A Letter to the Princessies!

Raina dictated this amazing "innation" to me.

And now we must "bring it to the mailbox, so then they get some money, get on the airplane, and come to SEEEE USSSSS!"  She is absolutely convinced that this is a foolproof plan.

If you mail it, they will come.

this is the envelope she decorated for them...

The front of the "innatation."  That's a picture of the party!

The back of the "innatation."  That's the princesses on the bottom.

That red line around the edge of the page?  That's the map from the castle to our house.

Obviously, I'm in love with this.  I try hard not to save every little scrap of paper she writes on, but oh. my. goodnes.  This one is a keeper.

Snow White Raglan Tee

So normally the way I resize a grown up t-shirt into a toddler t-shirt is to fold the big one and a tiny one that fits in half, lay them on top of each other, cut, sew, and hope it is still wearble.  :)  Usually it is, but I thought it might be nice to try something a little more "for real" and refashion using a pattern.  I used the raw-edged raglan tee pattern from the book "Sewing for Boys."  (See my previous post about treasure pocket pants for more info on this!)

Raina is totally into princesses ("princies") right now, so when I cam eacross this Snow White shirt in my "do something new with this" pile, I knew it would be the perfect starting point for the raw edged raglan.  Based on the advice of another blogger who's made this shirt a few times, I made just one change: cutting the neck band one size up to accomodate Rain's cantelope noggin.

This pattern and the resulting new shirt came together so quickly and easily that I didn't even stop between steps to take pictures!  Here's how it looked mostly done, when I stopped to go to bed one night:

And here it is, all done and with a neckband:

I was a little worried about the neckband.  In the past, when I've sewn with knits and attempted to add a neckband, it's ruined the whole thing.  It ends up all stretched out and wacky looking.  Fortunately, this time I must be working with some new knowledge, because it came out a-okay!  Here's to hoping it *actually* fits over Raina's head in the morning!  She knows it's waiting for her, so if it's too small... mama's in big trouble...

I was initially unsure about the "raw-edged" part of this raglan.  Would I regret it?  Would I wish all the edges were neatly inside?  Nope!  I'm happy to say I like the finished product, though I do think I'll try an "inside out" raw edge and see how that looks, too!  I have saved quite a few of Jason's shirts from the big t-shirt party in the sky, and they would be perfect for this.