KCWC – Days Five, Six and Seven

Well, I didn’t get as much sewing done as I would have liked but I was pretty productive for the Kids Clothing Week Challenge. But that was because we were at the MOFGA Common Ground Fair all day on Sunday!  We love the fair.  This is not your typical scary-amusement-rides-and-gross-food county fair.  No rides here, unless you count the $2 discount on admission you get for riding your bike into the fair.  Lots of displays on traditional crafts, huge fiber extravaganza, green living displays, spinning wheel demonstrations, rabbits, chickens, goats, alpacas, horses, and lots and lots of organic food.  And of course, the kid’s favorite, cardboard sledding!

Cardboard sledding at CGF

I always love to take pictures of all the yummy yarn.  I restrained myself this year and didn’t buy any fiber at all!  But I just have too much of it here in my stash and I need to use and organize it all before I can buy more.

Yummy hand-dyed yarn

The little pleated strip skirt is almost done, and hopefully I can knock it out today.  Just needs the ribbon hem and the waistband elastic.  I finished the Leila and Ben Sweet Little Dress in corduroy this morning.  I added a pocket using the pleated pocket tutorial from Made by Rae.  Because really…how can you not have a pocket to hold your little treasures??  The pattern only goes up to size 5 (bigger sizes are in the works from Leila and Ben) and I needed a size 6, so I just enlarged the pattern a little bit.  Made it a big longer and a little bit wider, trying to use the same dimensions as the other sizes.  And I added a little bit of length on the neck and sleeve elastic.

Full dress, made with fine wale corduroy

Pocket close-up

It’s hard to see the pocket there in the picture above because it’s made with the same fabric.  But, trust me, cute and just a little puckery to make it easy to get your hand in there.

Neckline close-up

{this moment::from the garden}

{this moment} – A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

They are much tinier than they look in the picture.

KCWC – Days Three and Four

Okay, I have been a slacker on Days three and four.  Well, I shouldn’t say slacker because I’ve been really busy, but not with sewing at my machine!  I’m waiting on some ribbon to finish the pleated skirt, and I have plans for a corduroy dress from the Sweet Dress pattern by Leila & Ben.  And I bought this super-cute pattern for a recycled hoodie from lil blue boo yesterday that I can’t wait to try out!  (She has the cutest knit holiday dress in her Big Cartel shop with matching doll dress!)  I got the idea after seeing some examples posted in the KCWC flickr group.  Check out the flickr group as there are tons of great ideas in there!  So, while not sewing, I did buy a new pattern!  I’m hoping to get back into the groove today and this weekend.  Although on Sunday, we are attending the super-fantastic Common Ground Country Fair with some friends who are staying overnight, so no sewing then.  We’ll be having too much fun with friends, sheep, rabbits, horses, fiber, organic demonstrations, etc.  I can’t wait to buy my organic/ecologically-printed t-shirt from the fair featuring a Holly Meade rooster this year!

KCWC – Day Two

Day Two of the Kids Clothing Week Challenge brought me close to completing the strip pieced pleated skirt for my niece’s birthday present.  I still need to hem the bottom and do the elastic waist and ribbon bow.  I’m holding on the hem though because instead of just a basic hem, I am going to do a ribbon hem as described in the freebie Lazy Days skirt pattern from Oliver+S.  I have some cute cherry grosgrain ribbon on the way.  I’m waiting for it to arrive to see how it will look before deciding on whether I’ll do that, or just do a basic hem.

Strip pieced pleated skirt

As I wait for my package to arrive, I’m going to work on some pajama pants for the boys on Day Three.  My friend brought me some cute flannel fabric the other day, and it’s in the wash!  And then I also have a plan to make the Sweet Little Dress from Leila & Ben in some cute corduroy that I just picked up.  I’d also like to play with my serger and do some reverse applique t-shirts for the boys.  We’ll see as the rest of the week unfolds!

KCWC – Day One

Well, it’s Day One of Elsie Marley’s Kids Clothing Week Challenge!  Are you participating?  Goal is to spend at least one hour per day for the next seven days creating clothes for your kids.  I started this morning before work on a birthday gift for my soon-to-be 6yo niece.  If I can crank out some productive work this morning, then I am going to treat myself with some sewing at lunchtime too.  I do enjoy working from home!

I am making the Strip Pieced Pleated Skirt from a tutorial at the Moda Bake Shop.

Strip piecing the skirt panels

Sweet little girl birthday presents

I got to make sweet little girl birthday presents this month! Always fun to do some little girl crafting since I don’t get to do it too often. My niece turned four today and she loves her baby dolls. So I decided to make her an outfit with a matching outfit for her dolly! I’ve wanted to practice my garment sewing more, and unfortunately boy clothes just aren’t that interesting. It’s quite disappointing. Although, there are a few boy patterns that I want to try, like this and this. Next week is the Kids Clothes Week Challenge at Elsie Marley’s blog, and I’m going to try to achieve the “hour of sewing” each day and make the boys some things.

But, back to little girl sewing!  Since she likes her dollies so much, I thought a matching dolly outfit would be fun and special. After much waffling, I finally settled on the ModKids Nina patterns – regular for her (pattern fits size 2T-7) and mini for the doll (which fits 15″ and 18″ dolls). Since my fabric stash is getting out of control, I tried to pick something that I already had, and settled on this great fabric from the Two Young Street collection by Prints Charming that I got last year. It’s so soft!

I’ve never made a shirt before, but the pattern was great.  I copied the pattern pieces onto tissue paper, cut everything out, started sewing, and it wasn’t a big deal at all.  The placket is sewn right on top, and the hardest part was figuring out how I wanted to embellish it!  They do warn you to keep the buttons at least one inch away from the edge, so that when you fold over the neckline for the elastic, the buttons don’t get in the way.  I thought I had, but I was off just a little bit.  It wasn’t a big deal though.  It was a lot of fun to work through the pattern, and the skirt was super-easy.  I guess they call it the easy-peasy skirt for a reason.

The doll shirt was a lot easier than the little girl shirt surprisingly.  I thought it would be hard because it was so tiny, but I think it was easier since I had already made the little girl shirt, and I had some experience under my belt.  They are constructed slightly differently to compensate for the little size of the doll clothes. From a pattern perspective, I was concerned that the shirt would be hard for a little girl to put on her doll without help.  I tried it on my friend’s American Girl doll and I didn’t find it that easy to get the arms in the sleeves.  I’ll have to ask her mom if it is a problem before I decide to make any more.

Actually I think the hardest part about the whole process was turning those dang ties that go around the back of the girl’s blouse!  I finally figured out that “magic” method using a tube and a chopstick, using stuff I scavenged from around the house.

Skirt and blouse in size 4T

Matching dolly clothes

I made sure to put in little clothing labels so she would know what size it was, as well as to help my niece put the clothes on herself in the correct direction.  It’s just twill tape and fabric marker, and hand sewn in with a blind stitch.

Clothing labels

My other big project for the birthday gift was making this little capelet from Leila & Ben.  It turned out great!  Well, I hope it turned out great, as I haven’t had a chance to see how it fits her yet.  But it certainly looked cute!  I’m concerned I didn’t place the buttons correctly.  It’s sort of hard to figure that out without the model there for you.  It was my first completed clothing crochet project, so I was proud of it from that standpoint.  I’m not sure how practical it is since it can be hard for a boy-mom to grasp that whole little-girl-fashion thing, but hopefully she likes it.

Crochet Leila & Ben Capelet

Happy birthday to my sweet niece!  Now to make something for her big sister who is turning six in three weeks.  Hmmm…  I was thinking about a cute corduroy dress since she likes dresses so much.  Any pattern suggestions?

{this moment::fall football}}

{this moment} – A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Liesl Gibson Sewing with Knits class at Alewives!

I just signed up!!!  I’m super-excited.  Can you tell??  Hear all the scoop from Rhea at her blog.

Montessori Aprons

At the end of J’s first year of school, I promised J’s Montessori teacher some new aprons.  I’ve been completing them a little bit at a time.  Well, it’s now a new school year, and J was headed off to 1st grade down the street, and the aprons still weren’t completely finished!  So, over Labor Day weekend, I finished the rest of them up!  Hooray!  Two new “special” aprons for practical life activities – lemon/orange juicing and one for banana slicing.  (Just noticed a little bit of another project peeking out in the upper right hand corner of the picture below.  That will be for next week, I’m really happy with how it turned out!)

J in the banana slicing apron

Then I made six snack aprons with plain fabric.  The fabric is an organic cotton but in a heavier weight than normal quilting cotton.  Therefore, I only used one layer of it instead of two.  I made the first two with handmade bias tape, but that was taking me quite a bit longer than normal, so I switched to store-bought, even though it’s plain, in an effort to complete the aprons in a timely fashion.

By the time I got to the sixth apron, I had finally figure out a way to match up the starting and ending of the bias tape so it looked nice.  I washed them before giving them to the teacher, and realized that I should have pre-washed the little twill tape that acts as the holders on the shoulders.  I had pre-washed all of the rest of the fabric and didn’t really think about the twill tape holders shrinking as well.  It’s not a big deal, but something to learn from.  I hope the children in this year’s class love all the new aprons!

{this moment:6yo technology}

{this moment} – A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.