Ahoy, Matey!

So, my girl is not the girliest of girls. She likes pirates. I think she has a secret desire to be like Pippi Longstocking. Back in 2010, I made Miss G a pirate girl outfit for her birthday present. She's since outgrown that one and was begging me for a new one. Since the whole thing was based around a velour iron-on that I'd found at Bunte Fabrics it would have been a bit difficult, but for the fact that before Yvonne closed her shop, I managed to score another one, plus a boy version.

Left sleeve.

Right sleeve.

The shirt is basically the same as last time -  I used the Imke pattern from Sewing Clothes Kids Love and I made it in a faux 2-layer style, with the pointy version of the hood. The short-sleeves and the body of the shirt are a black rib knit and the sleeves and hood are red and white cotton-lycra - both left over from the previous shirt. Like last time, I managed to get a red velour pirate skull iron-on (plus one to go with the boy pirate for Mr. T) and that goes on the right short sleeve; the long sleeve has 2 layers of ribbon - the bottom layer is black grosgrain with white pick stitching and the top layer is light blue with red stars. The star one is from Farbenmix. On the left long sleeve is a stripe of pirate boys and girls ribbon that I got from Banberry Place; the short sleeve has iron-on stars of various sizes in a red holographic vinyl. The hood has a tassel of several different ribbons, including the stars ribbon and the pirates ribbon.

Ribbon tassel on the hood.

The previous pirate girl outfit had a skirt, made from black denim with embroidered skull-and-crossbones motifs in white. This time I opted for pants. I'd been wanting to make the Farbenmix Nonita pants pattern for a while - how can you not love a pant called 'piratenhosen' (pirate pants) by its' maker? I knew I didn't have enough of the denim from the skirt, so I found some stretch red denim and used that for the main fabric, with the embroidered black denim as accents. I like how they turned out, though the denim is pretty stiff; hopefully it'll get softer as it gets worn in. I really like the look of some of the topstitching done by others on these pants, so I tried to go for a similar look. I'm not entirely happy with the look but that's probably because I had to use doubled thread, since I didn't have white topstitching thread. Also, I don't know if I'd use the thicker thread for the more complicated stitch patterns on such a heavy fabric again. They probably would have been fine with a single thread.

Pirate pants- front.

Pocket on left leg and ribbon detail on cuff.

The other thing I had a problem with was fit, but my girl is so skinny that I'm kind of not surprised that the waist is a bit big on her. This is often the case with the Euro patterns when I make them for her. There's always a good amount of ease and sometimes I have to compensate for that. After one or two wears we decided to undo the waistband a tiny bit and redo the elastic. The fit is much better now. The buttons were the coolest part, since I discovered them by accident at JoAnn's. The pirate skulls appear to be printed on them, but I'm hoping they won't rub off in the wash.

Topstitching detail, skull and crossbones buttons, pirate ribbon and Farbenmix label.

 The pants look super cute with the cuffs rolled up, since that exposes the pirate denim on the underside. And they look great with boots, sneakers, clogs or pretty much any other shoe. Miss G. likes to wear her pirate print clogs with them. I kind of want to use this pattern to make pants for my son's pirate boy outfit, but I'm not sure the fit would be good for his body. I do think it will be fun to make another pair of these for G. in a lighter weight cotton for summer. First, though, I need to finish some other projects!

DESTINA-tion Delft

They're finished!! After hours of agonizing over which trims go where and trying to get the girls to decide which ribbons they wanted to use - and finally doing most of the choosing on my own- I have finished the Destina dresses by Farbenmix. Each dress is made with 3 main fabrics: the Delft tile fabric, and the blue and red daisy florals - all by the Dutch textile company Stenzo. Added to these 3 are red mini-gingham, light blue mini-gingham, and a star print in both white on red and white on navy. And of course, both dresses have the Farbenmix tag on the right sleeve, matching perfectly with my color scheme.


So yes, I know. Red, white and blue - with stars to boot. No, I wasn't attempting to be patriotic - unless by patriotic you mean celebrating my Dutch heritage by using the Delft print, to which I say guilty as charged. That fabric simply spoke to me and I obsessed about it for weeks before buying it but in the end I knew I had to have it. A few yards might be left at Bunte Fabrics if you're interested in buying some, but I'm not sure; if not, you might be out of luck because Yvonne's shop is the only place I've seen that print this year - in the States, that is. Anyway - I kept debating about throwing in additional colors to the mix but in the end I simply didn't think it would give me what I wanted. I added the star fabrics on a whim and I'm not entirely sure it was a wise idea. Cheap cotton from Hancock Fabrics and for a while I was afraid I would end up with something ridiculous and similar to home-sewn coordinating garments I've seen from some people on ebay and I was remembering my disappointment with my design choices for the Rachel dress I'd made in the spring. But I decided to be sparing with the use of the star fabric and in the end the result is pretty darn good.


The real issue was how to use these fabrics to their advantage in two different dresses in two very different sizes for two very different girls. I played with the idea of making the Farbenmix Sasha dress for Gwyneth because she likes twirly things and that pattern makes an excellent dress for just that. But the Sasha dress doesn't come in Maeve's size and I wasn't in the mood to grade up 2 sizes, so I settled on Destina for her, thinking it was a good older girl dress. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt that I should use the same pattern for both of them. The trick then became how to keep them from being identical dresses. I think they turned out pretty well, don't you?



The major differences between the two are the way in which the fabrics are used and the trims and embellishments that were added. Maeve's dress has a more solid-looking bodice, thanks to the floral poplins. I feel bad that I wasn't able to match the Delft tiles on the skirt as well as I could have. Gwyneth's matches much better, and I have to say that I prefer the Delft print at the waist. (See photo at top of page.)



Another major difference is that Gwyneth's dress has inserted ruffles both above and below the waist portion. This in itself wasn't difficult but it did make for thicker seams at those areas. I didn't do this for Maeve because I felt like hers needed to be slightly hipper and more for a 10 year-old. The Delft print is already slightly old-fashioned and I wanted this to be a fun dress. Instead of ruffles I chose to ruche a red gingham ribbon and sew that along the seamline. Additionally, she has more ribbon on her dress than Gwyneth does.





The top of the bodice of Maeve's dress has a light blue and red polka-dot ribbon from Farbenmix and a red mini-rickrack that goes all the way around the bodice. And then there's the double-layer ribbon at the hem of navy grosgrain ribbon with red pickstitching underneath a narrow light blue ribbon with red stars from Farbenmix. The rest of the ribbons and trims were from my stash. The red-centered daisy buttons were purchased at G Street Fabrics, a local store with a fabulous selection of fabrics and buttons. Maeve's dress took 9 buttons. I should note here that in order to make the dress this length for Maeve, I had to add approximately 7 inches to the bottom pattern pieces and I used the largest size, 146/152. Maeve has long legs, though, and someone else might not need to add much at all. Gwyneth's dress is a 98/104 and required no additions, however she is on the short size for her age.

I also added the waist ties. The pattern says this is optional, but this dress is pretty full-cut so I felt like they were necessary. Also, the pattern instructions suggest ribbon for this; I made these out of gingham.


On Gwyneth's dress the major focus is the Delft motifs at the waist area and the ruffles above and below it, so I didn't add a lot of ribbons. Simple rick-rack is enough here, since it doesn't detract from the beautiful fabric. As you can see in the largest photo, I used red mini-rick-rack above the top ruffle at the waistline, then used regular-sized light blue rick-rack at the hem and on the sleeves, along with some jacquard red and white heart ribbon I had in my stash (see top left photo). The small blue-centered daisy buttons on Gwyn's dress also came from G Street Fabrics; this dress needed 5.

Farbenmix finds and Bunte love

Okay, my sewing machine has sat dormant for a week while I tried to get things together around the house. Believe me, this is not an easy task, since getting all 3 children in bed at the same time is an impossible task, rather like herding cats. But I still want to sew badly. So, next project is to clean off the dining room table where my sewing is currently done (because the boy doesn't do stairs yet and the sewing room is downstairs) so that I can get to work. First I have to finish T's shirt and pants. Then I'm going to start on Maeve's Manhattan dress. After that I will be free to get started on the new fabric that I blogged about previously.

Which brings me to 2 things: I have found a pattern that I could use to make the dresses that comes in both Maeve's and Gwyn's sizes. Of course, it's the newest Farbenmix dress, Destina. I can totally see this on Maeve with that great mix of fabrics that I got from Bunte fabrics (plus one via ebay more that's on its way). If I use this pattern I could use all of the fabrics but still make 2 distinct dresses. On the other hand, it looks less 'twirly' and full than the farbenmix Sasha, which is what I was planning to use for Gwyn's dress but which doesn't come in Maeve's size. Maeve is almost 10 and though she still likes a 'spinning dress' (her appellation) she's starting to outgrow that style and I think that the Destina pattern is a good transition from the little girl style to an older, more 'tween' style.

I hate that word, by the way. It's so vague, and lately I've seen kids as young as 7 or 8 called tweens. Sorry, tweens are the kids who have hit the double-digits but aren't in the teen numbers yet. We're talking 4th, 5th and 6th graders. And don't get me started on the lack of appropriate clothing for a 10 year-old who is tall. But I digress.

Anyway, Gwyn doesn't have much in the way of twirly dresses and she's only 3 so she's at a good age for them and I think she'd get a lot of use from the Sasha dress. The reason I was attracted to the Destina dress was that it has that curved seam detailing that the Sasha dress has. So I'm thinking that maybe instead of doing them in the same pattern, I'll do 2 different patterns and use the same mixes of fabrics. Decisions, decisions. At least I have good fabrics to work with.

Which brings me to the Bunte fabrics part of this post. Yvonne is holding a giveaway on her blog and it's a meter cut (a meter!!!) of the Love Chirp fabric by Nic at Luzia Pimpinella, also an excellent blog for inspiration. I love this little birdy fabric - it makes me so happy. I've entered the giveaway and I hope I get it but if you read this in time, you could try your luck, too.