Pattern Progress

Have I mentioned Lauren Dahl's Pattern Workshop and how great it is?  Oh I have?  Well let me mention it again!  It's fantastic!  I am learning SO much!  Not to mention the Facebook group where I have met a lot of new friends.  We are all learning together and sharing our experiences and expertise.  

I am working on my first PDF pattern.  I hope to be in testing within a couple of months.  Any volunteers out there willing to sign up?  This isn't an official call, but I'm hoping some of you will give some thought to testing the pattern when the time comes.  I promise, it isn't a difficult pattern by any means.  Just a simple little dress in sizes 3months - 8years.  At least that's the size plan for now.  Even novice sewers should have no problem with this pattern.   

I am almost finished with the infant sizes.  Just a few more pieces to draw up and then I will be ready to put some markings and seam allowances on them.  Then on to the bigger sizes.  SO exciting!  

I have also begun working on the illustrations that will go along with the instructions.  Even I am impressed with how professional they look so far.  The illustrations have been pretty easy using Lauren's methods! :)  

I can't wait to finish this pattern up and be able to make it available to you!  

Happy Saturday and Happy Sewing! 

Tiered Pillowcase Dress Sew Along: Week 3 - Preparing The Skirt Pieces

Welcome to week 3 of the shoulder tie dress sew along! I am getting excited to see what you are coming up with for your own dresses!
If you missed the first two weeks you can find them and get caught up at the links below.

Preparing
Week 1: Cutting
Week 2: The Bodice

Week 3: Preparing the Skirt Pieces (time needed about 1 - 1 1/2 hours)

Today we will begin work on the skirt portion of the dress.
Remember that all seam allowances are 1/2 inch unless otherwise stated.

First of all there are two ways to finish the hem of the dress.  You can either roll the edge with decorative thread on your serger, or you can turn under a narrow hem and sew it on a regular sewing machine.  I chose to do a rolled hem on my serger.  I love the look and it is a big time saver.

Step 1. The first thing you will want to do is to is decide which hemming method you want to use.  If you are NOT using a serger, you can skip the next few steps entirely.  Proceed to step 5 if you are not using a serger to hem your dress.

Step 2.  If you decide to roll the edge on your serger, you must now set your serger up for a 3 thread rolled hem.  I am using a contrasting bright pink thread.  It is not a necessary choice, but I like to use wooly nylon thread in the upper looper and regular thread for the right needle and the lower looper.  This thread stretches as it is being sewn and then relaxes after it is sewn and fills in nicely and gives a nice look overall.  You may have to adjust your tensions slightly for the thread you choose to use.  I suggest testing on a scrap of fabric until you have a look that is pleasing to you.

2. Set your stitch length to the smallest that your machine will go, and set your stitch finger for rolled hem.  On my machine the stitch finger is moved by simply sliding a little lever back and forth.  Consult your manual for the proper set up for your machine.  

3.  For sizes 2-3 and 4-5 proceed to step 4.  For sizes 6-7 and 8-10, four pieces were cut for the bottom tier. Sew two pieces together along one short end using a 1/2 inch seam allowance to make one long piece. Do this to both sets before proceeding.  You should have two long pieces with a seam in the middle of each.  Finish and press the seams before completing the next step.  I find that this gives a cleaner edge when serging.

4. Serge the bottom edge of both pieces of your bottom tier with the right side of the fabric up  trimming only a tiny portion from the edge. I use the edge of my plate as a guide.  Be careful that you use the same measurement for each piece.  

Your edge should look something like this when you are finished. 

5. Sew the short ends of your pieces for the bottom tier right sides together using a 1/2 inch seam allowance .  If you serged your hem, be very careful to line up the hem as closely as possible.  It is better to have the hem edge perfectly even than the top edge. 

6.  Finish this seam with a serged or overlocked edge if you wish.  A little trick I learned that is nice to do with your serger so that you don't have all those loose little strings hanging at the bottom of your hem is something that I have demonstrated below.  

Begin your serged seam at the hem side of the seam.  

 Stitch until you are one or two stitches into the fabric and stop with the needle down. 

Lift the presser foot and pull all of the slack out of the loose chain thread coming from the edge of the seam you just began to sew.  The thread will be behind the needle.  Be sure to really get in there and pull all of those little loops out.  You don't want any loose loops at all behind the needle.  Then pull that thread end toward you around the left side of the needle and under the presser foot and across the edge of the fabric.  Make sure it is snug against the needles and then lower the presser foot.  

Begin sewing again and allow the thread end to be cut by the knives as you continue the seam.  By doing this you will serge right over those loose ends and your seam will look something like this. 

Pretty neat little trick, huh!?

  

7.  Press this seam open if you are not finishing the edges.  If you are finishing the seam edge, then press this seam to one side or another.  Press both seams on this tier in the same direction.  

8.  If you serged your hem, you can skip ahead to step 9.  If you are doing a narrow hem, press 1/4 inch on the bottom edge of your bottom tier toward the wrong side.  Then press up another 1/4 inch.  Sew sew this on your machine starting at a seam and going all the way around the hem until you reach the place where you started.  Stay close to the inside edge of the fold, making sure to catch all the layers in your stitching line. 

9.  Set aside the bottom tier.  

10. Sew the two pieces for the top tier together at the short ends and finish the seams if you wish.  Press these just as you did before, but in the opposite direction from the other tier, unless you are not finishing the edges and are pressing them open.   

And that's it for this week!  Next week we will gather the bottom tier to the top tier.  

Happy Sewing! 

My Dirty Little Secret

Today I am letting you in on my dirty little (ok not so little) secret.   There are UFOs  in my closet, and in my storage drawers, and in my cabinets... not the ones with the little green guys, but this kind....

UnFinished Objects.  And not just a few, either.... lots of them.  These are just the sewing projects... I didn't even include the knitting and crochet and other crafty endeavors... I'm not even sure I got all the sewing projects.... LOL.  

For years I have chastised myself for having UFO's hanging about.  Some of them for years at a time... Some of these even moved from my apartment to my house.... We moved in 2004.  I beat myself up for not finishing things in a reasonable time frame.  I thought of it as a lack of self discipline, I saw it as wasteful, I considered it some sort of failure on my part for not following through.  

I believe that at least a part of my self-judgement about this comes from hanging around the blogosphere.  Reading other people's blogs where they seem to just have it all together, living in a perfect little world where crafting takes center stage and every project turns out beautiful and is finished in record time.  Anyone else ever felt that way?  

Let's get real... no one REALLY lives like that, do they??? Because if they do, I want to know their secret....  

Granted, I am probably worse than a lot of people when it comes to flitting from one project to another.  I tend to see a "shiny" new project and go hopping down the bunny trail... But wait... isn't that part of the fun and the joy of being creative?  

That being said, I AM on a mission to reduce the number of UFO's buzzing around my home.  There is a joy, also to seeing a project come to completion.  

I have also decided, however, that there really is no need to chastise myself for unfinished projects.  I will get to them eventually and if I don't, it's really ok, because I learned something from each one.   It's a little about embracing who I am.  I have such a limited amount of sewing time that I want to relish as much of it as I can.  Why should I spend it in what feels like drudgery just because I "need" to finish the project in front of me that I am currently bored with?  If I come back to it another time, it will be fresh and interesting again and it will be enjoyable then. 

So, all of that to say that if you are a little  (or a lot) like me, it's ok.  I give you permission to explore the bunny trials and see what lies there.  Your old friends will be waiting for you when you return.  I promise, they won't hold a grudge, and neither will I. 

Happy trails.... :)  

Pass the Marmalade...

A few weeks ago I joined in for a sew along at SewCanShe.  It was a simple log cabin block sew along.  The blocks were to have 3 logs on each side and finish at 4.5 inches before being sewn together.  (You should go check out the winner,  simply stunning!)

I happily delved into my stash and came up with several fat quarters and quarter yard pieces that I had at one point grouped to use together.  Some of them were from the same line of fabrics and then there were a few additions from my stash.

I cut lots and lots of 1 inch strips and lots and lots of 1.5 inch centers.  I cut enough centers for 150 blocks.  I had in mind to make a small lap sized quilt.  I even had a recipient in mind, which is uncommon for me. LOL.

Well somewhere along the way I misjudged how much fabric I needed or there was more waste than I thought, or something... because after adding two logs to each side of 150 blocks, I came to the realization that there was NO WAY I was going to be able to finish them all with the amount of fabric I had left. In fact, I was no where near being able to finish that many.  Really, only about 25-30 were going to be able to have all the rounds of logs.

Now, it has been a few years since any of these fabrics were on the shelves anywhere, so I knew finding more was out of the question. Bummed, but still trying to be resourceful, I tried to decide what to do.  I still wanted to participate in the sew along, but that meant that at least one block had to be the proper finished size.  So I thought some more and decided to finish 25 blocks and make a wall hanging from them and use the rest of the blocks to make a runner for the top of my piano.

I worked on squaring up  the little blocks a few nights ago, but I got bored with them.  This is a common occurrence for me as I will share in an upcoming post.  I think I will need to do this in small doses until I have them all squared up.  I still have this many left to do.

So, because I got bored with it and I still had some sewing time left, I decided to look into my one of my UFO bins and see what was lurking in there begging to be finished.  I found these little drunkard's path blocks that I had cut out and played around with a couple of years ago.  They never became a full sized project because I got tired of cutting out the pieces. (Imagine that!)   I sewed them up into blocks and then sewed them up into this little piece.  I think I will use it for a throw pillow.  My living room needs some color!  The pink scraps I used are left over from various projects.  One of them isn't even finished and yet I no longer have any scraps from it!  Like I said.... I get bored easily. :)

What are you working on this week?  I'd love to hear about it!

A Pillow for Myciah

A while back a friend asked me to create a pillow from a very special sweatshirt.  My friend's granddaughter Myciah Rose passed away at 6 weeks of age from SIDS.  Every year on her birthday they do something special to remember her.  The sweatshirt was from one of those events.

My friend says that when she sees a white butterfly she is reminded of her precious girl, so when I found this fabric with the pink background and the white butterflies, I knew that it was the fabric that I had to use to border the pieces from the sweatshirt.

To make the shirt I cut the design from both the front and the back of the shirt and then basted it down to a base fabric that was not stretchy before I put the pink borders on.  

I installed an invisible zipper in the top so that the cover can be washed if needed.

Orange Marmalade

I finished my little project for the quilt a long with Sew Can She.  I came in just under the wire as the finished project needed to be posted by tomorrow.  :)  I had to deviate from my original plan to make a lap size quilt when I realized that I had severely miscalculated the amount of fabric that I would need.  Instead I made a small wall hanging. I am loving the play of orange and green with the lighter fabrics!

I was constructing the blocks in a sort of chain piecing method when I realized that I was going to run out of fabric way too soon. I had all but the last round completed on all of 150 blocks when I realized that it just was not going to happen.  SO.... I have 125 smaller blocks that I am going to square up and use to make a matching runner to put on the top of my piano.  More on that at a later date, LOL. :)

It started with a sketch....

I know, I haven't blogged in ages. I always think I'm going to get back around to it and then time passes, and well... apparently it is 6 months later.  Just about the time I think I am going to quit altogether, I get a new idea that I want to share,  so here I am again, LOL. I wanted to share my process for making the pattern for a new dress.  I call it the "Anna" dress.  Soon to be a new addition to my website and Etsy shop.

This weekend I posted a few sketches over on my Facebook page.  Whenever I get an idea, if it is handy, I try and sketch it out.  I'd say that probably 90% of these never wind up becoming real garments.  Mostly because of time or money constraints, but also because I wind up tucking these little drawings away and I forget all about them until I run across them again.  Sometimes years later.  This weekend I decided that I would try and work through at least some of the sketches that I posted.  I wasn't sure where to start, so I just started with sketch #1.

I went through my pattern stash and decided to use this pattern as the base pattern for the bodice. 

I traced the pattern onto freezer paper.  I measured the length of the skirt piece from the pattern and extended the center line approximately the same distance.  From the side of the bodice I simply drew a 60* angled line the same length as I extended the center line.  I drew a right angle from each line in just an inch or so and then just eyeballed a gentle curve for the bottom of the skirt.  I traced the same curve onto the back pieces so that they would match. This gave me a simple A-line dress pattern.  The entire dress was composed of 6 pattern pieces.  One cut on the fold for the front, one piece that was cut mirror imaged for the back, a center pleated panel, which was just a big rectangle,  facings for the neck and a contrast trim piece for the front.  

Drafting the cap sleeves was the trickiest part.  It involved reading several tutorials and trying to take adult measurements and size them down to toddler size.  In the end it worked out, but I did have to kind of play with them a bit in order to get them looking like I wanted them.  I wound up dropping the sleeve opening to where the notch is on the pattern instead of where I drew the dot on the pattern.  It just looked more right when I sewed it together.  The center panel of the skirt was done by cutting a rectangular piece out from the center of the dress front piece.  I measured the pleated panel by deciding how many pleats of what size I wanted and then doing the calculations to decide how large to cut the piece.  

Construction of this part was a little unusual, but it worked just fine.  I reinforced the top and corners of the dress front piece with stay stitching.  I clipped in the edges the same amount as my seam  allowance.  I drew out and ironed my pleats into my insert panel and sewed the side seam allowances.  Then I zig zagged the top edge to the opening in the dress front piece with the raw edges butted up together.  It worked pretty well.  I then used a little bias tape on the inside to hide the seam and the contrast trim piece on the outside to hide the seam.  

The rest was pretty standard dress construction.  Zippered back, facings, etc.  I serged the edges of the side seams before sewing them.  When I got to the sleeve openings, I just ended my side seam at the notch, turned the edges of the sleeves in and topstitched them down.  

Voila! A new dress! I am hoping to get some "real" pictures of it and get it listed over at Etsy soon.

I am also linking up with Randi at I Have To Say for Show and Tell  Tuesday. 

A little something for me...

All this looking at sundresses for little girls has made me want one for myself. LOL  Mine will be a bit different, though. I rarely sew for myself anymore.  In fact, I couldn't even tell you the last time I made myself anything.  It has been years.


I purchased some lovely orange poppy fabric at Joann's recently.

I am debating between these two patterns. If you were 5'3" and overweight, which would you choose?

I got a good giggle out of the Burda pattern at the bottom of the envelope where it says "All patterns with seam und hem allowances".  Yes they are a German company.

I still want to make the mannequin and play with some draping, but I want something I throw together fairly quickly to wear this summer for now.

How about a giveaway?

Things in my life have been pretty frustrating and topsy turvey lately. I can't go into all of that, but I need to do something fun so I am going to do a giveaway. I will give away one little girl's outfit or dress handmade by me. The catch is that you won't know what you are getting until it arrives at your home. It will be a complete surprise. I will have you send me your child's size and measurements and I will create something just for you! SOOO if you have a special little princess in your life and you would like to win an outfit from me for her, just post a comment. I will choose a name randomly on Sunday at noon (central time). If you want to see some of my previous work, look back through my blog or click on my website in the right hand sidebar of my blog. Good luck! This is going to be fun!

Today's IGP...

I threw this little sundress together this afternoon. It was a nice easy little project out of a seersucker remnant I bought about a year ago. It will be heading to Etsy as soon as I can get some better pictures of it. It is about a size 4 or so. It measures 24 inches from top to bottom. I think I will make some more of these. Anyone interested in a tutorial?

I have a question, too. I have been thinking of asking some people that I know if their children can model some of my clothes. I am thinking of re-doing my website. (It seems to be about a yearly thing for me.) The thing is, I can't really afford to compensate them much for it. I would offer them a copy of all of the pictures on cd, maybe print some off for them as well and offer a discount on an outfit if they would like one. Do you think that would be adequate compensation?

I also ordered my first set of slopers in sizes 2-6x this morning. I got the princess bodice style. Stay tuned for more adventures in pattern drafting.....

"And they call it puppy love....."

I think it is ok to show these pictures now. Here is another puppy made for Amanda's little daughter who turned two this week. Please meet "Daisy"

I also finished Lexi's short set for her birthday. In my haste to get it finished and wrapped, I forgot to get a picture of it. I do have one of her opening it. The shorts are just plain elastic waist shorts and the top is modeled after this one. She is a dog lover and the fabric was red with brown puppies and light blue dog bones. I thought the fabric was really cute. She seemed to like it. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get a picture of her in it, LOL. We celebrated at Space Aliens restaurant. Sort of a high end, alien themed Chuck E. Cheese. She turned 7 this year, notice the jersey?


I am working on an outfit to put in the Pfaff store here in town soon. It is almost finished. The top is done, and the pants are almost there. I need to do the ruffles at the cuffs and the casing and elastic at the waist. Then it will be done. Hopefully I'll have pictures of this one tomorrow or this weekend. I sure wish I had someone to model these things when I get them done. I would really love to get some good pictures so that people can see the fit and how they look on someone. I'd try to get Lexi, but I don't think she'd be interested. She isn't into girly ruffles and stuff. She'd probably hate it, lol.

Stash happy :)

I finished what I was making to put in the sewing shop here in town. Made 100% from my stash. It took a little ingenuity, and just sucking it up and using fabric that I had been "saving", but here it is, and I love it! :) Ruffledy bloomers and all.




So since I used my stash fabrics, ehem... as if I used ALL of them or something, LOL. I naturally had to go shopping. I bought a little over 11 yards yesterday. I don't think I used 11 yards in that little dress. :0) I have some specific projects in mind for most of it, though, so... That's ok, right? Yay for 40% off sales at Joann and Crafts Direct!

Lovely spring weather....

That we are having here. Come on.... it's APRIL, seriously...

My poor willow bush is falling over with all this wet heavy snow.


Do you know what is even more disturbing...? (now to preface this, my light bulb burned out on my sewing machine Tuesday night and the Pfaff dealership is only open late enough for me to get there on Thursday nights.) Yesterday at work a customer came in and was chattiing about the impending storm, talking about having enough milk and toilet paper to ride out the storm. Later I got to thinking "and my main concern is being able to get to the sewing machine dealership so I can get a bulb for my machine so I can sew during all the snow." And, yes, I did go and get one. Oh, and we are almost out of milk and toilet paper... (I think we have enough to get through, though for those of you who might have been worried...)
So with that I will leave you with a teaser of the pressing project which prompted my snowy excursion to the Pfaff store. :)

For those who are unfamiliar...

This is smocking. You've most likely seen it before, just didn't know what it was called.
I am planning a tutorial, but it may have to wait a little while. I am working on a project for the store that I mentioned in my last post. I also have a couple of other little jobs going as well. Not very interesting jobs, but jobs that will pay me a little bit of $$ so I can do the fun stuff. :) I also have a couple of birthday presents to make, too. I am hoping to get to it in May sometime. More on that later.

A muumuu for Mady-mu....

I finished Mady's dress for her birthday. I really like how it turned out, but it does have a certain muumuu-like quality about it. I think its the tiers. LOL I am still planning on making some bloomers to go under it.

Lots of twirl power in this dress, too. Just the thing for a 4 year old girl. :) The bottom tier is approximately 175 inches around. I took the width of the fabric and cut 4 strips. I didn't measure it, I just cut it.




I joined Amanda in her effort to finish up projects that were nearing completion. So far I have only finished one thing. I started this circle skirt a while back for Etsy. It's a girls size 8. I drafted everything about the pattern from scratch, and I have to say that I am very pleased with the results. I am thinking about redrafting the pattern in different sizes so I can make them for Etsy. I have some fun ladybug fabric in green, pink and yellow that I think will be the next one.



And here is the pillowcase dress I finished a little while back for Etsy. I just got around to getting pictures of it. Now, just to find time to do the listings.....



And finally I thought I'd add this picture because I thought it was funny. We have ducks nesting in the neighbor's yard, and this little guy was wandering around our front yard the other day. Aeris was mezmerized.