KCW

Well, kids' clothes week has been kind of a bust around here! I haven't done any sewing, but I did get some lovely fabric in the mail.

Maybe I'll sew tomorrow.

To Market, To Trash Can

 I have a confession: I hate this skirt.

It was my second time using the Market Skirt Tutorial and after the first one went together so smoothly, I expected to breeze through this one. That did not happen. First, I cut the red fabric to the dimensions of the bottom ruffle, and the bottom ruffle to the dimensions of the red fabric. And then, I had half of the skirt sewn together before I realized it.

I went to cut more fabric, but didn't have enough of the red I originally wanted to use, so I had to find a different fabric. I used my rotary cutter to cut the pieces, and when I got to the white piece, where the length was folded in half, I cut the fabric in half. Fortunately, I had enough white to re-re-do those pieces. But still.

I also ripped out every single seam on this skirt at least once, and most of them twice. It may or may not have spent time in the trash before I went up to bed and realized I couldn't let a skirt defeat me. I dragged myself out of bed, fished the skirt out of the trash, and finished it. In the middle of the night. There may have been wine involved at this point. That's how I explain the awful, crooked topstitching--and this was after I ripped out the botched first attempt!

And Max? She hates it too. I bribed her with chocolate chips to get this picture. She insisted on putting the skirt right over her jammies, and wouldn't even let me brush her hair.

And when I asked her if we could take a picture where she wasn't holding the doll, she insisted that she had to hold the doll, because it was walking on her. And yes, that is a plastic doll from the eighties TV show She-ra: Princess of Power. My only defense? It's vintage.

And so is the one photobombing this picture:

Fabric is Riley Blake.

One More Lazy Days Skirt

Here's another Lazy Days skirt that I whipped up a while ago, then waited a week for enough sunshine to take pictures of. I've had this Heather Ross fabric for a while now. At least a year. It's so pretty and hard to find that I've been kind of afraid to use it, but what's the point of having pretty fabric stashed in a cupboard?

I decided to go with a simple pattern that I've made before, so there was no chance of messing it up. And I think it worked. I'm really happy with the results. I didn't have any ribbon that looked right with this fabric, so I did a regular hem. It looked a little too plain after that, so I sewed a simple lace trim two inches from the bottom.

I think it adds just the right touch.

The best way to get Lissie to smile, of course, is to tell her not to smile. So this is her "serious face." I love it.

Knot Dress

I've made a few dresses before using this pattern, but still managed to sew the ruffle onto the wrong side of the bodice. And for some reason--probably because my serger is right in the kitchen, while my sewing machine is all the way back in my tiny sewing room and I didn't feel like walking back there--I serged it when I did it, so picking out the stitches to redo the ruffle wasn't happening. I tried to make the inside out bodice work with the rest fabrics I'd originally planned to use, but I wasn't feeling the new combination and decided to do two separate dresses instead. 

I don't normally let the girls choose their own fabric combinations. Not because I care whether things match (I don't), but because it's hard for me to sew something together if I don't love it. This dress was so close to being finished that I figured it couldn't hurt to give Maxine some say in the rest of the fabrics. Still, I didn't exactly let her choose the specific fabrics, but each girl made a pile of their favorite fabrics one afternoon, so I rummaged around in Max's pile and, with her approval, came up with these:

It's not a combination I'd have come up with from the start, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Considering. And I managed to work in Max's favorite "boots!" fabric, which is nice, because it doesn't seem to go with many of the fabrics I own. And she loves it, so that's all that really counts.

I used this pattern from Little Lizard King, which I've made quite a few dresses from, in various sizes. I have to say, I love it. You can cut everything out with a rotary cutter, and it goes together quickly. Even if you sew the bodice inside out.

Belle Layered Skirt

I know, I've been posting a lot of skirts lately. Well, here's another one! This is the complicated skirt I mentioned in my other posts. It really wasn't all that complicated, but with the trims and double layers, it was more involved than the other patterns I used. I also find that no matter how simple a pattern might be, I usually manage to make a million mistakes the first time I make something from it.

For this skirt, I used the Belle Layered Skirt tutorial, sized up to an 8. I was a little worried about how it would turn out because of that, and I did think that I probably should have followed the tutorial exactly and made a smaller one first for Max before attempting to make a bigger one. The tutorial was very easy to follow though, and I'm happy with how it turned out.

I found the fabric (except for the one I used for the ruffle) in the bargain section at a local fabric store, and immediately thought of Lissie. I wasn't planning on making anything specific with it when I bought it, but fortunately happened to get enough for this skirt.

The outer skirt is made from Melissa White's Misaki Lotus and Berries in dusty pink, and the underskirt is Annette Tatum's Fall House Bloom in ochre. I can't remember the names of the fabrics I used for the binding and the ruffle, but I think the purple one is from the Memoirs of a Geisha line. You've probably already figured this out, but I love mixing and matching different lines of fabric.

Lissie had a little trouble standing still for pictures, so I had her sit. It didn't really help. Here she is flapping her arms like a chicken.

She already had a shirt that matched, so that was nice!

When I was cutting the skirt pieces, I accidentally cut the outer skirt an inch shorter than I was supposed to. Instead of making the underskirt shorter, I just left it. Now that I've seen the skirt on Lissie, I think it could have been a little shorter. At least this way it will fit longer, and I don't think the difference is very noticeable.

I definitely want to use this tutorial again to make a skirt for Max. I love how this one turned out, but I don't know if I'd use it again for Lissie, just because of the awkwardness of working with so much fabric. Maybe in a lighter weight fabric though? I used quilt weight cottons for this one, which definitely adds bulk. Gathering the skirt and sewing a separate waistband would help cut down on the bulk too. But then I'd have to gather, so I probably won't try that.

To Market, To Market

I'm still putting off working on the "complicated" dress and skirt I started last week, and what better way to procrastinate than by making another simple skirt?

This was a new pattern for me. I used the Market Skirt tutorial from Made, and while it's not as simple as the Lazy Day skirt pattern (but then, what is?), it was easy to follow and went together pretty quickly. I skipped the pockets, because I didn't want them to compete with the pattern on the fabric I used.

Other than that, I followed the pattern pretty closely. I had a little trouble with the double layer of fabric for the bottom piece, so instead of using two separate layers, I made my pieces twice as long as the pattern called for, and folded them in half lengthwise. I took her suggestion of doing a double line of stitching at the hem, even though there really wasn't a hem, because of the way the piece was folded. I love the way it looks though, and as you can see, I'm a big fan of topstitching anyway.

Max loves it too, although when she first saw the skirt she said that she wouldn't wear it, because it wasn't red and it didn't have ribbon at the hem. Fortunately, she changed her mind.

She says that the boots she is wearing are her Wonder Woman boots. She wouldn't put on pants or tights "because Wonder Woman doesn't wear tights. She has bare legs, and so do I!" And who am I to argue with logic like that?

Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the fabric I used for this one, and it wasn't on the selvedge of the piece I bought. I used white Kona cotton for the hem and waistband, and I'm happy with how well it worked. I was afraid the Kona would be too stiff (it's not my first choice for clothing), but it seems to work well in this particular pattern.

I'm definitely planning to make more of these soon. This skirt uses less than half a yard of patterned fabric, so it's the perfect way to use up some of the smaller pieces I have sitting around here. Maybe I'll even use some of the precious Heather Ross fabrics I've been hoarding. Maybe.

Another Simple Skirt

 Another day, another simple skirt. You didn't think I'd forgotten about Max, did you?

Same easy pattern. Same ribbon trim.

She loves it, because she loves red. Red has been her favorite color for ages, but it's kind of hard to find red clothes for little girls (except around the holidays, but even my girls don't need that many fancy dresses). The fabric is Red Birds from Riley Blake's "Hello Sunshine!" line.

And yes, she picks her own clothes. "It does match. They both have pink!"

A Simple Skirt

Although fall is my favorite time of year, spring is a close second. We've had a few warm days recently, letting us know that spring is finally on its way, and one of my favorite things about spring is sewing. It's not that I couldn't sew during any season, it's just that my sewing repertoire is limited to little girls' summery dresses and skirts. So spring always puts me in the mood to sew.

I've been working on a dress for Maxine and a skirt for Lissie, using slightly complicated patterns. Which is fine, except that I really love the instant gratification of a project that I can start and finish in the same day. Sometimes I need to take a break from the bigger things and just finish something.

I made this skirt this afternoon. I used one of my favorite patterns, the Oliver + S Lazy Days skirt pattern. I love it. It uses just one piece of fabric, and I think the ribbon trim at the hem adds just the right touch. I had a few colors that would have worked with this fabric, but I went with pink because it's Lissie's favorite color.

I spotted this fabric at the fabric store the other day. It's a quilt weight cotton called Scenic, from the Tribute to Monet line. I don't usually use panels like this, but it seemed perfect for a skirt for Lissie. The repeat is actually 24 inches, but still worked well in the half yard piece I needed for Lissie's skirt.

I've been making these skirts for years, since she was a size 4 (I think Maxine will be wearing those skirts next summer). She's a size 8 now, but the 44" width still works. It probably helps that she likes things less poufy these days.

Easy, adorable, and the pattern is free!

Winter Swap: Pocket Dolls

I had so much fun doing last year's handmade stocking stuffer exchange, that I jumped at the chance to do another one this year. And I was having so much fun making these sweet little pocket dolls I'd just learned how to make, that I thought, why not double the fun, and make 20 items to swap this year?

The instructions were to make 10 (or if you're feeling carelessly ambitious, 20) Christmas or winter themed items. I decided to split them and do ten Christmasy dolls and ten wintery dolls. Of course, it occurred to me after dyeing and buying a zillion different shades of red, green, blue, and gray felt that pretty much anything wearing a hat and scarf could already be considered wintery.

It also occurred to me, after cutting out 20 different body shape and color combinations, that they wouldn't all be going to the same person, and therefore, didn't all need to be completely different. But I think I'd have been terribly bored after making the second one without a little variety!

The dolls are made from wool/rayon blend felt. I found that a thinner felt works best for these guys, because they are so tiny. I used wool roving to stuff them, and wooden beads for the heads. The instructions I used also show how to make a felted wool head, which is darling, but I'm afraid that making 20 felt heads would have meant these dolls wouldn't be finished until next Christmas!

Are you loving the smudge on the left side of that picture? I had a greasy fingered little helper, but didn't notice until after I'd packed these for shipping.

Each doll has one embellishment. Some have an appliqué, others have an embroidered star or candy cane. I made a few tiny knitted scarves, and I loved the way they turned out, but there are only three because Lissie borrowed, and lost, my spool knitter before I could make more. The rest have little wool poms on their hats.

I found the instructions from Anna Branford's blog on Pinterest. In her post, she links to another blog which has a tutorial for making a similar doll with a fabric head. I'd love to try those sometime too.

Halloween

This wasn't our favorite Halloween, due to the loss of a good friend a week and a half before (and the incredibly stressful last month of his life leading up to it). Sometimes a holiday is just what you need to take your mind off things and cheer you up. Other times, the holiday is just a cold, rainy mess, which does nothing to improve your spirits. Add a couple of whiny kids--one of whom refuses to trick-or-treat (fine), then falls asleep halfway though (not so fine), and, yeah.

But at least the costumes were cute!

I think this was Lissie's first year with a store bought costume. I love making costumes for the girls, but she had her heart set on Wonder Woman, and I didn't feel up to the task (especially not this year). She loves it though, and I'm thinking it will get a lot of use in the dress up bin. I don't normally buy specific dress up outfits like this, but she pretends to be Wonder Woman all the time anyway, so I don't see the harm in just this one.

Maxine wanted to be a black cat, which was all well and good, until we looked up cat costumes on Amazon. And she saw the one with the lavender tutu. So then she wanted to be a black cat, with a lavender tutu. At least, as costumes go, it was an easy one to put together. She wore black clothes that she already had, and I made ears to go on a black headband I found at a craft store. I used wool felt for the ears, and they didn't take long at all. The tutu came from Target, and like the Wonder Woman costume, will likely see a lot of use even after Halloween is over!

We did the Halloween Fairy again this year, and the girls loved it. They actually looked forward to getting their treats this time, and weren't at all sad about not being able to eat the candy--which once again, we got home early enough to hand out to late trick-or-treaters, and Lissie had a great time doing it! 

An early, rushed Halloween gathering where we met more neighbors, and pizza with friends after trick-or-treating were fun, so the evening wasn't a complete bust.

Strawberry Pants Forever

What is that saying about the shoemaker's children having no shoes? Well, that's what it's like at our house. Aside from our kids having too many shoes, and neither of us knowing a thing about making them, I mean. But I do make clothes, so how is it that Lissie doesn't have a single pair of pants that covers her ankles? Oops!

In an attempt to remedy the situation, I let her go through my fabric stash last week and pick out her favorites. I have a pattern I'd been wanting to try and it was a great opportunity to get in some more practice with my new serger. Problem solved?

Not exactly.

Maxine saw them hanging over the back of my chair and announced "Apple. Wear that." Which she did.  Completely unfinished. Unironed, unhemmed, unelasticized, all through the house, over her pajamas, all the way until bedtime. And then they sat in my sewing room, completely forgotten, for a week.

Until I found time to finish them. And then Lissie tried them on. Max was devastated. I think she thought they were for her. Silly girl. Someone should tell her the third child never gets anything new.