pinwheel sailboat pants

August 8, 2011August 6, 201213 Comments

little guy is growing out of his pants again! time to make him some. we went to the zoo with gail on friday, and her little cutie, lila, was wearing a pair of chambray oliver + s sailboat pants (we know each other only through a longtime mutual sewing admiration on flickr, so it’s fun to dress our kids in handmades when we see each other). gail told me these pants were a easy sew and they looked super cute. sooooo i went ahead and started these at 9pm on saturday night for O to wear to his cousin’s baptism on sunday morning. who needs sleep when you can sew!

the pattern came together really nicely, of course. i made the 6-12 month size. i had a little trouble figuring out a good boy fabric for them, but ended up raiding my husband’s closet and found this pair of gray j.crew chinos he never wore because they had spots on them. i cut the pattern out of just one leg! they’re a pretty heavy twill, but soft to the touch.

i hunted through my scraps for some stripey material to mimic these awesome sailboats but didn’t have enough, so i decided to cut into my recently-acquired sarah jane studios children at play pinwheel fabric for the facings. i’m so glad i did – i love it so much! harvesting the buttons from my husband’s now-mangled pants completed the look.

this was a really fun sew, even though i was sewing late and definitely should have been in bed. the details are just really nice, and i love them on him.

oh yeah, he can stand up holding onto things now. he barely stays still for a moment! the heavy material should be durable for crawling, too. it’s gonna have to be, because he’s on the move.

flutter sleeve sorbetto

August 4, 2011August 4, 201121 Comments

YOU GUYS! i made my first top! in my 2 years of sewing, this is the first wearable garment i’ve made for myself! ta da!

oh man it’s sooo awkward being in front of the camera. i am no model. it feels so weird!

the pattern is the sorbetto top, a free download by colette patterns. i had seen many others have success with it, so i figured it’d be a good first item to try (simple, no zippers to insert). problem was, i don’t really wear sleveless tops that aren’t tank tops. dunno why, i just don’t. then i saw that the always inspiring mena of the sew weekly added sleeves to her sorbetto, and a lightbulb went off! and THEN she offered afree sleeve pattern! that was the final push i needed.

something went wrong when i printed her initial sleeve pattern, and i saw it was going to be too small to fit the armhole. i decided to make it a flutter sleeve instead, because i love flutter sleeves. this is where i discovered the beauty of TRYING ON AN IN-PROGRESS GARMENT! this may be obvious to others, but i normally sew for my children who are always sleeping while i’m sewing. there is very little in-progress fitting. but when the sleeve wasn’t working, i could just remove it and try again! i added a little pleat at the top, and narrowed it until it looked how i wanted. i finished the underarm area with bias tape. it’s a little wonky, but wearable.

the other “issue” i encountered was with the sizing. i’m still nursing O, and though i’ve lost the baby weight, my body shape isn’t quite back to normal yet. so…my…uh…chest and waist measurements led me to a certain size (much larger than i normally wear). i sewed that size. it was huge on me. so i started taking in the side seams 1/4″ by 1/4″ until it was fitted to my satisfaction. out of curiosity, i set the pattern against my finished size, and it was 4 sizes smaller than i started! sheesh! i also lengthened it by 4″ or so.

the fabric is a free spirit voile that i’ve had in my stash for a while. i love the fabric and was nervous cutting it because i expected to have a complete failure on my hands, but i’m so glad i used it! i love wearing blue. and check this out! i wore it to work already! it was under a jacket, but no one said a word about it all day. i think that’s a good sign? 🙂

so yeah, i’m definitely hooked on making more clothes for myself, but i reeeeeally need to work on my modeling skills if this is going to become a regular thing!

(thanks to B for taking my photos – you did a great job, hon…the awkwardness is not you, it’s me!)

SUPER CAPE!

August 2, 2011June 8, 201210 Comments

LOOK! UP IN THE SKY! IT’S A BIRD! IT’S A PLANE! IT’S….SUPER EM!

FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET

MORE POWERFUL THAN A LOCOMOTIVE

ABLE TO LEAP TALL BUILDINGS IN A SINGLE BOUND

IN THE SUPER CAPE SHE COMMISSIONED FROM HER CAPEMAKER IN HER POWER COLORS, SHE RESCUES ANYONE IN TROUBLE.

HER BRAVERY AND KINDNESS KNOWS NO BOUNDS!

STAY TUNED FOR MORE ADVENTURES OF SUPER EM!!

original cape inspiration here.

(hey, just out of curiosity, would anyone be interested in a tutorial for my version of a kid’s superhero cape? UPDATE: tutorial here!)

a modern mid-century apron

July 27, 2011June 22, 201218 Comments

ready for a photo heavy post of my lovely sister, laura, in her new apron? let’s go!

laura found the apron on pinterest (link is to her page), sent me an email saying she loved it, and could i make something like it? i’ve followed the sew liberated blog for a couple years now, so i immediately recognized it as the emmeline apron, knew there was a pattern, and was excited to buy it from meg. i think i ordered it up that same day.

laura loves to bake, and whips up wonderfully fancy cupcakes (root beer float, cinnamon toast crunch, salted caramel…my mouth waters just thinking about them). she really did need a pretty apron of her very own!

we went to fabric depot together, and she picked out her fabric. i had expected her to gravitate towards the vintage reproduction prints (30s era, maybe?) but she went for anchors and polka dots, in a full-blown red, white, and blue color scheme (more ’50s nautical rockabilly). this girl is a style chameleon! the anchors are bar harbor by polly minick & lauri simpson for moda.

the fabric on this side is essential dots, also by moda. it’s cream with coral-red tiny polka dots that coordinates very nicely with the anchor side (a little hard to see in photos). i think the blue sash is a kona solid but i’m not sure which. we were testing a bunch of solids and when we saw that one, we knew it was right.

it was really fun to sew. i spread the project out over a few days, letting my bias tape hang for a while to let it stretch (i read somewhere you’re supposed to do that?), and took my time to be as precise as i could. however, i bet it could be sewn up in just a couple hours, especially if you skip the hand stitching.

enjoy your apron, girl! i love you!

oh and have i mentioned i have three sisters? i’m the oldest of four girls. laura is #3 in the lineup. the toddler bathrobe i just sewed was for my sister andrea’s daughter (andee is #2). hey lilly, got any requests? don’t want to leave you out, and sister photoshoots are super fun! 🙂

on the beach robe bandwagon

July 24, 2011July 26, 201110 Comments

i think it’s really funny that there’s a sewing blogger bandwagon. a certain thing (color, theme, pattern) seems to just sweep through every so often. i’m not judging, i’m totally guilty too! owls, mug rugs, bucket hats…you get the picture).

the current “everybody’s doing it” pattern is dana’s beach robe. perfect timing for summer! my sister had asked me to make her 2.5 year old daughter a bathrobe a few months ago, but i hadn’t gotten around to it because i didn’t know what pattern to use. dana’s popped up, and i bought it! then…i had trouble figuring out which fabric to use, had other projects, yada. kind of glad i didn’t get around to it, though, because i had time to be inspired by my fellow bloggers. first dana did a roundup and i loved this one by kristina of sir bubbadoo, then anna of noodlehead made a couple not-too-sweet girly ones, then gail of probably actually made a lovely one, plus many more. i really loved how kristina and gail put the hood contrast fabric on one side of the tie, so i did that.

a few notes on how i made this harder on myself than it had to be:

i used a regular weight towel. my sewing machine and serger were a little mad at me for that, but it is SUPER cozy.
i picked a STRIPED towel, which meant i had to match those up.
i chose to use a scrap from my picnic blanket to make my bias tape, but it was kind of a long and narrow strip and i needed to piece many short parts together (nevermind the fact that i made my own bias tape).

none of these issues related to the pattern, which is great, but i did find i needed to deviate from the instructions in how i did the bias binding. the “sandwich and sew” method doesn’t work for me, and i found that the “traditional” method (open up the tape, sew right sides together along the crease, wrap binding around to back, and topstitch catching both sides) worked better with the thicker towel. it may seem to take longer, but for me the pinning is quicker and ripping out stitches from terry cloth on one of the ties after messing up the sandwich method is a VERY slow process (from experience). i used a similar method around the bottoms of the sleeves.

other items of note for sewing nerds. i made a size medium, which fits perfectly (the arms are supposed to be long to keep little hands warm). the towel is from target (two bath towels), the binding is kona jade, and the contrast print is patty young’s flora and fauna (a fat quarter). i love how the colors came together, and em has now asked for a robe too…she would like to help me pick fabrics for it, and i have a feeling pink will be involved.