Sewing challenge make life jacket inescapable for kaylee

Kaylee is definitely my climber and my escape artist. She escapes everything including her pool flotation devices and rafts. As soon as we get to the pool, she starts running away or climbing out of the stroller. I tried letting her swim with a life jacket which didn't work because she is short to the ground and floats up onto her back while wearing it. That just makes her mad. She can't play while always floating on her back.

So I bought the US Coast Guard approved life swimming vest shown above. The only problem is that Kaylee is too skinny to keep it on.



Adjusted to the tightest it will go around her and as you can see her arms slide out and it falls down. The photos are blurry too because this kids never stops running.

So the challenge today is figure out how to keep this life vest on Kaylee.

The method I propose is to sew temporary buttons onto the back of the sleeves. Then attach buttonhole elastic to keep the arm floats up without restricting her movement.
Then, I will tighten the safety strap in the back by folding the edge over and sewing it to the vest. This should temporarily hold the vest at a smaller chest size. These will be only temporary fixes that can be removed when she is big enough to use the vest.





As you can see this was a pretty easy fix but to make it a little less obvious I sewed the elastic to a wide polka dot grosgrain ribbon that matched the vest color that I had here.



Then I sewed tiny buttons onto the sleeves.


Sewed buttons onto both sleeves.


Then I just buttoned the elastic ribbon onto the vest.


I put it on Kaylee and took her to the pool. It worked like a charm and when Kaylee my escape artist got into the water her life vest stayed on and she could move her arms just fine.


Here is an action shot of her running with her new life vest on.

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Mission impossible? Maybe not

The challenge: Transform this pair of blue jeans into a pair my father could wear. My dad has a new leg brace which he would like to hide inside the pant leg.



Idea - add zipper to inside leg of jeans to allow for my dad's leg brace.


First, I ripped out the hem and inner leg seam approximately 17 inches to allow for ease of use from the seam because the leg brace is 15 inches tall. Then, I serged the edges of the seams of the blue jeans independently. Next, I inserted a zipper with a zipper foot on my sewing machine. Then I resewed the hem.



Ta Da! Mission accomplished!

Zipper opening in the inner leg seam that my dad can open to put on his leg brace. I hope this solution works for him.


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Barbie high fashions

I serged this little modern black and white polka dot hankerchief hemline skirt and halter top for Barbie.


Back view of handkerchief hem.


side view. I used Velcro for the closures so my three year old could dress Barbie without my help.


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Playing Barbie dolls - barbie needs a new dress

Today was a triple digit heat day so we decided to play in our playroom in the nice cool basement. I played Barbies with my girls. Sophia told me Barbie needs some new clothes. Knowing how she felt and thinking back to when I was a young girl who loved dressing my Barbies, I told her I would see what I could do about it if she was a good girl and took her nap.


I had to deliver on my promise since Sophia was sleeping when I peeked into her room awhile ago. I hurried and serged up this quick little full skirted dress to match Sophia's Ladybug pillowcase dress out of a bit of scraps I had leftover and some ribbon. I hope she likes it. I think it turned out cute. My girls now have a matching Barbie dress to match their ladybug dresses.

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