Puppies and kitties and snack.

My niece Naney will be 3 in August. I am making her a dress for her birthday. The dress I made for her here is the test run. I wanted to make a practice one  to check for fit. Now I have between now and August to make the real one :) 

I was in line to checkout  at Hancock's and saw this fabric. I actually got out of line  to get this for her because it  just screams happy dog and cat  loving 3 year old.  I bought a half yard of the animal print and the  co-ordinating stripe. I didn't know what I was going to do with them, I just knew she needed something made of this fabric.  I decided to use it for a test run of her birthday dress. The fabric was $8.99 yd but was half price. 

 I am basing it off of this pattern available free  Olivia's Best Dress. I didn't do the striped skirt as they have on the website as I am working with just two fabrics.  The pattern on the site is a 4-5.  Naney's mom asked for her dress  to be a bit bigger so who could wear it longer, so that is why  I  made a 4/5 even though she is  not yet 3. 

Dress front.
I love these fabrics. I love the little kitties mixed with the pups. On the stripe is says woof  meow and has little paw prints and fish bones mixed in. 

I found a ribbon at Michael's for $1 that matched so perfectly! I covered the seam lines where the flat panels met the gathers.  

Does that  dachsund look cross eyed to you or is it just me... ?
I used a decorative stitch  around the neckline for some fun.  Topstitching, be it in a decorative stitch or a straight stitch helps to keep the neckline in better shape when wearing. I also think that  it  makes sure it comes out of the dryer in the shape that it needs to be, so that cuts down on ironing.  Naney's mommy is a teacher. With a two year old. Does she have time to iron ?  nooooo. So the extra line of stitching makes it easier to keep the dress looking good with minimal effort. 

The back of the dress

I used my machine and made a label. Even though the dress is a 4, I labeled it 3t because she can wear it now, at three years old. I put the year and my initials. This way if it gets passed down, you know what size it is. 

 This is a close-up of the inside lining where it  is hand slipstitched  to the dress.  I have taught a couple of lessons on this recently so I thought my students might like to see it- slipstitching in action! :)

The fabrics are
 Purrfect Barking Patch

Woof-and-Meow-Stripe-

I took Naney's picutre so I could come back home and look at them and see what I needed to change for her birthday dress.  Sometimes that is easier because kids don't want to stand there while you look and pinch fabric and think. 

Me: "Naney, can I take your picture?"
Naney: "Yes."
Me:"Without the bowl of puffs?"
Naney: "No."
My baby is 9 now and  I had forgotten the First Rule of Toddler Land:
Never let go of your  snack.  Ever.  For any reason. 

 Looking at these pictures I see what needs to be changed. On the next version, I will pull in the back seam at the neckline and lower the armscye.  The width of the dress is fine, length can be longer, if I want.

Karen, Naneys mom, had a pair of aqua leggings that match the dress perfect! My mom in law also bought a pair of white shorts and I am going to add a cuff or ruffle on the bottom edge.  I have a small square of the stripe leftover. This fabric is great because she can put just about any color shirt, shorts, leggings anything underneath and they will match. 

Measuring little ones can be challenging. My suggestion is if you can, do it while they are asleep. I am  not kidding.
Little ones do not like to try on clothes. Fittings are just a joke. Try to get the garment on them if you can and take pictures.  Even my 9 year old gets a little whiny during fittings.
Sometimes you get this :) :

 or this :) :

This dress is very easy to put together and  went pretty fast. The real version will have many different fabrics in the skirt.

Naney seemed to really like the dress. I got this indication from the fact that she did not immediately take it off. 

Me: "Naney can I have a puff?"

Naney: "Ok,"  

And then she  ran away. 

The end. 

And the hat goes on...

 Everyone that had an opinion about the hat told us, yes , ribbon!   So here is my dad in the final coat and hat with ribbon.  The coat has had some revisions since christmas- buttons, a snap in the back  to attach the hood to the coat and belt loops.  That's Honey de Belgian's big sweet face  taking up most of the picture. Focus on the hat- if you can. 

My family went out to TN to visit my dad for spring break. We took some pictures of him in his Father Christmas   outfit so we will have them for Christmas.  But it is only April, you say, why so early?? Well, I work slow. Dad knows that if we do it now, I will have them edited and ready for Christmas. And he hinted about some Christmas in July fun. 

These are the girls: Belle is on the left and Honey is on the right. 

  My daughter and I have renamed them: we are calling them  

Vanilla Cupcake and Caramel Custard Cup.   

These girls are  carriage and buggy horses. They pull a carriage around Lynchburg & Fayetteville . They are all muscle.  And sugar & spice and everything nice.

I wish you could smell them through the computer screen. Have you ever shoved your nose into a horses neck? They smell heavenly. Just stick to the neck end. That other end can be not so nice. 

  

I did not make their hats.  I had no idea there were special christmas hats for horses.  The things you learn when visiting a farm... 

I am going to try another version of the hat. It worked great for pictures and fits nicely, but the inside is a mess. It is lined but the top of the hat, I could not get smooth and it is just bugging me.  The coat is perfect and I want the hat to be perfect, inside and out.  

The back of the coat

Honey is off the hook- she is done with pictures and headed back to her pasture. She is very patient for pictures. 

Dad said he needed something to carry the coat in so I made a garment bag for the coat as well. I used clear vynil and bias tape.   Sewing on the clear vinyl isn't bad, it is just very slow going. 

Next year, I will make santa outfits for the horses. 

Naaaa, just kidding. Can you see fitting  a horse that big? 

If you would like to see more of Honey  & Belle  doing what they do  hop on over to

 C & R Buggy Tours

or 

     C & R Buggy Tours on Facebook

Blue and White

I finished up these cushions  this morning.  These are for Judy, a super good friend of my Mom-in-law. These cushions  will go in wicker chairs at Judy's beach cottage.   

I love the bright blue denim with the contrasting white trim.  The white duck cording makes a beautiful crisp  outline to the cushions.  Because they are made of a denim and cotton these cushion covers can be machine washed!    Practical as well as pretty!

These chairs are in  Rob & Judy's great room at the cottage.  Soon, I will be starting on  the drapery panels for the sliding doors  and valances  that will go in the room. The valances and panels will be the white duck edged in denim bands  or denim cording.  They are going to be gorgeous!

There are two seat cushions and two back square cushions.

I did a sort-of lapped zipper in the seam. The zipper is  hidden.  

Now that I have blogged about them, I guess I should go call Judy and  let her know they are done :) 

I'm too sexy for this hat

I am working on the hat to go with my dad's father christmas  suit.  The coat has a hood on  but he can't wear the hood all the time. 

He needs to choose:  ribbon on the hat  or no.  So I took pictures and we all can vote! :) 

The hat without the ribbon. 

The line of stitching near the top of the hat will go away-
that is just a line of basting stitches to keep the hat
in shape will I worked with the center. 

The hat with the ribbon 

It's the attack of the  Holly Jolly Hat!!!!EHHHHHHHH!

This is the top of the hat.  It will smooth out a bit more and not be so 'pointy'  when I am all done. 

I look like an elf taking a picture. 

Here  is my dad wearing the suit standing next to Honey, the prettiest girl in Lynchburg, TN.   :)  

You can look at this and get an idea of how the hat will go with the suit. 

So tell me ....

 Yes ribbon 

or 

No ribbon? 

The itchy, see through, floppy fabric Perfect Shirt

Donna, my awesome Tuesday night student :) , chose this  shirt pattern to make for our current project together. We looked through my patterns and  this one really appealed to her. I have had it in my stash for a  while, I just hadn't gotten around to making it yet. This shirt has no buttons or zippers so again she avoids closures of any kind (The next item will have a zipper. Or buttons or anything. You can't avoid them forever, Donna! :) :) ) I liked all of the options that the pattern came with.

 I like to have made a pattern made up at least once before I teach it, to work out any issues  it may have.  So I got to making a shirt real quick before the next weeks lesson with Donna. 

I made a shirt but Donna is converting the pattern over to a nightgown. She has planned for it to be white eyelet , much longer and  flared out at the bottom. She is using the flutter sleeves for extra comfortableness.  ( Is that a word- comfortableness? Did I just make up a word?) 

I did not make a muslin with this.  I'm such a risk taker! No not really. This pattern didn't have any darts or any thing I needed to work out, so  I just fit as I sewed. I added some extra room to the front gather under the inset when I cut it out and moved the gather mark up the neckline.  I took up a lot in   the shoulders and the back seam .  That's it. 

 The fabric I found  I really like. It is flowy and very nice for spring and summer.   It was also   sooooo flip floppy when working with it.  I could not get it to stay in place when cutting , or pinning, or any of the process. 

For the inset, I used an  iron on  tear away stabilizer applied to the wrong side of the fabric,  to apply the lace.  I tried it without stabilizer on a test piece and it slip-slided all over the place. I couldn't get the lace straight. Because there are little stripes in the fabric, it is very obvious when the lace was crooked. 

Soooooo I iron on the stabilizer and stitched the vintage lace on with tiny zig zag stitches. They disappear nicely into lace. 

The lace is vintage lace collected over the years from thrift stores, yard sales, estate sales and who knows where else I got it from. I have had it forever. I use little pieces in projects here and there.  

 I tried it on after I got the sleeves basted in and was going to wear it during a lesson one morning to test it out before I finished off the seams, but I ended up tearing it off after a few minutes . It itched so bad!!!    It was insanely itchy!! There are little tiny clear threads running through the fabric which gives it a really  neat tiny shimmer in the sun.  However those little tiny clear threads are evil little imitators. Any cut edge of fabric  that touched my skin  had those little tiny threads in it. Sooooooo each seam in this shirt is either french seams or bias tape / binding covered. Every one. Not a raw edge anywhere. Even  where the bubble on the end of the sleeve attaches- all covered in binding. So my quick  little shirt which should have taken no time at all took a few days.

Inside the shirt, the seam allowances are covered in bias  tape binding.

     The edges of the neckline are in binding of the same fabric but packaged bias tape could be used in place of  it and look awesome. I pulled out some black bias tape to see if I could do it on this shirt but  the blacks were different .  :(  However, on Donna's nightgown, white bias tape will be used.  This will speed up the construction time on this a lot.

     The sleeves were super puffy on the first go round. I had added some extra room in the sleeves for my massive shoulders  and that created a some super pouf at the  top sleeve seam. I risked the itchiness and put it back on to take this  picture of the sleeves before I took them off.  Those sleeves were  costumy. I wanted a vintage feel to the shirt but sometimes too many details can look like  a costume.

      I like the bubble a the bottom of the sleeve.  I wasn't sure about it when I was making it but after wearing it a couple of times- it is very comfortable.

Here are  the sleeves getting ready to have the binding attached and some top edge  'pouf ' removed. .

      I took pictures outside this time as it is a black shirt and those haven't been showing up too well in photos inside my dark dungeon house. Here is the shirt in full sun so you can see all the details ... and right through it.

Look Dad! I am on the Internets in a see-through shirt!


When the photos loaded up on the computer I realized this shirt is see through. (My husband: Yea I noticed that, I thought you knew.  Me: Noooooooooooo I did not know it was this see through. Thanks for the heads up on that one,  honey :) )  And the majorly see through part isn't even on good stuff- like my boobs. :) :)  It highlights my stomach.  Not groovy.  In the wearings after these photos were taken, I wore a black undershirt. Problem solved. :)

This  is as glamorous as it gets, standing in the front yard, in the overgrown winter garden, in a see through shirt whilst the elderly neighbor walks his dog past.

I love this shirt. After solving the  King Henry sleeve pouf and the Itchy and Scratchy  problems it has become the Perfect Shirt.  It is extremely comfortable and  I have worn it  many times now. 

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!!! :) :) 

Molly's Birthday Dress

My niece  Molly will be one year old this month!  I made her a birthday dress & coat.

 I used a Simplicity re-issue 2629 from 1948. I made the little dress in the upper right corner of the pattern envelope and the pink  jacket  pictured under that to go over it. 

  

I followed the pattern  except I cut the dress much shorter. Molly is crawling a lot and I didn't want the dress to be so long that it caught up under her knees and could hinder her crawling . Babies get very annoyed by that! I added pin tucks by the bottom hem.  I also added a lining to the inside of the coat .  The lining makes it much more comfortable to wear and much easier to get on and a wiggly baby! :)
Here she is in the dress:

I embroidered little bunnies onto the dress & jacket. 

 The instructions for the bunnies are in  Sew Cute Couture. This book is lovely to look  at but I doubt I will ever do any of the smocking in the book.  Seems very   time consuming. I love some of the embroidered embellishments  in the book. It uses buttons and embroidery and they are all adorable.  The simplicity pattern came with a pretty floral design but I  liked the bunnies better. The bunnies are boullion knots with lazy daisies for ears.  I love these bunnies for a baby item, even better as it is near Easter!

Those were the tiniest buttons I have ever sewn onto anything. 

The pintucks were very time consuming as they needed to be just perfect to look right.
I love the tiny lace on the sleeves.  I bought the tiniest lace I could find. 

Here is the little jacket over the dress.

Some of the purple fabric marker is still  visible around the bunnies.
I marked lines on the fabric so the bunnies were evenly spaced  and level. 

The lining was not attached yet. 

The entire lining was  hand sewn in. I didn't want any stitch lines visible on the outside. 

The sleeves are pinned up and ready to be hand sewn in. 

I put a little label in the jacket  & the dress.
It has the year on it so it can be dated in later years. I am going to try to
 put labels in everything I make from now on. 

Inside out front

Inside out back 

Molly was getting sleepy as it was near bedtime.

I was very happy the little coat fit her perfectly! I made the 12 month size and  hoped for the best.

 Molly loved the coat hanger  best of all. 

Sleepy baby. 

When it warms up a bit, I am going to take more pictures of Moly in her dress and then turn them to black & white. If I print them on super glossy paper and rough the up a touch, they will look like 1948 prints ! :) :)