Bon Voyage Analise

I wanted to try out my PP Analise pattern before I start on the patchwork version.

I have had this Bon Voyage fabric sitting in my stash forever, well-loved but unused for whatever reason. I have so many of the different prints from this line that I have always had trouble deciding what to do with them. This weekend I decided to try to use up ALL of my Bon Voyage prints, starting with this dress for DD.

I showed her the various prints and she asked for the hearts. I decided to pair the hearts with the scooters and polka dots for an all-pink, all-girly sundress. She loved it *today*, so I hope it sticks.

Oh, and I am totally in love with this pattern! It fits DD perfectly and was simple to put together.




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Rain, rain, go away

Usually our Spring weather around here is pretty mild, but this week we got in a very brrr Winter storm from Alaska. It is cold! And dreary!

Just in time for the doom and gloom, I happened to receive a package of bright, cheery fabrics from this a-mazing sewing shop I just discovered, Hawthorne Threads. This place, I tell you. They have just about the lowest regular prices I've found on designer quilting cottons, wonderful selection and searching ability, AND you can order cuts in increments less than a yard! (Nope, they are not paying me for this shill!) Believe me when I say these requirements are a tall order. Most of the quilt shops I've found don't meet my high standards, so I don't normally use them as a resource. I either go with a big box store (Joannns or Wal-Mart) or one of my co-ops. And since it's pretty hard to step into a fabric store with my 2 year-old these days, I tend to stick to the co-op for the most part, since I can do it from my computer.

In addition to all that wonderful value and easy-to-use-ness of Hawthorne, I placed an order on Monday, and received it on Wednesday. Hello, super fast! This was like a heavenly miracle to me. I am used to a 2-5 month disconnect between when I order my fabric from a co-op and when I finally get to touch it. Yes, I get my fabric much more cheaply that way, but, sheesh. Talk about fabric patience. And I loooooooooooooooooove fabric, so it can be very hard to wait.

So anyway, the reason I decided to break down and order from a regular online store was that, a) I have been drooling over this new line, Glam Garden, by Josephine Kimberling and b) lately I just cannot get the twirly, patchwork Analise dress pattern out of my head. I really want to use it to make a special 1st day of school dress for DD. Unfortunately, the patchwork view calls for small amounts of 7 different fabrics, and that doesn't really fit my co-op paradigm. So I searched, perused, and eventually decided to order from Hawthorne before the Glam Garden fabrics sell out. I am so glad, because who wouldn't want to get this at 2pm on a gray Wednesday?:

Okay, okay, so that's not all Glam Garden in the picture. I also found what I think might be, in all seriousness, the most awesome whimsical owl fabric, ever. What might this fabric become?? It's a secret!!

Disclaimer, the fabrics on the edges of the picture are actually not from the Hawthorne Threads order. It was just my luck that one of my co-ops happened to send a small package yesterday as well. The package also included a charm pack of Summer in the City by Urban Chiks. Charm packs are wonderful and affordable way to sample different quilting lines. They are usually around $5 from my co-op, so decided to try my hand at making DD a patchwork twirl skirt. This pack contains 40-ish 5" x 5" squares:

These next two prints are from Lila Tueller's Santorini line. I was surprised at how large-scale these turned out to be. One of the perils of choosing fabric from pictures, I suppose. I had intended them for a tiered Gracie dress for DD, but now that I have them in my hands, I'm not sure. I really love the sort stained glass look, and that combined with the roses just really reminds me of Beauty and the Beast. I think I may incorporate one of the roses in a Summer Belle sundress I'm making for DD. We'll see.

Continuing the princess sundress theme, I plan to make DD a Cinderella inspired dress out of these two fabrics. The blue one is one I actually already had. It is a gorgeous tone-on-tone quilting cotton from Jennifer Paginelli (can't remember what line). I have been not so patiently awaiting my 1 yard order of sparkly white Fairy Frost by Michael Miller so I could put these two fabrics together. You can't see very well in this picture, but the Fairy Frost fabric has sparkly silver glitter swirls all over it. The FF fabrics come in many, many colors, and I'm told that some very talented quilting ladies make these gorgeous stained-glass looking quilts with them. I'd love to see one in person--this fabric is just so pretty.

That's all for now! Next up, some SEWING. (I gave up on DS's jacket and have moved on to lots of fluffy, girly dresses for DD. My favorite thing to sew, besides knits!)

P.S.

Notice how cute my blogs are looking these days? My awesome and talented cousin Erin offered to re-decorate them, and I totally love the results! Thanks, Cuz!! :)

Spring Flowers

Have I mentioned that my favorite items to sew are easy knit garments? I couldn't tailor anything to save my life--although I do want to learn!--so I just churn out this stuff I can phone in. Before I starting sewing with them so much, I mistakenly thought that knits are scary or hard, but they aren't; they're just different. Once you learn the techniques you need to use, they are are so much easier and quicker than anything else. As I am a stay at home mom who is pressed for sewing time, knits suit my lifestyle and schedule very well.

Here are a few knit items I managed to sew up in between this or that in the last week. All are from patterns I have used before, so that made them go even quicker and use up less brain power. Not to mention I am so tired and foggy these days that I can't even bring myself to read and/or figure out anything new. Lazy sewing at its best!

Floral Tank and Color Blocked Yoga Pants

Pattern(s): Ottobre Woman 2/2007 #1 tank top and heavily modified Kwik Sew 3155 yoga pants (based on a pair of well-fitting yoga pants I already had).

Fabric: Floral and solid cotton lycra from Fabric.com, cotton lycra french terry from JOS co-op. The french terry didn't have quite enough lycra in it to function well as a yoga waistband, so I used the purple cotton lycra instead. I actually like to wear it up over my belly for the insta-spanx effect, but it does look cuter down. Unfortunately I have to massively suck in my ripped up stomach muscles (thanks, kids!) to make that look work though, so most of the time I opt for comfort.



Gotta have the back view, right?? What's the point of yoga pants if they don't flatter your rear? Okay, okay, my pants should probably not be this tight, but for some reason I gained a few extra lbs. over the Winter, so my clothes are a little sluttier than usual these days. :p

Instead of doing a binding on the tank top, I just added 3/8" to the neckline and armholes, pressed it under, and top stitched with my coverstitch machine. I love how it turned out and it was actually easier than dealing with a bunch of long, fiddly binding strips. I recently purchased a clear foot for my coverstitch, so I was able to get my hems nice and even without all the cursing and swearing that my old opaque foot demanded.


Floral Sundress

Pattern: Simplicity 3882. This pattern is at least 3 years old, and was one of the first knit projects I ever sewed. When I first bought it, I remember thinking, "gee, this pattern goes a little far into 80s territory." Silly me.

Since this was my third time making this pattern, I finally cut the humongous 5/8" seam allowances down to 1/4" on my pattern tracings. I hate huge seam allowances on knits. Also, now that I have a serger, I don't do casings anymore. I serge and topstitch all my elastic on, just like you would on a swimsuit. I cut the elastic pieces a few inches shorter than indicated to account for the extra stretching out.

Fabric: Floral cotton lycra from Fabric.com.

That lace you see at the top is not part of the dress, it's part of a $2 Old Navy cami I'm wearing underneath. This dress doesn't have enough bra coverage unless you have a demi-cup, and I pretty much only have t-shirt bras. Ideally I should just sew some old bra cups in, but I'm too lazy. So right now now I just have a mess of 3 different colored straps going on. Whatevs.



That's all for now. I still have charcoal gray in all my machines from the yoga pants, so I think my next project will be a light Summer hoodie for DS out of the scraps. Until then!

Mulanese

Finally, *finally* we did a little photo shoot for the "Mulan" dress I made for DD's recent trip to Disneyland. At the last minute I also remembered that I had made a zebra print dress she wore to, where else, the zoo a few weeks ago. So DH took some pictures of that one as well. I had to give her two whole treats for these...which, of course, she wouldn't let me forgot about until I paid up! My model gets paid in lollipops and sour balls--sooo pricey.

Pattern: Modkid Kyoko

Fabric: Michael Miller corduroy in Crystal Flowers + Heart 'O Plenty quilting cotton for the obi belt. Self-made bias tape trim in Pink Dots by Timeless Treasures. Wrights ribbon trim.




And now for the zebra-print dress. I also made green lace-trimmed leggings to go under it, DD would not put the leggings on for these pictures. Not even for two sour balls. Sigh. On the bright side, this turned out much longer than I thought it would, so it functions just fine as a dress.

Pattern: Ottobre 1/2010 #16 Suklaatwist bubble-sleeve tunic

Fabric: Cotton lycra knit by Flaphappy from JOS co-op.




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At the last minute I also decided to make a headband to match the dress. Once I got the dress on DD, I really felt like it needed something equally bold to compete with the loudness of the fabric and the unique style. It seems counter-intuitive, but somehow without the huge flower headband the dress just looked sad. So I fused, cut, and sewed a couple flowers and leaves together, then added a button and attached it to an existing headband I grabbed out of her headband box. (I buy all DD's headbands at the $1 spot in Target. They are inexpensive, and she wears one of them just about every day.)

Up next I have some casual knitwear for *me*!

Photography apathy

Still living in the great sewing wasteland, here.

I *have* sewed a few things recently, but don't have any pictures yet. Usually I sew 3-4 items a week, and here I am down to 1 every two weeks. And no pictures. Today I am going to do take pictures, today!

I do have this slightly blurry picture of Violet's St. Patrick's Day skirt that I sewed out of a tiny yard Ginger Tile that I have been hoarding. Upon washing and reflection though, I believe that DD is *just* growing out of the skirt. I should have sized up a couple of inches. I think this skirt will be moving on to someone a bit smaller very soon.

Sorry you can't see it very well, as her swing top is covering up the upper part of the skirt. Basically it has a 4" yoke with a gathered skirt attached on the outside of the yoke so as to create another little 1/2" ruffle at the bottom of the yoke.





Okay, I promise to have more(much better!) pictures soon...