great for bobbins that are nearly empty as well as bobbins that are completely full.

Here you can see what it looks like when there’s a lot of thread on the bobbin (it opens up) and when there’s not a lot of thread left (it wraps over itself).

This is perfect for someone like me who constantly drops the bobbins and watches the thread unwind as I’m trying to chase it and keep my 1 year old from picking it up.

Now the only question remaining… should I go back to Lowe’s and try to find a tube big enough for the spool thread?

And… I have some great ideas for new graphic tees. I just ordered these from Silhouette and I can’t wait to try them out. Rhinestones!

I got an idea for a tee when I started thinking about what the kids should wear when my husband returns from his deployment and we go pick him up. He’s coming home in 7 weeks, so that should give me enough time to get this tee made for Emerson.  I’m just hoping that it turns out as cute as it looks in my head.

Like these lacy ones in black and gray.

I’m so excited to be able to offer these in my store again. And then I found a ton of new socks that will make really cute baby leg warmers. Like these:

I have about 75 left to photograph and list and the best part is, all of them are new to my store. I’m trying to find the time to get them listed {and finish designing this blog}, even with my daughter constantly getting into everything and my son deciding he’s ready for potty training. Fun times.

I love running my ETSY store and here I’ll also post about updates to my shop and maybe even a few tutorials.

Thanks for stopping by!