A ~new~ school outift

I have made another refashioned outfit for my oldest. Here are the before pictures:

The shirt was a present for me, but first I do not look good in horizontal stripes and second the fit was horrible. But the shirt was too big on the girls. So, I took our trusty Jalie 2440 pattern that we had modified to a regular shirt (from a crossover top), cut the shirt apart, except at the shoulders, laid the pattern on top of back and front and cut the shirt to fit. I ended up modifying the shoulders also a bit, but I didn't touch the neckline.

I had to take off the patch on the bottom of the shirt, but in the process I made a hole in the shirt. So, after I finished the shirt, I stitched the patch over the hole (after the patched it up by hand underneath) and the situation is rescued.

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The skirt was an old too big (also too long in my daughter's opinion) pleated skirt that we took apart two years ago, but it remained in the "to-do" pile all this time. Finally I refashioned it for my daughter. We removed the waistband, shortened it, and took it in on the side-seams. I put in a new zipper (the old one was broken) and finished the waist without a waistband. Since this skirt originally had a lapped side-zipper, I decided to it the same way. But I really wanted to try the lapped zipper technique on Fashion Incubator , which helps to sew in the facing (or in my case the lining) before the waistline and results in a much nicer placement of the same on the inside. It was a bit tricky to figure it out, but in the end it came out great. The only thing I should do next time is not sew the lining seam below the zipper until the end. It was a bit hard to manouver around with the seam sewn. Here is the detail of the lapped zipper - outside and inside:



And here is the finished outfit, which Miriam already proudly wore to school:

Wee Weka Pocket Diapers

The cloth diapers I was gifted were getting too small and getting too worn out. The closurs (regular velcro) had been replaced once and were worn out again. So I took them apart, saving the good inserts to use on new diapers. The diapers I had sewn were not enough and some of them are too small already. So I decided I better use up the rest of my diaper making material in my stash and expand our diaper supplies. After I had tried almost all of the free patterns out there, I settled for a free pocket diaper from Wee Weka (instructions and pdf download)
This time I sewed in production line style (completely a step for all the diapers then moving on with the next step). That was so much better! I cut them out one day and sewed them in another afternoon. I made two different finished. Some I bound in FOE (fold-over-elastic), others I just stitched and turned. I like them both, but for the FOE bound, the crotch should be a bit wider, so that they are stuffed easier.
And here they are - all seven of them. If I had more fabric, I would make a few more to give us enough diapers for three days. Even with these, I had to piece the fabric a bit (cut separate flaps and sew them on). I stuff them with regular prefolds and add some doublers (from the diapers I took apart) for better absorbency.