School uniform Simplicity 8108

Hi all. I've somehow got behind in blogging some of my makes. I made the darling girl a new summer uniform at the start of last term, and she has worn it loads and loads. I forgot to Instagram or blog it - standards are slipping! I have another few makes I'm looking forward to blogging soon too.

I chose this pattern as I'm hoping to make the adult "dottie angel frock" and wanted a trial run first! This is the mini me version of the pattern, and looks so cute on the pattern envelope.

The fabric is a cheap and cheerful gingham from The Fabric Shop, Worthing in tiny uniform style squares. The best bit is the huge pocket, perfect for Lego, small stones or feathers. The pattern has the pocket edged in bias binding, but I chose to line the pocket for strength and so didn't need the binding.

The pattern was easy to put together as its basically just a front,  a back and a pocket. The sleeves are grown on, and very comfy looking; the neckline is big enough to go over the head without being huge or gaping or slipping off the shoulder.

Pre-sewing main dress together

The sleeves are the weak point of the dress, so I have gone over the stitching line several times to reinforce it. It's so far held together through rigorous wearing and washing, but if I were to make another I would interface this area and possibly stabilise with another layer of fabric as well. You basically make a snip into the dress, below becomes the side seam and above becomes the sleeve hem. Easy to do, but prone to weakness. I can foresee the dress ripping there.

But the resultant dress has proved really popular. Easy for the little one to put on by herself with no fastening to negotiate, and the elastic under the bust and at the back cinches the dress in and gives it a lovely shape.

It was a quick make. The pattern goes up to age 8, so I imagine there will be a few more in years to come, for easy uniform or maybe some super cute prints for holiday wear.

That's all for today. A bit of a seasonally inappropriate post, as all the little ones are off for 6 weeks hols now!

Child's Simplicity pattern 1146 x 2

Hello stitchers,  This post is just a quickie.  A few weeks ago I was on a "reduce, reuse and recycle" mission. I had an old maternity dress that I had bought second hand, which had seen me through three pregnancies, and had definitely seen better days.

However, there was some usable fabric in the skirt section.  Enter: child's Simplicity pattern 1146. An easy (only two pattern pieces) knit dress, this one cut out in an age 4 with age 5 length.  As I made this a while ago it has been in and out the wash, and has been worn lots; no ironing as it's a knit. Happily, Little Miss loves wearing dresses, they are her favourite.

This version closes with ribbon ties; a second version I made at the same time has sweet little buttons.

This second dress uses up two tiny remnants from t-shirt making.  I haphazardly sewed them together before cutting out the pattern pieces. I did this to avoid spending too long faffing around over an everyday nursery kind of dress. One tiny bit of lace trim from my goody box (this had almost certainly been cut off another garment as it had treads over it) really lifts this little dress.

So, two almost free dresses. I did pay £2.04 for the pattern in a half price sale. The rest of the maternity dress, though beyond use in clothing, has been cut up for my rag rug course! Call me Mrs. Thrifty! See you soon stitchers.

Kids Clothes Week 2016

Hi there. It's Kids Clothes Week Feb 2016, the online scheme to encourage you to sew for an hour a day for one week. Having three little 'uns, I always get great motivation from this scheme to replenish their wardrobes with homemade goodies.

My little girl seems insistent on becoming huge and outgrowing everything! I know you can buy kids clothes cheaply, but it feels like an act of love making them something. And actually this outfit - or rather two outfits - cost nothing. I used an old beloved denim skirt of mine, a few scraps from the scrap basket, and a bit of curtain material from the Brighton sewing bee fabric swap!

The pattern is simplicity 1379.  I did pay for this pattern (£3.25 in a half price sale!), but I've already used it twice; and, it goes up to age 8, so I should more use out of it in years to come. I chose it for those marvellous pockets, ready to be filled with toys and tut.

Construction-wise, this was an easy make, with a lined bodice for a neat finish inside. The back is supposed to close with a hook and eye, but I haven't bothered as it doesn't need it.

I really enjoyed making these, and hope she will have fun wearing them. Knowing it's mainly recycled fabrics means I won't need to be over precious when she comes home from preschool coated head to toe in paint! Technically there is one more day of KCW left; but, I am done in, so I'm calling it a day!

Did you take part in KCW?

Scrap busting with simplicity 1412

Hi there sewing friends. I hope you're all well, and sewing up a storm! I didn't get my birthday dress finished in time. Boo! But it's almost done, just the hem to go now. Despite this, I had a lovely day. I was brought breakfast in bed by my eldest, and given lots of lovely prezzies. Nearly all of them were sewing related - how fabulous!!!

In the meantime, I still have something to share with you all and this is from the "its so easy" range at Simplicity. I made it before here. And the darling daughter loves a good pretty dress; who doesn't?

The dress uses up the smallest scraps from this top;bearing in mind I only bought a metre of it in the first place, I would say the fabric has done me very well indeed.

The rest of the dress is a pillowcase cut up and refashioned. It is lovely fabric, and only got consigned to the cut-up pile as it had a small stain that just would not wash out. 

I love the ric-rac embellishment, I think it really makes it special. I hand-sewed it on at my first visit to the monthly Brighton Sewing Bee. It was so exciting getting to meet so many other people, all crazy for sewing and nice cake.

Do you go to any sewing groups or craft clubs? I feel really pleased to have found the Brighton Sewing Bee group. Sewing can be an isolated hobby, so I am very grateful to social media, blogs and meet-ups for keeping us all in touch.

 

Bye for now; will see you soon with my finished dress...

Back on the sewing horse! Butterick 3772

Hi there. I finally did it! I have resumed my sewing. The stresses of the last few weeks have passed, and at last life is calm enough to crank up the sewing machine once more.

 

This is Butterick 3772; it was one of three patterns that came with a magazine I purchased, in an attempt to motivate myself to stitch again.

  

 

The McCall's pattern will be made up before long too, I'm sure; the tucks at the front look really interesting. But, for now, back to this little dress...

 

 

The pattern is super easy: two main pattern pieces, plus facings. It was very quick to sew.

  

 

I discovered that whilst I have to lop inches out of any pattern I make for myself, my daughter is tall for her age. Despite only just turning three, this is rather short on her! To save precious length, I used bias binding for the hem and finished it by hand so it does not show from the right side of the garment. Next time I make this pattern, I will definitely add some length.

 

 

It is a lovely loose shape, which is perfect for the current heatwave in the UK. The little girl is very pleased with it. I was worried that it would be gape excessively around the armholes - the made up examples in the magazine looked very roomy. It is loose at the arms, but you need lots of movement space when you are three for climbing and clambering, so I won't change the armcycle. 

  

 

You might  recognise the fabric - it is leftover from my Simplicity Blogger Challenge. She loves that we have the same dress. We wont wear them at the same time, though - promise!

 

 

One feature I really like about this pattern is the button on each shoulder strap. It makes for a lovely wide opening to take the garment on and off.  Perfect if you are three, and have just eaten jam in your new dress!

 

 

Not much more to say. You can knock one up in next to no time, and it demands very little attention: perfect sewing, and perfect for my first project back. 

 

 

Cheerio for now, and thank you everyone for your support when my sewing mojo vanished. I love how supportive the online sewing community is.









Kids Clothes Week #2

Hello, hope you're all well. My last week has been an utter right off: the little girl and I have been poorly with cold/flu virus and it's been truly horrid. It felt like my head and chest were stuffed to the brim with cotton wool; too ill to sew, too ill to even think about sewing. Bah!

At last, though, we've been well enough for her to put on the new dress I made during Kid's Clothes Week, and for me to take some photos.

So, my last entry for KCW - a cute birdy dress for my little girl. She is so sweet, I just love making anything for her. When I showed her the fabric I was going to use, she kissed it and danced around singing "a dress for me, a dress for me"!

It was touch-and-go if I could squeeze a dress out of the piddly amount of fabric I'd purchased. No idea why I bought so little. There was a lot of head-scratching and the sleeves are not on grain, but I think it works. My word, though, it could do with a press! A mixture of laziness, and a determination to photo this before another day went by, prevented me from ironing.

The fabric is from FabricLand and is 100% cotton; the print is so cute, and looks just like Muffin from "3rd & Bird", if you know your Cbeebies.

 

The pattern is Simplicity 1412 from the "it's so easy" range.

The only difficult part was telling the pattern pieces apart, as they all looked very very similar. But once I'd re-labelled everything, it came together very quickly.  I think it has a lovely shape. The girl loves it too, particularly its twirl factor!

 

I have really enjoyed KCW, and am looking forward to next year already.

 

Apologies if the photos are a little washed-out and dull, but it is a bank holiday in the UK, so it's only to be expected!

 

More Pinnys!

Inspired by Kids Clothes Week back in October, and my little strawberry pinafore dress for my baby girl, I have two more pinnys I have been working on to show you. I cut them both out in a flush of enthusiasm weeks back, but then somehow forgot about them!  I was really cross with myself when I lifted some new fabric and found two half made dresses underneath!

This green floral dress used to be a pair of my Nan's old and faded curtains!  But the finished dress is so pretty I doubt you'd think "curtain" looking at her in it. The pictures were taken on a gloriously sunny Autumn afternoon.  I love days like this.

After taking these photos, I was concerned about those drag lines on the front of the bodice.  So I have very simply let out the elastic at the back of the dress by just over an inch and problem solved, drag lines gone, phew! Funny how you don't always "see" things until you photograph them.

On this version I have added a band of green ribbon at the hem, topped by a line of purple ric-rac. This embellishment though simple makes me positively giddy, it looks so fabulous. I also decorated the top of the pockets with ric-rac too.  Too cute.

This is her other pinny, and it started life as an adult's soft chambray skirt. I had to include the skirt's central seam in the dress in order to fit all the pattern pieces on while still following the grainline.

She loves this version as it is so soft.  It's not showing well in this photo, but I did all my topstitching in orange thread. I thought it went nicely with the blue.

The hem and the pockets tops I embellished with the cutest scallop stitch. It's a small detail but it makes the dress really special.

Baby girl particularly loves the pockets, and they are roomy enough for lots of toys! She's such a good model too - very keen to swirl and pose.

With these two dresses plus the earlier strawberry one, it makes it six buttonholes under my belt with this pattern. I've stopped being so scared of them at last. Might be time for me to tackle a blouse soon: I just need to decide on the pattern.

I've loved sewing all three of these.  They have really been fun to do.  Its especially satisfying when they are loved by the recipient too!

Learning to like knit fabric

I decided the way to find my peace with knit fabrics was just to play with some, until I didn't find the experience so horrendously intimidating any longer. So, play I did, and this was the result...

A toddler dress. No pattern: I drew out a bodice shape based loosely on an old t-shirt of my daughter Immy's, but sized it up a bit, and extended it to a dress length.

It's a wee bit big on the poppet, but totally wearable. I surprised myself, setting out just to have a play, but managing to create a usable item of clothing.

My favourite bit has to be the cute ruffle. For this, I cut a wide rectangle the length of the fabric. Then, I used two rows of loose stitching to tightly gather the fabric up.

After that, I sewed it onto the outside of the fabric with a three-stitch-zigzag. The tricky part was removing the gathering stitches, but even that wasn't too bad. I could have put the ruffle onto the wrong side of the fabric, so as to get a smooth seam, but I actually rather like the mini ruffle that this method creates at the stitching line. It adds a bit of character.

The neckline and arm-cycles are finished with strips of self binding. Doing this taught me a lot: the neckline gapes a little, and I couldn't work out why as I had stay-stitched all the curves.

Doing some reading halfway through, I discovered that unlike woven outfits, the stretch binding needs to be a bit shorter than the length of the opening to avoid gape. This is why the arm-holes are loads better than the neckline. Still not perfect, but getting better. Now, I've just got to remember that tip on my next knit project!

The more I played around, the less frightened of the fabric I became. The fabric itself is leftover from my summer dress here which really isn't the best make in the world but I do wear it often as it's so comfy. I think Immy will be comfy in this too, perfect for clambering about in.

All in all, I really enjoyed this experiment, and want to have another go with knit fabric very soon.  I'm working on the basis that the fabric is cheap, and even if I muck it up while learning, it has to be cheaper than sewing lessons. Now sewing has very much entered the popular zeitgeist in the UK, the price of sewing classes in the South of England has shot up astronomically out of my reach! So, for me at the moment its learn by doing.  How did you learn to sew?