Sylvanian wedding dress tutorial

Miss M received a parcel in the post today. It was a vintage wedding car for her Sylvanian toys. She bought it second hand from Trade Me with her birthday money but couldn't afford to get any more of the wedding set so I thought I would have a go at making a little wedding outfit for her.

I found a set of free patterns for clothes here . They are in Japanese but there are pictures so you can pretty much guess what to do if you have a bit of sewing experience. For the wedding dress, I used the gathered dress pattern which is second from the bottom. Click on that picture. You'll see 3 lines of text underneath it which probably appear in Japanese script on an enabled computer but look like a bunch of symbols on mine. Click on the first one and you'll get the pattern. The second one has the instructions and pictures. If you are just making a plain dress, follow the pictures and you'll see what to do.

To make the wedding dress, I used an old baby t-shirt but you could use any white t-shirt. The benefit of using an old t-shirt is that you don't have to do any hemming because it's t-shirt fabric which doesn't fray and you can also use the bottom of the shirt or even the sleeve to make the bottom hem. This is a really good thing to do because it makes the skirt stick out a bit. Cut out the 2 pieces. The skirt should be about 4cm wide by 19cm long (I've made it a bit wider than the pattern so it's a full-length dress). Stitch 2 rows of 1cm wide lace along the length of the skirt and then stitch one row of lace around the neck. Stitch the two underarm sections on the top as shown in the Japanese pattern picture. Gather the top of the skirt and pin it to the bodice section and then stitch it in place. Try it on  your Sylvanian to make sure it fits (there should be some lap over on the back. Fold one side of the back over by a tiny amount (just enough to get it under your needle. Attach 2 long skinny bits of velcro to the back and you have your wedding dress.

To make the veil, take a piece of the same lace you used on the dress and wrap it around your Sylvanian's head to get the right size. Add about 0.5cm on the length of the lace to lap over at the back (you'll add velcro in a moment). Now take a wider piece of lace or about 8x8cm of net/tulle and fold it over concertina style at one end. Stitch the folded end to the skinnier lace at one end so that it will be at the back of the Sylvanian's head when it's attached. Now attatch velcro to either end of your skinny lace with the veil attachment and you are good to go with your bridal headdress.

For the bouquet, I totally cheated and I really don't recommend you do what I did if it's going to be played with by children. What I recommend you do is to hand stitch 3 ribbon roses onto a small piece of elastic so that it can be looped over the toy's hand. What I did was to pin 3 ribbon roses onto a safety pin and loop that over the toy's hand. That's because I'm lazy and because I needed to get off the sewing machine and go and make the kid's some lunch! The safer version will be made later when I have less hungry children and more time.

I've got to figure out how to make something for the groom to wear now. Hm, I wonder if the Mr would notice if I used one of his black t-shirts to make a jacket....

Matchy matchy

A new job and too many commitments have meant a lot of quietness from me on this blog over the last few months. I decided over Christmas to take a break from selling at markets for about 6 months to give me more time to focus on jobs around the house and doing the sewing projects I want to do but never have time for.

This is one of those projects. I found the tutorial for the dress here. It's for a smaller child than Miss E so I used the bodice of one of her other dresses as a template for upsizing the dress. It's looking a little wrinkled as she's worn it for 3 days this week (*insert happy mummy sigh here*). I ended up cutting off some of the skirt as I made it too long and then saw that this could be one of those happy mistakes as the offcut was exactly the right length for Miss E's doll Mandy. I used an existing doll dress to get roughly the right size for the bodice, used the offcut for the skirt as I mentioned (you only need half of the full circle of patchwork pieces for a dolly skirt) and now Miss E and Mandy can be matchy matchy.

So cute!

Kids Clothing Week Challenge

Oh hello. Yes, I'm still here. Yes I know I have been really really rubbish at blogging lately but I'm going to make it up to you this coming week. It's Elsie Marley's Kids Clothes Week Challenge (KCWC) this coming week and I can't wait.

To join in, you need to commit to sewing for kids one hour a day for a week. This is great for me because I've been avoiding the sewing room lately and I need a great big boot up the backside to get myself in there again.

My girls have enough clothes to last them for several winters so I probably won't be making any for them. Instead, I'll be making things for my market stalls and Felt shop. I have so much beautiful fabric that needs using and my addiction to sewing patterns and craft books means that I won't be short of inspiration.

E's fairy wand dress made during last year's challenge

I nearly lost large amounts of my patterns and books (not to mention my machines) on Friday night. Luckily, Mr Cotton Kiwi was wide awake and checking our basement for signs of flooding at 3am and managed to save them all when a huge wave of water came through my sewing room. It's not the first time our basement has flooded but my sewing room rarely gets wet. This time, a few leaves had got stuck in a drain which meant the drains backed up and the water came through the door. Ugh! 

M's reversible dress from last year's challenge

My poor husband was out there in the pouring rain creating a water diversion system that Macguiver would have been proud of. It turns out the roots from a tree next door have grown through the stormwater drain and almost completely blocked it so fingers crossed our new neighbours will be happy to remove the tree.

I've been in my sewing room today giving it a good tidy so I'm all set for next week. Can't wait!

My Creative Space - Nearly finished

As usual, I've got several projects on the go, at varying stages of unfinished. Sometimes, that last little bit takes weeks to do because my finishing mojo has gone somewhere and I've got my 'must start a new and more interesting' mojo going on instead.

These silk/cotton mix fingerless gloves just have a few rows to go to finish the pair and I could have/should have finished them last night. I'm making them as a favour for a lovely neighbour and she could have worn them today if I took half an hour to finish them last night. For some reason, I just couldn't do it.

Then there is M's new dress that I showed you the fabric for last week. All it needs is the shoulder straps hand stitching in at the back (I want to be able to pull the stitches out easily and adjust it as she grows) and a hook and eye closure at the neck. Again, just don't have the motivation to do it. I just want to start new projects, to put new ideas into practice. Do you have those days? I will have to make myself finish these off tonight and then they can both be worn or put away instead of draping themselves prettily over the arm of the couch.

For more Creative Spaces pop over to Kootoyoo.

My Creative Space - for the kids

E has a new friend and is going for a play after kindy today which means that I have several hours up my sleeve. I'm a bit giddy with all the time I have to 'play' today and don't know where to start.

Both of my girls have been going through my patterns and picking out what they want me to make them (bliss for someone like me!). M chose this pattern and asked for something in blue. I found the beautiful floral at Spotlight the other day. The green spot doesn't look like much in the photo but trust me, it's going to look fab when it's teamed as a trim on the dress. M wants the dress on the left with the bow but I think it might be a little too much on the floral print. I will make it without but will have to have a 'back-up bow' in case of meltdown. Why am I such a sucker?!

I've also got this on the go. It's a little cardigan for an old school friend's baby which is due next month. You may have seen me knitting it at the last Devonport Craft Market. You may have also thought that it looked like I had nearly finished it at that point. If you did notice that, you might be wondering why this photo shows the back which is the very first step of the pattern. Lets just say that there was an incident with a couple of dropped stitches (aaaargh to slippery metal needles. You are the bane of my life). The dropped stitches happened to occur around midnight on Monday and were on a tricky decreasing row. I spent the next two days futiley employing a crochet hook to try and get them back where they were supposed to be, but in the end, I came to the conclusion that it was better just to pull the whole thing out and start again. Thank goodness it's a newborn cardy! When it's finished, it will look something like this.

I made this cardy for another friend's baby last year. Isn't she a precious dot? She will be one now. Stop growing up all you babies! Stay cute and tiny for a bit longer!! You are so much easier to knit for when you are this little.

I'm off to have a little peak at other people's Creative Spaces over on Kootoyoo.

My Creative Space - Smug

Take that you scarey knit fabric. I am no longer fearful of your wiley, slippery ways. I have purchased this book and it has taken away my fear of you.

In fact, I am so unafraid of you that I even made the world's most awesome kiddy undies!

I have actually made 3 pairs of awesome kiddy undies and I am thinking that lots more will be made. Why don't I just go and buy some kiddy undies for my children I hear you ask? Very sensible question and had I been reading this blog a week or two ago, I would have been asking the same thing. The answer is that these undies are particularly awesome because when small girls are hanging upside down on swing sets (as they are prone to do around here) whilst wearing a skirt and NORMAL undies, well, it's just not a good look. With these undies however, all is covered and is just extreme cuteness in the form of funky looking gym knickers/boy leg undies/hot pants.

So if you have ever had the urge to make undies for the small peeps in your life, I highly recommend the pattern by kitschycookids which I got here. It's super easy and if you don't have an overlocker, you can just use the zig zag option on your normal machine. The only extra thing I would recommend that you do with the pattern is to fold over a little bit of ribbon at the back to act as a label so the kiddliwink knows which way they go on.

For more creative spaces, pop on over to Kootoyoo.