Romper & Stamped Label

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 I sewed this romper for our 18 month old granddaughter. Last summer I made her a similar romper using a free pattern from Melly Mora of Melly Sews. I needed to enlarge the pattern so I compared Melly's pattern to Simplicity pattern #1447 and came up with this.  I did not like the back zipper in Simplicity's pattern. I really liked Melly's lined bodice, so I used both patterns as guides and drew my own bodice. I used the Large size in the Simplicity pattern to guide me in the total length of the romper. Pretty much used the pattern for Simplicty's shorts/pants. The shorts front were wider than the bodice, so I made gathers to fit.

I watched Melly's wonderful video tutorial as I sewed. It's on her blog page and also on YouTube. She does a great job with sewing technique and step by step instructions. I like how Melly added a piece of fusible interfacing to the crotch where the 3 snaps are applied. I had a little trouble with the snaps going through my seam allowance- my fault! I did not open the seam allowance. Instead I serged the seam allowance and pressed it to one side. That made a thick area for the snap to go through. My cotton fabric is thin so the snap did finally get set. I always worry that my home made snaps will fall apart. If you pound too hard on the snaps, the do not get set right.

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I used Melanie Ham's YouTube tutorial to make the red fabric flower. I added a narrow seam on the ends of the 20 inch strip. The total width is just under 3 inches as instructed. The strip is folded with the right side out (once the end seams are sewn). Then it's pressed with an iron.  I stitched down the end in the center to cover the fabric gathers, which had raw edges. It is hand stitched to the romper.

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I have been looking for sew-in labels for my gift sewing projects. I had labels from years ago and used them up finally. You can see my attempt to stamp my own labels using preshrunk cotton twill (given to me by Lynette) and a custom stamp I bought from RubberStamp.net.  I chose an unmounted stamp, 1 inch by 2 inches. I attached it to a wood block using double sided foam sold for that purpose from RubberStamp.net.

For stamping with paint, I mixed equal parts of  Dina Wakley acrylic-Night is the color

and

Liquitex fabric medium.
Applied the paint mixture to the stamp with my finger. Next time I'll try a foam make-up sponge. Some areas got "over-inked" and smudged.

After letting the paint dry overnight, I heat set it with an iron and cotton press cloth.

I hemmed 2 of the labels with my sewing machine. That was quite tedious, so I decided to cut the edges with Grandma Stelzer's pinking shears.

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Now I will have to wait and hope that the print on my labels remains after laundering.

Thanks so much for visiting! Hope your day brings happy surprises!