03 November 2015

Frozen skirt

I won a blog contest a while back on Thread Riding Hood and got to do a little shopping at Stay Home Fabrics.  I saw a quarter yard of pink sparkly Frozen fabric on clearance and just had to get it for my princess.  A quarter yard is plenty for a skirt for a three year old, even when she wears a size 5/6.  And I even have a scrap leftover for something else.


Once I decided on a skirt, I remembered a tutorial from Make It Love It for a skirt that had a little bit of tulle peeking out the bottom.  I happened to have just the right amount leftover from Cupcake's mermaid costume.


It was very easy to put together - I did it in an afternoon.  I didn't look over the directions closely though, and reversed the lining so the tulle is against her skin, but she doesn't notice or care at all.  She's happy, so I'm happy.  It was a nice finish to Kid's Clothes Week.

more E, F, G

I've picked back up with a bunch of sewing in September and October, after not doing much during the summer because of all of the gardening and food preservation.

Random sidenote - it's becoming apparent to me that I won't be able to do an "every month for a year" type of sewing challenge. Sewing goes in spurts for me, because we're doing so many different things all the time. The summer, particularly July and August, is for the garden and canning. We also spent a lot of time at the local pool this past summer

So with getting into another sewing spurt - 

E is for empire-waist 
TA turned 4 last month and wanted an Elsa dress for her birthday present. I did the same type of thing as JE's Elsa dress from her birthday in April - get a white t-shirt (which was something from her drawer that she never wore so it had no stains!! and I didn't have to buy anything!!) and chop it off under the arms, then attach a bunch of fabric to the bottom for an empire-waist type skirt. Mindy gave me the sheer blue sparkle snowflake fabric, I got the blue satin under it when our mom was cleaning out her fabric, and the white lining layer under THAT (which wasn't necessary after all like I thought it was, but oh well) was left over from RG's baptism dress. I don't think I paid a single thing for this dress.

F is for flowers 
I sew with a lot of floral prints. I made two more Bento bags in September because now we have 4 girls in dance classes. We had 3 last year, but I never got around to making SM's bag. Done. And TA has one too. JK is the only one without a dance bag - might as well just go ahead and do it for her.

G is for green and glitter
I don't know if you can see that these shorts have glitter on the fabric ... but they do. It's really cute. This was another pair of shorts from the MADE pattern that I made in August. (And no, I don't know why it's sideways.) I think I made these earlier in the summer, when I did the flannel shorts for SM. I timed myself - I can make a pair of these shorts in just under an hour. My count is up to 7 total so far. I'm sure there will be more.

G is for Grace
RG was baptized on October 10, and Adam has asked that I make each of the girls their own white dress for the occasion. I love the white-on-white embroidery! RG chose the fabric, but *huffy sigh* plain white is so. boring. She was annoyed that I wouldn't add extra trims with colors, and wore it with a pink sweater to church the next day. The pattern was the Oliver+S rollerskate dress, which I lengthened by quite a bit. It's supposed to end at her knees, and I made it mid-calf. I also lowered the high waist by an inch or two (not sure).

 And now, it's on to Christmas. I have no idea if I'll be able to shoe-horn my Christmas projects into the Sew All 26 challenge, or if that will have to go on a hiatus until January. What I have on my list doesn't fit into the next few letters. But happy sewing anyway!

02 November 2015

G is for gingham

Halloween has come and gone, and I've had a Dorothy dress on my to-do list since last spring. At last, Mom has delivered!! I used this tutorial from Girl. Inspired. to make the dress - I did the straps over the shoulders instead of the halter like she has it, and I didn't shirr the back (although I probably should so it fits better). That was a new feature I didn't have time to figure out, and I didn't want to screw up the dress the day before Halloween.

At the church party on Friday.

SM ready to trick-or-treat with her cousin KE who recently moved to Connecticut from Arizona - they'd never met before this summer and were instant friends. KE was Mal from Disney's Descendants.

I don't know what it is, but I love gingham. It makes me think of cute little cottages in a country flower garden, and picnics in the summer. I also sewed a couple of gingham items during the summer. I bought my first ever PDF pattern last spring and made some shorts (that didn't fit the original kid who chose the fabric - they went to the next one down). I had just enough fabric left over for a simple skirt for JK. The skirt needed something to give it a little more pizzazz so I appliqued a teal knit heart, and then Shorts Girl wanted a heart on her knee as well. Don't look too closely - the edges are a mess. I'm still figuring out knit fabric.