Megan Nielsen Mini Tania Culottes

Living in a house full of boys, I don't get many chances to sew girly clothes. However, I do have two nieces, so when Megan Nielsen was looking for pattern testers for her new girls collection, I jumped at the chance.

These are the Mini Tania Culottes - little shorts that look like skirts. Girly and practical, the perfect combination.

The Mini Tania pattern comes in three lengths, short, above the knee and below the knee. I made the shortest length and I think it's just right, cute without being too short.

I have made Megan Nielsen patterns before for myself and have always been impressed. The instructions are very clear and the patterns are well drafted and carefully thought out. The children's patterns are made to the same high standard. These culottes were super easy to make and the instructions gave enough information for a beginner to achieve a professional result.

I chose the sizes based on the girls' measurements and they were spot on for their ages. The fit is perfect.

I made both these pairs from white cotton calico. The smallest pair was embellished with circles of calico that I had sprayed with Tumble Dye, cut out then sewn on to the culottes. The Tumble Dyes were bought from Dharma Trading.

The blue pair were shibori dyed in navy blue dye that had been used a few times for other things, so it gave a pale denim colour. The circles were produced by stitching, a method I found in my book 'The Modern Natural Dyer' by Kristine Vejar. I love this book as a very practical introduction to natural dyeing.

The front and back of the garment was pinned together and stitched as one piece to save on sewing. I drew circles with disappearing ink and pinned the two layers together.

I then stitched around each circle, with the stitches extending about 1cm inside the circle. Once complete, the thread was pulled tight and knotted ready for dyeing.

I was really pleased with the effect this produced.

The girls loved their culottes and have worn them a lot since they were made a couple of months ago.

 They also enjoyed the photoshoot!

Such little cuties.

I've got lots more girly sewing planned for Christmas prezzies. Hello Mini Briar tee and Mini Virginia leggings!

Tumble dyed baby outfit

This was a quick little refashion and sewing project for my darling baby niece. I had found the leggings at an op shop for $1. I decided to make them more girly by spraying some Tumble dye flowers on to the legs. I just made a simple flower cut-out from some printer paper and held it in place by hand while I sprayed the dye. I used some scrap knit fabric to blot the excess dye from the paper.

I used pink and yellow dye, which mixed in places to make orange. When I'd finished the leggings I decided that they just had to have a top to make a proper outfit. I found an old baby pattern (Kwik Sew 2596) and made this cute little top from some more knit fabric scraps. Then, I used the blotting fabric, now covered with pink, yellow and orange dye, to cut out little flowers. I sewed these on to the top and pants with a quick spiral stitch.

A very quick and cute baby outfit. It was fun to make too. I can't stop using these Tumble dyes - my wardrobe needs to watch out!

Click below to see my other Tumble dye projects.

Ombre dyed, polka dot t-shirt


Tumble dyeing with a stencil

Tumble dying with a stencil to make a cool t-shirt

After watching me making my ombre dyed, polka dot t-shirt, my boys were desperate to get in on some Tumble Dye action. After some discussion, they decided on a Party Rock Gym design. There are images all over the internet for this and, after looking at a few, I came up with this design of my own using MS Word and Powerpoint.

If you would like to use my design, you can download it here and resize as necessary.

I printed the design on to normal paper, covered it in clear Contact plastic film (only to keep it strong enough to be used more than once) and cut out the lines with a scalpel.

The inside bits of the letters are saved and stuck to the bottom corner of the stencil. If you can, I would recommend cutting out letters as I've done for the circular part of the design, leaving a bit of paper to hold any middle bits in place, as for the 'P', 'A', 'R' etc. The little connector bits hardly show in the finished product.

After being asked at least 67 times if it was ready yet, I finally finished cutting out the stencil! It was then laid on to a square of t-shirt fabric, placed outside on newspaper and I let the boys loose with the dye spraying!

They were actually really careful and loved doing it.

My tips for children using these dyes would be:

• Make sure the nozzle is pointing in the direction you want the dye to go (yes, we learned this the hard way!); 
• Spray approximately 10cm from the fabric;
• Don't saturate the fabric with dye as it will run under the stencil, just gradually build up to the intensity you want; 
• You can mix colours to get fantastic effects, but be careful not to mix more than two colours or you get muddy brown.
• It's worth dyeing a square of fabric, rather than the actual t-shirt in case of mistakes and resulting meltdowns (we had both!).

When the dyeing was finished, we blotted off excess dye that was pooling on the stencil using paper towel and carefully lifted the stencil away from the fabric. I ironed the designs to set the dye, trimmed the edges, then stitched them on to t-shirts (which I'd also made, it was a busy day!) for the boys.

I used a strip of the trimmed fabric to sew a zig-zag along the side of the t-shirt for extra coolness!! I've been saving all my dye-covered scraps to use as embellishments for future projects.

The boys are SO thrilled with their t-shirts. They wore them to their hip hop class and proudly announced that they'd made them themselves when the teacher admired them!

A very rewarding project, which could be adapted for varying ages.

Ombre dyed, polka dot t-shirt

How much fun is this for spring?

I bought some new spray dyes for fabric. They are called Tumble Dyes and they come in a wide range of colours. They are really easy to apply - just spray straight from the bottle. I ordered these four gorgeous colours from Dharma Trading in the US, (along with a few other things ;) They were not expensive and the postage to Australia was very reasonable.

My mind is spinning with possibilities for these, but to start with I tried this simple t-shirt. I decided to make my t-shirt, but this could easily be done on an existing t-shirt.

Here's what to do:

Fold a piece of paper into four and draw some circles (or whatever shape you fancy). I used my old school Math-o-mat. A circle punch would be even better.

Cut out the circles and place them on your t-shirt. I Tumble-dyed my t-shirt before I sewed it together. This gives a neater dye finish at the seams, but is not necessary if you have a ready-made t-shirt. Place the dots randomly or in a pattern. Remember to place some card or newspaper inside your shirt if you are using an existing one.

After blowing some of my circles away while spraying the dye, I decided to weigh them down using metal washers. If you have freezer paper you could iron the circles on to your fabric before dyeing.

Hold the bottle 10-15cm from the fabric and spray away. I sprayed more at the top of the t-shirt and less near the bottom to create the ombre effect.

Once the spray has dried, remove the circles and iron the fabric (or place in a warm dryer) to heat-set the dye.

Make your t-shirt. I used white trim for the neckband, but you could dye some to match or contrast with your design.

Told you it was simple!

Have you Tumble dyed anything lately?