Baby Knit Pants

I had some knit fabric left from when I made those knit skirts- for that tutorial go here, so I decided to make her some cute pants to go with the dress I made her.

I took a pair of her pants and folded them in half along the seam, so I could get the shape of the pants that I needed.  I cut this out adding a bit of extra for seam allowance.  Make sure when you cut it out that the width of the pants is on the stretchy side, so it will stretch up over the diaper buns! Oh yeah, fold it in half and lay your pants up against on side of the fabric, so you will have one whole leg at a time, so you only have to sew up one seam, it makes it much easier that way!

Next, I pinned the two pieces of fabric together, so they would make pants-do this with the right sides of the fabric together so the seams will be on the inside. Sew up that seam very carefully.  Now go down each of the legs and sew up those seams separately.  Now that you have the pants made,  Sew up the bottom of the legs, I did this using a zig zag stitch using 1/2" seam allowance. Which means I folded about 1/4" under and then sewed from there so they would have a nice looking edge.

Now for the waistband you can do one of two things.  You can add elastic to the top and just cut the elastic so that it is 2" smaller than what you need so it can stretch and fit snugly. Elastic waistbands are quite easy to do, just stretch the elastic as you go around the pants so that it will fit. When you do this fold over about 1/2" of fabric and place it in the fold so that it is held tight and not visible.  OR you can make a yoga style waistband, so you can fold it under.  Do whichever you please. If you go the above skirt pattern it will show you how to do a yoga waistband.  The only difference is that I only cut it 3.5" tall instead of 7" since it was for a baby girl!

 Just for fun I added those same flowers to the bottom sides of the pants.  They were cute plain, but why not dress them up if you can!

Casual Baby Dress

I don't have my camera so I will have a lot of posts without pictures and I apologize.  When I get it back I will try and take some pictures of them finished, but I know that doesn't help much with the process of making these things. So I'm truly sorry.

I made this using one of my old shirts that was stained! What a great way to re purpose it!

To make this I pulled out one of her dresses and set it on top of the shirt.  I cut it a bit skinner than the one I pulled out since it was a really fluffy one and I was looking for more of a T-shirt type of dress to wear with some knit pants(make sure you have seam allowance room). I cut out the basic pattern of the dress, but I didn't cut out sleeves.  I am going to make it a tank top.  Sew the side seams together(right sides of the fabric facing each other).  I used a 1/2" seam allowance. Now I didn't hem the bottom of the dress, because it followed the bottom of my shirt so there was already a seam there!  I did fold down the top about 1/4" and sewed that just to make it look a bit neater!

Next I cut out a long strip of fabric(I used this for a headband)

I then cut out two strips of fabric each about 3" long for the straps and about 1/2" wide.  This is for a little girl dress about 6 months old.  So if you are making it for a child bigger than that, adjust the strap size accordingly.  Sew the straps onto the top of the dress about 1.5" in, so there is room for the armpits! Make sure these are sewn on good.

Next I cut 2 small strips of fabric and made them into flowers to put on the beginning of the straps just to dress it up some! This is very easy to do with a hot glue gun. Just keep swirling the fabric around and fold down on occasion to give it some depth and you have a flower. I added them to the straps with hot glue, it has already been through the wash and they held up just fine.

You are done.  I will add, this was made using a knit shirt so there is plenty of stretch in it so I can simply pull it over her head without worrying about any buttons, snaps, or zippers.  So this makes it a quick and easy dress to make!

Peach/Strawberry Cake

1 c butter softened
1 c sugar
2 egg
3 c self rising flour
2 tsp vanilla

Berry Sauce:
1 c water
2 TBSP corn starch
2 TBSP sugar
2 c strawberries
1 c peaches, peeled and sliced.

In a saucepan combine the water, cornstarch and sugar.  Stir until all is dissolved and it starts to get thick.  Add the strawberries and peaches.  Cook until tender and well blended!

In a 9x13 pan place the berry sauce on the bottom.  Then in a mixer combine the sugar and butter until fluffy.  Add in the egg, flour, and vanilla.  Stir until well blended.  Pour over top of the berry sauce.  Bake at 350 for 20-30min. The top should be a light golden brown.

This is so amazing! The top is between a strawberry shortcake and a yellow cake mix, it is so good! It looks like a cobbler, but tastes like a cake-doesn't get much better than that!

Enjoy.  Sorry I don't have a picture my husband devoured this before I had a chance to get to it!! It was so yummy. This would be so yummy with blueberries, or really any kind of fruit we just happened to have peaches and strawberries and man was it soo good.  It is really sweet so have some water or milk on hand.

Cobbler

This is one of the best cobbler recipes, and no it's not because I'm biased it just really is amazing.  I'm picky about my food, I don't like it to taste too much like a bread or a biscuit because then that just ruins it for me. My camera has been out of commission so I apologize for the lack of pictures lately.

8 TBSP butter
1.5 c self rising flour
1 c sugar
1.5 c milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond flavoring
4 c fruit of your choice(I have used blueberry, peach, and pear-all amazing)
1/2 c water
1/4 c sugar

In a sauce pan combine the water, sugar, and fruit stir well until it comes to a boil.

In a 9x13 pan place the butter in the pan and put in the oven to melt. Bake at 350!  While that is melting combine the flour, sugar, milk, vanilla, and almond in a bowl, mix well so there are no chunks in it!  Once the butter is melted, take pan out of over, pour mix over top of butter.  Then scoop berries(fruit) over top of batter, then slowly pour sauce over top of berries.  I would place a pan below this in the over just in case it overflows-all of mine did just a tad!  Bake for 30 minutes.

Oh my goodness is this heavenly!  It is moist and yummy, I will try and get a picture up here the next time I make it when I have my camera back.

Parmesan Crusted Chicken Legs

1 c Parmesan Cheese
1/4 c Italian Bread Crumbs
1 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp parsley
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 egg
splash of milk
4 chicken legs

Take your egg and milk and mix together in a bowl.  Add the dry ingredients together in a bowl and mix.  Dip your chicken leg first in the egg mixture and coat it well.  Then roll it around in all the dry ingredients, make sure the whole leg is covered as good as possible.  Place in a baking dish (8x8 works marvelously).  Bake at 400 for 45 minutes.

This is absolutely so amazing, my husband ate 3 of the 4! My camera is still out of commission so when I make this again I will try and get a picture up asap. (ugh I hate not having pictures)

Jersey knit skirt/yoga style

First you are going to need some measurements.
Measurement A-the width of persons waist minus 2 inches
Measurement B-how long you want it to be(I did mine knee length) (plus 1" for seam allowance)

*When using knit fabric you want to make sure you are always using the side that stretches as your width, so it can stretch up over your hips(if you have wide hips like me).
I don't have any pictures of the process on this one, I apologize, I will look for a tutorial elsewhere to see if I can link it up so if you have questions you can refer to something(I know I'm a visual learner and have to see it in order to do it) http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/2010/06/yoga-skirt-tutorial-tips-on-using-knits/  She explains it really well here and has lots of pictures!

First, we are going to cut out the waistband, so the stretchy side of the fabric needs to equal your measurement A with 1/2" seam allowance.  The length of the fabric will be 7 inches, giving you ample room to fold over the top yoga style. I cut mine in one big strip so that I would only have to sew up one side(it's faster that way)  Now you are going to sew it up so that it makes a waistband! So sew the short sides together using 1/2" seam allowance.  On knit fabric make sure your tension is a bit looser than normal.  I had mine on 2, and with most cotton I use 1!
Now you are going to fold it in half yoga style, so it should be about 3.5" tall, fold it so that your side seam is now on the inside.

Onto the main part of the skirt.  Cut this the full width of the fabric(stretchy side), this will let it be gathered and give it some fullness so it doesn't stick to you.  Of course you don't have to cut it that big if you are making it for a baby, just measure their hips and add like 5" so you can gather it some to make it flow nice! Then you are going to use your measurement B to cut in the length that you want it(not on the stretchy side).

Sew the side seams together using 1/2" seams.  Next you are going to hem up the bottom of the skirt.  I used about 1/2" seam allowance.  You can either sew this using a serger if you have one.  I currently don't so I used a zig zag stitch with my tension at a 2 to sew this up. I actually love the way it came out.  It isn't too noticeable, but it adds kind of a fun homemade flair!

Now if you want to gather the top so that is is kind of flowy(is that a word?), you can go across the top of the skirt and gather it by pinning it to the waste band and gathering it a bit as you go, or you can use a gather stitch, click here for link on how to do this.  Once your fabric is gather(I used the sewing method, I never can manually gather very evenly), pin the waistband to the top of the fabric.  This gets tricky to explain-pin it so that the bottom of the waistband is at the top of the skirt, but in order to do this so no seams show, you have to slide the whole waistband over the skirt with that bottom part facing up.(I hope that makes sense, if it doesn't you can always message me and I will try and explain it better).  Make sure your fabric is gathered so that it will fit around your hips, then as you sew stretch the waistband so that it will go over your hips.  If you make the skirt to match the waistband and you have wide hips the stitches will most likely rip:(  Sew this up using a loose stitch(2 still for me).  Now turn it all right side out and you have a skirt.  The last thing I did was I took out the gather stitches, a bit time consuming, but well worth it because then the skirt will stretch better when you go to put it on.(I would recommend spending the time on this one).  Then when you put it on you can fold the top part down.  This is such a wonderful skirt.  I made one for myself and one for my new little girl and we wore them in May to the wedding(I know took me long enough to post huh??)

At the Rehearsal dinner in her new skirt!

 

At the wedding in my skirt!

I wore this skirt after my C-Section because it felt so comfy and didn't rub on my scar! Also would make a good maternity skirt as it can stretch with you, or just a skirt for comforts sake(always a must for me)

Garlic Butter Salmon

1 Fillet Salmon(about 1lb)2 TBSP butter
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 TBSP onion, chopped fine
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp basil
1/2 c whole milk
1/4 c white cooking wine(or regular wine if you prefer)
1 TBSP olive oil

In a saucepan put the butter, onion, and garlic.  Cook for about 3 minutes stirring often.  Add the milk and wine.  Stir well.  Add the spices.  Let this cook on low until it is a thick sauce and a lot of the liquid has cooked out. (This process takes about 20min)

Put the salmon on the grill, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with some seasoned salt(if you wish). Cook salmon for 15min.
*We don't ever flip the salmon and we always buy it with the skin on, so we put the skin side on the grill!

Remove salmon from the grill and immediately cover with the garlic butter sauce! This makes it so moist and flavorful.  This is our family's favorite way to eat salmon(and we have several good stand by recipes as we LOVE salmon around here)
Side Note: This is also amazing on grilled pork chops!