baby crafting: tumble tee and dress

Tumbe Tee, 3 months

I am loving this simple tee pattern I am reviewing today. I have mentioned how much I love separates for a baby. So easy to mix and match. I also don't really love how in the stores everything comes in sets. The pants match the shirt and you kind of feel stuck always keeping it as an outfit. So when I stumbled across this basic tee pattern I knew not only would it be easy to make but it would make for easier mixing and matching.
If you've put off sewing with knits out of fear, now is the time to be brave as they are so simple to work with if you follow a few easy tips. Simply print the free pattern from her site and there is a whole page of instructions on how to work with knit whether using a sewing machine or a serger.
What originally drew me to this pattern was that it has a small cap sleeve but you don't have to set in a sleeve. Sleeves can be a pain and intimidating. This is just like a tiny little shade shirt! And with such a basic pattern, the variation possibilities are endless.

The free pattern and tutorial from imagine gnats is for a 3 month size Tumble Tee or Dress.

I didn't really make a lot of changes. The pattern is the full length dress so I just folded it shorter to make the tees. I used an existing baby shirt as a guide for the length. Also the pattern would be pretty easy to make bigger for other sizes but she does offer a pattern in a full range of sizes for sale on her site.

Tumble Tee, 3 months

Sewing knits is easy with a little practice. A couple of things to keep in mind:

• Make sure you sew with the stretch running the correct way. having your knit stretch from neck to seam isn't going to help you get your t-shirt on, stretch should run width wise. Just check the t-shirt you are wearing now, see? Make sure you cut out your pattern accordingly. 
• Also don't tug the fabric when feeding through your machine, it could cause bunching on your seams.

Tumble Dress, 3 months

Finding knits is sometimes harder than sewing with them. But luckily we wear a lot of knit in our normal lives so refashioning old shirts is a great place to start. The black tee above was one of Steve's old shirts that I rescued from the goodwill pile. Using an old garment too saves time as you can use the existing hem for your new hem. I embellished it by stamping gold hearts on it. Originally I wanted the hearts to be more filled in but I ended up loving the faded look. It looks like an old worn in t shirt that has been washed a million times.

The purple tee above is from an old maternity dress that I just didn't like this time around. The balloon dress is a bit of knit I found at a yard sale years ago and have hung on to because I just loved the vintage cuteness of it. Yard sales and thrift stores are a great resource for fabrics especially if you like funkier patterns.