film petit: the princess bride

January 27, 2014January 28, 201427 Comments

MAWWIAGE.

MAWWIAGE IS WHUT BWINGS US TOGEVAHH TODAAY.

well, mawwiage plus the epic 1987 film “The Princess Bride.” i can’t remember the first time i saw this movie, or how many times i’ve seen it, but it’s a lot, starting in childhood. it’s a fairy tale as told by a grandpa to his sick-in-bed grandson (Fred Savage), about the beautiful Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright) and how she is about to marry an evil Prince Humperdinck, but is kidnapped and finds herself having quite an adventure. all the while, she tries to she keep the faith that her true love, Westley, will come back to her.

the movie has ACTION! ADVENTURE! ROMANCE! and a big dose of COMEDY! at Buttercup’s lowest point, when she is being forced to marry the prince against her will as her beloved Westley lays “mostly dead” in the Pit of Despair, the voice that comes out of the priest with his ridiculous speech impediment breaks all tension and you can’t help but just giggle. there are LOTS of those silly moments in The Princess Bride – more than I remembered – and it makes it such a fun movie to watch, even as an adult.

film petit: the princess bride

the wedding scene, with it’s high drama and equally high comedic factor, is the scene i chose to sew for film petit. Buttercup’s elaborately embellished wedding dress also seemed like something my little gal would love wearing.

film petit: the princess bride

with this outfit, i finally answered her pleas to make her a princess dress. and i made not just any princess dress, but a princess wedding dress!

i started with the Oliver + S Playtime Dress and stayed pretty true to the pattern for the most part. for the floor length skirt i just cut a long rectangle and gathered it selvedge to selvedge (it was very wide satin).

i made a few changes to the bodice, cutting the neckline a bit lower, splitting the front down the middle and modifying the facings to match, adding buttonholes for cording, a lace underlay, and cutting the bottom of the bodice to a curve.

Buttercup’s dress has an array of trim and beadwork to add texture, and i did the best i could to get that feel by adding this beautiful beaded lace flower trim and gold/white woven elastic trim to the neckline and bodice – all from the bridal section of Fabric Depot.

the dress is satin, also from the bridal section of the depot. it was on clearance and i’m glad i got “good stuff” for a lower price – this is the best satin i’ve ever sewed with! it didn’t shift on me much at all, didn’t snag easily, and it flows like water. she loves wearing this dress and actually hangs it on her closet door when she’s not wearing it!

i first cut a lace cape more like a half circle to billow out under her arms, but i made a mistake and cut it too short for Em – it was only knee-length and she insisted it reach the floor! i salvaged the rest to make the floor length version you see here. i wish it was wider but it works.

so even though The Princess Bride is PG-rated (same rating as Frozen, Em and every other girl between the ages of 3 and 7’s favorite movie right now), it has a LOT more questionable content that i don’t want her to see just yet (ya know, stuff like nightmare-inducing ROUSes and torture chambers…). the ‘80s were a wild and crazy time for movie ratings, i guess. so Em has seen parts of The Princess Bride with whole scenes skipped over until she’s older.

what she has seen, though, was enough to get her in character for these photos, melancholy bride acting and all.

she was cracking me up. she knew Buttercup didn’t want to get married to that awful Prince Humperdinck, and she did not crack a smile through most of this photoshoot – and when we were done, she had me pretend that the Prince’s men were after us and i was helping her escape!

so now it is time for you to escape, for you will surely crack a giant-sized smile when you see what Jess & Jess have in store for you today!

our guest Jess from Craftiness is not Optional had the brilliant idea to do The Princess Bride, and we said “as you wish!” Jess sewed Buttercup and Westley the Dread Pirate Roberts and found the PERFECT photoshoot setting, too, complete with rolling hill. really amazing work, and thanks SO much for joining us, Jess! check it out!

my partner Jess from A Little Gray sewed up two of the three bandits that kidnap poor Buttercup but later become Westley’s allies. it would be INCONCEIVABLE not to love Andre the Giant as Fezzik and Mandy Patinkin (or as my husband has taken to calling him, “Battleship Patinkin”) as Inigo Montoya! she also got photos at a CASTLE. off with you to see Jess’s post, and prepare to die (but only if you have six fingers on your right hand).

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here are the guidelines for film petit:

every month or so, Jess and i (plus a guest) sew an outfit (or outfits) for our kid (or kids) inspired by a movie we love. not sure if we’ll get a February post in due to the imminent arrival of this baby in my belly, but we’ll be back as soon as we can.
please add any of your movie-inspired kid sewing to the film petit flickr group. if you sew along with our film petit choices, we’d love to see that too!
this is a pretty relaxed series, really the only rule is to make outfits for kids based on films you love. if you have any questions, please let either of us know.
film petit archives: the life aquatic with steve zissou, amélie, fantastic mr. fox, psycho, moonrise kingdom, ferris bueller’s day off, the big lebowski, back to the future, napoleon dynamite, zoolander

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confused geese pillow

January 24, 2014January 23, 201415 Comments

sometimes, you just gotta make a pillow.

my sister had a birthday a few months back, and due to some last minute party rescheduling, i couldn’t make her something like i’d originally planned. as time went by, i felt worse and worse that i HADN’T made her something…so finally i got down to business and sewed this pillow for her. i’ve been big on crossing things off my “to do” list lately (probably a nesting thing) so it felt great to get this done and finally gifted.

she had mentioned she needed more throw pillows in her living room, so i made the colors neutral to go with her existing white/cream/wood tone scheme. the flying geese are essex yarn dyed linen in leather (i got it at Bolt, you can find it here), and the background is a creamy bella solid that i also got at Bolt. you’ve seen it before as the bodice of Em’s Christmas Dress this year.

i used my friend Cherie’s awesome confused geese pillow tutorial to make the pillow. i went with the larger size (18″ x 18”). once i finished the piecing, i quilted it to a slightly larger scrap of batting, trimmed it, cut an 18” x 18” back, added a zipper, stuffed it, and done!

the insert is the IKEA FJÄDRAR, which is a pretty great price for a feather pillow and my favorite to use for these types of projects. it’s good to make the outer cover a bit smaller than the pillow insert (the insert in this case is 20” x 20”) so it lays nice and tight and keeps a puffy pillow shape. 18” x 18” may be a bit smaller than i’d normally go for a quilted pillow outer, but it still looked good once i carefully zipped it up.

i’m happy with how it turned out, and my sis put it on her couch immediately, so it was well-received. i think quilted pillow covers are a great “i feel like making a quilt but i can’t commit to all that time/fabric/effort” type project. you still get to experience the fix of piecing and quilting, but they can be made in a day. perfect to practice on, and especially fun to give as gifts!

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P.S. get ready – a new film petit is coming on monday!!! it’s also the first day of Kid’s Clothes Week but we figure we’ll sneak it in before KCW really gets going. trust me, it’s inconceivably good. 😉

P.P.S. teepee print from this awesome shop.

cars pajamas by request

January 21, 2014January 20, 201431 Comments

this guy, sometimes he just wraps me right around his finger.

he’s a really good errands-runner for a 3 year old. recently i took him along to my midwife appointment, where he was very patient and quiet. when we were back in the car, i asked if he wanted to go home or go to the fabric store with me. HE SAID “I WANNA GO TO THE FABRIC STORE.” i mean seriously!

while we were there (at Bolt of course), he sat and read books at the little table they have set up for kids, then joined me to browse, went straight to this fabric, and was so excited about it, he immediately asked me if i could make him some pajamas out of it.

how am i supposed to resist, i ask you? it was impossible.

he asked for pajama bottoms and a matching shirt, and this is what i came up with. the pants are Rae’s Parsley Pants in a 3T. i knew they’d be big but i wanted them that way – i’m sick and tired of these kids growing out of stuff all the time! fabric is masquerade party by fresh designs for henry glass & co. it’s lightweight for a quilting cotton and really nice as pajamas.

the shirt is the Oliver + S Field Trip Raglan Tee, in a 2T with length added to the arms and body (NEWSFLASH: it’s now available as an individual PDF pattern, plus 25% off through Friday in their January Sale, which makes it less than $7!). i already had the 2T traced from sewing it before and time was of the essence – i sewed this set during his naptime AFTER pre-washing the fabric right when we got home. it was a 4 hour turnaround from deciding on/buying the fabric to finished product and he wore it to bed that night (plus whenever it’s been clean since then)

the raglan is two shirts from my upcycle pile, with appliqué fussy cut car patch so the tops and bottoms “match” (per his request).

this all still wasn’t quick enough for him, though. as soon as we had gotten home from Bolt, he stripped down to his undies and said he was ready to put on his pajamas! had to break it to him that i still had to actually SEW it all first. ha! sewing is magic to 3 year olds. they go to sleep, wake up, and POOF – new clothes.

once i fiiiiinally finished them, though, he was an immediate fan. O loves transportation, the color black, and comfy wear, and i love patterns that are so fast they basically sew themselves. win-win. 😉

guest posting at oliver + s

January 15, 2014January 15, 20149 Comments

i’ve been a contributor to the oliver + s blog for a couple months now, but mostly that has meant reaching out to other bloggers to do guest posts and writing inspiration round ups around the holidays, so i don’t tend to talk too much about it here.

but hey, it’s still going, and today my post might be something that interests you – it’s my FAVORITE Oliver + S pattern of all time. it’s a unisex pattern but i’ve only made it for boys, and apparently i’ve made quite a few times! i kept remembering more and more versions and views that i’d made as i wrote the post.

are you curious, or as an eagle-eyed pattern spotter did you guess it as soon as you saw that yellow topstitching and those mint buttons (Gail I know you’d guess it right off the bat!).

but for the rest of you…

>> > click over to Oliver + S to see what it is < <<

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lickety split field study bag

January 6, 2014January 5, 201414 Comments

for all the sewing i’ve done from Rae’s patterns over the years, i’d never made one of her purses! she was kind enough to send me the lickety split and the bonsai bag patterns in advance of the holidays, and i sewed up a lickety split for our awesome day care gal as a Christmas present.

Rae actually released this pattern in 2009 (forever ago in sewingbloglandyears)! i’ve always thought it was a neat design and it looked like it could be sewn quickly but also had nice style to it, so it seemed like the perfect project for my gift sewing spree this year.

you can see in the older patterns how Rae’s pattern writing and digitizing skills have progressed over the last four years, but even though it’s an “elderly pattern” it’s still digital, a smart design, clearly written…and a lot of fun to sew!

i used a really pretty Anna Maria Horner Field Study linen (Flower Circuit in Sunny) for the bag, which was given to me by Jess (that gal seems to have become my main fabric provider lately, hehe) and lined it with a pink kona cotton from my stash. i skipped the outer pockets but added one to the inside. the bag can be reversible if you want!

it took a bit more fabric than i expected due to the looooong handles and being cut on the fold, so i ended up piecing two outers together on one side which looked completely fine. after taking these photos, i decided to add a snap (just a normal size 16 metal snap, nothing fancy) at the top center to keep it from gaping open. it just took it from “tote” to “purse” a little more, too.

my big ol’ belly makes it look a little small and out of proportion maybe, but to me it’s the perfect size bag to use everyday for lots of different applications (diaper bag, errand-running bag, gym bag, lunch bag, grocery bag, car bag for road trips) and i love that the straps can be tied to be longer or even separately (say onto a stroller handle or cart) if desired. the boxed bottom is great, too, gives it a nice shape.