Our Abi wrote a fun tutorial on her blog, The Modern Prairie Girl, for this adorable, simple t-shirt dress. Run go check it out and make your own version with and for the special little girl in your life!
xo Us
Children
Little Sproutie
Talk about the cutest little hats (and girls!) EVER!! Our friend Krista has opened up an Etsy shop, Little Sproutie, selling her adorable handmade hats and little girl aprons. We squealed with delight when Krista sent us these pictures of her girls wearing their darling hats, paired with our gracie ruffle skirts. Can it get any cuter??!
We think every little girl needs a hat like this (we already have sent two to some of our favorite little girls….).
Krista is having a sale for the month of February! Just use the code LOVE15 in the check out to receive 15% off your order. Oh, and be sure and favorite Little Sproutie on Facebook!
xox Kristie, Apphia, Achaia, Abigail, & Abiah
introducing charlotta!!!
We are super happy to introduce to you charlotta — our new sewing pattern for girls. A pajama pattern for all seasons! So many of you have requested jammies in the past, and they're finally here. We absoutely LOVE this pattern! There are lots of options, so it will keep you sewing spring through winter.
Make a nightie, top and shorts, or top and pants. Two sleeve styles included! As usual, this pattern includes sizes 2/3 – 14/16, all in one envelope. (Full size pattern pieces too, of course. All printed in the USA on a nice heavy white paper!)
Shirring along the sleeve edges and leg holes sets these jammies apart as something extra special. And they're quick to sew up, too! (Not only that, they're crazy comfy. All of our little testers gave rave reviews!) We even like to style them as day clothes — the charlotta shorts look adorable underneath an angelica swing top. The pants will make warm layers underneath little torrance dresses later this fall!
So… what do you think?! The charlotta jammie set sewing pattern is now available on the website!
xoxo, us
P.S. More photos soon!
Buttoned Up.
We all love sewing (surprise), and sewing for little girls is extra fun! Thankfully, we're blessed to have some lovely little girls in our lives. They also happen to be cousins, and their mommies also like to dress them alike. So, we like to sew for them.
And, cooler weather is coming (saaaaddd), so the girls could use something a bit more fallish. Enter a long sleeve amelia dress + an ana claire jumper + Sweet Things fabric. We are always so impressed with Lakehouse's black prints… they are amazingly saturated, and wash & wear so well too.
And, don't forget happy buttons! We recently had the pleasure of learning about Fastenation Studio. Hannah's just as cute and sweet as her buttons. We sent her a swatch of the outfit fabrics, and Hannah custom made the buttons to match! Don't they look perfect?? All of Hannah's buttons are handmade with high quality polymer clay and double glazed. They are amazing.
Some of our favorite buttons in Hannah's shop are the bunnies, baseballs, red, white & blue, and sew swirly. The buttons came so quickly too!
Hannah also makes these darling hair bow clips! We just pinned them onto the front of the girls jumpers for now. We can't wait to see them in their little wispy hair!
Kristie (Mom) really gets the credit for making these darling jumpers. She loves to bless other people's lives, and sewing for little girls is her favorite thing to do. We think it must be the 20+ years experience. We can't wait to give the girls their outfits (hopefully this weekend)!
xox Kristie, Apphia, Achaia, Abigail, and Abiah
A Fabulous Friday.
Happy Friday, everyone! We'll plan on being back Monday! xox
{Abigail's picks}
1. Lands' End Canvas! I love their style.
2. Westward the Women. One of my favorite movies of all-time.
3. How great are these pillows?! Love 'em!
{Apphia's picks}
1. Twirl by Kate Spade — my new favorite scent
2. A fun idea for a fall skirt — add a beaded brocade band at the hem!
3. pink peonies… I love them!
4. I love dainty gold jewelry like this pineapple pendant.
{Kristie's picks}
Fabulous not just on Friday, but everyday!! My daughters…
1. Apphia Jade
2. Achaia Victoria
3. Abigail American
4. Abiah Hope Kingery
{Abiah's picks}
1. I really want to do this one day!!
4. This gold dipped bowl is so pretty.
{Achaia's picks}
1. What a perfect summer day looks like
2. These tennies are on my wish list
memories….
It's funny how your memory can be triggered by something small and unimportant. Last weekend Abiah was trying to get her boot box off our closet shelf (Abigail, Abiah, and I share a room) when a container of old hair things came falling down — no surprise there. I started going through it real quick to see if I could grab another scrunchie for my bedtime hair, and I kept coming across scrunchies that were made out of fabric I recognized……
A 9 year old Abigail's dress
Apphia's flannel pajama pants
My first sewing project (a little elastic waistband skirt)
Another Abigail dress and another pj pants flannel
A cute little outfit of Abiah's
The dress Mom made me to wear when I sang at a Church program
Plaid seersucker that was leftover from a top for Mom and matching outfits for all of us girls
Whenever we were younger almost every homemade outfit had to have a matching scrunchie. We wore them all the time on our ponytails, or to connect our french braids. It seems that they were the big thing in the '90s (at least they were at our house). It was amazing how I'd forgotten most of them, and how just seeing a pile of scrunchies made me remember so many different outfits, and so many good times. xoxAchaia
Matching.
Happy Spring! What has everyone been up to this week? We thought we'd share these pictures of us from a long time ago. Mom would dress us in matching outfits a lot… she loved the way it looked and it was easier to keep track of us when we went out. A couple months ago when all of us girls thought we wanted the exact same blouse in the exact same color we realized we probably haven't matched in about 13 years! It didn't end up working since we all are different color seasons (except Abigail & Achaia…. they're both winters), but it was fun to think back to all the times we did match or coordinate.
Much love!
xox us
P.S. What would you like to see more of from us this spring???
Applique + Embroidery
Most of the time, when it comes to little girl clothes, we just can't help adding more to them. We bought these cute denim jackets at Target for some girls we love with the direct intention of fancy-ing them up a bit.
We were actually sort of pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to do the appliqueing and hand embroidery on the denim. The flower is an applique included in our own rosa lea dress pattern — we just downsized it a bit via our printer/scanner. Since the jackets are different sizes we opted to make the flowers different sizes too, since we didn't want Emerson's jacket dwarfed by an extra huge flower. We chose to splash it up a bit by choosing colors (pink and lime green) instead of one specific fabric line.
Apphia wrote the names directly on the jackets with a water soluble quilt marking pen, and Achaia just did a simple back stitch with all 6 strands of floss (Lecien's Cosmo floss is some of our very favorite!). Ta-da!
We hope our girls love them! They are on the studio counter ready to be Christmas wrapped along with some yummy Lip Smackers (and we just saw that Lip Smackers is celebrating their 40th anniversary {since 1973}… how fun is that??)
Happy Thursday! xox
30-Minute Doll Clothes
We were so delighted when Nancy Ziemman invited us to join her 30-Minute Doll Clothes blog tour!! She generously sent us a copy of her new book – 30-Minute Doll Clothes – and we had lots of fun pouring over all of her adorable designs. We have admired Nancy's talent for many years, so we were excited to get started on our own interpretation of her "Speedy Sundress"… especially since Darison received a new American Girl doll for her birthday. We loved getting to make them coordinating outfits! The Speedy Sundress goes beautifully with our rosa lea dress.
Abigail is our biggest doll lover, so she had the honor of sewing up the sundress. It couldn't have been simpler to whip up! But it looks absolutely precious. Achaia added hand embroidered blanket stitches around the tiny flower appliques on both dresses for an extra-special finish! Seeing Darison's excitement over their matching dresses was the best thing of all. We all LOVE 30-Minute Doll Clothes!!
Be sure to finish the blog tour with…
July 19 Ingrid Pinto (freddiesfriendsblog.blogspot.com)
July 20 Page Hill (rileyblakedesigns.com/blog)
July 21 Joan Hinds & Nancy Zieman (nancyzieman.com/blog)
But of course, you really should start at the beginning! We have been amazed at the lovely creations these gals have come up with! Also be sure to enter the 30-Minute Doll Clothes giveaway. Prizes include…
- $25 Nancy’s Notions Gift Certificate from Nancy’s Notions
- 30-Minute Doll Clothes book by Nancy Zieman with Joan Hinds from Nancy’s Notions
- Dress Up Days Fat Quarter Fabric Pack and Panel from Riley Blake Designs
- Dress Up Days Fat Quarter Fabric Pack from Riley Blake Designs
Run over here to sign up.
Enjoy!
Join us with Nancy Zieman!
A few weeks ago we were delighted to be offered the opportunity of joining Nancy Zieman and other fellow sewing bloggers in a quest to make some adorable doll outfits from Nancy's new book, 30-Minute Doll Clothes. Ladies, the outfits inside are seriously cute — but, more on that later. Nancy's hosting a blog tour (see her Day 1 here), so come and join us on Wednesday, July 18th and see what we've cooked up!!
Can't wait to see you there!
xox the Long ladies
surprise, surprise!
rosa lea is in the shop and ready to ship!!!
Our little chic sisters apron pattern is also in the studio, new and improved, and ready to ship! We're so excited about this pattern!
Darison is wearing our original flounce style (but it's a little bit more flouncy) and Emerson's sporting the new addition to the little chic sisters apron — a fun, girlie-girl ruffle!
We love the way the little chic sisters apron works with the chic sisters apron!
You can spin, you can swing, you can jump, you can dance, you can smile, (and we're positive you can cook), in this little number!
happy sewing! love, the Long ladies
PS and don't forget ladies, we still have some of our other patterns on sale! Check them out!
wrapped in love.
We were so happy that we were able to share Sarah Grace's most recent birthday with her, and that we were able to make her something special. Mom's always said that a handmade quilt means you're wrapped in love everytime you put it around you, and we couldn't think of anything we would love better to do for Sarah Grace than to wrap her in love every night.
Sweet dreams, Gracie! We love you.
xoxo
PS– In case you are curious, the quilt is our happy scappy quilt pattern, and it's made completely in one of our favorite happy lines… Pam Kitty Morning. Oh, and we did make decorative pillows too. It just makes a bed seem finished.
Oh, oh, oh! We forgot to mention that our entire sale room is 10% off this week! xo