Stuck in a Holding Pattern

Hold on there, kiddo. It won't be much longer!

Nothing new sewn. Nothing. It's killing me. I've spent the past 2 weeks trying to just find time to get into my sewing room, now that it's moved from the old room into what was once the storage room. I can't find the time. Or the energy. Or both, I don't know. I do know that I have a few things left that I really want to sew while I'm still pregnant, and I have to finish the summer SWAP for the boy. But this pregnancy has left me more than a little drained and I'm starting to really feel it. I've said it before - Pregnancy after 40 is not for wimps. This is especially true since Scott is gone for the next month. I'll reach the 33 week mark on Friday and I won't see him until I reach week 36. The children have lost their minds because it's summer and Daddy is gone and they know I'm exhausted. Lucky for me Miss Maeve is at camp right now - at least for the next few days. And tomorrow - tomorrow Scott's replacement shows up. And by replacement, I mean his mom.

C. and I don't have tons in common, but she's my mother-in-law and she's available to help out for once. And for once I mean, this one time. Last time we asked her to come and help was when I was pregnant with Tallon and she told us she didn't think she'd be able to come and help because she couldn't take time off of work. I don't know what Scott said to her this time, although she's retired now so work isn't an excuse she can use. Her main work is usually taking care of the other grandkids, Scott's sister's twins who are 8 1/2. She spends a lot of time taking them to their various tennis, violin and swim lessons, and I don't know what-all else. Scott must have been convincing, though, and I'm glad because I'm far too pregnant to be dealing with my 3 crazies alone and trying to run a house. I'm not too proud to admit that. Scott left on Sunday and I'm already drained and it's only Wednesday.

So tomorrow we pick C. up at the airport and then run errands on the way home, get our CSA box for the week at the Farmer's Market, eat lunch (I promised the kids we'd eat at the market) and then we're back to the house for a brief time before gymnastics. It promises to be a busy day. Friday will sort of be a day of rest, though we do have a Daisy scout meeting here in the late afternoon that day. Then C.'s help will start off with a bang on Saturday morning, since I have to pick up Maeve at camp while she takes the other 2 to their swim lesson. Tallon, I promise, will tire her out just by being himself.

The rest of the time, though? I'm going to put her to use as much as possible so that I can get back in the sewing room. I figure that she's probably got more energy than me right now, even if she is 65. If she can take charge of even half the stuff to do with the kids (especially baths and bedtime) I'll have more time to get to things that need doing around here. Plus, the more she takes them to the park and whatnot, the less cleaning I have to do in the house. And that's always a plus. Additionally, I'm starting to get into that nesting mode and I want to have everything clean and tidy before the new one makes his appearance. I know realistically it won't be like that, but if I can sort of have things the way I want them I'll feel a lot better.

On the fun side, I dyed my hair teal back in June and love the color. It started to fade a bit towards the end of the month, so I brightened it up the other day and I love it.

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!

Stars and Stripes

Ideally, this post should have been written back in September, except I forgot about it. I mean, I do a lot of sewing but don't always end up documenting it as I go along or even right after I finish it. I'm working on changing that, but it's a process.

This outfit for Miss Gwyn (who else?) was actually her first day of school outfit, and I stayed up all night to finish it - literally. The birds were singing when I went to bed. Anyway, she had asked me for "an adventure skirt" and had chosen a star-print twill from JoAnn's. After perusing my Ottobre magazines I found the perfect pattern - #14 in the 1/2005 issue. It's a pretty quick and easy pattern but with a lot of topstitching. I used a yellow thread, since yellow is her favorite color.

She needed a top to go with it, so we went with the ever-popular Farbenmix Imke (or was it Antonia? I don't remember now!), with hood and short, puffed sleeves. The green and white striped knit I had in my stash, grabbed from the bargain table at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, MD back when we lived on the east coast. It was a huge piece, but at $2.97/yard you really can't go wrong, can you?

Shirt front detail.

Anyway, the green matches the green stars in the skirt perfectly but it's a bit plain, so we added some iron-on stars in red holographic foil and some Farbenmix ribbon. I'm not sure what the middle ribbon is called, but it's still available at the Farbenmix online shop. The other two both have stars - light blue with red and orange with red, also available at Farbenmix and at Banberry place, respectively. Because, you know, you can't have too many stars. The hood on this shirt is the pointy version, naturally, and it has a tassel of the 3 ribbons that I used on the front of the shirt. I like that these two pieces are easily worn separately - I think she's worn the skirt with a solid red shirt and the striped shirt goes with any jeans, so she doesn't always feel like she needs to keep them together as an outfit. I think that they'll fit well through the summer, but Miss G. has had a slight growth spurt lately, so it may not last into the next school year.

Summer SWAP for the boy - Part 1

I'm trying to get a jump on the summer garment sewing for Mr. T, since it usually sneaks up on me. He's pretty much growing out of the size 4T things from the past year, so everything is needing replacement pretty soon. Back in February and March I started going through my Ottobre magazines and sketching out things I wanted to make for him, just so that I'd have an idea of what fabrics I wanted to use and what I'd have to buy. I really tried to focus on using fabrics already in my stash so that I'd have to buy very little. This meant that I could also try to make everything fairly mix-and-match so that there wouldn't be any mismatched clothing if someone other than me picked out his clothes. I've got all the patterns traced and am cutting things out in bunches, keeping the knits together in groups so I can sew several garments at one sitting without having to change needles or rethread the serger. It makes the process go really quickly.

As of right now I have 4 t-shirts completed and 1 short-sleeved hoodie. The hoodie is from a burnt-orange and cream 100% cotton French terry. It has some stretch because of the lofty, almost loose knit but no lycra, so the stretch is fairly minimal. For this I used the # 25 "Eleven and One" pattern from the 1/2011 issue of Ottobre. This pattern actually calls for a lining in the hood and the sleeves, but I felt that it would be too warm for summer if we used a lining, even if it wasn't in the body. Additionally I thought that a lining would drag down the loftiness of the hood and make it droopy. Instead of using the lining, I simply turned the edges of the hood under twice and stitched it down. I did the same thing with the sleeves. I contemplated making a front pocket but then the summer 2013 issue arrived with a short-sleeved hoodie pattern for babies and I thought I could use the leftovers to make a matching hoodie for the baby. I wasn't sure if I'd have enough fabric for that if I added a pocket to the larger one, so I left it plain. I did add a piece of contrasting ribbon with dragons on it at the bottom, just for a cool detail.

The first 2 t-shirts are made from the 3/2007 issue of Ottobre -# 20 Slim Fit T-shirt. The first is made from a striped interlock knit in aqua and chartreuse, with dark brown ribbing. I can't remember where the interlock came from but I think I got it on eBay and it may have been a Chez Ami knit. Don't quote me on that, though. All I know is that it's super soft.

The second of the Slim Fit T-shirts is made from a surfboard-print stable jersey that also came from either an etsy seller or eBay. My only problem with this shirt is that the fabric was a beast to work with due to the fact that it was twisted and the print was off-grain, making the rows of surfboards slant. I tried to avoid this at all costs but it would have created a shirt that twisted miserably if I had tried to make the surfboards line up straight. I almost gave up on this print but T. wanted a surfboard shirt so much that I decided to try to make it work and the end result isn't that bad. The ribbing is orange ribbing from my stash.

The last 2 t-shirts are from the 3/2008 issue of Ottobre - the # 10 "Bat" t-shirt. This shirt has a looser fit than the first 2 and a chest pocket. The first is made from 2 different interlock knits - one solid orange and one a cars print in cream with brown, orange, aqua blue and sprout green. I like the contrast of the bright solid sleeves with the print body and I really like the way the turquoise ribbing looks with the orange.

The second "Bat" t-shirt is made from a beautiful tie-dye 100% cotton rib knit that I got in a remnant bin somewhere. It was already dyed when I bought it, though it does look like I could have dyed it myself. The binding on the neck and sleeves is made from an olive green interlock remnant from my stash and I decided on the interlock based on how thin the rib knit is. I felt that a chunkier knit or ribbing would have distorted the neckline due to the difference in weights. These 2 are really close in weight and look great together, as evidenced by the really smooth seam. I love the way this looks. I added the dragon ribbon to this one, as well.

Next up, a couple of pairs of shorts, including some 'summer' sweatpants and probably 1 or 2 more t-shirts.

The "Patisserie" Dress

So around the beginning of the year, a friend posted on her FB page that she would hand make something for the first 5 people who commented on her post, and the catch was that you had to repost the offer. I commented because my friend, Christine, is always a crafty person and is also an amazing photographer. When we were in college she did pressed flowers for a bunch of us who were close friends with her and I still have mine, framed, in my sewing room.

When I reposted, I got replies from 4 friends quite quickly but was surprised that I didn't hear from my friend, Lindsey, since she's a fan of my sewing work. I made a baby quilt for her younger daughter last summer and she loves it. When I saw that she hadn't replied to the post about a free handmade something, I messaged her to see if she'd seen it. She hadn't, but she jumped at the chance and when I asked if she wanted something for the baby, she said that the quilt was enough but could I make something for her older daughter, BB, who is my Gwyneth's good friend. BB is a girly girl and I immediately started thinking about dresses - something she could wear in the summer but also in spring and fall with maybe a shirt underneath. I showed her the Feliz dress in the SCKL book and she loved it.  BB's favorite colors are pink and purple so I poked around on the Fashion Fabrics Club website to see what was available and came up with a pastel plaid chambray, a purple chambray, a pink striped shirting and some coordinating voiles. But when the fabrics came, I stopped being so enthusiastic about them. Normally I use some kind of a print as the main fabric and I'd planned to use the plaid as the lower ruffle on the under-dress, as well as some of the ruffles on the back and make the body of the under-dress from the striped pink shirting. I stopped liking that and decided that the way to go was with the plaid as the body of the under-dress. But then I started thinking about needing a smaller print to tie everything together - the plaid is good but bigger than I'd anticipated. I dug through my stash and somehow came up with a 1-yd. piece of pink abstract print of dots/egg shapes that had all the colors from the other fabrics. I can use this for the sash and as one of the ruffle fabrics. The purple chambray is the over-dress. But how to tie it all together?

The most famous French macarons. These colors inspired the theme of the dress.

BB is interested in all things French and I thought that the perfect way to embellish the plain fabric of the  over-dress was to embroider it. Suddenly a lightbulb came on for me - Huups.de has an embroidery set called 'Bonjour Paris', of a French girl with her dog, an Eiffel Tower, a pastry shop and the phrase "Paris, Je t'aime" (I love you, Paris).  And it's done by my favorite embroidery designer, Nic, of Luzia Pimpinella. If I changed up the color scheme from the original design of the embroidery to go with the dress colors, I could make a whole scene of the girl going to the pastry shop. Okay, technically the shop says 'confiserie', which means 'confectionary' and really refers to a place that makes desserts of various kinds (cakes, pastries, tartes, chocolates, ice cream) and not just a pastry shop. But, if you add some ribbons with cakes, cupcakes and ice cream cones in those same tones of French macarons and you get a pastry shop dress! So now I'm inspired. And also, hungry. However, the macarons can wait.


So the end product:

As you can see, the apron/overdress is the focal point. I wanted the "Paris, Je t'aime" to stand out so that the theme would be kind of obvious, so I went with a lighter color. White seemed too stark, hence the light pink. And the jade green for the Eiffel Tower letter 'A' is a good way to introduce that color, plus it links to the straps; I was afraid that doing the straps in the green would look odd but they bring a nice bit of contrast. And they look adorable with the dark pink rick-rack at the edges - that part reminds me of the lace paper doilies that some pastry shops use.

I wanted to set up the street scene at the bottom in such a way that there was an Eiffel Tower in the background, but I realized that it was going to be too heavy after I finished the pastry shop, simply due to the amount of embroidery on a dress this size. So I moved the Eiffel Tower to the back of one of the side panels, which kind of gives the feel that Paris is all around and ties the theme to the back of the dress.

The back of the dress involved adding ruffles and ribbon - normally not something that is too difficult, just time-consuming. That and with this dress it has to be done before sewing the dress pieces together, so it seems like it's taking forever to finish. Surprisingly, this was more difficult than I anticipated, since I had to figure out how to incorporate the ribbons in a way that made sense and didn't look like I'd just thrown a bunch of ribbon at the dress.

The wide cake ribbon posed a problem due to its width, but I made it work, though I ended up using far less of it than I anticipated. At first I'd thought I would simply serge the raw edges of the ruffles and, after gathering them, sew them so that the serged edge would be under the ruffle, the topstitched so that it wouldn't show. I soon realized that the green voile was far too thin for that and that the plaid ruffles would have been too heavy done that way. Instead, I stitched the ruffles with the raw edges facing up, then added ribbons on top of the raw edges.

This not only serves as a way to finish/conceal the raw edge but also adds a nice surprise underneath. That's what I did with the cake ribbon, though I only used it on the green ruffles, since using it on all of the ruffles would have been a little too much. Even cakes should be taken in moderation.

To make the other ribbons stand out, I chose the lavender with the ice cream cones for the yellow seersucker ruffles and used the yellow ribbon with the cupcakes on the purple chambray ruffles. You know, contrast colors and all that. The purple chambray is topped with pale pink ribbon and the yellow seersucker got a yellow one, though I wish I'd had a darker pink on hand and maybe a greenish color for the yellow, just to make it more interesting.

I'd contemplated using the multicolored abstract dot print as the bottom ruffle but it seemed to work against the plaid of the dress, so instead I used an embroidered pink voile, very similar in color to the rick-rack that I used on the straps and on the jade green ruffles. 

When I brought the dress to her, BB. immediately tried it on and declared it her new favorite dress, which is always a good feeling. I so enjoy making things for people and it really makes me happy when they like it this much. I made a size 122/128, which is a little roomy on her right now but that means she'll be able to wear it that much longer. When I left her she was still spinning in it every now and then, just to see it twirl.

Mustache Man

My T-bird is currently very into the whole mustache thing. I don't know why, except that he thinks they're hilarious. So when I noticed that he was in need of another long-sleeved shirt or two, I decided that he ought to have one with a mustache, and I reasoned that it would be an excellent first project for test-driving my embroidery machine. So I checked out Urban Threads, a cooler-than-average website with lots of trendy embroidery downloads for sale. The search term 'mustache' brought up quite a few embroidery designs and I chose a rather large mustache that was fairly simple in design.

Mustache detail.

I'd already sketched out a plan for this shirt -2 layer sleeves (short over long) with a slightly scooped neck from the Fall 2008 issue of Ottobre. This is the "Pekka" shirt, design #25 and made up in a size 110. It's slightly large right now but it won't be in the fall. The main body of the shirt and the short sleeves are made from a cafe au lait-colored interlock that I got from The Fabric Fairy. The longer sleeves are a two-toned brown striped rib knit from my stash and the brown ribbing is from my stash, as well. The ribbon trim on the sleeves is a green frog print that is reversible and came from Banberry Place. I was a little nervous about the embroidery, since it was the first time I'd used the machine; however, it was really easy to do and now I want to embroider all kinds of garments! Next project, a shirt with a triceratops embroidery.

Frog ribbon - I used both sides.

The pants shown with the shirt are also mommymade and they're also from Ottobre, this time from the Fall 2003 issue, design #13. These are made from olive green ripstop cotton that I had left over from making shorts a year or two back. They have pleated pockets, golden brown-colored topstitching and a striped ribbon detail on the pocket flap. The bottoms of the legs have drawstrings of black shock cord with black stoppers. My one problem with these pants is that the snaps on the pockets aren't really functional, due to me accidentally getting carried away with the hammer when I put them on. It's not my fault - I wanted them to be on securely! Anyway, this pattern is fairly easy to put together and I've got another pair cut out already - this time in brown and tan, using some leftover denim and recycling part of a pair of daddy's pants. I hope to get those finished soon and then it's back to the maternity bathing suit, which got put on hold due to lack of good elastic and the need to finish this shirt so it could be a birthday present. And then there's the dress I made for a friend's daughter, but that's another post.

The Shape of Things, aka Does This Dress Make Me Look Fat?

I'm dying to sew for myself. I have tons of projects in my queue that are for me and I even have the fabrics already. But I can't make them - yet. I don't want to make them yet. Why? Because I won't be able to make them the right size now so that I can still wear them in the summer or fall.

Why is that? Because I'm pregnant. Ta-dah! Did you see that one coming? I didn't really. I mean, I kind of hoped but thought I was just getting too old. Lucky for me there seems to have been one good egg left and I'm now 15 weeks along, with a rapidly disappearing waist. And that means the awesome ideas for dress making I had will have to stay in a holding pattern (no pun intended) until next year some time. I'm not complaining, mind you - I can still make some cute summer maternity things for myself. I've already got plans in the works for a maternity bathing suit, since the regular one I bought at the end of last summer is about to not fit any more. I mean, I could wear it but I love it and don't want to stretch it out. Ottobre had a tankini in the 2011 Spring/Summer women's issue that I should be able to adapt and I ordered some cute red and white polka-dot swimwear fabric from The Fabric Fairy.

After searching the internet for tutorials on how to alter a normal bathing suit pattern to be a maternity pattern, I determined that I wouldn't have to add a ton to this tankini, since it's already ruched along the sides for the overlay. So with that in mind, I decided to add to the front width-wise and length-wise and then added a similar amount of length to the back. Because this tankini is essentially an empire waist, I only had to add to the bottom panel. I did add a little extra to the bra portion by extending the back edges slightly.

For this, I used the largest size as a starting point - a size 52 - and then added onto the center of each of the front pieces. Because both are cut on a fold, I added 1 1/2" in width so that I would end up with a total of 3" for the finished product. This may seem like a lot, given the stretch of swimsuit fabric, but I tend to really stick out towards the end of pregnancy and it'll be summer at that point so I'll want to be at the pool or the splash park. Because I'll need extra length to accommodate the projection of my belly, I also added 3 1/2" to the bottom.

I didn't bother to add width to the back of the suit because I don't think I'll need it there. I added the extra length, however, since the ruching is on the back as well as the front. I've cut it out and now need to start sewing it. But first I have a quick project to make up for Maeve, so the suit is on hold until then.