a springtime ayashe

February 20, 2012June 6, 201235 Comments

i’m a sucker for a sewalong. i found out about an upcoming figgy’s ayashe sewalong via meg, and i believe i was out shopping for pattern and fabric within hours. this was further motivated by the fact that my husband had given me a certificate to bolt as a “sorry you’ve been auf’d from project run & play” present. he’s a keeper.

i went ahead and purchased both the pattern and this GORGEOUS nani iro double gauze that i’d been eyeing forever. total splurge. worth it. i faced the collar with kona olive, and did the topstitching in pretty silver thread.

my daughter is almost 4, but has funny proportions, which is one of the reasons i sew for her so much. her chest measurement is larger than her hip measurement, she’s at the bottom of the growth charts in weight but in the middle for height…and her head is in the 90th percentile. big head (and a smart girl!). so i made the 2/3 size, which fits her roomily, but i have to sort of wiggle it over her huge noggin. maybe next time i’d make the front opening deeper, but add some sort of closure so she doesn’t need to wear a camisole underneath.

i added a gathering stitch along the shoulders so i could set them in with room for easing. i actually ended up gathering them a bit more to add a bit of a puff because, you know, a flower shirt wasn’t girly enough! i might switch out the elastic for the drawstring for growing room. it’s good to have options.

the pattern was sweet to sew. i had to focus a bit on the double layered yoke part, but i’d never made something like that before. and i love the little details that figgy’s includes to make you smile, like a logo that says “happy sewing!” on the pattern. so nice. i like that the owners are portlanders, too – the liberty ayashe that’s on the pattern/website was actually at bolt and i got to hold it! that was a big selling point for me. so beautiful.

result: a fun little sewalong and a a lovely springtime top!

PR&P week 6: old, new, borrowed & PURPLE

February 16, 2012May 17, 201227 Comments

here we go again, i’m back one more time with my “signature” look for project run & play season 3! the look evolved from a beachy dress to what is actually a mini wedding dress! i know i know, special occasion week was week 5. but my little gal had a large hand in how this look turned out.

my sister had the great idea to go to the beach for photos if i made it through to the finale as a unique photoshoot idea, so i first designed an ombré dip dyed easy breezy beach dress in bright green to allude to the verdant pacific northwest, in my casual but feminine style, etc. see?

but after i was eliminated…i really didn’t want to buy any more fabric or supplies! i only had fuchsia and navy dye on hand and my largest piece of solid fabric was a super soft old white bedsheet. so i mixed the dyes in a big tub and dip dyed the bedsheet to make this little dress. it turned out a lovely shade of purple!

purple is Em’s second favorite color (she is adamant about her favorite colors and wishes all of her clothing was either pink or purple). it’s got a full circle skirt for twirling, and it’s comfortable and soft. i didn’t plan on making a “fancy dress,” per se, but when i tried it on her she immediately danced and exclaimed “IT’S MY WEDDING DRESS!!”

it actually took me a little while to remember that she has always told us that “when she gets bigger” she wants to wear a purple wedding dress and marry her best buddy, N, who she has known since she was 3 months old. once it dawned on me that i had inadvertently designed the wedding dress of her dreams, i decided to go with the “colorful wedding” theme full tilt.

as the saying goes, she is wearing something old (the bedsheet and a piece of lace my grandma left me in a box of notions when she passed), something new (the plaid sash is an H&M scarf that reminds Em of “elmer the patchwork elephant” and i made her a ring out of a sparkly pink button and a gold pipe cleaner), something borrowed (the necklace my husband gave me on our wedding day which she was beyond thrilled to wear), and something blue…er purple (the dress!). actually, there is blue ribbon on her felt flower bouquet, so it’s all good. 🙂

i had way too much fun making her bouquet out of felt, floral wire, ribbon, and hot glue. i think using saturated colors is another part of my signature style, so i enjoyed incorporating lots of color here. i also made her a felt rose hairpiece (we live in the rose city, and i wanted my look to reference portland somehow).

the dress itself has a gathered rectangle bodice encased by a hand-dyed purple band at the top, flutter sleeves sandwiched between purple shoulder straps (i stitched 1/8″ from the edges but will let them fray a bit), encased elastic at the back for comfort and ease of wear, and a long, full circle skirt which i dip dyed for a gradient look, a technique i’d been wanting to try forever. i thought a maxi-dress on a three year old would be pretty rad, and i believe i was right. it’s so dramatic!

so another funny thing is that my plan was to take photos just in her bedroom, sort of ho hum but whatever, this is just for fun, right? i wasn’t making the trek to the unpredictable oregon coast at this time of year unless there were potential prizes involved. 😉 but then a friend suggested that i take the photos in front of the red doors of a church nearby. as soon as she mentioned it, i knew i had to do it. nevermind the fact that it wasn’t nearly warm enough outside for this dress…Em was a trooper and we made it quick, with a cozy sweater waiting in the wings. i love the purple dress with that beautiful red door. i think the plaid sash adds some great color too, and i dressed her in stripey tights because i like to play a bit with my styling and wanted to keep it fun, you know?

oh, and does it twirl? you betcha.

so there it is, my final look for project run & play season 3! thanks for encouraging me to make it! i felt freer to try new things (the dye and maxi-length) and also include some elements i might have avoided if i was designing it for a competition (plaid and circle skirts for the third time), so that was nice.

i don’t feel right entering this dress into the sewalong competition since i was an “official” contestant and i don’t quite have the stomach for more public voting/judging at the moment, but i will encourage you to head over to project run & play to vote this weekend for your favorite “signature look” from the flickr pool! as always, i’m so excited to see what everyone has made! being inspired by everyone’s creativity is probably my favorite part of all of this.

and one last time…

one day i’m in, and the next day…

February 7, 2012September 13, 201239 Comments

…i’m out.

well, it was a good run you guys. i was the casualty of the double elimination on project run & play this week, and i’m pretty bummed to be out SO CLOSE to the finale, to be completely honest. but i also had a really fun time, and i truly appreciate you sticking with me and offering your encouragement, comments, and votes all throughout (and a special welcome to the new followers that found me for the first time through PR&P!). i’m so glad simple simon asked me to participate this season!

week 1: junebug remix

a bunch of random thoughts i wanted to mention…

i can draft patterns now, and without fear! i had done that only a couple times before project run and play (the junebug remix was a great first challenge for that reason). this opens a whole new world of possibilities. i almost feel like i don’t need patterns at all, but i will definitely still use them. they do make things WAY easier, and sewing is mainly a relaxing hobby for me, so easier is good.

my sewing skills improved exponentially in just a couple months! pretty cool to just FEEL my learning curve shooting up under such intense sewing pressure. i think i was just on the edge of having enough skill to participate going into it, and so i definitely surprised myself each time things worked out, sewing-wise. i kept thinking it was luck. 😉

week 2: boy week

i feel more creative than i ever have, and i’m very proud of what i made. i suddenly have the freedom of drawing whatever i can dream up and then i know i can probably make it happen. when i had the idea to make my art deco flapper dress, i was literally shaking with excitement and an urge to make it come to life. i’m most proud of that dress.

week 3: sewing through the decades

i like to compete (i knew this already, i’ve played sports since i was little). i loved the creative challenges, and i’m fine with being judged by “experts” like katy, dana, and shannon (plus a guest). however, the public voting was always really hard for me to watch (but i couldn’t look away!). i would have rather just had someone tell me what to sew and had no one go home, but i probably did my best work by trying to stretch as far as possible while remaining true to my own aesthetic so that i WOULDN’T go home! i wanted to win, and i tried my hardest every week.

friends are good, and i really enjoyed emailing my real life friends and a few of my competitors through the competition as a support system. we said more than once that we wished we were all in one room together, sewing away and chatting, like project runway. i’m excited to see what danielle, jess, and stef sew for the finale, and i can’t wait for friday! i’ll try to let you know when voting is open so you can see what they came up with too.

i learned some new things about blogging, mostly how to make my own collages (rather than using an online service). i have an apple computer, but no photoshop. wanna know how to do it? you drag and drop photos from iphoto into pages (the word processing program), resize and arrange them, then add a text box over the top. if you lower the transparency of the background color to 30% it adds a nice effect, and then use the skitch app to take a screen capture. drag and drop that back into iphoto and you’ve got yourself a fancy-looking collage! felt like that helped make me look “official” like the big bloggers. 😉

week 4: outerwear

i thought i was a big procrastinator, but in dealing with such major time constraints (working 4 days a week from 8-5pm, and primarily sewing while the kids were sleeping), i knew i had to be very organized and sew ahead. i made the handy dandy work process chart below, and had the first two weeks’ looks sewn before the competition even started. that definitely helped as it came down to the end and the competition got more fierce. i had the luxury of scrapping two looks that weren’t working and starting new, and i only caught up to “real time” in week 5. that’s my tip for any future PR&P contestants that may be reading! 🙂

i think i have a different style than others, and that’s why i started sewing in the first place. i thought of things i wanted my toddler daughter to wear, but couldn’t find them in stores. i’m not a fan of super frilly, but i like feminine. i love color and balance. my style is understated, and i care a lot about craftsmanship and little details. my garments seem to have a sense of place (i had no idea how much i was influenced by where i live until this competition). this design simplicity might be why i didn’t ever win a challenge or make it to the finale, but i’m glad i stuck to my guns and made what i love. as i was compared to others, my “signature style” emerged.

week 5: special occasion/party wear

and finally, the most important lesson i learned is who i sew for: my kids, myself, my family, my friends, and my blog readers, probably in that order. in the end, i made things that Em and O could wear once this was all over, and they have been! red riding hood coat is her current go-to, and she loves hiding in the giant hood. she wore her elephant jacket to the zoo last weekend to go see the elephants, while holding her stuffed elephant, and also wearing her elephant dress. he wears his pants and sweater often. since i was putting in a lot of time and energy, i’m glad these things are getting used!

so once again, i love you guys! you really get me! thanks for sticking with me and thanks for voting all these weeks to keep me in the running. for a tiny little blog (i have just a fraction of some of the other designers’ readership), i’m so excited to have made it this far. i’m a little giddy with the freedom of what to make next, and i have a rush of ideas. i do want to do a sweet tartan dress tutorial in the future for sure, and i’m also hoping to do a dora backpack tutorial…any other tutorials you’d like to see? i can’t promise i’ll get to them right away, but i’ll try to eventually!

thanks again, all. it’s been a pretty darn cool experience, but an all-consuming one. i know my husband has missed me! even if i’ve been around, i know i’ve mentally been in “PR&P-land.”

glad to be back!

PR&P week 5: japanese tea party

February 3, 2012February 7, 201345 Comments

we’re getting down to brass tacks here on project run & play! it’s week 5, and in case you may have missed it, last week’s outerwear voting (and judging) was so close they decided to make it a non-elimination round. that means this week is a DOUBLE elimination round, heading into the finale next week! eeps!

one thing that i’ve tried to be conscious of throughout this competition is remaining true to my aesthetic. it’s surprisingly easy to start feeling swayed by what other people are doing in a situation like this, especially because i tend to design things that are much more understated, normally. so i have worked hard to keep to my own look while still pushing myself to add “wow.” i think this week is my best example of that balance. the jacket has clean lines and is very wearable, the pink shirt and ballet skirt are more elevated from the everyday. most of the time i’m sewing what i hope she’ll want to wear anyway, and using pink, elephants, and ballet stuff are always a good bet!

for initial inspiration, i couldn’t stop looking at this lovely loveliness. it guided me to make the skirt, textured top, and use olive green tones.

source: pinterest, original site appears to be defunct

i did a bit more sleuthing around on the skirt and i believe it’s from shabby apple, although theirs only looks to be in white. regardless, i had to make it for my ballerina girl. it’s a batiste circle skirt on the bottom, then three layers of cream tulle, also circle skirts. gotta admit, i felt pretty smart when i realized i could cut them that way and avoid hemming the tulle!

oh and the shirt! did anyone recognize it from Em’s birthday???

i even used the same petal template! it’s all pink voile (the birthday pinata is tissue paper). i hand cut the 65 petals and decided to leave all edges raw for a fluttery look. i lined them up in a row, stitched them down, layered the next ones on top, stitched those down, etc. i then sewed the front and back parts of the shirt together, bound the neckline and armholes, and hemmed the bottom. pretty easy, but a really nice textural effect and added the dose of pink that Em loves.

here are my initial drawings of both:

so i had the general concept down and knew i wanted a textured shirt, but didn’t have the idea for the kimono jacket until monday this week! that morning, feeling a little stuck, i asked Em what she wanted me to make her. she told me she wanted an elephant coat with elephant buttons (i’d shown the buttons to her before)! i thought a kimono would add to the japanese vibe of the peony shirt, so once again, i hit the fabric store on my lunch hour. i don’t usually drive to work, so i walked to the only fabric store near me, which is smallish and has just a little of everything. jackpot, though – they had this dark olive sueded twill. i paired it with the kona olive that i keep on hand because it’s my favorite, and i thought the tonal effect was pretty magical.

i’m now calling this her “ballet ninja” jacket. other PR&P post titles i considered this week were “tea for elephants” and “skirt as top’s skirt and top,” but i chickened out. 🙂

for the jacket pattern, i took the one i made for little red and shortened it, slimmed it a bit, and shortened the sleeves by a couple inches. then i drew a subtle curve from one shoulder to the other armpit, similarly to how i drafted my sweet tartan dress. so the pattern is still originally based on the oliver + s sunday brunch jacket (out of print but can be found in stores, and they’ve been realeasing lots of out of print patterns as digital ones lately), but the only original elements left now are the armholes and shoulder seams! it closes with three of those cute little elephant buttons.

and yeah, i totally hand-finished the whole neckline and sleeve bindings with a blind stitch. i wasn’t going to, but at 10:30pm the night before i planned to take photos, i decided it was a must to preserve the cleanliness of the jacket. i’m so glad i did, even if it meant another late sewing night.

the lining is marrakech elephants by valori wells. i’m sure Em wishes it was on the outside. hehe.

all photos were taken here, which turned out so perfectly – i had forgotten that their house was the same colors as the jacket! my lovely host was thanked profusely and gifted some special fabric for the trouble.

i got waaaay too many great photos, so please forgive the overload!! oh just one more thing: the pretty little orchids in her hair came from the same florist that did our wedding flowers, and i just happened to go get them ON my 8 year wedding anniversary! i thought that was kinda cool.

i’ll stop now so you can head on over to project run & play to vote! japanese tea party! double elimination! vote here!

domo arigato!

**Voting is now closed.**

psssst…want EVEN MORE photos??? check out THE OUTTAKES!

PR&P week 3: flapper tapper

January 20, 2012February 17, 201239 Comments

thank you so much for your votes for my boy look last week on project run & play – wow, that was quite the nail-biter! the looks were so solid and the voting was so close, i think it should have been a non-elimination leg. they do those on project runway!

but i made it through to week 3, and i am so excited about this week’s design! we were challenged to “sew through the decades” and i really love the 1920s, so i chose it straightaway. i mean, i took lindy hop class TWICE in college (PE credit!), and as i mention in my PR&P post, i live in a house built in the ’20s and wear a wedding ring made in the ’20s. so yeah…i got ’20s cred. 😉 this is actually the second dress i made for this week – i first made a simple satin dress with a similar hemline to this one, but it had some fit issues and i ended up deciding to scrap it late one night. i woke up the next morning with the design for this dress in my head, furiously sketched it, and could not wait to start sewing! i’ve never had such a strong urge to turn an idea into reality before, so that was really cool.

the bodice took a few fittings to get right, especially with those shoulder straps, which are joined in an oval shape and had to be the perfect length. i’m not much of a quilter either, so the piecing definitely took some thought – i had to figure out which points i wanted to preserve, which to clip, and how to get it to all turn into a bodice that fit her just right! i also knew i’d need to use an invisible zipper, and i’ve only sewn one once before (without much success). i prayed for good naps from the kids and locked myself in my sewing room for the better part of a weekend, taking my time on the details. i got it to the point of hemming and then stalled out for a couple days from sheer sewing fatigue! 😉

but oh, it was worth the mental effort! i’m so proud of this dress. it makes me happy. that’s the cool thing about this PR&P competition – i’m making things directly from MY inspiration that fit the purpose of my entry for the week, rather than sewing what is “needed.” it’s both restrictive and freeing at the same time because as far as inspiration goes, the sky’s the limit.

speaking of inspiration, here’s my wedding ring – can you see the sunburst/trapezoid shapes?

and here is our fireplace mantel, in front of which i took the photos this week. this was one of the few original design elements left in the house when we moved in after many years of remuddling by prior owners. we’ve been trying to slowly restore some of the charm.

so now you can sort of see where the shapes came from for the flapper tapper dress. for the skirt, i pretty much was looking for any excuse to make Em a new circle skirt dress. she STILL loves to put on her christmas dress and dance to the nutcracker on an almost nightly basis. she renamed it “my wonderful twirly dress.” 🙂 i just wanted one in cotton that was a bit easier to wash. ha! i had planned on taking “on location” photos for this dress at any of the cool ’20s art deco buildings in town, but the weather didn’t cooperate and i figured our living room would be more conducive to dancing anyway…

and i doubt you could see the chevron ribbon detail in the PR&P collages, but i must give credit to gail for that lovely find.

they were perfect to tie in the pink from her felt headband feathers (felt feather inspiration here). those feathers were so fun to make, i highly recommend them! the pink one has a paperclip stitched into it to help it stand up.

so that’s my art deco flapper tapper! i’m kind of in love with it, and i hope you are too! if you haven’t yet, head on over to project run and play to vote…now!