New Horizons Bayside romper and Deer Creek hack

Recently I was looking for inspiration on Boden’s site.  They always have some cute girl clothes, and I love browsing their site for inspiration.  I came across a romper that I knew would be perfect for summer play.  It had a dolman style sleeve and attached shorts.  Knowing the patterns that are in my pattern library, I thought the Deer Creek and the Bayside would work perfectly!  I had to do some mashing of the patterns for the top to get the length and the bottom to match and line up to the bayside shorts.  

After I printed my patterns, I lined up the shoulder at the neckline.  I made sure to have my grain line arrows parallel to each other.  For the front pattern piece, I could easily line up the fold line.  I then graded my side seam from the chest of the Deer Creek pattern down to the bottom of the bayside pattern.  I knew that the Deer Creek elastic hits around the natural waist, so it needed to be lengthened to get the correct length for the lower elastic.  I followed the same process for the back piece, only I could only used the grain line arrow as a guide, since the back of the Bayside isn’t cut on the fold.  After getting my top of the pattern pieces mashed together, I double checked the side seam length to make sure that they matched as well.  I ended up lengthening the front side seam, as it didn’t match up to the back.  Next, I needed to make sure that the back of the Bayside shorts, and my new back pattern piece were going to be the same width.  The shorts have a center seam, and aren’t cut on the fold like the back top piece.  The seam allowance is 3/8″, for a total of 3/4″ that will be removed from the back shorts.  I then measured both the back top and bottom and added 1/8″ width to the top to make sure when sewn they would match perfectly.

The only other thing that I ran into that needed to be addressed was how was she going to get it off.  The Boden romper has snaps/buttons at the shoulders.  I really didn’t want to have to mess with the shoulders and neckline to get it correct.  I ended up making a placket and adding it to the crotch to have snaps in the crotch so she could remove the romper easily for changes or restroom breaks.  

I constructed the top using the Deer Creek tutorial.  I sewed the shoulder and then added the neck binding.  Since I didn’t adjust the neckline width, I just used the neckline binding from the Deer Creek pattern.  I sewed the side seams and then hemmed the sleeves according to the tutorial.  I then constructed the shorts by sewing the pockets onto the front first, using the Bayside tutorial for the instructions for the pocket construction.  After I added the pockets, I sewed the front and back rise.  The side seams were next.  Following the side seams of the shorts, I then hemmed the bottom of the shorts.  Now I could measure the crotch width to determine how wide I needed to make my placket.  I made the length 2.25,” and the width was the width of the crotch plus 3/4″ for the seam allowance.  I ironed in all of the sides by 3/8″, then the length was folded in half to make it 3/4″ wide for the snaps to go in.  I then sewed this on with a 3/8″ seam allowance and top stitched around the placket.  Finally, I added the snaps and finished sewing the shorts onto the top using the Bayside as the guide to making the casing and adding the elastic in the waist.  

I just love how it turned out!  It will make great play clothing for her this summer.  I’m excited to make more for her, and hopefully I can update this post with some pictures for a proper tutorial on mashing these two patterns to make a fun romper.  Fabric is from Raspberry Creek Fabrics. 

 

Dolly Dress using the Cricut Maker

Now that I have my new Cricut Maker, I figured I’d have to try out all it’s cool features using one of the sewing patterns that’s in Cricut Design Space.  My daughter got one of the 18″ dolls for Christmas, and I’ve been sewing some clothes for it lately.  When I saw that there were a few doll clothes patterns for the Maker, I wanted to try one out.  I found a cute doll dress in the pattern, and got started.  Design Space tells you exactly how big to cut your fabric and how to lay the grainlines on the mat.  It also tells you which fabrics to put on which mats.  For this particular pattern, there were three different cuts that needed to be done.  I cut out my squares of fabric, and set up my Maker. 

The Cricut Maker has the capabilities of cutting out and marking your pattern pieces for you, so that there’s no guesswork.  After loading my mat, rotary blade, and fabric marking pen, I started with my first mat which cut out and mark the skirt pieces.  

After cutting and marking all of the pieces, I downloaded the sewing instructions from Cricut Design Space.  The first step has you sew down the center seams of both the main and the lining pieces of the bodice.  Next you line up the main and the lining with right sides together, after ironing down 1/4″ on the shoulders of the lining, with wrong sides together. 

The armscyes and necklines are then sewn with a 1/4″ seam allowance. 

After clipping the curves, the bodice is turned right side out.  The shoulders of the main fabric are then placed right sides together and sewn with 1/4″ seam allowance, without catching the lining in the seam.  The fabric is then pushed in between the two bodices and the lining is hand sewn together. 

Next, the two skirt pieces were sewn together with the right sides together, using a 1/2″ seam allowance. The back center seam was sewn up to the notches, and then left unsewn at the top.  

At this point, the bodice and the skirt are sewn together.  The skirt and bodice are aligned right sides together and sewn with a 5/8″ seam allowance.  The main bodice and the skirt fabric seam are trimmed down.  

The lining is then hemmed at 1/4″ and top stitched down to create a casing for the elastic at the waist. 

1/4″ elastic is then threaded through the casing and sewn down at the ends to create a cinched waist.  

1/2″ hook and loop is then sewn on the back to create the closure.  Both are attached right up against the raw edge.  The left side is then folded under to allow the hook and loop to keep the dress closed.  

Lastly, the dress is hemmed 1/4″ and then another 1/4″.  I added the cording by hand sewing it to the center, and tying it in a bow.  

I loved that my Cricut cut all of the pieces and marked them for me.  It made putting this dress together so simple.  The only thing that I wasn’t too fond of were the instructions.  I’ve never been a huge fan of only having written instructions with hard to follow illustrations.  These instructions weren’t too hard to follow, but I did struggle in a couple of areas.  

I love the final product, and I know my daughter will have a fun time putting it on her doll.  I can’t attest to all the sewing patterns in the Cricut Design Space, but this one was a winner!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

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