Hello! I have not blogged in ages but I am so excited to be back and sewing for Mini Season 3 of Project Run & Play! I got asked to participate back in July and immediately said yes! It was a dream come true the first time way back in 2017 when I was a part of Season 14 and I am glad to be back again for this mini season.
This time there are six former contestants and they paired us up for three weeks of head to head competition. The theme was pretty open with "Copy that Look." Before getting to my look I have to say I am so grateful for PR&P. This challenge has given me a chance to stretch my sewing skills and knowledge and make some outfits for my kids that I would have otherwise never made!
My whole look started with the "American Honey" fabric from Raspberry Creek Fabrics. I knew I wanted to make a dress and so I browsed Janie and Jack website, a classic children's clothing company. My kids are 2 and 10.5 months and I knew I wanted to make something classic and timeless. I found some super cute items to "Copy that Look". My inspiration for the dress was based off this Every Day Puff Sleeve Dress. It had everything a little girl could want - puff sleeves, a scoop back, and a twirly tiered skirt. I started with the Janie Dress pattern from the Project Run & Play shop. I used the bodice with the scoop back but I made a neck binding and changed the sleeves to be puffed using this tutorial from Elizabeth Made This. I went all out on the puffs making them something Anne Shirley would be proud to wear!
The skirt is two tiers. I measured my daughter to figure out how long I wanted the skirt to be from waist to hem. Then I divided that up into two pieces making the top tier a little bit wider than the bottom tier. I doubled the length so there was plenty of gathering making a very twirly skirt!
The sleeves are my favorite part of the dress and they were so much fun to make.
The back yoke is also something I am proud of. I decided to tie in the cherries from the dress to the back of the jacket by hand embroidering some cherries. I found a free template from Oh Sew Bootiful and traced that onto my yoke before I started sewing. I embroidered the cherries and love the pop of color against the denim jacket. My daughter loves it too and says "look at my cherries!" every time she wears the jacket.
I was able to get some custom print fabric from Raspberry Creek Fabrics so I could match the inside yoke and inside cuff to my daughter's dress. I love the little details even though no one will see them.
The hat is a Monet Beret from the Project Run & Play shop and I added a bow. I wanted to use a sweater because my inspiration was this Sweater Beret from Janie and Jack. The best I could find was this cable look fabric from Esty. I still think it turned out pretty cute! It is a knit so I interfaced the outer fabric before sewing so it wouldn't flop around. I love how it really completes the look.
Next, I decided to make an outfit for my baby boy! I found these embroidered overalls from Janie and Jack and that's how I decided to make him some embroidered overalls with the same cherry pattern as my toddler so they could be kind of matching. I used the Flying Fox Overalls from the Project Run and Play shop. I omitted the front pockets but added a little back pocket. The fabric for the overalls was my husband's old work pants and I love seeing our son wear it now. My husband was happy to see his old pants get new life too! I added some embroidery to the back to cover up some holes in the fabric too.
I wanted to make a Henley shirt to go under the overalls but instead of a real placket I made a faux placket. In hindsight I should have made a real placket because my baby boy has a big head! I was able to fix it by lowering the neckline and it is easy to get on and off now. I used the Oliver + S School Bus T-shirt with the only changes being the faux placket, a wider neckline, and adding sleeve cuffs instead of hemming. The fabric for the shirt is also upcycled as it was my husband's old shirt. I used the original sleeve cuffs and neckband from my husband's shirt too. It looks so cute now!
Finally, since my daughter had a hat, I wanted to make my son a hat as well. I used the Fell & Dale Cap from the Project Run and Play shop. I used a corduroy fabric from my stash to make it similar to my inspiration photo. My son doesn't usually like hats but he didn't touch this one the entire photo shoot! He also wore it grocery shopping with me last week and kept it on the whole time. Everyone thought he was so cute and he just had the biggest smile while wearing the hat! I think I need to make him one to match every outfit now.
Thank you so much for letting me share this and thank you again to the Project Run and Play team for inviting me back for a mini season! I never thought I would be sewing for my own kids for a Project Run and Play competition but here we are and it was so much fun!
I thought it would be fun to add all the inspiration items to the shopping cart and my total price had I bought all these outfits would have come to $236 (and some of those items were on sale)!! Sewing can get expensive but you can also save a ton of money especially when sewing for kids! The only fabric I bought for this project was the fabric for the dress and the beret. Everything else I had in my stash.
Go VOTE for your favorite look this week. This is the third and final round in this mini season and everyone's designs have been amazing! You can still participate in the sew along until 9/14/23 and all the details for that are here.
