Briar Rose Flashback Tee

People often ask, “why do you sew?”

Why when you could buy the same thing for half price…when it’s just going to get ruined…when you should probably be spending your time doing many other things?

Why indeed.

Well the reasons are many.  

Sewing challenges me to learn new things and apply new knowledge.  Sewing allows me to appreciate the beauty of goods, understanding what is a high-quality product and why.  Sewing allows me to have a creative outlet.  Sewing allows me to produce goods for myself and my loved ones that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to find.  But mostly, sewing for my children ensures that when they head out into the world they are clothed in my love.

And as my oldest heads out to school for the first time this week that alone means the world to me. 

And that is why I sew.

Happy first day of school, O!

Sisters

The big one could say 30 words before she was one year old.
                         The little one still communicates through a series of grunts, pants, and pointing.

The big one didn't start walking until she was almost a year and a half.
                         The little one took off around a year and hasn't looked back.

The big one loves sweet food.
                         The little one loves salty food.

The big one stopped nursing on her own at ten months.
                         I'm a bit worried that the little one will continue to nurse until she's 16 years old if given
                         the chance.

The big one is trouble.
                          The little one is double-trouble.

The big one loves her sister.
                          The little one loves her sister too.

I guess they're not so different after all.

And The Manic Summer Sewing Continues

When Tasia announced the newest pattern from Sewaholic,  the Saltspring dress, I immediately felt my heart go pitter-patter. 

It. Is.  Gorgeous.  

And I was particularly smitten with the maxi length version of the dress (are you seeing a trend in my sewing lately?).  Despite the fact that I am usually a late-adopter of most popular patterns, I immediately ordered the pattern and purchased some knit fabric to sew it up in.  The fabric is a cotton/lycra blend that I ordered from Girl Charlee and let me tell you, this dress requires a lot of fabric!  I think I ordered something along the lines of four yards and I only had a tiny bit left over.  That’s a whole lot of fabric, ladies!

For the sizing I went with the recommended size based on my bust measurement and I didn’t grade out at the hips like I sometimes do since the skirt on this dress is rather wide and flowy.  The dress was simple enough to put together (especially since I left off the zipper since I made my version with a knit fabric) but considering it that it is rather simple to put together, it has some really nice touches.  Like the blouson top that never needs to be adjusted and the unique way that the back is finished to allow for this. 

My ties, like so many other peoples, came out super-long so I lopped a bit off of each of them after the dress was finished.  I also opted to leave the hem raw since the length was perfect as it was and would have been too short if I had hemmed it (I later found out that this dress is made for someone around 5'4" and I'm 5'6".  Always good to know for future reference).  I also made my length of elastic a bit shorter than was called for but that was mostly because that's all that I had laying around.  I will say that if you’re worried about fitting something perfectly, this is a great dress to make.  First of all, the ties on the top give you a little wiggle room with the length and the general fit of the dress and the elastic waist gives you some definite leeway when it comes to the fit around the waist (plus, it gives you some leeway after you eat a giant piece of cake…not that I would ever do such a thing).  I was originally hoping to make one more version of this dress in voile before the end of the summer but I’m quickly realizing that that might not happen.  Damn you other obligations - like washing dishes and feeding the children!

Sadly, the short-lived manic summer sewing may be coming to an end.

P.S. There's a sewalong on the Sewaholic blog with some great tips if you're interested in making your very own Saltspring dress.

The Sally Dress!

O is just a bit obsessed with My Little Pony nowadays.  How obsessed?  Well, the other day she asked the babysitter if she had a horn on her head (you know - like a unicorn horn).  Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty obsessed.

So when I was lucky enough to pattern test Shannon’s newest pattern, the Sally Dress, I knew that I wanted to draw a little inspiration from something that O loves so much.  And when it came time to pick a pony as inspiration I settled on Rainbow Dash because who doesn't love a rainbow colored pony?

So just in case you were ever wondering, this is what you get when you cross an awesome new dress pattern with a rainbow colored creature.

To make the bodice I first pieced five strips together (each a little less than two inches in width) and I then cut the bodice out from the pieced fabric (super easy!).  Fortunately, I had just enough pieced fabric left over to cut out the pocket linings as well, so now there’s a nice little rainbow surprise in each pocket.  

And look at these pockets!  They are awesomely large (and allow for some really fun topstitching)!  

Because this dress was made from the test version of the pattern the pocket placement is a bit off so this dress is a little shorter than I originally imagined, but in the end I came to love the shortness of the dress and the vintage feel of the length.  O obviously loved it too - I mean, isn't this the face of a happy customer?

Which brings me to my latest idea – a whole series of My Little Pony inspired dresses.  Is that the most ridiculous thing that you’ve ever heard?  Possibly.  But I know that it’s something that O will just love.  And how could I say no to someone who thinks that she's walking around with a unicorn horn on her head?

Want to make your very own Sally Dress?  Grab the pattern here.

Manic Summer Sewing In The Form Of A Maxi Dress

Having just returned from our last summer trip and with O starting school in less than two weeks I'm starting to realize that this summer is quickly drawing to an close and this realization is making me finish all my summer sewing projects at a manic pace.  First up, this maxi dress which I made with McCall's 6559.

I originally ordered this fabric to make the dress several months ago, but after receiving the fabric I wasn't in love with the fact that it was a bit textured so I decided to tempt the fates again and I ordered a different knit fabric from Girl Charlee.  And I'm so glad that I did.  This dress is made with a cotton/lycra blend and it is the perfect weight (awesome drape without being sheer) in addition to being ridiculously comfortable.  Like "I'm pretty sure that I'm wearing a nightgown in public" comfortable.

The contrast fabric is leftover from another project and is also a cotton/lycra blend.  The pattern calls for you to just turn under the neckline and armholes and hem them but I wanted something a bit more finished so I opted to bind them using this tutorial.  Ben things I'm rocking a little bit of a sports jersey look but I'm okay with that.

As for sizing I cut out a size 10 based on my measurements and graded out to a size 12 around the hip area but in the end up I ended up taking up the shoulders and taking in the side seams around 3/4 of an inch.  Oh, Big Four patterns, why is your sizing always so off?  Might you some day learn a little something about sizing from all those amazing indie designers?  A girl can dream, right?

Dulling The Pain

Have you missed me? (Wait – don’t answer that question. I’m just going to pretend that you said yes.)

Things around here have been a bit topsy-turvy lately.  We had a house guest for all of July which meant that my sewing room was officially turned into our guest’s bedroom.  Somehow it seemed a bit rude to say “excuse me, could you get out of your bedroom so I can feed my compulsion to sew?” so sadly not much was sewn around here during the month of July.  Plus, I’ve been in the middle of completing my first prerequisite class (you know, in all my spare time).   

But now I can officially say that that my first class is d-o-n-e!  Which would be a lot more exciting if I didn’t have 8(!) more classes to go.  But for now I’m just enjoying the fact that I have my sewing room back and I’m out of class until the middle of September, giving me both a place and time to sew.  Hurray!

To be completely honest though, I actually finished this top sometime in June…I’m just really horrible at getting around to taking pictures.  This tee is from the Scoop Top pattern, designed by the wonderful and talented (and nice!) Kristin of Skirtastop.  This is actually the second top that I’ve made from this pattern but the first one turned out to be a bit of a disaster due to my poor fabric choice.  When the pattern first came out I was so excited to make it that I settled for using whatever fabric was in my stash and unfortunately all I had was a rather thick cotton/lycra blend.  This resulted in a top where the flared sides stuck out rather draped beautifully.  Not a good look.  Plus, I completely messed up the neckline and was too lazy to go back and fix it.  Needless to say, that shirt is now back in the fabric stash, waiting to be cut up into little waistbands the next time I get around to making some kid's undies.  Fortunately my fabric choice for this version was much wiser and, therefore, this top is approximately a thousand times more wearable (that’s just an approximation).   The only modifications that I made in making this top were that I slimmed the sides just a tad bit and I cut out my own neckband piece - which was probably a bad move on my part because my neckband ended up being a little wonky.  Eh, you live, you learn.  

Perhaps one of the greatest things about the Scoop Top pattern though is how little fabric it uses.  I bought two yards of this fabric from GirlCharlee and after making my Scoop Top I had enough left over to make a top for O too. 

Her top is the Banyan top by Figgy's that I purchased many months ago in the Sew Fab e-pattern sale.  Why oh why did I take so long to make this top?  It’s incredibly easy to make, comfortable, and stylish.  Perfect for O’s back-to-school wardrobe.  And by back-to-school wardrobe, I actually mean starting-school wardrobe because my baby’s going to school for the first time this year.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to reminiscence about how this girl was once my one and only tiny little baby.  Don’t worry though – I’ll be reminiscing while we both wear our matching shirts.  It dulls the pain.

August 4, 2013

The day my baby discovered her nose.

Butt Birds

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

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

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.