A few days ago I posted about my daughter asking me to sew a dress for my granddaughter for Christmas, although I was planning on sewing one up from myself. In the end everything turned out for both of us as she chose one color dress and I chose another. I went with a navy blue with dainty flowers using the same pattern as the previous dress. As I stated before this pattern is one of the easiest I have ever sewn. The fabric content was also a little different.

I couldn't forget about her American doll, so not only did the granddaughter get a dress for herself, but she also got one for her doll as well.

Finished dress for doll

Finished dress for granddaughter

UPDATE: Once Christmas got here and she opened her gifts all the work involved was worth it to see the smile on her face. Notice the cat shoes on the doll...they were so cute and she is a big fan of kitty cats.

Successful gift giving!

My daughter approached me about sewing matching dresses for my granddaughter and her best friend as a Christmas present. In addition, she wanted a matching dress for each of their American Girl dolls. At first I was hesitant as I had already planned to sew the same style dress as a gift from me so I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to doing it, but in the end I give in deciding that she could always use an extra dress and this would be special since her best friend would have one that matched.

The pattern I was using I had sewn for her a couple times last year and she loves it because it has pockets and I love it because of its simplicity. The sleeves are included in the bodice so you don't have to add sleeves. There are only 3 pieces to cut out: front, back and pockets. However, there is another option to the dress that includes doing the bodice in one color and the skirt in another, so if you do that version there would be 5 pieces. The dress is designed to be cut from knit fabric. I sent my daughter about 20 different choices of fabrics that I was willing to sew and she picked the color she wanted. I made these dresses by taking the girls measurements and determining what size to cut the pattern from. The pattern is from Annelaine Patterns called Clementine and can be purchased online. (I don't get any kickbacks from this company and just sharing because it is a fun and easy pattern to sew and comes in many sizes). My granddaughter had gone from needing a size 7 to a size 10. I was able to use the size 7 from last year for the best friend. I ordered extra fabric just in case and ended up using it to make another dress for my other granddaughter in a size 4.

The pattern for the dolls is only 2 pieces, front and back. Once you cut out the pattern, sew the shoulders together, then the side seams. All that's left is folding in the neckline and hem and sew. I done these in a zig zag stitch for the doll dresses.

Both doll pieces

Doll piece just needs neckline and hem completed

 

One of the girls dresses with shoulders and side seams complete. Just needs neckline, sleeves and hem completed.

The completed doll dresses!

The granddaughters completed version!

The one for the best friend!

The one for the other granddaughter!

I have a yellow couch in the RV that I wanted to make a pillow for, but because I have dogs, I wanted the cover to be removable. I used the remaining fabric left over from my Jelly Roll Rug to make the front of the cover and used a solid navy for the back.

The first step was to determine the size of the pillow in order to know what size to cut out the cover. The pillow was 12”x22" so the cover for the front was cut to the same measurement as the pillow.

The front cover!

Hem each side for the back cover and then overlap before sewing all 3 pieces together.

Assemble the 3 pieces together and sew a 3/8" seam allowance around each side.

The completed project on my beautiful couch.

In order to make the cover removable you must leave an open seam, which I wanted to do on the back of the pillow, so the back cover had to be cut in two pieces with an overall size of 12” x 22”. I cut two pieces 12” x 15”. I hemmed one end on both pieces that would be used to create the overlap for the back of the pillow.

The next step was to assemble all 3 pieces right sides together crossing over the hemmed ends, then stitching all the way around. Once sewed, turned right side out, press and insert pillow.

This really was an easy project and one that I have done a couple more times with other pillow inserts.