This is an outfit of repeats.  First, there's the repeat pattern - the Oliver and S Hopscotch dress pattern -  that I have made many, many times before and remains one of my favorite knit dress patterns.

Then, there's the repeat theme - cats - which rank high on C's list of loves nowadays.

Fortunately, there's no repeat stink eye in these pictures, because I learned my lesson last time - do not take photos of your three year old when she just got up from a nap.

Because this garment is so full of repeats there isn't too much to say about it.  I made a straight size three and didn't make any modifications to the pattern other than adding little contrast cuffs to the sleeves.  I'm not going to lie - I love those little cuffs.  The fabric is a Lizzy House knit fabric and it was a total impulse buy when I dropped by Drygood Designs the other week.  Once I saw it I knew that I was going to make a dress for C out of it.  And lo and behold, I actually followed through with my sewing plans!

On a side note, Drygood Designs is the only fabric store that my kids never complain about being dragged to.  It may have something to do with the kid's play area in the back of the store and the fact that they get a pixie stick if I end up buying fabric there.  There's nothing like a little positive reinforcement, right?

The One In Which Hoarding Pays Off

What I'm about to tell you will both inspire you and make you realize what a total hoarder I am.

Almost 20 years ago my sister went to Ghana on a nursing trip and brought back two skirts made from beautiful Ghanian wax print fabrics.  Unfortunately both of them were made for people with teeny-tiny waists.  One I could barely squeeze into, but this one sadly never fit. 

And yet I kept these skirt...for almost twenty years...through at least six moves...and I've literally never worn this skirt.  And I didn't sew for the vast majority of that time nor did I have any great plans to start sewing so I have no idea why I kept holding on to this skirt.  Hoarder much?

But, there's a happy ending to this story because after almost twenty years of lugging both skirts around, one of them now has a new life as a dress for O.  

The pattern is the free Popover Dress Pattern by Oliver and S.  I've made it once before and am a huge fan of this super-simple dress.  Just like last time I added some width to the front and back panels (five inches) and gathered the extra fabric when sewing it together.  I also slimmed down the straps by cutting out strips of 1.5 inch bias binding (instead of 2 inches) and sewing them at 3/8".  The straps are made from navy double gauze from a yet to be blogged project and sewing such thin bias strips of double gauze was not the easiest of tasks so don't look too closely at my stitching, okay?  Thanks.

And with that ends the nearly 20 year saga of this fabric.  Maybe in another 20 years I'll make something out of the other too-small skirt that my sister brought back.  One can dream.

Also, this is my new favorite picture of O.  I don't think I've ever seen a picture that captures so perfectly who she is.  I love this little nugget.

Like A Phoenix Rising From The Ashes

I'm no master sewer by any stretch of the imagination, but I can look at most basic garments and have a general idea of how they go together.  Not so with this shirt, though.  The construction of it had me scratching my head until I was able to go through the instructions and see how all the parts go together to make that fabulous little front detail.  So simple and so ingenious! As if we would expect anything less from Liesl, right?

The pattern is the Weekend Getaway Blouse from Liesl and Company and it was released quite a while ago but I just got around to buying it from Pink Chalk Fabrics thanks to a birthday gift card from my sister (thanks, Debbie!).  The fabric is a Tina Givens voile from the Pagoda Lullaby line and in making this shirt it was saved from the wreckage of a failed project.  A couple months ago I attempted to make a kimono based off of this tutorial and let's just say that I looked nowhere near as cute as she did in her kimono when all was said and done.  The only redeeming thing about the project was that it called for pretty large fabric pieces so it was easy to reuse the fabric after  making peace with my disappointment.

As for pattern itself, I cut out a straight size 2 based on the size recommendations and I didn't make any modifications to the pattern.  Next time around I'll probably add some length because I prefer shirts on the longer side and I'll probably curve the hem a bit just because I usually wear my shirts untucked and I like the look of a curved hem better.  That's just me being picky though, because as it is right now it's perfectly wearable and perfectly lovely.  The pattern is so simple to put together that I'm imagining it in all sort of other sumptuous fabrics...like silk!  Sewing with silk kind of scares the heck out of me, but I figure that this should be a pretty easy pattern to try out my non-existent silk sewing skills on.  Wish me luck!

And here it is untucked just in case you were wondering about the length

Puppet Show Shorts - Part Two

You didn't think that I'd make just one pair of Puppet Show shorts did you?  You should know by now that I'm physically incapable of making one of anything.  I guess I always figure that while I have the pattern out I might as well trace both of the kids' sizes.  And since I have both sizes traced, I might as well cut them out of fabric.  And while they're both cut out of fabric, I might as well sew them up.

And that mindset, ladies and gentlemen, is how you end up sewing two of everything.

The good news is that these shorts are actually a bit different from the other ones that I made (as opposed to the many other matching items that I've made for the girls).  While the little one's shorts were made of seersucker, these are made from some Kaufman yellow chambray.  After buying the fabric I worried that it would be too thin for a pair of shorts, but I actually think that the fabric works well with this pattern.  I wanted to add a little something special to the shorts but also keep them fairly simple so I just added a little blue piping to the pockets and the waistband (Are you seeing a pattern here?  Piping on everything!).

The one thing that I wish I would have done differently is modify the shorts to make them have a flat front waistband rather than a fully elasticized one.  I happen to love the look of a flat front waistband and I'm kind of kicking myself for realizing too late that it would look fantastic on these shorts (especially on an older kid).  But there's always next time...except maybe for O who is quickly growing out of all the Oliver and S patterns that I have.  Wahhhh!

And on that note, I'll leave you with these pictures of O and C mastering the fine art of posing for pictures.  If only I had half the moves that these kids have.

You Biked 200 Miles? Well, I Sewed A Dress. It Looks Like We're Even.

A wonderful thing happened this weekend.

I found my sewing mojo.

Because while Ben spent all day Saturday biking the STP, (in his handmade jersey, thank you very much) I spent all day Saturday holed up in my basement sewing like a machine.

First up in my weekend creations - a Popover Dress by Oliver and S (which just so happens to be a free pattern on their website).  You see, O's all-time favorite dress is a super-simple sundress that her grandma brought back for her from Cambodia.  She started wearing it several years ago when it was way too long but now it's almost too short for her so I figured that it was time to attempt to create a replacement.  Fortunately, the Popover Dress is pretty similar in design to O's current favorite dress, making it the perfect pattern for operation "dress replacement."

I really didn't make many any big changes to the pattern except that I added 6 inches of width to both the front and back panels because I knew that I wanted the dress to be nice and flowy.  I just gathered up the extra fabric when sewing the pieces together and it worked out perfectly.  I kind of wish that the straps were a bit thinner but I'll just have to remember that for next time around.  And like most Oliver and S patterns, the dress came together like a dream.

But let's talk about this fabric because that's what I'm most excited about.  You see, quite a while ago my sister brought me a packet of fabric from Pakistan with three different cotton lawns in it.  One fabric was a solid color and the others had two different patterns on them.  According to the picture on the packet I guess I was supposed to use the fabric to sew this...

...but I didn't because I'm a total rebel.  I used the super soft plain cotton to line these shorts last year and I've been scheming about what to make with the other fabrics ever since.  And if I'm being completely honest, I was also greedily holding onto the fabrics because I wanted to make myself something with them.

In the end, though, I knew that a fabric with such a beautiful border print would make a kick-ass sundress (and sadly the fabric piece wasn't big enough to make a sundress for me).  So in an attempt to be a good mom, I cut into my beautiful fabric and made this little sundress for O.

Fortunately, O is a really great recipient of handmade goods.   Every time I make something for her, she always asks if she can wear it the rest of the day.  My other one, however, is a less grateful recipient and often has to be bribed to even try on handmade clothes.  If it were up to her she'd wear polyester clothes with Disney princesses and My Little Ponies on them all day.

You win some, you lose some.

Dreaming Of Spring

I realize that it's only January but I am so over this winter.  It's dark and it's cold and all I want to do all day is sleep and eat bread.  Last year I at least had a trip to Hawaii to look forward to, but sadly this year we actually have to use our tax return a bit more responsibly.  Boo!  Hiss!

So what does one do when it's dark and cold and miserable outside?

Why, make summer dresses of course!  (Denial is a wonderful thing.)
 
Also a wonderful thing?  Making garments completely from your stash.

Like every other crafter out there I'm hoping to cut down on purchasing this year and use a lot of what I already own, starting with some of the beautiful fabric that's been gifted to me by some kind souls.  This fabric happens to come from Cambodia by way of my mother-in-law who's lived there for the last couple of years.  It's a cotton print fabric but the pattern was asymmetrical on the cut of fabric that I had so I spent a while trying to figure out exactly how I wanted to place the pattern pieces.  Honestly, after sewing up the dress I wish I would have placed the pieces a bit differently.  That blue flower on the front of the bodice kind of drives me crazy.  But that's just me being way overly picky, right?  I'll just make a point to stare at the back which is adorned with gold buttons.  Oooooh, fancy.

The dress is the Oliver and S Bubble Dress that has obviously be de-bubblefied (this just involved not including the lining or the step where you gather the bottom of the dress with elastic - a super-easy modification).  I opted to skip the decorative stitching around the "sleeves" since you can't see any stitching with this fabric and instead I just top-stitched around the armholes and the neckline.
As for the sizing, I chose to make a size 5 for my four and a half year old.   The size four probably would have fit her better right now, but considering that it's currently 35 degrees out I don't think that she'll be wearing this little dress outside anytime soon.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to eat an entire loaf of soda bread and to take a nap.  Wake me up when it's spring.

Bedtime Story Pajamas - Take Two

 

I know that things have been awfully quiet around here lately, but you can rest assured that it's not because things have been going terribly wrong.

In fact, in many ways, things are going terribly right around here (although being an entirely too superstitious person, I'm a bit afraid to even write that...is that just inviting something bad to happen.  Let's hope not.)

O is officially rocking it in her first year of preschool.

C has mastered the art of angrily crossing her arms in front of her when we do something to displease her (trust me, it's much cuter than it sounds).

And Ben is a champ who has seamlessly taken on more of the parenting duties while I've been in evening classes.

And as for me, well, something had to give around here and lately it's been my presence in this little space (and probably my presence in your space too because I've also become the worst commenter).

But I've tried to keep a little bit of time here and there for some sewing projects and here's my most recent one - a new pair of pajamas for O.  I loved the Oliver and S Bedtime Story pajamas the first time I made them for her, but they haven't fit her in quite some time now.  And she sadly had grown out of the size options on the smallest size package so I had to pony up the money to buy the largest sizes.   Of course that meant that I also had to tape the entire PDF pattern together and trace it, which is not an easy thing to do when you have a one and a half year old trying to tear apart everything that you just taped together.  Good thing she's so darn cute.

I cut out a straight size 4 for my four year old and the top seems a bit large on her, but hopefully that just means that it will fit her for many months to come.  The main fabric is from the Moda Ticklish Collection and the contrasting fabric is Valori Wells's Bridgette Lane flannel - both super-soft flannels.  So now she is officially all set for some warm and cozy winter sleeping.  Just in time for the super-cold weather that we've been having around here lately.

Snow White

Let’s just start by pretending that my peter-pan collar actually meets in the middle as it’s supposed to, okay?

Good.  Glad we got that out of the way.  Now on to the rest of the post.

I knew that I wanted to make at least one Halloween costume this year but I also knew that free time is at a premium around here nowadays so I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time trying to figure out how to sew random amounts of fun-fur together.  So instead I opted to use a pattern modification that had already been figured by some other kind soul in blog-land.  Just like Janimal, I modified the Oliver and S Puppet Show dress to become a Snow White dress and I followed her directions for creating these lovely pleated sleeves.  O is really into floor-length dresses nowadays so I opted to add some length to the dress by adding 8.5 inches to the bottom.  Because this also resulted in a wider dress I decided to just leave off the hem facing and instead I finished the bottom of the dress with a regular hem.  Also, because this dress is longer than intended I added some extra buttons down the back to accommodate the extra length.  

And can we just talk about these buttons for a second?  I know it's next to impossible to see in these pictures but they’re gold!  And super fancy!  And kind of perfect for this dress!  And I actually had enough of them since I bought two packets of them from an antique store many years ago.  That was a miracle in itself. 

Not a Christmas miracle.

A Halloween miracle.  Which is usually just me not eating all of the Halloween candy before Halloween night.

KCW: Sailboat Top

Alright, KCW, it's official - you done kicked my butt once again.

All you asked is for me to sew for one hour a day and I couldn't even do that.  I lay down with C to nurse her every night and on most weekday nights it is nearly impossible for me to get out of bed after my head hits that pillow.  Needless to say there may have been one or two nights that I didn't get around to sewing.  Eh, what are you going to do?

I did manage to bang out one more top before the end of KCW.  It's yet another Oliver and  S pattern that I've been meaning to get around to making for ages - the Sailboat Top.  I cut out a size 12-18 months hoping that it would fit perfectly like the Class Picnic Blouse did, but this one seems to be a bit big on C.  But that just means that it'll fit her for longer, right?

The pattern itself is fabulous (like all Oliver and S patterns) but I had a hell of a time making buttonholes this time around (damn you, sewing machine!).  I ended up having to rip two of them out and that is a total pain in the butt (it ranks up there with ripping out a serged seam).  At one point I gave up and tried to install snaps but that ended up being a bit of disaster too so I ripped those out as well (also, not fun).  In the end I went back to buttonholes and finally got four perfect little button holes.  Cue the singing of angels.

The fabric is a cotton sateen fabric from the Lisette collection that I purchased at Joann Fabrics many, many moons ago.  It has a nice hand to it and I just love the color.  The buttons are from the stash (although the button stash is quickly decreasing.   What will I do when I have to go out and buy buttons like the regular folk do?).

Alright, that's it for me and KCW.  Now on to Me Made May!

KCW: So Nice I Made It Twice

It's confession time around here.

First confession: I've barely sewn anything for my littlest nugget.

It just so hard to get motivated to make something for her when she has a ton of clothes already thanks to having an older sister and two older girl cousins who have given generously to her (I believe that this is what's known as a first-world problem...).

But as a third child I'm well aware that non-first children deserve some new things too.

So may I present to you, a little shirt made just for C.

If it looks familiar it's because it's Oliver and S's Class Picnic Blouse - the same shirt that I made for O the other day.  It was so nice, I made it twice.

The fabric for C's shirt is also a cotton lawn from Fashion Fabrics Club (obviously I went a little crazy when they offered free shipping a couple of weeks ago).  I cut out a size 12-18 months for my 13 month old and I was worried that it would be a bit big, but it seems to fit perfectly.  Woo-hoo!

Second-born children unite!

PS - this is what happens when I try to take pictures of the girls together.  Somebody doesn't like sitting still for any significant period of time.

PPS - Enjoy this picture of C smiling.  She chipped one of her front teeth after this picture was taken  so in all future pictures she'll be looking like a welter-weight boxing champion of the world.  Super.

Opa!

For all the times that I call my dad asking for something, ("Hey, can you watch the kids?,"  "My dishwasher is leaking.  What do I do?,"  "Can I borrow your saw?") my dad rarely asks for anything in return.  So when he called the other week asking me to make a dress for the daughter of a long-lost cousin who lives in Greece, how could I say no?  His only requirements were that it be a sundress and that it have some sort of label in it indicating that it was made by me.  Of course, that was the perfect excuse to finally get off my butt, follow this wise woman's advice, and order some fabric from Spoonflower to make into labels.

It was my first time using Spoonflower or even attempting to "design" anything on the computer (and I use that word very loosely) but I have to say that Dana put together a great tutorial on how to design a graphic just using Word which is fantastic because I don't have any fancy programs on my computer.  I ordered my labels to be printed on the cotton/linen fabric to make them a bit more substantial and I love the look of the fabric.  I did learn that small writing on the labels is essentially illegible.  You see, there's a tiny little line under the main text that reads "Made by Carolyn."  Oh you can't see it? Yeah, that's my point.

But back to the dress.  So besides the whole label issue my dad pretty much gave me free reign which actually had me turning in circles for a while trying to figure out which direction I wanted to go.  It's hard to make something for someone that you've never met when you have no idea what their personal style is.  Plus I felt a sense of added pressure because my dad has never asked me to make anything before and I didn't want him to regret this decision.  Which is all to say that I spent way too long pouring over patterns and picking out fabrics.  And once I finally picked out the fabrics I changed my mind about five times on how I wanted to put them all together.  Initially I thought I would go with a solid on the bodice and a patterned fabric on the skirt, but just as I began cutting out the pattern I became convinced that I wanted an all-over patterned dress with some colored flat piping.  And in the end that's what I ended up doing.

The main fabric is Birds and Berries designed Lauren and Jessi Jung for Moda, the bodice lining is a coordinating blue from Moda, and the flat piping and hem lining is a coordinating golden yellow fabric from Moda.  As for the buttons, I ended up making some fabric covered buttons which blend into the pattern of the dress so that they don't distract from the beautiful lines of this pattern.

I have to say that this version of the dress is much simpler than what I originally imagined but I like it so much more.  I think that only now am I beginning to realize that I'm generally drawn towards simpler, cleaner styles.  Given that I've been sewing for probably five years, you'd think that I would have figured this out a long time ago.  Hey, I never claimed to be a fast learner.

And speaking of how long I've been sewing I actually made this pattern once before - back when O was a baby.  I broke out that version the other day when I was trying to figure out what to make and I promptly hung my head in shame as I looked at my past sewing efforts.  Don't get me wrong - I'm no sewing genius now, but I'm happy to say that it seems like I've gotten at least a little bit better in the last three years.

And to that I say, "opa!"

Pattern:  Oliver and S Tea Party Sundress
Size: 12 - 18 months

And to all those celebrating this weekend, a very Happy Thanksgiving to you!  When I asked O what she was thankful for today she told me that she was thankful for candy.  Those priorities sound about right for a three year old.  See her hoarding her candy on Halloween...