Last minute, pre-vacation sewing panic!

Lately, R has been incredibly picky about clothing. Specifically, it seems like she has to have the minimum amount of material actually touching her body. This usually results in huge getting-dressed battles every morning.

We are about to leave on vacation to visit relatives in Central Ontario, which is very hot and humid at this time of the year. I have absolutely no desire to duke it out with her every morning about clothes, so I decided to whip her up a dress or two from a pattern that is basically a sack with shoulder straps.

I've sewn this pattern for her twice before and it used to be a winner, except for some reason the elastic around the arm was now bothering her (although it is not too tight, but what can you do). So I swapped out the sleeve for a ruffle and now it's her favourite thing.

I started cutting out dress #2 from this pattern, and then realized I had heaps of this particular fabric grabbed from my stash, and how CUTE it would be for R and her baby cousin E to have matching summer dresses. Of course, I decided this yesterday; we are leaving early Wed morning and I haven't even started packing yet. Panic!

So I dig through my stash of patterns and come across a baby sun dress pattern from 1991. I think this must have been inherited from my mom as I don't recall it at all. 

Ok, so not the most modern thing every but the sun dress is pretty cute and it was literally the only pattern I had that would work for a 1 year old. Plus, a ruffly sun dress on a cute baby in the summer? ADORABLE!

The end result: 2 sun dresses that aren't really matchy-matchy but will hopefully result in some cute photos of R and E together. The fabric isn't wouldn't be my first choice, but R chose it out of my stash and all little girls love pink butterflies and flowers.

I also finished up my first ever vintage sewing project for myself - Butterick 3375 circa about 1964, judging from the hair and the price on the pattern. (Photo taken with my iPhone Hipstamatic camera for true vintage-ness!)

I'd like to point out that I really wish I had a dress form, as this looks much better on me then hanging all droopy on a hanger. But I just don't have time to model this right now!  This was a trial run with some left-over fabric I had in my stash - a black and white graphic print. 

The pattern turned out very similar looking to the pattern envelope, although I eliminated the elastic band at the bottom hem as I figured I have enough fluff there without it. One other thing that is interesting is that the armholes seem to be much smaller than modern patterns. It fits, but it is definitely a different fit than a modern sleeveless blouse. 

I will definitely wear this top this summer and it will probably make it into my suitcase tonight. I don't know if I would make it again but it was definitely a nice, simple way to get over my phobia about cutting into my vintage patterns.

Bye folks! My next post will likely be in about 2 weeks.

Heather

Zipper Quilt done!

I have actually been sewing like a mad person the past few days. I haven't had time to update the blog - lots of happenings including R finding out that she needs glasses. She is not a very happy 5 year old little girl at the moment. I think she looks adorable in them, but there's no convincing her.


About a year ago I started sewing a quilt from a book called "The Modern Quilt Workshop". The pattern is called the Zipper Quilt and it has about 3000 pieces. I'm not sure what I was thinking as I had only done 2 very simple quilts prior to taking on this project. One year later, I had finally finished piecing the top.


My Mom very graciously agreed to quilt the top of this queen size quilt for me on her Juki that is mounted into a quilting frame. It's done and it looks amazing! Here is is on our bed:

And a close up of the cool meander pattern Mom did on it. It's quilted with a medium brown thread, which I think looks wonderful.

I also have to throw a big thank you out to my Mom for doing the binding as well. She is an expert hand sewer, and I am ... not.

I have also sewn a dress for R, a bathing suit for R and have tackled my first vintage pattern in the past few days:

I'll try to get photos of everything up in the next few days. I also would like to sew another Amy Butler Barcelona Skirt before we leave on vacation next week.

Self-Stitched September

When I was browsing Andrea's New Vintage blog last month, I noticed her talking about "Me-Made-May". "Hm", I thought to myself, "What's that all about?"


Well it turns out that Zoe over at "So Zo What Do You Know" had organized online sewists and crafters for a month of wearing at least one item every day that was hand made. How cool! 


Obviously, I discovered this way too late to join in, but Zoe's at it again for the fall with Self-Stitched September, and I totally signed up.


Here's my pledge:

I, Heather, sign up as a participant of Self-Stitched-September. I endeavour to wear one or more handmade item(s) of clothing every day for the duration of September 2010.


I can't wait to see how everyone does with this!

Simplicity 2728 is done!

Jacket for upcoming summer wedding: completed. 

I totally didn't think that crazy fitting adjustment was going to work but it did and now I have a jacket that fits me better than anything I could buy in the store.


See?

I'm pretty damn happy with this. It's not perfect but it's pretty good, no gaping at the bust, fits properly in the shoulders, waist and hip, and is cute.

Here's a link to my review at PatternReview.com if you want to read more about it.

Quickie Infant Bibs

R informed me yesterday that it was one of her preschool teachers last day tomorrow, because she was leaving to have her baby. Her teachers are so sweet and R really loves them, so we decided to put together a small gift bag for her.

We got a vibrating teether (cool!), a baby bath piggy-duck that tests the temperature, some wrist rattles and a couple hooded towels. We also wanted to get bibs but they were all so yucky and boring; I told R I would whip up a couple from my scraps when I got home. And...ta da:

The (free!) pattern was found on this cool blog called Nested. The instructions are very good and the bibs are sure cute when done. Also, fast to make - each one only took about 15 minutes. The contrast portion on the bottom is a pocket to catch spills. They are small, though, definitely only for tiny, cute newborns.

I will definitely be making more of these in future.

The blue and green one is from left-over fabric from 2 different quilts, and the brown and ice-blue one is made from cotton from a summer dress and a tote I made a couple weeks ago.

Also, in other sewing news, the jacket that I started for the summer wedding is done except for buttons and button holes. Somehow the crazy-looking bust fitting adjustment that I did actually worked. Huh.

I hope to get the buttons done tomorrow and then I will post photos of that too, as well as a pattern review on my account over at Pattern Review.