Laurel burch quilt and another new look

The Blogger dynamic view wasn't working for me so I've decided to change it yet again :)

I made another small quilt for our karate club to raffle this year, this is a Laurel Burch quilt kit I bought on Ebay ages ago. This isn't a great photo I'm afraid, I was in a hurry taking a pic the night I had to hand it in. The colours are lovely IRL with metallic highlights here and there and lots of quirky cat families. The backing fabric was randomly grabbed from stash and I went for straight line quilting because I was in a hurry. It's a baby size quilt, good for playing on the floor or in a crib when they get old enough.

December sewing, a Very Merry Christmas :)

I had a bit of a manic time before Christmas trying to get all the last minute sewing done. I'm pleased with what I got finished this year, this post will get very red, white and green!

First up, I made three scoodies as gifts for my mam and sisters. These are very simple to make, I took a hood I liked the shape of and added a four inch wide scarf to either side of the neckline. They have polka dot fleece on one side and bamboo velour on the other and are reversible so my recipients don't have to walk around feeling like Little Red Riding Hood :D





I also managed to make gift bags for the children this year, just rectangular drawstring bags made from red velour and lined with star print cotton (you'll see loads of that in a moment!) and they were embroidered with the text "Merry Christmas" followed by each child's name. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of those that I can share just now, you'll have to take my word for it that they looked very sweet filled up with gifts on Christmas morning :)

I made my now obligatory Christmas Eve jammies, six pairs of the things!!!! One each for my kids, niece E and nephew O. I noticed while appliqueing their initials that we are one short on spelling out REJOICE which would be very fitting for Christmas jammies, wouldn't it? I requested a new niece or nephew for next Christmas, to be named something beginning with E and was told by all parties not to hold my breath lol!

Here they are, the fabrics are interlocks from Tissu Fabrics which are a nice weight, the colour didn't run which was great but they shrunk around 15%. I'll be buying more from them as it's a good fabric at a great price but if anyone else gets some, be aware of the shrinkage when deciding how much you need! The patterns are a mix of Ottobre 06/09 and 06/10 and the sizes go from 86cm up to 140cm, the kids loved having their initials on them :)







A rarity for me, a non-blanked out faces pic :) I have a thing about not uploading recognisable pics of the kids on public sites but this one is so sweet, I'll leave it up for a few days then take it down again.



And another rare photo, my head is not chopped off lol! I love this dress, it's a bottle green stretch velvet from Tissu and the pattern is Simplicity 2647, view F. The fit was a lot better than I expected given my last few encounters with Simplicity patterns, I chose the size based on my bust measurement (totally ignored the fact that my waist and hips both put me two sizes bigger!!) and it's come out a really nice fit, comfortable round the bust and plenty of ease still through the wast and hip. The shoulder straps are my favourite part, they are gathered to the front and back bodice and you can pull them over your arm as I have in the pic so they look like little cap sleeves. Love it, love it, love it and will be making it again in different fabrics and views.

Ottobre 04/06 #22, yet another fail!

That's it, I've had it. Princess is going to Asda tomorrow for their cheap, poorly made jeans that FIT HER instead of me making yet another pair that don't :( This is the third attempt and while the fit is much better than the low rise Sarita jeans it still needs a little tweak in the waist and length but that doesn't matter because the little stinker is refusing to wear them!! She chose the pattern, the fabric (PRR cord) and the red dye and after seeing them altogether has decided she can't stand them.





It's a nice pattern, the bottom hem section is flared and there are two patch pockets with tucks and flaps on the front and back - I even added a piece of her favourite ribbon into the side seam. Sob!

Farbenmix Kim and trying something new

Do not adjust your screen, I really have gone all pink! I've been exploring the new settings Blogger have on offer, what do you think? You can change the layout yourself (I hope!) by choosing one of the options on the pink bar below the blog title. Try them out and let me know if you like it or not :)

To the sew'n'show. Princess has had a growth spurt recently and is in need of trousers. As it's winter I wanted to make her something a little heavier and warmer than I usually would which meant trying out some non-knit and non-elastic waist patterns. After the immediate panic at the thought of tackling a fly zipper I calmed down and traced the Farbenmix Kim pattern, cut up some long stashed embroidered denim and started sewing. On paper I really, really like the Kim because of the hem panels. The front has a lovely shaped piece with elastic gathering and the back gives you the option to put in two to three rows of ruffles, there are some gorgeous examples in the Farbenmix flickr pool. In practice however it was a complete disaster. I had them completed except for the zipper and waistband and I decided to try them on Princess to check the length, my poor girl couldn't even pull them up past her hips. This is apparently one very, very slim fitting pattern for really skinny kids with no hips and no bum. They were salvageable though, I made them into an elastic waist and took two inches off of the legs and now Monkey has a new pair of trousers instead.

Here they are, the snazzy gold top stitching is Jean Stitch thread in, I think, the Jean Gold colour.

Farbenmix Roxy - Hello Kitty

A winter dress for Princess this time though it has finished up as more of a tunic! I've had the Farbenmix Roxy pattern sitting unopened for ages and never realised that it had a long sleeve option until it was recommended to me in a thread on SewingMamas. I had been looking for a new pattern to use for Princess as she asked for something different from my usual go-to patterns so this was perfect. Princess chose everything about this from the fabric to the very bright yellow dye to the applique and ribbon placement. She was very precise about which ribbon went where and how Hello Kitty had to be dressed, I had to unpick and move a row of ribbon before she was satisfied :) I think the end result is very cute and a very good fit but as she's right at the upper end of the size I made it's a little short to be called a dress. I will have to make her some leggings to wear with it, what goes with bright yellow??

The applique is from a colouring page and the Hello Kitty ribbons are from Ebay.

Ottobre 04/04 #10, yes again!

The third and final dress for Toddler this winter  is my old favourite #10 from the Ottobre winter 2004 issue. I've lost count of how many times I've made this now, I just love it. Toddler chose the main fabric and the ricrac trim, I squeezed the contrast pieces out of leftovers from a pair of Monkey's trousers and dyed the fairies with Dylon powder pink machine dye. This was always one of my favourite fabric prints and it has been in my stash for a long time, she better not ruin this dress!



I remembered to clip the neckline seam allowance before understitching it to the neck facing and that seems to have stopped the problem I have of the facing rolling slightly to the outside even when it's topstitched.



Showing off my hard won invisible zipper skills :D



Toddler modelling and just because he's cute a bonus snap of our cat Shadow giving his seal of approval :)

Ottobre 03/05 #21, twirly shirt dress

This is the second of Toddler's winter dresses and it's a nice pattern, I've made it once before for Princess. It has a shirt style bodice with a gathered tiered skirt and there is an optional separate underskirt which looks very cute underneath it, it peeps out at the hem and puffs out the dress skirt beautifully. Toddler chose the fabrics and I dyed them with Dylon dyes as leaving them white is really not an option with this child.



I ran very short on fabric for the dress so the inner collar stand is cut from the skirt fabric, the top tier on the dress skirt is pieced from scraps and the hem frill is missing. There are also no instructions given on how to put together the collar and stand, the pattern instructions refer you to a separate magazine page but they're not there. I have a feeling you can download them from the Ottobre website but I'm not sure. I opted to wing it :)



The underskirt uses the same pattern as the dress skirt with a little extra width to the top tier to allow for an elastic casing, it's a lovely twirly skirt which can of course be made and worn on its own if you're looking for a full, twirly skirt pattern.





Toddler took it out for a test spin in the garden.

Autumn dress for Toddler

What do you do when you really don't like the fabrics your child has chosen for a new dress? Embellish the life out of them and try to cover them up!





I am completely in love with this dress now that it is finished, it took hours to stitch out all of the embroideries and while it didn't take long to hand sew the buttons and roses I really, really hate hand sewing and was very glad when it was done. The pattern is Ottobre Autumn 2006 #10, Toddler chose the fabrics from my stash and approved my other additions :) The fairies are from Emblibrary and stitched out very well.

         

I digitised the text on the bodice using my embroidery machine's software and built-in fonts and I lined the front and back bodices instead of using facings.



The overskirt and sleeves are hemmed using a decorative stitch that looks like little flowers and the underskirt has orange flowered ricrac, satin bows and heart shaped buttons.



And of course you need some modelling shots :)









The best thing about this dress is how much Toddler loves it, she asks for it in the morning when she's getting dressed and hugs it when I give it to her :) It makes it worth the 7+ hours it took to finish!!

Polka dots and ribbons

Toddler needed a quick pair of trousers following a growth spurt, Ottobre Spring 2010 to the rescue! Pattern #2 minus the pockets and hem frills sews up very quickly and the red polka dots go really nicely with her Muksis tunic.



And a new Ebay store for my favourites list, vivimagasin sells some of the cutest ribbons I have seen. I bought a few for the girls, delivery was free and took around ten days to arrive in the UK from Hong Kong. The girls love them, it's just as well I got three colours of Hello Kitty or there would have been some fights!

Ottobre Woman CW303

I love this pattern and have made several tank tops and short sleeve T-shirts from it, with autumn drawing in I made my first long sleeve version. Rayon lycra fabric from Tissu and a freezer paper stencil that is included with the pattern. I was really pleased with this, the sleeve length is just where I like it.

School uniforms

The kids all started a new school this year which meant a little production line sewing. Eleven navy blue tops later, I lost the will to sew for a while after this! All the tops are from Ottobre Spring 2003, #'s 31 and 16. The navy blue cotton lycra came from Tissu which is one of my favourite online fabric shops. I also made two pairs of grey trousers, one each for Toddler and Monkey, using the Vilkas pattern from Ottobre 04 2008. They're both a size 98cm but Monkey's are lengthened a lot.