I Should be Sewing...

After two nights of insomnia and a sleepover with 4 10/11 year old boys, I'm wiped out!  I'll put up a new post while I drink enough coffee to face my sewing room (have to make a shirt for pictures tomorrow!).

I have been on a Jalie 3461 marathon!  Well for me its a marathon, I sewed 4 in the last month and have one 3/4 done downstairs right now.  I am loving this pattern both for myself and my daughter.  I'll be making a few more pairs for her for sure.

I'm going to show you hers as I have better pictures of those.  My daughter has recently decided she likes wearing pants.  She refused to wear them until about a month ago.  Last year I hunted down this thick sweater fleece to make her "leggings" to wear under her dresses in the winter.  Oy!  I have to say I'm happy about this turn around as it will make winter dressing easier.  On the other hand, my daughter doesn't fit into RTW pants.  She is on the short side of six and on the top fairly average to slim.  She wears RTW size 6 tops and dresses with no issues.  What she does have is a booty.  In order for pants to fit over her booty I have to size up- I bought a great pair of brand name jeans at Goodwill the other day.  I like to buy at Goodwill for a number of reasons, including that I find older styles from before this crazy skinny jeans trend for kids.  Anyway I bought her a size 8 knowing they would be too long.  Unfortunately they were hard for her to pull up and the snap was impossible for her to do by herself.  Frustrating.

So to the sewing machine I went.  I actually dislike making jeans- pants in general.  I find them boring.  Which is silly because I always feel so inspired when I make them.

I looked in my Ottobre magazines but didn't find anything I wanted to make.  I had just purchased the Jalie pattern to make myself some pants and realized I could make them for her first!  I got to check out the construction and fit issues (she and I are similarly shaped) in a smaller size.  Bonus.

I measured my pipsqueak and she measured almost perfectly into the J (which they approximate for age 6).  The only thing was that her inseam, which for some reason I didn't measure, is about 4 inches shorter.  LOL

I went ahead and made a pair up cycled from a pair of stretch cords I had.  While the size fit her well around, the back was way too low and the waist was too big.  I'm going to tighten the elastic on that pair and send them off to my also six year old niece who is not as shapely.  

So for the next pair I used this stretch twill that my daughter had picked out from the red tag section at JoAnns.  I had kind of hidden in it since I wasn't sure I wanted my daughter decked out in animal print.  Well the pants turned out so cute that she got so many compliments from her friends' parents and her teacher the day she wore them to school.

For this pair- and the final- I added 1 1/2" inches to the back crotch length.  I added 1" under the yoke and 1/2" to the yoke.  I also chose not to do the elastic on the waistband the way the instructions have you do it.  Cutting the elastic to size on the back waistband resulted in a waist that was too big.  I used my daughter's waist measurement minus one inch.  I then laid the elastic on the front waist band and cut it as per the instructions.  The leftover piece I stretched to fit the back waistband.  It does gather more in the back than the pattern is meant to and I could go back and adjust the back waistband into a smaller size for a cleaner look.  I decided that it really wasn't worth the extra adjustment for me.

 I'm not sure why I didn't adjust the length before this since the first pair was also super long.  I did end up taking off 4 inches.

After the adjustments I broke out the stretch denim that I found in the remnant section at JoAnns- it was just under a yard.  Yes, I made each pair with slightly less than a yard for the size J(6).  

I added a butterfly stitch (built in on my machine) to the pockets and topstitched with pink thread.  Don't look to closely at the topstitching- I need more practice!  

I just love how these turned out!  She says they are super comfy as well.  

The only Con I found with this pattern was that the front pockets are faux.  Its not a big deal to my little one as she is used to wearing leggings with no pockets.  For me I find myself constantly wanting to put something in the front pocket.  I'll likely draft some pockets next time I make them.  

Here's a look at my second pair made from burgundy stretch cord.  I'll take better pictures and post again after I figure out the pockets!

Christmas? Am I ready?

Turns out we have less than 8 weeks until Christmas.  While that seems like a lot of time- I mean its 2 months!  My calendar for the next month is crazy and it hasn't even started yet.  Oy!  I can only imagine what December will look like!  Oh and my mother is coming for the holidays which means I loose my sewing room in 5 weeks!

I really need a game plan now!  My husband and I have been lowering our spending for the holidays the last few years and its a trend we're planning on continuing.  Still I love presents and want to give nice things to my family and a few others in our lives.  So while I've always sewn for the holidays- clothing and random decor.  I've been focusing on sewing (or knitting) gifts the last few years.

When I first started hubby wouldn't let me give my sewn gifts to others- he didn't think it was enough of a gift.  I ignored him and he's come around.  Home made gifts are always well received by the folks I've chosen to gift to.  I am selective though.  I know some folks just will not see the value.  They get a nice card.

Anyway I really need to plan it out.  Last year I waited until the last minute so gifts were shorted. I sewed up a fire with logs for our Camping themed Christmas (most of the gifts were camping related), my daughter got a fluffy robe, my husband got some pj pants (not pictured) and the oldest got a knitted minecraft hat (which he didn't like so I undid it and remade it before school started up).

I will be making Christmas jammas as I do every year (the kid in the minecraft hat is wearing last years).  My dd's dress from last year will still fit so I may just make something for the boys that coordinates.  Or I may make a new one.  See what I mean- I haven't even started and am already adding!

Okay.  I do know that I will be making a sleepsack type thing for my husband.  He requested this for the winter.  I just have to figure out the logistics of it.  He wants something like this one from Skymall.  I'm thinking I can hack Jalie 3244 to make it happen.

I'm thinking about making my mom some shirts.  She is having her breast reconstruction surgery next month so I suspect she'll be needing to change up some of her shirts.  I won't know until she gets here though so that might not work.  She has been traveling a lot so maybe a travel wallet?  Knitting bag? Uhm.... 

Then there are the children.  What to make for them that they would find fun?  My oldest son would probably love a sleep sack of his own.  That might be an option for him.  I have this old car stuffy panel I could use for the baby.  I picked it up at Goodwill when my oldest was little enough to enjoy it.  Girl child?  I have a ton of doll clothes patterns and she doesn't play with dolls.  

I need ideas!!!

The Walking What?

So because I spend way too much time on Facebook I became friends (well more like stalker) of Becca Duval.  I've checked out her blog before and was extremely intimidated by her creativity and skill.  Not to mention she's super cute.   Check out her blog- you'll become a stalker too.

Anyway through the group she started on FB for Capsule Sewing- which I swear I'll actually do one day- I've become more of a stalker than I was before.  And I was introduced to another super talented lady, Katie Lee.  She may be what I want to be when I grow up.  Check her blog out too!

What that little love fest brings me to is the invitation I got from Becca to join their Sew the Show FB page.  I cannot imagine a more perfect pairing for me- TV/Movies and Sewing!!  Love it.  Now I don't have to bug my husband with analysis of TV shows he couldn't care less about or my sewing which he grins and nods about.  Yeah!!!  Of course there is a blog with all the great stuff you can check out too- Sew the Show.

The way things work is that every month there is a new theme and everyone is encouraged to sew something inspired by or from the movie/show.  The October theme has been- appropriately enough- The Walking Dead.  For those who are still in the dark about this show its about the zombie apocalypse and airs on AMC.  Yeah thats about all I knew about the show at the beginning of the month.  My sister in law is obsessed but it never seemed like my kind of show.

As it turns out I was wrong.  I started with the seasons on Netflix and went on a crazy zombie binge!  It was more than a little funny to my oldest when I told him how the youngest had freaked me out one night walking around in the hall moaning.  I'd woken up ready to fight him off!  So of course that has led to the oldest two children zombie walking around the house at night.  Heaven help me when these kids hit their teenage years.

Even after binge watching I wasn't really on board to sew anything.  Most of the wardrobe consists of drab colored skinny people clothes.  At least thats what I call it.  Lots of half tucked loose but slim fitting shirts, olive green pants, dirty denim.  Don't get me wrong they all look great and I'd guess bright colors would be a little hard to wear when you're trying not get noticed by zombies and washing your clothes infrequently.

Yep, dirty slim fitting clothing.  Great for their world, not so much my style.  So no, no plans to sew for this show.  Of course as things go, one thing leads to another and here I am.  At least I'll be getting there in a moment.

A review for Jalie's Eleonore Pull-On Jeans popped up on my news feed and I fell in love!  I needed them.  So pattern in hand I bought some stretch denim fabric to make a muslin.  Funny enough the fabric was olive green.  I was half way to my Walking Dead outfit!  I already had an olive green cardigan I had made last year.  Even better, 2 drab colored layers down.

First I'll talk about the Jalie Jeans.  Love them!  These are my tester pair so I do have some adjustments to make.  I also made a tester pair for my daughter- another great reason to buy Jalie, sizes from 2 kids to 22 womens.  These pictures were taken after I'd spent most of the day chaperoning a first grade field trip to a Fall theme park on a lovely warm, very warm fall day.  Oy!

I definitely need to size down the legs and am going to bring the front waist down as it keeps folding over with wear.  The fabric doesn't have as much recovery as I'd like so it tends to bag and wrinkle.  Still I'm loving them, these will become a wardrobe staple.

The last piece in my TWD outfit is actually the coral colored shirt I'm wearing above.  I know, coral not a dirty, drab color.  Well I have been wanting to copy this shirt for a few years.  Its starting to show wear, not too bad but enough that I'm not sure it has too many more seasons left.  I love it though.  Its a shirt I can pull out in cool or warm weather as the fabric is really light.  It has long sleeves with a roll up tab for the weather changes.  I've worn it when I was up a few pounds (like now) and down a few.  Plus it has this faux henley look- bonus that it has no buttons!    (Becca had pointed out that they wore a lot of henley style shirts in her post on sewing the perfect placket.)

The basics of copying the shirt were simple enough.  The core of the shirt is a simple t-shirt.  The collar, placket and gathering are what take it up a notch.  I had this light weight navy heathered knit from Girl Charlee's Knit Fix, it was the perfect weight for my top.  Maybe not as drab a color as TWD but enough for me.  I did actually have to pull out my seam ripper and redo the gathering and cover as they were initially too high.  I think I might be growing as a sewist.  I would have just let it go before but I really wanted this shirt to be perfect.  

I do love how it turned out.  The fit is exactly like the original.  I love it in the blue.  I didn't bother with the sleeve tabs as I'm not sure how this fabric will hold up.  Plus I did poke a teeny, tiny hole when I ripped up the gather cover.  Its not noticeable but I suspect this shirt won't last too long.  Luckily I have a pattern and can make myself a whole wardrobe of them!

When I started this post this morning I was going to say that I would likely not wear this outfit as is but the pieces were great in my wardrobe.  Well, either from laziness or comfort, I've worn this outfit all day!  I can't wait to make more of both patterns. 

Now for the Walking Dead portion of this post- so I don't disappoint Becca.  With my cardigan I'm ready to fight off the hoards!  

Yes, I am sewing

I keep meaning to pop over here and blog something to keep up the momentum.  I know I said I would talk about the Katie dress next time.  Needless to say its not done.  Maybe this week.  I just cannot figure out how to fix my biggest peeve with a wonderful pattern.  More another time on that.

I did spend today doing buttonholes- my plaid shirt finally has buttonholes!  I'll hopefully wear that this week and put a picture up.

I've also been working on random things for the kids.  I pledged to work only from Ottobre this month- barring the unfinished projects cut from other patterns.  So far so good.  I'll post those soon too.

In the meantime I'll leave you with this top I made in August from Ottobre Women's issue 5/2013, design 16.  I love the shape of this top.  I've been wearing quite a bit of my home made wardrobe this week and just loving it!
 

Plaid, plaid and more plaid!

For my second time on the Fall Capsule Sewing Along, I'm doing dresses!!  I'm going to apologize in advance but this turned into a super long, wordy blog post.  You can skip ahead to the pictures if you want, no judgement.

I love fall!  Well almost- it is the bearer of bad news- winter is coming!- so its a mixed blessing.  Still since moving to the East Coast of the US, I'm loving the change in the air when fall finally hits.  I grew up in season-less California, which I miss whole-heartedly.  Still the leaves and crispness in the air bring me back to my college days in Williamstown.  Love to see the seasons change.

So in honor of that Fall change I must wear plaid.  Its really a necessity if you're channeling your College days or what you see when you live too close to LLBean territory.  Luckily for me, plaid is in.  So at least for this year I'll be in style and loving it.

As part of the list for the GYPO Fall Challenge was this lovely plaid dress.  I love it.  But I'll admit I looked at the buttons down the front and balked.

Buttons don't actually scare me- especially after getting my Viking SE working again.  And I had made 3 plaid shirts last fall on my 3/4 Janome with a 3 step button hole feature.  Its just that this lovely one is still hanging in my sewing room waiting.  Yep, buttons purchased, hems sewn, I even have these wonderful thrifted Turquoise cords that match beautifully hanging there.  LOL  Maybe that will be today's project.  

So of course I was on the hunt for a pattern with no buttons.  As I searched through my endless collection of patterns I found one I had never made, the Schoolhouse Tunic.  Truthfully I hadn't made it because I wasn't real sure it would work on me.  I couldn't decide if this was a top that needed very light weight or very heavy weight to work.  I have a belly and this style will either make me look pregnant or be flattering.  Just all depends.  I really wanted something I could wear with leggings or without and that I just just pull on for ease of dressing.  I decided to go for it with my heavy flannel from JoAnns.  This Plaiditudes flannel is really heavy and soft.  So far its washed up fine, we'll see over time how it holds up.  I also have shirts for the boys in the works with it.  

 So lots of talkie, talkie and little sewing.  There a ton of reviews on the tunic across the internet.  Its been out for a long time.  Its a very simple sew.  I made a few fit adjustments, one major and one minor.  I did change up the sleeves and added pockets.

Starting from the top- the pattern is on tissue paper which is a bear to trace but I did not want to cut out the pattern at this time, very good thing.  I went with the 18/20 based on my measurements, which put me at the bottom of the 18.  I thought about sizing down as this is a loose fit but I was working with heavy flannel so I didn't want to make it too small.  I did add about 3 inches to the length of the sleeve.  And I pulled the pockets from Jocose's Wide Leg pants to use here.

The top was super easy to put together.  I did try it on at this point, it seemed to fit fine.

 

So then I basted the skirt on and tried it on again. Sorry about the dark pictures, it was nighttime and I sew in the basement.  The whole thing was huge!  From the front it wasn't too bad but the back was a bag.  In the last picture here I've pinned out what I thought would work to make it less of a shapeless bag.  The problem of course was that I couldn't get it off that way.

After putting it down and sleeping on it.  I decided to take in the CB on the top and make the pleat under it bigger.  I didn't want to loose booty room but the top was hanging off.  Coffee in hand, I pinned.  If you don't know me, its really unusual for me to pin.  If I had had any more fabric I would have recut the back.  Next time I'll use the back bodice piece for the smaller size.  Not sure about the front, may or may not size that down.

Much better, still loose but thats the style of the pattern.  I also moved the front pleats closer to the side seams so the front is flatter.  I could probably go down a size all over.  In this heavy flannel its hard to gauge.    

Lastly I decided to add cuffs to the sleeves as them were just a tad short.  Super easy, just a rectangle a smidgen shorter than the sleeve so that I could pleat the sleeve into the cuff.  I cut them on the bias to have a little give when putting them on and off as I did not add a button!

Ta-da!  All done.  Looks like I may need to add some length to the front bodice in the center.  Well I'll keep that in mind if I make this again.  

Oh and I really couldn't stop there, which is weird since I'm not a dress kind of girl.  I'm not sure what I'll do with 2 dresses (well three but that is a different post) in my closet!  I would say church but I've started teaching Sunday school to toddlers so dresses are hard to wear when you're sitting on the floor.  Still I had just received this wonderful plaid cotton/lycra that I knew needed to be a dress.  

In fact it needed to be the Uptown/Downtown dress that was recently released by Sew Straight and Gather.  I have the girls' version and love it on my daughter.  Looking at the pictures for the women's version I was in love.  Mostly because the designer looked to have a similar figure, at least proportion wise.  When I looked at the size chart I knew I had to try it.  Finally a pattern where my waist wasn't 3 or 4 sizes bigger than my bust!  I am just shy of being a perfect XL in this pattern.  My waist was at XXL but those that have a belly like me will understand how great that is.  Easier to grade the waist up one than 3 or 4.  

 

Its a really easy sew, simple lines but does hog quite a bit of fabric.  I used just over 2 1/2 yards of 60 inch wide knit for mine.  One thing I didn't like was that the pattern was hard to put together.  It was a combination of my printer acting up and the fact the pages have no numbers on them.  For whatever reason my printer omitted the little circle corners- that would have been helpful- and then my printer spools backward so that it prints the last page first.  Since I used the print guide to only print the XL I had all these random stacks of pages.  It would have helped had they had numbers or some sort easy way to put them together.  It was a jigsaw puzzle.  Definitely a reminder to me to stick with paper patterns for adults.  Oy!

After that it was smooth sailing.  I graded out the front waist to a XXL.  Also I did a backwards swayback adjustment before cutting.  I googled how to do one with no Center Back seam and found this tutorial from Pattern Scissors Cloth.  When I took my measurements I found that the CB length was fine but the side seam to waist length was too short.  So I added an inch there- turns out the same as above but just backward.  I kept the waist on the back piece at the XL.  No pictures but I will take some comparison shots next time I make the dress (need to order more fabric!).

No construction shots as this was super easy to put together.  You'll notice on my side shot that the dress dips in the back- I forgot to take out the extra length there.  Plus it seems to want to pull up over my belly in the front, see how the line is not perpendicular to the ground at the waist.  I'm thinking a full belly adjustment may be needed.

I could probably make my sway back adjustment a little bigger- I need more bum room right under the pool of fabric though.  So it may just be that.  I have to say I really like seeing the lines on the muslin so that helps me see where the fabric is hanging funny.  I may need to make all my muslins with checked fabric!

So after fixing the back hem, I'll be stylin' all Fall in my two new plaid dresses.  Yeah!  Bonus my Walmart scarf matches with both dresses.

Tune in next time for a discussion the Greenstyle's Katie dress!  That was going to be my fall dress post but its still a work in progress.

Summer Sewing & Fall Style Challenge

So I joined up this summer to sew a Capsule Wardrobe with a large group of friends on Facebook.  Oh its so much fun.  There were great planning charts and posts on how to get rid of stuff in your closet and so forth.  As I read through and looked at my summer wardrobe I realized I'd done most of this in a transcontinental move the past summer.  Between purging before moving and joining the Get Your Pretty On Style  (affiliate link), my summer wardrobe was pretty set.

Of course, who am I kidding.  I love to sew and I love clothes.  So I added a couple print shorts, a pair of short denim shorts, a couple of tops and a couple of dresses to my summer wardrobe.  I did purge out a few things that weren't working anymore and will purge more when I get around to putting summer away.

Now its Fall, what do I make?  Uhm... I made a few things last year- flannel shirts, cardigans but nothing major.  I ended up thrifting most of my wardrobe.  I bought jeans and cords at local thrift stores and made them into skinny jeans to wear with boots.  Super easy to do.  I think I looked at a tutorial but really you just take them in on both sides.  Since mine were for boots I didn't worry about the fancy seam, infact taking it out made them less bulky inside my boots.

So here's a little slide show of what I wore last year.  Some were misses but for the most part I like the looks and outfits.  I will likely change out a few of them.  The pieces were pretty much from the Fall Challenge (which is free with this year's Challenge), I changed up the colors as the ones Allison picked didn't suit me and I was pulling from my wardrobe.  I was challenged by the skinny pants, not a silhouette that suits me with flats.  I found that with boots I was more balanced.

The one thing is that not a lot of last year's wardrobe was sewn.  I'd like to sew more this Fall.  I know I want a flannel shirt dress or long tunic shirt similar to what Allison from GYPO previewed in the Fall Challenge post.

I already bought the flannel at JoAnns.  Its from the Plaiditudes Collection which I am amazed by- its thick and luxurious.  The only fault is that it is off kilter a bit so matching plaids is a bit of a nightmare.  I found with the the shirts I cut for my boys that it was easier to do cross-grain than with the grain.  My oldest boy's shirt will be off grain but I think I managed to cut the baby's right.  We'll see, I have to cut the lining for those.  Back to me, I have 3 yards of this so I need to come up with something.

Beyond that I'm not entirely sure.  The other outfit previewed was a sweater and blazer which I'm not sure I would wear much.  Knowing me, I'll wait for the shopping list before finalizing my sewing plans.  Even then I suspect I have a good portion of what is on the list.  Guess I'd better hop over and sign up.  If you're interested, check it out!