the Maddy dress

Sometime ago my mom gave me some “vintage” patterns for kid’s clothing. Since vintage is so in these days, I decided to give one of the simpler patterns a try.

Enter Burda #10464.

Definitely 1970s. Bell bottomed pants, large collars, dresses mid-thigh. Not to mention the fabric choices in the illustrations! And the hair.

Looking past all of that, though, the dress itself is not that vintage. Timeless, I suppose.

So I forged ahead and decided to make version C of the dress. My mom had saved all the pattern pieces and the instruction sheet. The German instruction sheet. I have to say, that as far as instruction sheets go this one was minimal. You really have to have some advanced knowledge of sewing and dress construction (not to mention be able to read German) in order to follow these instructions. Actually, if you have advanced knowledge of sewing and clothing construction you don’t really need the instructions.

The only really useful instruction on this sheet was this:

WICHTIG! Naht- und Saumzugaben mu¨ssen beim Zuschneiden zugegeben werden!

Which, when I read it now 24hrs after finishing the dress I believe says:

WARNING! Seam allowances must be added when cutting the material.

Yes, I am reading that now. Yes, I already finished the dress. No, I did not add seam allowances. Sigh. No wonder the size 5 that I made barely fits Maddy. Oops.

Anyway, I dove into my material stash and found some fabric. I mixed and matched and hemmed and hawed and finally came to a decision based mostly on availability of what I had on hand and partly on colour combination.

The finished product:

The piping around the armholes was my doing. The topstitching around the bodice was my doing. I even experimented with some French seams down the side… not entirely sure I did it correctly, but it’s done. I didn’t do the pockets.

I think this dress would look sweet with some contrast piping down the front seams. And next time I make it I’ll add some seam allowances!

sewing the Jump Rope Dress

Two weeks ago I had the fabulous opportunity of joining Liesl Gibson as she gave a workshop at Spool Sewing on making the Jump Rope dress from her Oliver & S line.

First of all, let me just say how awesome it was to take an entire Saturday to be kid-free and do something that I enjoy doing. Really enjoy doing.

You can see a picture of the class here. That’s me… waaaay in the background there, 4th head from the left.

Second, it was fun to meet Liesl. What a gracious and friendly person. Even in those few hours I learned a lot about sewing. I have never taken a formal sewing class (unless you count that week of Home Ec during high school back in the ’80s where I learned to make a pencil case or something silly like that) and have learned mostly from my mom and just by doing.

Thirdly, Laura, from Spool Sewing, was a wonderful host. Thanks Laura!

I chose to make the dress in a non-patterned material, mostly because when I was doing some research on other people’s creations, it seemed to me that a lot of the detail on the dress gets lost in a complicated material. So, I headed off with Maja to the fabric store and decided on a fine-whaled corduroy. I really wanted red, but couldn’t get that, so Maja decided on a purple. And then she also chose some sweet butterfly buttons to go with it.

So, here it is on Maja:

I made the 4T size, although I probably have gotten away with the 3T. Well, she’ll grow into it!

Some detail:

And because they are so cute together (most of the time):

Still sewing!

Admittedly, I’m pathetic. I started sewing a dress for Maja months ago (in the spring? Early summer?) and just managed to finish it last week.

But finish I did and I think it turned out really well. I used my favourite pattern designer – Oliver & S – and made the Birthday Party Dress. I have to say, though, that this pattern was not as easy as some of the others. Shrug. Anyway, it’s done.

Front view

Besides my highly-honed procrastination skills, I was hampered by the complete inability to find decent buttons. I eventually found these, and I think they’re perfect! You would think that a city as big as Philly would have lots of options for buttons, and you’re right. Too many options. So many in fact, that it’s slightly overwhelming and causes me to just hide in the house and not purchase buttons. Sometimes living in a big city has it’s disadvantages!

The fabric is by a local designer, Jay McCarroll, from his Garden Friends Ivy League line and I bought it at Spool Sewing.

I really like how it works in this dress – the fireflies (at least that’s what we’re calling them) are whimsical and the print is small enough to not over-power the pattern. I always find choosing the right fabric for a garment to be challenging! But hey, can you believe that sometimes my wacky (or eclectic) choices actually got me some positive recognition? Check out the Oliver & S blog, where my take on the Tea Party Sundress was noticed!

sewing spring in the middle of a snowstorm

If you’ve been following me on twitter then you know that I’ve been bit by the sewing bug again. I am a sporadic sewer — really I’ve been sewing for at least 25 years, give or take, but not with any degree of consistency. I will freely admit though that the idea of sewing cute clothes for my girls has gotten me back to my machine and it’s luverly.

You surely remember the pinafores and the “octopus” dress I made last fall? The outfits (well, at least the pinafores) that were met with complete and utter disdain? Well, I learned my lesson, took Marie’s advice, and now take Maja with me to the fabric store to pick out material.

On Saturday, as a reward for completeing her first no-mama-in-the-pool swimming lesson, I promised Maja a trip to the fabric store to pick out her own material so that I could make her a skirt. She was amazing at the pool (this was a huge step for us. huge) and after her lesson we hopped in the car and headed out to the Cloth and Bobbin. Nirvana. I probably could have spent the majority of my day in that store — fabulous material and the owner, Johanna, was nice and extraordinarily helpful. I like helpful staff in a yarn/fabric/craft store — really, they’re the professionals and it takes some skill to guide a customer in the right direction while still valuing their opinions. We found all of that at the Cloth and Bobbin.

I walked out of there with zippers, thread, buttons, fabric, elastic, and patterns. Like I said a few days ago — spring was a’ comin’ and I was determined to sew. Turns out that while inside my head it was spring, I was really sewing myself right into the biggest snowstorm of the season. sigh. Now I’m going to have to start composing hate mail for March.

The Eddie Cap

I love this hat. Love. It. I also think I’ve figured out how to make it reversible… I see myself making more of these!

The 2+2 Blouse

Click here to see the back — Maja picked the buttons.

The Lazy Days skirt

Really, this only took me about an hour to make. Really.

Thankfully Maja actually likes ALL of these creations. She’s been wearing the skirt for 3 days now (with stockings and pants underneath — we’re not that optimistic for spring). The hat has also been worn…in public even. And her first reaction when she saw the shirt? “Wow”. Now that alone is enough to keep me at my sewing machine.

no prostitots here, thank you very much.

I’ve been doing some sewing lately — namely of little pinafores and dresses for Maja. This came about not just because I saw those cute pinafores on etsy a few weeks back, but also because the time has come to buy clothes for Maja. We haven’t been letting her run around naked, but up until now we’ve been extraordinarily lucky and have survived on hand-me-downs. Unfortunately our source for these clothes has evaporated, and we are now looking at buying clothes. GASP. 

Anyway, I’ve now made 3 pinafores and 1 dress for Miss Maja. I can not, though, for the life of me convince her to wear the pinafores! The excuses vary from “it’s too cold” (um, what? it’s 90F outside!!!!) to “they’re not fun”. Ouch ouch ouch.

The 3 reversible pinafores in question:

My favourite excuse, though, came on Tuesday:

Me: Maja, do you want to wear this one?

Maja: No.

Me: Oh, you don’t like it?

Maja: Yes I like it. I like it in the drawer.

I am still licking my wounds.

Why, then, after all this abuse am I doing this?!? Why do I bother?!? What’s the problem with buying clothes? When I go in to the stores to look for things I am horrified at what the choices are: low cut jeans? bling and sparklies on everything? “princess” written across the butt of a pair of shorts? Um, no thanks. She’s 3, not 23. Even then, I don’t think that those types of clothes are appropriate on a 23-y.o. either. But that’s just my opinion. Turns out too, that there’s a term for kids that wear suggestive clothing: PROSTITOT. Ya’ll know what this means? I didn’t until today. This one of the definitions from Urban Dictionary:

” Children who dress in revealing, adult type fashion. May include hair and makeup styles that are not age appropriate. ”

Finally, a label/definition to affix to the pre-teens that I see and always think are unappropriately dressed.

Want an example? See this and the come back and tell me what you think.

rediscovered joy

As you may or may not know, I’m a knitter. I haven’t been doing much knitting lately… and if I do it’s usually late at night when I don’t have the energy to take photos. I should get back in to it, especially since fall is just around the corner! And, hello, it’s faster to knit dresses for smaller kids. Right? RIGHT? I thought so.

So, to answer another burning question that I know is going to be next: yes, I like to sew, too. I have a machine and thanks to my mom, I know how to use it. Oh, that wasn’t the burning question? Crotchet? No, I do not crochet. I know, I should throw in the gauntlet, I’ve clearly failed as a wife/mother/homemaker. A-hem. Whatever.

The other day I was on Etsy (time-sucking site isn’t it?!? don’t go unless you really want spend hours there) and I saw some super, super cute pinafore dresses for little girls. OMG, I fell in love. Of course I started thinking… these dresses are fairly simple, I can totally make some of these for Maja and Madeleine! They will look so cute! Little angels! I won’t notice when they’re driving me crazy because, well, they’ll look so cute! I had a momentary lapse of sanity and immediately ordered a pattern from Georgia Grace Designs and then the next day headed to a new sewing store, Spool,* to buy some fabric. My lapses of sanity have long spans. It explains much.

My excursion to Spool during a lunch break ended with me walking out of there with enough fabric to make 3 reversible pinafore for Maja and 1 dress for myself. The pinafore was really easy to make, and I whipped up all 3 in two evenings. Here’s the first:

The sewing bug has bit me, and I think I’ll be making a few skirts for Maja with some of the leftover fabric. And then, of course, I’ll start on the dress for myself. In my spare time.

*Spool has fabulous fabrics, it’s intoxicating really. If you live in the Philly area and like to sew then it’s definitely worth the trip. They stock high-quality cotton prints. Fortunately for me, It’s close enough to my work that I can hop on my bike and be there in about 10 minutes… or walk in 20 minutes!