Sewing for my soon-to-be School Girl

For some crazy reason I decided to try and sew my little girl a back pack. Well mostly because the backpacks I could find in stores were either character backpacks, boring backpacks, expensive backpacks, too big, too small, you get the idea. So I found a cute little toddler backpack pattern online and bought it.

Of course Lillie is no toddler anymore, so it needed a few adjustments. Well, actually, I made a lot of adjustments. And that is where the craziness began. It would have been quite simple actually had I followed the pattern exactly. But no, it needed a little pizazz to it.

So I added 4 inches to the height, 2 inches to the width, added side pockets, a front pocket, lined it and embroidered her name on the front and first initial on the sides. I really wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. And I was definitely nervous about the zipper. But as it turned out, the zipper was not the hard part.

I am actually very happy with the way it turned out. Just as long as no one examines the inside too much=)

Lillie girl is happy with it too! She even ran to put her school supplies into it as soon as I said it was finished.

I probably won't be making another of these for awhile. And I will probably do a few things differently. But I am really glad I made myself try it!

And now, if you are still with me =) Here is an outfit I sewed for her for school. She has actually already worn it to church but that's okay.

A dress with matching ruffle pants. The dress was actually supposed to be a shirt but I lengthened it to a dress.

I LOVE how this turned out! So ruffley and fun! And the elastic around the neck makes for easy sewing AND easy dressing.

So funny how she thinks she has to strike a pose every time she models something for me. I told her she didn't have to stand like that but she told me that Yes she did=)

Also part of why I think I am so happy with the way the outfit and the backpack turned out is because of my awesome new serger! Actually it isn't new. But it is new to me. My sister was at a garage sale and they had this serger sitting there. Since my sister sews, she was curious about it and the lady didn't have a price on it. So she asked how much for the serger. The lady said something like "Oh, how about five bucks?" I'm not sure exactly how the conversation went after that but this lady said that it worked but needed a few adjustments and she didn't have time for it. So Krista paid her the five bucks, went home, adjusted it, and it works perfectly! And bonus for me, she already has a serger so I got the 5 dollar one! Yay! That was probably the best garage sale find ever, and I think it might be pretty hard to top that.