Made for Me - May Houndstooth Skirt

Please excuse the grainy instagram picture, I am still playing mega-catchup on the blog. I picked up this houndstooth fabric from Darn Cheap Fabrics in Glen Huntley, early this year. It wasn't from the $2 table, it was about $$7/m. I used my self-drafted pattern that I made my chevron skirt from.

Whilst the fabric is a stretch, the recovery isn't great. If I was doing it again, I would put elastic in the waistband. It stays up, but gets looser throughout the day. If you are wanting to make yourself a stretchy a-line skirt that has a self-waistband, then definitely go for something that has good recovery. Something with a little lycra or spandex would be ideal. These skirts come together quickly and easily and are a great addition to the wardrobe as they look great and are comfortable to wear.

Apple Underpants

Determined to use up every spare scrap of that delicious apple fabric from Amélie's Little Joey Dress, I made a couple of pairs of undies for Amélie, using the That*Darn*Kat underwear pattern. I normally would have matched the overlocking with the main fabric colour (red) but for some reason never bothered with these undies. I did the top stitching with a nice red zig-zag stitch, which I think is quite effective. You can see that I only needed a very small amount of pretty fabric to make these otherwise plain undies special. I really did use up all that apple fabric, I was left with only tiny slivers!

You can see previous undies I made using this pattern here. I love this pattern because the undies provide really good coverage. They are nice, comfortably snug fit around the legs and the crotch, unlike many shop-bought undies. Perfect for sitting cross-legged on the floor for kindy, if you know what I mean. There is no plumber's crack reveal either. If anything, they could be a little shorter in the waist.

Little Joey - Apples

Some time ago, Toni from Make It Perfect emailed me and asked if I would like to test her new pattern, Little Joey. The dress looked so cute, I said "YES," and immediately ordered fabric from Crafty Mamas to put it together with. Crafty Mamas is my go-to shop for high quality stretch fabrics, and this Snow White themed apple fabric came in a Creative Pack with some coordinating dark grey and red fabric, some ribbon and a cute little bird iron on. I had my eye on that fabric pack already, and I knew that the Little Joey pattern was the perfect excuse for me to buy it.


Little Joey is a cute little jersey dress with a waistband and kangaroo pockets. This particular pattern is for little girls from six months to five years. There is also a Big Joey pattern for your Little Joey's big sister, aged up to about 10, and a Skippy pattern, perfect for mums on the go. I made the size four pattern and chose to make it with the short sleeves.


The fabric pack I had purchased only had 50cm of the apple fabric, and I was determined to make the pattern fit, despite the recommendation being for 110cm of main fabric. I think my piece was actually about 55cm or so, and I did make the skirt shorter to get it to fit. Something I did find odd about the pattern was that the bottom corners of the skirt come to a point, instead of being a neat curve. I trimmed these bits off before hemming. I did mention this to Toni in my pattern testing notes, but the final pattern was not changed.


Whilst I would say that the fabric requirements are generous, I do recommend that you have a bit more than I did and it will be a less stressful exercise, especially if you wish to make a larger size, or long sleeves. Alternately, I could have had a grey bodice and ironed on the bird, but I am glad I persevered with making the apple fabric fit. I used some of the red coordinating fabric from the Creative Pack for the neck and sleeve and waist bands.


I think Amélie's favourite feature is the kangaroo pockets, where she can store matchbox cars and all sorts of other treasures. I just can't go past those cute little puffy sleeves. The sleeves were a little bit tricky because there were no notches to match between the sleeves and the armholes, so there was a bit of guesswork involved there. Whilst I still think the Make It Perfect patterns could use a little polish, the pattern was easy to put together and the end result is a cute little dress, perfect for playing in and easy to care for - no ironing!