The other day I woke up in a house with no children and a fabulous idea of what I wanted to sew.  Unfortunately, I also woke up with a killer cold and, despite searching high and low, I couldn't find the fabric that I was looking for (it remains MIA).  In the end, though, the missing fabric ended up being fortuitous because it led me back to this beautiful cotton lawn that my sister brought back from Pakistan a couple years ago.  It was a little over two yards of fabric but it was also on the narrow side so there were some definite limitations as to what I could make with it.  Also, it had a really beautiful border print so I wanted to make sure that it was incorporated in some way.  In the end I decided to go back to the Scout Tee pattern with some minor modifications.  I started by lengthening the sleeves to around 3/4 length and I cut the sleeves against the grain to incorporate the border pattern into the sleeve ends.  I also lengthened the body considerably (maybe four inches?  I'm terrible about keeping track of these things).  I attempted to make more of a shirt tail hem on the sides but I didn't do a drastic enough modification so it's barely noticeable.

Most of the seams are French seamed since the fabric is ever so slightly sheer but my sleeves are just serged in.  A couple  years ago I followed Jen's tutorial on French seaming sleeves, but honestly, I found it to be a major pain in the butt.

And that's it, although I'm debating whether I should have made a size four instead of a size two (like I have in the past).  My body has definitely changed over the last couple years and I feel like I'm still figuring out what sizes to sew and what modifications to make.  I'd like to thank growing older and having two kids for these fitting issues.

On a slightly more humorous note, I had Ben retake a couple of these pictures because my posture was so bad in them.  He told me, "That should be your New Year's resolution.  Better posture."
I told him, "It was.  Last year."
To which he replied, "How's that working for you?"

Not so good, I guess.

Joey Sweatshirt

Okay, let's start with the most obvious thing about this garment- it's too small for my child.  Which is a huge bummer, because I happen to think it's a pretty freaking adorable garment.  In fact, this may be the exact face that I made when I realized that it was too small.

Alright, now that that's out of the way, let's talk about this little sweatshirt.   Remember, the Joey Dress?  And remember my Renfrew?  Well, this is what you get when you use the left over fabric from your Renfrew to make a sweatshirt from the Joey pattern.  Ta-da!  Although, my stupidity in making this was shortening the Joey bodice piece by an inch when cutting out the pattern.  I don't know why I thought this would be a great idea.  If I had left it an inch longer it probably would fit perfectly - doh!  I'm a bit bummed because this is the most luscious of sweatshirt knits and I hate for fabric to go to waste.  Hopefully I can talk C into wearing it in the coming years although knowing how stubborn she is, I won't hold my breath.

In any case, this little sweatshirt was a super-simple, easy make.  With a cute little pocket piece, the Joey Dress pattern is ripe for turning into a sweatshirt.  The only thing that needs to be done is to cut out a slightly larger size to make up for the fact that most sweatshirt fabrics have very little stretch.  This time around I was super-lazy and just sewed the sweatshirt together with a smaller seam allowance, but next time I'll make proper modifications and cut out one size larger.

Also, next time I won't let O spill yogurt smoothie all over her new sweatshirt before I take pictures of it.  You learn something new everyday.  Or at least I do.

I Think I'm In Love...With This Dress

Remember when I wrote about using nearly 20 year old fabric?  Well, I can now beat that because this dress just so happens to be made out 40 year old fabric that my mom bought back when they lived in Indonesia in the early 1970's.  Now I realize that I'm making it sound like I come from an entire family of hoarders, but that's probably not too far off from the truth.

In any case, my mom gifted me a couple of fabrics that she no longer has use for since she really doesn't sew anymore.  This fabric is a beautiful handcrafted batik and given that and the fact that my mom held on to it for so long, I was more than a little nervous about cutting into it.  Especially, since the last time I tried to use a precious fabric from my mom I ended up making an entire dress....and then cutting a hole in it with the serger just as I was finishing it.  Ughh!  This time I was determined to be far more careful.

I used the Alder Dress pattern by Grainline Studio since I already had a good idea of the fit and I thought it would be a great match for this fabric.  This time around though I went back and properly added three inches to the length and I love the length on this version  You know what else I love?  The fact that I think I've finally figured out how to sew the gathered inset in properly.  The inset on my first Alder is a little rough but fortunately dark blue color hides a multitude of sins.  I also only added one breast pocket to this one, but you may have a  hard time seeing it due to my kick-ass pattern matching (excuse me while I pat myself on the back).

Other than that, there's nothing too notable about this dress.  Except that I really, really, really do like it.  It is totally not something that I would ever try on in a store, but somehow that makes me like it even more.

Oh, and no post would be complete without a picture of my favorite little photobomber.  Hello there, little one.

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.

Seersucker + Chambray

While I've spent the last two years trying to be more intentional about sewing from my stash, there is now a sense of urgency behind these efforts since I'll most likely be unemployed come the middle of June.  And not only unemployed but also racking up student loan debt.  Ah, the great American dream.

In any case, while I've always tried to be pretty sensible about not dropping too much money on fabric and patterns (with varied success), it's pretty clear that I need to make some changes in how I approach picking my projects.  Lately I've begun to dig through the stash trying to sort out the scraps from the larger pieces of fabric that can actually be made into a garment.  So many of the pieces that I have are fairly small so imagine my surprise when I found two pieces that were actually big enough to sew a dress from.  And it was an even better surprise when I saw just how cute these fabrics look together.  The chambray and seersucker make for an awfully cute preppy dress.

The chambray's leftover from this top and the seersucker's is left over from this dress.  The piping around the waist is also left over from some unknown project  and the zipper was shoved in the back of my cupboard no doubt from some long-ago discarded project.

I kind of felt like one of the little mice putting together leftover bibs and bobs for a dress for Cinderella to wear to the ball.  A scrap of fabric here, a zipper there, and ta-da!  A dress!  And, of course, it's a Hanami Dress because that pattern holds a special place in my heart.

Sure, it's no ball gown but I happen to love it all the same.

Archer!

Well, in true Carolyn fashion I finally got around to sewing something that the rest of the sewing community has been making for the past two years - an Archer!  In my defense, when the pattern came out I thought it looked great, but I also thought that it really wasn't something that I would wear.  Oh, how wrong I was, though, because this one has been getting a ton of wear (hence all the wrinkles) and I definitely see some more in my future (in fact, I already cut out out another one - only this time with a butt ruffle!)

Truth be told, I was also late to the game in making in an Archer because so many people commented on what a time consuming project it was and I'm more of a simple project kind of gal.  I was worried that I would find the project long and tedious and that I wouldn't enjoy it at all.  I'm happy to report, though, that my experience couldn't have been farther from that.  Yes, it took a couple sewing sessions to finish, but I loved the fact that knowing that it was going to take me some time caused me to slow down and take time in getting things right.  I have a tendency to speed through things unnecessarily and the process of slowing down definitely led to a much better end-product.  How embarrassing is it that I'm just learning this now?

For my first Archer I made straight size 2 with no modifications.  I was a bit worried about the fit because I'm definitely a pear shape and I usually grade to a larger size around the hips but I compared the Archer measurements to store-bought shirt that I had and they seemed to be comparable.  The overall fit seems to be right on although the more I wear it, the more I wish that it was just a tad bit longer.  Maybe about an inch?  (For reference, I'm 5' 6")  Fortunately, that's an easy enough modification to make in my many Archers to come.  The directions were great and I used the sew along on the Grainline Studio site to help me along when I got stuck.  And, following the sage advice of many other bloggers, I used Andrea's collar tutorial and it made the collar installation pretty easy.

The fabric is from Nancy's Sewing Basket and I bought it on a particularly memorable Mother's Day outing that ended with both kids crying hysterically in the car and O having blood all over her face because of some obsessive ear-picking that she did back when she was three.  This fabric is probably the only good thing to come from that day.  The fabric is a cotton with a tiny bit of stretch to it and I originally purchased it thinking that I would make some sort of dress out of it, but then I got smart and realized that I rarely wear dresses and this was the far more practical solution.

And it is.  The end.

New Year. Same Resolution.

Like most sewers (sewists?  sewing people?  you know what I mean.), every year I resolve to sew from the stash and since the new year is still kind of fresh I figured that I should probably stick to my sewing resolution.  So behold!  Three shirts made completely with items from the stash.

The first shirt is made from a super-soft Ella Moss fabric that I'm pretty sure is some sort of cotton/poly blend.  I originally bought it to make some undies for myself (which I did), but luckily I happened to have just enough left over to make a shirt for O.  This fabric has very little recovery so it make its uses limited but it's incredibly soft and perfect for swingy t-shirt.  The pattern is just the Made by Rae Flashback Tee pattern which I've used, oh, about a million times.  I cut out a size five, but added a bit of length and width at the bottom to make it more a-line.  I love the really simple black and white stripes on her and she loves how soft the shirt is so we're both very happy campers with this one.

Okay, on to the next t-shirt, which so so happens to be made from a Michael Stars turtleneck that I sadly outgrew.  I've been holding on to it for quite some time, but in the New Year's cleaning out of the closet I made my peace with the fact that it juts doesn't fit me anymore.  Fortunately it was able to find new life as a t-shirt for O.  I kept the original hems on the shirt and sleeves, making this a super-quick sew.  O loves that the shirt is gold and sparkly and I love that her new shirt was essentially free (well, you know what I mean).

Last new t-shirt - cut up from yet another shirt that I outgrew.  The shirt say "I'm a little stinker" on it and I'm not sure what it says about me, but two different people gave me this T-shirt for Christmas 13 years ago.  Either all the gift givers shopped in the same places or I really am a little stinker.  I choose to believe the former.  In any case, this shirt was well-loved by me for many years but it was time to accept the fact that it is way too small on me now.  Once again I used the Flashback Tee pattern but because the original tee had little cap sleeves, O's version has short sleeves.  Not so appropriate for winter, but it's nice and long so it should fit her by the time summer comes along.

And that's it!  Three things that sat around in my cupboard for way too long are now being well-loved.  Let the stash-busting continue!