Ladies and gentleman, she's wearing pants!
And sneakers! She needed sneakers and pants for an athletic activity that she's participating in at her Awana club. I say needed, because I don't as a matter of course provide those things for her.
A frenzied search for acceptable shoes that I didn't despise turned up these sparkly retro-styled princess shoes. But she didn't have any pants that fit! I had bought her some last year, but they were getting a little tight.
I thought she'd be more comfortable in something stretchy, so I sewed her some yoga pants and dress-like tunic to woo her into this new silhouette. Ideally I would have an embroidery machine to girl-up the sportiness, but that day is a long way off.
Fabric: Gray cotton/lycra french terry, pink cotton interlock, and pink striped
Chez Ami interlock. The plain pink interlock is soooooo soft and cuddly. I got yards and yards of it a few weeks ago from a lady in my neighborhood who was selling off fabrics from her children's boutique.
(NOTE: When I pulled out of my street and saw a big yellow sign that said FABRIC SALE, I about peed my pants with excitement. I got lots of amazing fabric from her. I like to think that it was fate and the fabric came from God. What, you think God couldn't give me fabric??! ;) )
Pattern(s): Jalie 3022 yoga pants,
Mamu Sabrina tunic, girls' version. I traced a 112cm in the Jalie pants, which translates to a 5T in American sizes. I think they're slightly too loose, so I may trace another size down for her next pair.
The Sabrina tunic is beyond cute and versatile--oh, my head is spinning with more imaginary ones in my head!--but I would not recommend Mamu patterns for beginners. Their patterns are not hard to sew, however, the English instructions and pattern piece labels are pretty useless. Between all the variations in this one pattern, I scratched my head a little bit figuring out what pieces were for what view, how to put it together, etc. I didn't use the directions at all, shudder.
ETA: I just searched Sewing Mamas and found a
Mamu Sabrina tutorial someone wrote to go with the pattern. So check this out if you'd like to sew the Sabrina but are put off by my "recommendation"! LOL :)
A big, sparkly crown applique right in the middle of the upper front would have been just about perfect. I could iron something on, but at this point after its all sewed together, I feel really scared to do anything that could potentially screw it up. I have bad iron-on mojo.
I did add little princess ribbon accents here and there.
I got this wild hair to embroider (with my regular ol' sewing machine) a heart on one leg. The things I do to motivate my daughter to wear gray and pants. I drew the heart motif on
Solvy (used my 40% off coupon at Joann's), then sandwiched my fabric in between it and another layer of Solvy on the bottom. Once I was done stitching over my lines, I soaked it in warm water per the Solvy directions, then air dried. Voila! Solvy truly does dissolve in water.
Unfortunately I drew my design on in ballpoint pen. Don't do that. Parts of my heart have ballpoint pen on them where the Solvy dissolved down into the fabric/thread. Note to self: next time use a water soluable pen. D'oh!
Also, you can't really see the heart that well. Oh well. I tried. At least it doesn't look terrible. She was willing to put the pants on because they had a heart on one leg and a pink waistband.
I added a little bit more princess ribbon on the hood. When you find a spool of princess crown ribbon at the Michaels dollar bin, you buy it. Then you wish you'd bought more.
I used a combo of coverstitching (gray thread) and my sewing machine to top stitch various parts of the tunic. According to my whim.
Later today her (evil) little brother was trying to bite her (this happens often, didn't I just note his evilness?), and she said, "Mommy, he is trying to bite my new favorite shirt!"
I think it says how used to my (evil) son I am that all I heard was, "Mommy, I love my new favorite shirt, you are the best sewing mom ever!!!!!"
More to come!
I'm feeling a little word-impaired tonight, so this post will be light.
She hasn't mentioned it, but I suspect this dress is really comfortable. I have the woman's version of the pattern, so I might be making some of my own very soon.
She was a little upset when she didn't see any heart fabric on my cutting table, so I added this reverse applique on the pocket. I also added a few embroidered ribbon trims. The ribbon is more of my vintage garage sale stash stuff.
More Sabrinas to come!!
