Purple Jersey Twirl

See, I told you I would be back.

A few weeks after school started for DD, the note came home that...dun dun dun...School Picture Day was coming. Ack! A quick perusal of her closet showed me what I already knew--she had nothing just right. Soooo, of course a late night/early morning sewing spree followed, and voila, problem solved.

[But not, it must be said, without much eye-rolling from my husband ("Why do you always DO this to yourself?? You ARE crazy, you know that?" I know. I am a beyond batty sewing lady. It's okay.)]

Fabric: Lycra-blend jersey print. I think it has at least some synthetic in it, since it didn't want to iron very well, but it is very lightweight, drapey, and comfortable. I believe it is a boutique overrun from either Plum Pudding or Baby Lulu. I got it online quite a while back for myself, but it just seemed to fit for this project so I gave it up to DD. :)

Pattern: None, really. A few weeks ago I had DD go through the Mini Boden catalog and circle all the things she liked, for inspiration. One of the items she circled was this dress, so I used my go-to puffed sleeve t-shirt pattern (Ottobre 1/2007 #18) and figured the rest out. I didn't have any solid colored jersey with the right hand for it, so I went with this print from my stash. I think it worked out perfectly.

The inspiration dress had this little loop detail in the back, so I swallowed my fear and tried my hand at it. I discovered that basically...if you can do a t-shirt binding, you can do a loop in the back. It was really no harder than what I've already been doing. The only thing is that I can never remember how to do french thread loops to go over the button, so I just sewed the top of the loop closed with the button. It fits over her head just fine.

I did three ruffles about 1 1/4" wide each for the bodice. Ruffles like this are pretty easy in a knit fabric, just make sure you cut your strips so that the sides will not curl in. Jersey only curls on 2 sides, so just check which way it curls and cut your strips the other way! Tea Rose Home has some great jersey ruffle tutorials and projects if you'd like to try your hand at this.

I didn't want this skirt to be tooooo full, so I gathered each tier at about a 1:1.5 ratio with clear elastic. Each of the tiers has a finished width of 6". I know I've mentioned this before, but I buy tons of clear elastic by the the bunch over at Sewzannes (see link on the side) and use it like crazy in all my knit projects. Because I used it to gather each skirt tier, these ruffles s-t-r-e-t-c-h when DD pulls her skirt over her knees and does all those horrible things that kids do to their clothes. If you gather your knits without stretch, as you would a woven, you will be sorry because your seams will pop! Ack! Don't do that. :p~

One of these days I will have to do a clear elastic tutorial, but in the meantime you can always Google it and see what that comes up with (I know, I'm soooooo helpful!). Also on my list: how to gather a tiered skirt in the flat--I do all my tiered skirts this way and it is so quick and painless! Soon, soon, I will have to put that one together. I promise!

I'm stuck on a clip kick, eh? For this clip I fused some scraps of fabric to a woven interfacing, cut out shapes, then hot glued them to a clip. An easy, easy 10 minutes, and it really finishes off your project.

Okay, that's it for today, I need to actually go pick up DD from school. Coming up next I have more dresses! Tutorials! So check back, my readers, okay?

Back and Fabulous!

It has been a while, hasn't it? To paraphrase a Carrie Bradshaw line, I've been cheating on sewing...with my house!

Yes, yes, my new house is sucking up all of my time. Unpacking, setting stuff up, buying stuff, cleeaaaaaaning stuff, ugh. Even though I've had my sewing room set up for quite a while now, I'm having a really hard time getting in there and accomplishing anything. And--hello--I have a whole entire sewing ROOM now--surely I could use it on a regular basis?!

It seems now that we're not living like teenagers at my parents' house anymore, I have to learn how to be a homemaker all over again. And with A LOT more square footage than we previously had. It's like, what is my schedule? What do my kids need from me? How to I do take care of my home AND have some fun, too? It is honestly as if I've started a whole new job.

But. Now school has started for my daughter, I'm trying to get into a routine where I can regularly create again. Because without sewing I die. Die!! Sewing is breathing, and I must breathe! Okay, speaking of school, I did manage to get this pretty fabulous (see title) dress done for DD for her first day of Kindergarten.

Fabric: Glam Garden by Josephine Kimberling. You may remember that this fabric was in my first order from Hawthorne Threads, which I posted about here. It. Is. Beyond. Beautiful. Honestly, words cannot express how passionately I feel about it...suffice it to say this dress was not a chore AT ALL.

Pattern: Analise by Portobellopixie. This dress is just lovely even with a plain skirt, as I did for this one, but for something extra-special I sewed the full-on, patchwork version. At first glance it seems like no big deal, until you see how full it is. Then, holy crap! Hecka gathered mosaic patchwork! I was a little worried the skirt would take forever, but I sewed all 4 sections at the same time, assembly line style. Combined with my serge & top stitch method it really wasn't that bad. Would I do it again though...hmm, let me think about that!

Here she is in front of the door posing, getting ready to head out for her first day of school, ever! Seriously, she has not even been to one day of preschool, so this was a pretty big deal for me. Hence why the dress had to match the occasion!

The back is my favorite part of the Analise pattern. For one thing, I would sew two straps over back bodice any day. For a second thing, it's adorable. :)

And yes, the money shot. This thing is holy freaking full. Like, a 1.5x circle. Yaaaayyyy!

I just used regular serger thread with slightly smaller stitches for this rolled hem on my serger. I went through a whole woolly nylon phase, but lately I feel like regular thread is better. You can iron it when your ruffle gets wrinkly out of the dryer. Ask me how I know that woolly nylon thread melts like a mofo. :p~

The patchwork is rather complicated in order to make sure that the skirt gets larger around towards the hem. Kudos to the pattern designer for figuring it out so perfectly. I just followed the directions, and voila! Huge twirly skirt.

Oh, I do love these back ties!

Posing in the garden, appropriately. This backpack seem a little big, much? Yeah, well, apparently they make big kid backpacks and little tiny baby backpacks, but no medium size. I figure this will grow with her, and plus she loooooves it. (It was a birthday gift last year.)

The shoes are from Baby Gap, and she picked them out. I thought they looked like flimsy cheapies over the Sketchers Twinkle Toes I had been looking at, but these have held up wonderfully! They are the perfect school shoe, and go with a lot of the outfits in her closet. Not to mention they cost about a 1/4 of what we would have paid for the Sketchers.

DD is growing her bangs out, so I have been experimenting with hair clips. For this one I used Wonder Under to fuse two pieces of fabric together, then abstractly sewed around two of the print's flowers. Then I cut them out and glued them to a plain clip (from a beauty supply store) with a jewel on top. The jewel fell off one of her dress-up jewelry rings, so I appropriated it! This clip is super-sturdy, and I think it sets off the dress just right.

Okay, that is it for now! I promise I have some more things to show, as well as some pics of my sewing room! It is awesome and the perfect place to create. I have missed sewing and blogging so much, and I have so many projects I am working on to catch up. Stay tuned!