Butt Birds

7.23.2013


I don't know what it says about you when you make a piece of clothing for yourself thinking "this is going to be hilarious."  Hopefully it's nothing too horrible because that's exactly what I did when I couldn't quash my desire to make yet another pair of Maritime shorts and I thought it would be hilarious to make a pair with a bird on each "cheek" (if you catch my drift).


Yes, sometimes I even embarrass myself.

The good news is that I didn't have to go far to get this ridiculously awesome fabric.  I actually purchased it years and years ago to make some new cushion-covers for a chair.  Obviously that never happened (and, in fact, we don't even own that chair anymore) so I now have many yards of this fabric to use up.  It's a 100% cotton fabric but with a thicker texture so that it looks like there's some linen in it (which there isn't).  Amazingly they still sell it at fabric.com (you know, in case you too want birds on your butt).


This time around I made a size 6 again but I slimmed the bottom of the legs just a tiny bit so that they're just a bit more fitted.  I also left off the back pockets again because nothing was going to come between me and my butt-birds.  And I made the pockets and the waistband lining out of some Anna Maria Horner voile left over from this shirt because it's truly yummy fabric.  Oh, and I used a button a closure instead of a hook and eye closure. Truth be told, I kind of like the button closure better.

Perfectly matched pocket.  Boo-ya!

I'm kind of in love with these shorts which is a bit odd considering that I never thought of myself as much of a "shorts person."  But given the crazy amount of sunshine we've had around here lately and the fact that I only work four days a week now, it seems like shorts are becoming a staple of my weekend wardrobe.  And I'm apparently not the only one who's noticed because on Sunday Ben told me "I'm kind of sad that the weekend is over.  Mostly because that means that you can't wear your new shorts tomorrow."


Sometimes he just really gets me (and that's why I let him take close-up pictures of my rear-end).

Good

7.20.2013

How do you know when life has reach a new level of craziness?


When you consistently find yourself starting a sentence only to forget halfway through what you were going to say.


Or when you know that there was something important that you needed to tell your babysitter but you can't remember what it was (hopefully it wasn't that important).


Or when you're choosing not to participate in KCW (and actually didn't even know it was coming up. See?  I've obviously lost my mind!)


But still, life is good.  Summer is good.  All is good.


I hope it is with you as well.

Third Time's a Charm

7.05.2013


I know that I've only blogged about this dress once before, but truth be told, this is actually the third time that I’ve made the Anywhere Dress.

version numero uno
The first time I tried to be fancy-schmancy and make the facing from a different color fabric to give the dress a fun little twist.  And it would have worked brilliantly…if I didn’t make the facing from a darker fabric than the dress fabric, resulting in a dress where the facing can totally be seen through the dress.  Ooops!  Fortunately, O loves the style of this dress and still pulls this first version out to wear every once in a while.

The second version was this one and it fit perfectly when I first made it.  But then it shrunk with each progressive washing (despite the fact that I’m 97.3% sure that I prewashed the fabric) and now it’s inappropriately short and O always tries to argue with me when I tell her that she’s not going out without putting pants on under the dress. 


And now for the third version - this time with elbow-length sleeves and another bound neckline.  The fabric is the one fabric from my recent Girl Charlee order that I wasn’t quite in love with.  I don’t know what the correct term is but in addition to the printed pattern it feels like there’s some sort of fabric paint on the fabric to add some extra texture.  I don’t think it’s a good look on adult clothing but it seems to work just fine on kid’s clothes.  Fortunately O does not seem to be a picky consumer when it comes to all versions of this dress.  And fortunately she doesn’t seem to have noticed that I cut the seashells out upside down on the main part of the dress.  Oops!  I was careful to make this version a little longer in case there are any problems with shrinkage again but I think I ended up overestimating how long it needs to be because I ended up having to make quite a deep hem on this dress.  I’m going with the theory, though, that your hems can never be too deep when you’re dealing with children who are growing like little weeds (and I should know how weeds grow considering that our front lawn is now approximately 50% weeds).


And one more moment of confession - I'm 99% sure that I sewed the bound neckline on backwards and now the back is the front and vice versa.  Yes, I could have brought out my frenemy (the seam ripper) and redone it, but I kind of love the higher neckline in the front.  It gives the dress a little bit of a 1960's feel and you actually can't tell that it's backwards.  I promise.


Once again, O is feeling some mad-love for this dress.  She even begged to wear it around the house before the dress was fully hemmed (which I let her do once she’d been fully warned that I would NOT be happy if she stained it with strawberries before I had even finished sewing it).  Personally, I’m just happy that she now has a dress that is cute, super-comfy, and playground appropriate, because if it were up to her she would probably choose to wear floor-length gowns to the playground every day and those are, well, a little less playground appropriate. 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I was given this pattern by Go To Patterns and this post contains affiliate links, but, as always, all opinions are my own.