A Dress For Bunny (and Her Cronies)

First, thank you, everyone, for the delightful stories of your kids and their lovies! Someday, we need to organize a get-together for all these special softies, complete with paper champagne glasses, so they can swap stories about their human friends. Oh, the tales they would tell! Then I'd pitch it to Disney for the screenplay of Toy Story 4, and encourage them to get Kleenex on board to sponsor the door gifts. 

Second, let me share that it's hard getting back to sewing after a long break. 

Sometimes, my attitude towards sewing (specifically: procrastinating, avoiding it, complaining on the blog about it, always preferring to buy than make clothes, etc.) makes me wonder how much I really like it at all. I mean, I've always thought that sewing is very much like exercise. It's stinks when one just starts to do it or resumes it after a long hiatus, and the results are usually dismal. But if one perseveres, one gets better and more efficient at it. And, inexplicably, it eventually starts to feel nice and one even gets the sense that one's day (or life) is incomplete without it. Then, with enough time at it, one settles onto a disconcerting plateau and has to increasingly kick up one's challenge level several notches in order to get the satisfaction one craves. By which time it gets to the point where one can almost do it in one's sleep (figuratively), totally divorced from any emotion whatsoever, so that one is finally able to tolerate its more odious manifestations, like alteration and mending and repurposing (only to avoid the alternative of simply discarding, about which one often feels extreme guilt; this is totally different from voluntary, creative upcycling, which isn't odious at all).

So. . . maybe I like sewing about as much as I like exercise- love the results, don't love the work. I know of many people in sewing blogland who gush, "I loooooooooove sewing! I can't stop! It's so much fun! I am, like, having an affair with my sewing machine and neglecting my husband! I wish I had more hours in my day to sew everything I want!" I read those posts and think, "We must come from different planets. Your planet must be where sewing takes nanoseconds to get done and someone else always does the layout and cutting and seam-ripping for you and everybody's body is a cuboid so no one ever needs darts and all you have to do is choose fun fabric and sew straight seams. On my planet, all we seem to do are adjustments, alteration and mending during the weekdays, and sleevecaps and armscyes on the weekends." And I feel kinda left out of the whole Universal Blogosphere Happy Sewing Clique because I've fallen woefully short in the Excitement Department.

Either that, or, unbeknownst to me, I've turned into a tailor. Like my grandmother. Except without much of her passion (and I bet Grandma wasn't ever conflicted between sewing and cardboarding). I hope that people reading this don't think that all my sewing adventures on ikatbag are the result of me faking it just to find things to blog about. Heavens, no. I genuinely like making things. I genuinely like designing things. I genuinely like thinking of ways to make things look and work better and more efficiently. And you could probably catch the equivalent of sewing rabies just reading some of my felt food or costume posts. I just don't enjoy the mechanism of transferring those ideas to fabric as much. There are times when I've sat at my sewing machine and said, "Well, it's you and me again, babe. How about you help me exorcise this stuffed toy design from my head so I can breathe again and get on with my life and then we don't have to see each other for a while?" I guess it's for this same reason that I haven't named my sewing machines Gertrude or The Honorable Francesca or whatever, or made quilted covers for them. We aren't BFFs; they are my workhorses, and they happen to be good at what they do. 

   

Anyway, I've been mending (ah - light dawns on her sewing ennui). Or, more accurately, amputating unmendable parts of garments, thus buying them a few more seasons of life. 

Last week, we lost four pairs of leggings and gained four pairs of capris/undershorts,

and some stretchy tubes for turning into other things.

Some have interesting hems, with lace or gem-studs. We cut a short length of one such tube

and some donuts from leftover knit projects

and joined them together

to make a strapless gown for a favorite friend.

Here's the how-to.

First, cut a legging leg to length (or sew one from knit fabric), so that it ends a little below the waist of the wearer. This will be the bodice. Measure the length of the skirt you plan to sew onto this this bodice. For this doll, the skirt was going to be 2 3/4" long, without SA. Also measure the waist of the wearer.

Now make your skirt pattern. Begin by dividing the waist measurement by four and drawing an quarter-circle arc of that length. There is a simple Math formula relating this quarter-circumference value to the radius of its circle - anyone who's done middle school Math will know this. Or you can eyeball the radius to get the quarter-circumference. From that arc, mark the skirt-length distances to create the hemline. Ours was 2 3/4" from the arc.

Cut out the paper pattern. Fold knit fabric twice (with the second fold perpendicular to the first) to create four layers. Lay the pattern with the straight edges along those folds and cut out the skirt with seam allowances at the waist and the hem.

Open up the fabric (it should be a full donut) and mark the quarter points around the center hole. Make the same quarter marks around the bottom edge (i.e. the waist) of the tube bodice.

Bring the bodice and skirt together so that

• their RS are together
• the bodice is upside down, 
• with its waist edge lined up with the waist of the skirt,
• and with their quarter marks matched up.

Pin in place if desired.

Sew around the waist of the skirt/bodice ensemble to attach the two pieces. Trim the SA at the waist and turn RS out.

The dress is finished! Here it is with a double-layered skirt. Simply combine both skirt layers as one, and sew them to the bodice.

If your doll has a significantly wider chest than can be accommodated by a single legging tube, cut BOTH legs apart along their seams, and join them together with two seams to make a wider tube.

Here are the completed dresses -

one for each of the girls' Favorite Friends.

A dress like this works for 18" dolls, too. Our leggings were 4/5T size, and a little snug for this particular doll, so if you have leggings in larger sizes, they'd be perfect.

Oh - you have a couple of questions? Let me guess -

Q : Will this work on children and... me?

A:  Conceptually, yes, this could be a human dress, with the following adjustments:

1. I'd personally include shoulder straps to prevent wardrobe malfunctions. 
2. I'd shape the top edge of the bodice and armscye region so the whole tube sits higher on the chest and lower in the back, for more modesty.
3. I'd further shape the side seams to allow more room in the bust region for women.

Q: Can children sew this dress for their dolls? After all, it looks like a whip-up project.

A:  It is a whip-up project - and there is only one seam to sew. However, that seam joins a straight edge to a curved edge, and both edges are continuous circles. And both circles are small i.e. they have tight curvatures. So if you think your kid can manage that, then yes, children can sew this dress for their dolls. If you help. A lot.

At Home With Bunny and Kate

Uh. . . Happy New Year, everyone! 

A bit late in the game, I know, but I've been sorta anti-bloggy this fortnight. 

Not a lot to write about - I mean, there's always the weather, but why give it more air time than it's already had (and doesn't deserve)? I guess I could sew something and talk about that, but my sewing machine and I are currently estranged. And I've lifted all cardboard sanctions until the kids agree to throw out more of our old cardboard stuff to make way for new.

So I've been reading instead. It's nice to feel somewhat literate, even if I'm reading way below my recommended reading level (they're children's books). I've also been mending clothes (hence the aforementioned estrangement).

In the midst of all those bleak midwinter happenings, however, I've been hanging out with Kate in the afternoons when she's done with kindergarten and before her older sisters return from school. I've also been hanging out with Bunny, who is Kate's best friend.

In case you'd forgotten, this is Bunny:

and you all know Kate:

I never thought making a rabbit would also mean making an entire imaginary world that included scrapbooks, food, furniture, clothes, and a passionate devotion that resulted in Kate sometimes begging to bring Bunny to the most unfeasible (and sometimes unhygienic) places just so they could stay together. 

"I did that?" I'd wonder to myself. "Did I make that happen because I sewed some fabric limbs and ears into a toy?"

No. Kate did it - she and her mind and her heart and all the rest of her being. 

Incidentally, Kate has already made end-of-life plans for Bunny: she's been scrutinizing Bunny's fur with the assiduousness of a surgeon, diagnosing that mange (from being washed too many times) = imminent death and, therefore, I need to get to work making a Replacement Bunny ASAP.

Someday she will be all grown up. She will look back on her fantastical kindergarten years in disbelief and, understandably, accuse me of gross exaggeration or a bad case of SappyMotherlitis. So I thought I'd record it here, because these are beautiful days and bring me much (bittersweet) delight at the thought of how simultaneously charming and fleeting they are. 

One of her earlier Kate & Bunny books:

Very spartan, plot-wise. Almost like a memoir and caption in one.

Also very succinct.

Here's a more recent one, that she started in school.

The BUNNY made a gingerbread BUNNY. He popped out of the oven. Stop! Stop!"

The gingrbread BUNNY Ran fRom the Bunny the cat and the dog. "Stop! Stop! Stop . . . 

And just like that, she leaves us with a cliffhanger. 

(I've gotta make her finish that book.)

Last week, we made clothes for Bunny from old leggings and scrap knit. I'll show you how in a later post. Notice that Bunny looks a little less pristine than when I first made her - evidence that she is indeed much loved.

At her behest (and somewhat bossy dictation), I drew three pages of Bunny Necessities & Accessories. She spent her post-school afternoons this week coloring and cutting them out,

and keeping Bunny gorgeous, entertained, socially connected,

and not starving.

As I am writing this, Kate has just made a paper mobile for Bunny's crib (Bunny needs a nap because she didn't get enough sleep the night before because she didn't eat enough food at supper and had to sneak out of bed to get carrots from the fridge).

Do your children have stories like these? Or am I the only mom lucky enough to watch what innocence looks like, played out day after day in her living room?

Here are our coloring sheets -

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

we thought other Bunnys (and Bears and Dogs and Cats and Dolls) might enjoy having their very own electronic keyboard, cellphone, MP3 player, wall art, cosmetics and food buffet. Grab your camera, fellow parents- someday when your little ones leave days like these behind them, you might be glad you did.  

P.S. For more Adventures of Bunny and Kate, see this post.

Magician's Table

So, this is Emily's other magic-and-illusion handmade Christmas gift. It's cardboard (and some fabric glued on). And it's just a table. Right?

Look again.

It's that cunning table that magic people put top hats on top of and from it pull out all manner of impossible things - rabbits, a mile of multicolored silk scarves, the Dead Sea Scrolls, an entire family of doves, the Statue of Liberty, the complete works of Shakespeare, stuff like that. 

Like the color-changing handkerchief in the previous post, I made it with instructions from this wonderful book. Incidentally, if your kid is into DIY illusion props and top hats and capes and costumes, this book is fantastic.

So here's the how-to for that magic table. 

I started with three (the book suggests two but I believe you can never have too much cardboard) squares of corrugated cardboard, and one square of black velvet, all 24" x 24". This will be the tabletop. Do not use quilting cotton, flannel, interlock knit, duckcloth, Japanese organic cotton or even velour - only velvet. You can use cheap velvet or expensive velvet; the important thing is that it must be velvet. Velvet is a magician's best friend because it absorbs light and reflection so perfectly that it in itself is an illusion. 

You also need a long strip (or join shorter pieces) of that same black velvet, 33" x 12". With RS together, fold it along its short side into a 16.5" x 12" rectangle and sew its short sides together with a 1/2" SA. You will now have a squat cylinder that is 12" tall. Notice that I used the selvedge for the top edge, purely for visibility in this tutorial. You shouldn't do this - and the reason will be clear in later steps - just cut the entire bag completely black. Gather or pleat its bottom edge to make a shallow bag.

Because the pile of the velvet creates very thick gathers, I pleated the bottom instead, by folding it into pleats and machine-stitching across the stack of pleats. This is the end of the sewing part of the construction. Set this aside.

Cut a 8" x 8" square hole in the middle of each big cardboard square. Discard the cutouts. 
Hot-glue the cardboard layers together to make a thick stack. Ensure that the flutes (the wavy lines) of each layer are perpendicular to the layer above and/or below it. This strengthens the composite stack.

Cut 1/2" deep slits 8" apart along the top edge of the velvet bag you made earlier (blue arrows). This will divide the top edge into 4 equal sections, which you will then hot-glue to the edges of the 8" x 8" square hole in the cardboard. 

You will now have a black velvet bag suspended from the hole in the cardboard tabletop.

Find a cardboard box that is at least as big and deep as the bag when it is suspended. Glue the flaps of the box to the underside of the table top so that the bag sits freely inside it.

At this point, I needed to cover that visible, stripey selvedge with strips of black velvet, but you wouldn't have to, because you wouldn't have used the selvedge. I also cut a large piece of fabric (I used velour because it was what I had - you can use any fabric, even quilting cotton) wide enough to wrap around the perimeter of the cardboard tabletop, with some overlap (all those red arrows). 

The book suggests making the entire table out of cardboard boxes - just hot-glue a stack of boxes to get the tabletop to the right height. We don't have the luxury of space, so I made mine with just that one box, planning to have it sit on one of our kid tables when in use. I figured it would be easier to store than a full-height cardboard table.

I measured the height of the completed table (i.e. the cardboard top sitting on the wooden table) and cut my velour fabric long enough to reach the floor (L),

plus an inch to glue onto the edge of the cardboard tabletop.

Then I hot-glued the fabric all around the perimeter of the cardboard tabletop.

Take the 24" x 24" square of velvet and cut a central square hole that's a little bigger than 8"x 8".

Hot-glue that onto the cardboard tabletop. Look - it's already hard to see the hole+bag, unless you know it's there to see. Trim the edges of the velvet if necessary, so that none of it protrudes over the edge of the tabletop.

Cut ribbon or trim (I used a 1" grosgrain ribbon) and glue that around the perimeter of the table, and along the edges of the square hole, dividing the tabletop into 9 squares in the process. The ribbon/trim does not only cover the raw edges of the fabric - it serves the even more important function of distracting the eye from noticing the slight difference in the texture of the solid and hollow parts of the tabletop,

to the point that your audience will need a lot of help to actually tell that the hole is even there.

Here is the finished table, which, being hollow underneath, provides a convenient storage and hiding place for other props.

Voila! Secret hole. 

Good for hiding and extracting bunnies.

To use, drop a large handkerchief (or top hat with false bottom) over the middle hole and sneak your hand under the handkerchief (or into the hat) to retrieve objects pre-concealed in that black velvet bag. 

And that brings us to the end of another manic year of crafting. See you in 2014, and may your new year be full of good health, rich relationships and more time spent on a good book than Pinterest (note to self: take own advice)!