Aida's Tote Bag of Total Awesomeness

Aida finished her tote bag!!!  Hooray!!!! And it is awesome! 

Aida has been working on this tote bag for months.  I now it seems like years to her, but really only months :). While working on it she had life  go all crazy on her:   job stress, she moved, etc.etc.  You name it. She came to see me when she could on Friday afternoons and we sewed. 

This bag is a testament to perseverance and persistence. She was going to finish it, damnit, if it took her the rest of her life!  So Super Kudos to Aida for sticking with the project that never seemed to end! 

We used my tote bag pattern and lesson.  This bag is made to the exact measurements in the pattern. We followed the pattern almost exactly except for a few additions. 

We added TONS of pockets!!! This bag has two water bottle pockets on the insides. The water bottle pockets have elastic on the top inside hem which holds the bottles in nicely. These pockets are also great for umbrellas, sippy cups, baby bottles,.....

There is a small pocket for her phone and a larger pocket on the other side  big enough to hold a library book!

This is  bag design genius to me: a place for water AND a library book. Sweet!  

View of the inside.  Look at how much space she has!

Here is a close up of the side bottle pockets.  That's a peppy  polka dot lining, isn't it?
Aida picked the polka dots because they made her happy :) :) 

Look at the super cute  lace on the pockets. This was a little bit she had left over from her skirt she made  out of this same material.  We added the lace to the top of the pocket BEFORE applying the bias tape.

We applied interfacing to the  outer body main piece. The fabric is lovely,  soft and  thick but it is a bit floppy. It needed a little bit of body.  By ironing on interfacing to the back of the face fabric, it gives the bag a little more body and structure. It can sit up all  on its own!

The outer material is reversible! She used one side for the main body and pockets of the bag and then used the other side for the straps. 

 We had talked about maybe adding a bottom to the bag, to make it  even more sturdy. She did it! She used a rectangle of Peltex, the super stiff  kind, cut to the dimensions of the bag after the corners were put in.  ironed it onto the bottom inside of the bag and then zig zagged around it to secure it into place. Then she added the lining and hemmed the top. 

The zig zagging barely  shows!

She did change the hem slightly from the pattern.  She folded it down 1/2 and then folded it again about 2 inches. The top hem of her bag is even with where the straps stitching lines are. It makes the bag a touch shorter but it gives it a really cute look on the inside. 

Aida also used this material to make a skirt . Here she  is modeling it.  

She later added lace to the bottom.  It just gives it that little bit of pizazz. 

Great job on your tote bag Aida!!!!

 I can't wait to get a picture of you wearing your skirt carrying your matching tote bag!!!

:) 

Nina's Amazingly Awesome Dress

I MADE MY DRESS!!!!!!

Yesterday was Nina's last lesson  with me. She is moving next week. She has taken lessons with me for 2.5- 3 years.  She started with me when she was so small- now she is 13 and my height!  She  was one of the first  students I had when I first opened up my business.  I am going to miss her- she is a super creative, smart, interesting,  genuinely nice kid.   Her parents hope to move back to this area in a few years and  I really hope this happens! I would love to help Nina make her prom dress in high school! 

My business benefits from the flow of military folk coming through  the area. I always have new students. But sometimes it's a real bummer because I meet the coolest people   and then they move away. I 'm talking to you, Kristi. And Amy , Samantha. and Amanda and the rest of ya's that have moved away.  And now  Nina and her  mom Doris are moving. Stop it people. Just stop the moving.  Or you can move but you still have to come back often to see me for lessons! :)

 Nina wanted to make a summer dress for her final project with me.  She had a drawing she had done of her ideal dress and I found a pattern in my stash that matched it!   We used this pattern: 

I have used this pattern a few times to make dresses and tops for Eden.  Here she is in a  couple of them last summer:

Eden wears all of them often, she likes them as they are very cool  in the summer heat  and super comfy. 

 Nina  first made a muslin   of the dress. We made it out of plain purple cotton so that she could wear it instead of actual muslin.  We made it shirt length to test it out.  It went very well, fit perfect and  her mom says that she wears it to death! 

I knew that this dress  would fit,  I wanted her to make a muslin to  practice the techniques in the real thing. We made straps, gathered the  bottom part, made a lining. I put in the zipper.
Here she is in the practice version. She looks so lovely!

Then we moved onto the real dress. Nina chose her fabrics very carefully. Isn't it so cute on her? 

She LOVES the highlighter yellow fabric.  She told me if she could have a lot of clothes in that color, she would  be very happy. 

The rest of us  would all be blind. But she would be happy. 

She is showing off the ruffle!

Nina's Mom Doris, started taking lessons with me in the new year.  She did the gathering  where the skirt attaches to the bodice.  I was showing her how to help Nina and then  we just did it.  :)  So I think this is awesome- Mom and daughter both sewed the dress with me!

Back View 

Ruffles are the painful part of any garment for my Saturday Girls ( age 9-17) .  They want to add them onto every garment  because they are so cute but they whine like I am torturing them unmercifully when we are doing them.  I have come to realize, that it isn't that the ruffling is  hard or that they don't get it: they don't like them because  it takes a while. It is slow going.  All the pinning and thread pulling and pressing and sewing  very  very slowly  just makes them crazy.  They still choose to do them, as they are cute but I usually end up doing most of it. :)

On the bottom edge ruffle of Nina's dress , I only pinned and gathered  about a 1/4  of it.  She did all the sewing and pressing. And with almost no whining) :) :)  I was very proud of her!

Attaching the ruffle.
Look at that serious face.  She was all about that ruffle. 

I love the tickled-pink-with-herself smile. 

I bet you she doesn't take this dress off for at least a week!

My favorite part of teaching my little ones ( I am sorry Nina, I know you are thirteen and a teenager now but you are still one of my little ones)  is that look on their face when they finish up with an item and put it on. See that picture above?   That's what I'm talkin' about. 

Goodbye, Nina! 

I have enjoyed teaching you! 

Please send me pictures of what you sew without me!!!

I will miss you!

And the rest of my students, take note!!! You  are absolutely FORBIDDEN from moving away!

No more birdies flying away from the nest!

Donna's Nightgown

Donna comes to see me on Tuesdays. She originally started taking  sewing lessons to learn how to  sew things for her grand babies.  That changed very quickly and  now sews  mostly for herself! :) 

She made this nightgown for herself  a few weeks ago. 

Isn't it lovely? She used a very pretty  eyelet fabric. 

The pattern is  Simplicity 3504, the same pattern I used to make this shirt . 

For the inset, she used a solid white cotton and inserted a bit of lace into it. Above and below the lace is an heirloom stitch.  We used a wing needle to get the traditional hand stitched look. 

The lace we used is  lace hem tape. We used this method to insert it. 

 For the sleeves, she omitted one of the sleeve layers . The pattern shows the flutter sleeve with two layers.  On the edge of the sleeve she used a satin stitch for the hem. We set the machine to a short length and zig zagged over the edge a couple of times, stretching the fabric slightly as she sewed. This produces a soft  lettuce leaf effect on the edge.  This type of hem is nice and floaty and allows the fabric to drape nicely. We were worried if we put a double fold hem , or even used the rolled hem foot, the hem might be stiff and  the sleeves would stand out away from her arms giving her a bird in  flight look. We wanted soft flutter sleeves and this type of finish is perfect for these sleeves.

 I love how she changed the shirt pattern into a nightgown.  To change it from a shirt to a nightgown, we added a bit more ease  and lengthened it. Pretty easy alterations! :)

Great job Donna! It is lovely!

Sweet dreams to you in your  pretty new nightgown!

Kayla's Holiday Skirt

         Kayla made this skirt in December/ January.  We were trying to get it finished up for holiday parties but life intervened. It does that sometimes. Two  of my Saturday Girls -Nina and Kayla both made skirts.  I don't have  a picture of Nina in her skirt  for you but I will pester her until I get one :) !

           We used the First Skirt lesson, that everybody that takes lessons from me does if you want to  make clothing. I cover a lot  in that skirt lesson so when we do a pattern, it makes more sense!   We changed it up a bit : instead of using one width of 45 wide fabric, we used 2! 90 inches around! This skirt has an elastic   waist.  It also features an attached 'crinoline'. Organza  is cut to the same measurements as the skirt and then when the casing is sewn down at the top of the skirt, the crinoline is sewn into at the same time.  The crinoline is not itchy as it is just one tiny hem at the bottom. I put in the crinoline hem for the girls-  organza can be slippery but everything else was sewn by them!

      Kayla  is my girl for really taking a pattern and making it her own. I love it.  I present the idea and the plan and she takes it and runs with it. Some times I have to rein her back in just a tiny bit so that we have some chance of completing the item in this lifetime. :) :)   For this skirt she added pockets AND a ruffle at the bottom. And it looks awesome!

      The incredible  amount of  fabric ( 90 inches around! )  is pulled up by the elastic at the waist. This along with the crinoline gives the skirt a bit of pouf without  looking like a square dance costume. Perfect for middle school holiday parties!

      When Nina put in the elastic she was shaking her head at me.  She did not see how 90 inches was going to fit her little skinny mini waist. She was sure  it wasn't going to fit her and I had to tell her over and over told her to trust me, it will fit. When we got the elastic and I had her try it on she was so funny. Oh, it does fit!!

        Kayla did an amazing job at this skirt!  It took a bit of patience there at the end because each step took a while to complete.  Hemming  150 inches of ruffle takes a lot of patience!! Ruffling it and attaching  it takes even more! She hung in there and got it done.  

 Great Job Kayla!!! :) :) 

Student Creations

It has been a very busy few months around here . All of my students are busy making wonderful things! I usually put these photos in my monthly newsletter that I send out to Students & Clients. But I found that this month, there were too many to fit into the newsletter and have it fit in anyones email box!! Here area few of my students with the fantastic projects they have completed.

First up is Nina:

Ok. The universe needs to put it's hands together and make some noise for Nina. Nina worked so hard on these! This is her first item of clothing from a real pattern. These took a couple of months of lessons to complete. Nina's perseverance paid off- how cute do those jammy pants look?

We added a ruffle on the bottom. We did this for two reasons :

Reason #1. I want her to look at patterns as a basic starting point , not a list of rules to follow. Adding a a ruffle and any other embellishments makes each item you create your own.

Reason #2: I swear the child GREW 3 inches from when we first measured for her muslin to when we made the real pants!! She tried them on before we did the final hem and they were short! Adding on a ruffle is a great way to elongate pants or skirts. Nina worked very hard on these and I am sure she is going to wear them every night!!

Haley made a tote bag and I love the fabrics she chose!

Haley was soooo excited to take her tote bag to school and tell everyone she made it! Her bag features a lot of pockets. the great thing about my tote bag pattern is that it is really easy to personalize it to your needs.

Kayla finished her first skirt! Her fabric is sooo pretty. It was a heavier weight cotton and it really lent itself well to this project. Kayla made this pattern her own by adding pockets!! She also wanted to use use bias tape along the bottom edge to finish off the hem. Watch out for Kayla- she is a little designer on the way to the top!

Here is Kate working on her summer skirt. I don't have a photo or the finished skirt on her but I will harras her unmercilfully 'till I get one. I just think this photo is cute :) Kate is pretty much this smiley all the time!

Also- look in the background- see the curtains? The red & gold ones? The don't match my souther pink walls? Those are the pinch pleats I made for Bonnie' s den. Pinch pleats need to hang for at least a week in the drawn back position to "train "them. So I hung them in the studio where I could pet and adjust them constantly. They turned out great.

Sam has been a tote bag making queen! Here is the one she made for herself.

Sam also made tote bags for her mom & mother in law.

Look at the cute ribbon detail she added to the top of the pocket and along the top edge of the bag.

I am very sad as Sam is moving this week to Georgia. :( Hopefully, she will keep sewing as she is a natural!

Donna made a beautiful skirt for summer out of a gorgeous floral embroidered cotton. Donna added a ruffle at the bottom of her skirt. Adding a ruffle to any pattern adds a bit of embellishment and style.

This cotton is just lovely. It is a great summer skirt as it is light and airy. All this skirt needs to go with it is a beach and cabana and fruity concoction with an umbrella in it!

Tori just completed a zipper purse to kepp her makeup and stuff in on her dresser. This is her first zipper project and I have to brag on her- it is perfect!

The pattern piece for this is a sheet of printer paper!

Coming up next month: Leticia;s 1950's "Walk Away" dress, Donna's summer dress, and the Saturday Girls are all working on embroidered t-shirts!