Yes, I'm still sewing

So yes I'm still sewing just haven't been posting them.  I'll have to catch up on my posting.

In the meantime, I was doing a "fabric-fast", in other words trying to sew up some of my stash.  I did really good the first quarter.

But then I went on vacation!  In Denver, its relatively difficult to buy African prints locally.  (I'm one of those that prefer to shop local as much as possible).

But while on vacation in the Baltimore area, I had to go check out the local African Fabric Shops.  I found a little quaint one call "African Collection Fabrics" in Randallstown, MD.  The shop is very nice and quaint.  Its behind a buzzer door and is one of 4 businesses in the buzzer area.

The owner was exceptionally nice!  And I thought her prices were excellent.  In my area the one place that carries African fabrics that I've gone to in Denver charges $10/yd; but here prices started at $30+ for the standard 6 yard piece!  I know for folks in the area that may seem like average price; but for me, I was super excited.

Here's  a preview of the fabrics I picked up:

I'll have to post pictures of my other "sewing" escapades from vacation.  BTW, my husband told
me I had to be mindful of the amount of fabric I might buy because of the suitcase restrictions!  Do you think I headed his words?

My Very Own African King!

Like every seamstress, I do all types of sewing; garment, smocking, heirloom sewing, quilting, etc.

I can't really tell you which is my favorite, I tend to cycle thru them.

I belong to a quilt guild here in Denver.  I have been working on a quilt design for our 25th anniversary.  We decided to go with the African Queen quilt block.  Each member will make a version of the block which will be used in Guild Quilt.  This block is pretty easy to find on the internet, and very easy to draft.. (Sample layouts of African Queen).

Since we have some male members, we needed a African King pattern. I couldn't find a variation of a African King pattern. So I set up on the task of creating my own African King pattern.
I use the Electric Quilt 8 software to generate my African King.

Both blocks were drafted on a 3x3 grid.  For example for the head of both designs is a 3" square. 
The body is a 6" square:

The Electric Quilt software made it very easy to draft both designs.  Here's a sample of the line drawing for the African Queen:

The nice thing about EQ (Electric Quilt) is that I can easily print out the pattern for the design in a  pieced, applique, or rotaty cutting format.  I can also resize with no-effort. My current design is for a 9" finished size square block. 

Creating a quilt layout using the blocks is very easy in EQ.  Two of the layouts that I've played with are below:

EQ also provides me with yardages for the quilt design along with the final quilt measurements.  The layout above results in a 80"x80" quilt.  (YEA! I didn't have to pull out the paper, pencil and calculator).

EQ made the whole block design and layout simple. I can still play with it, as I figure out a layout design that will work based on the number of completed blocks I get back.

We're expecting to have the project done by May of this year.  I'll take pix and post here.

Happy Sewing everyone!

Baby Vintage....

I love a good vintage pattern just like everyone else.

I can't tell you how many I have in my stash.  I even went so far as to learn to grade patterns up in size for those patterns that I just fell in love with but only come in a size too small for my needs.

Well a while back my mom sent me a box full of vintage patterns, and I'd say a good third of them were children's patterns. Needless to say this pattern caught my eye for my granddaughter:

Vintage Simplicity 8051 2 piece button sleeper

 Then over the thanks giving I caught the door-buster sale of 70% off on flannel, which came to about $1.70 per yard.  I only needed 1.5 yards to make the two piece pajama.

I decided to make view 1 (the portrait of the little girl).  This pattern calls for felted seams (yea, right!), like I'm going to go to all of that trouble for a toddler.  NOT!.  I did short sleeves.

Finally being "stingy", I didn't have gathered lace in my stash like I thought I had.  I wan't going to make a run to the store for like a yard of lace.  I did have some flat lace, so decided I'd do my own gathering.  I hand stitched it with thread.

Next onto making the garment making.  Normally, I trace my patterns, since todays pattern come with multiple sizes.  Since this pattern is single sized (only a size 2 pattern in the pakage), no tracing required.

Why do I trace?  Well I've got several from back in the day, that I wish I had left in tack.  I'd love to make them again, but because I cut to the size I needed, I can't use them now.  I hate to admit it; but I'm no longer a size 10 (ha-ha).  So now I trace when I have a multi size pattern.

Back to the pajamas ....

I had this flannel, that I had purchased.  I just couldn't resist the stick girls all in a line!

I used gripper fabric for the bottom of the feet and some 3/8 inch buttons that I had in my stash.

The first thing I had to do was line my girls up in a row across the seams. (I know I complained about the felled seams, but not matching the little girls was just going to annoy me).  The buttons are along the front (3 total).  And the back has the elastic gathered at the waistband: The soles of the pajama pants are done with gripper fabric, t add some traction.

The elastic is placed in the entire waistband.  It is allowed to lay flat in the front, and the button holes in the front waistband are sewn thru the elastic.  Along the back waist the elastic is stretched, resulting in a gathered waist in the back of the pant. The top has button closures in the back.

And when its all said and done, I have a completed toddler pajama set.

Excuse my cutting area!

She's not quite a size 2 yet, but she'll grow into it (that's what my Mom would say).

Now on to the other 6!  I'm making some in anticipation of the next grandchild.

Happy Sewing!

Padding the Dressform.....

Well, as I said in a prior post, its time for me to actually pad out my dress-form to actually resemble my body size/shape.

Most of the time I just used it for hanging my outfits on to take pictures.  I've gotten to a point where I know my body shape pretty well, and can make adjustments without having to make a muslin.  But I finally decided it would be nice to have one a dress form that was similar in shape to my (i.e. one with a rear).

So since I have access to Craftsy Unlimited (aka Bluprint), I decided to view the class:  Fitting Essentials: Customize Your Dress Form.

The class provided good, step by step instructions on how to pad your dress-form.  

It recommends you have a partner to do your measurements.  However, my husband is not that 

handy with a tape measure.  So I just altered my pattern till it was a snug fit.

The pattern I used is Butterick 5678:

I altered the pattern so that the front was cut on a center fold and placed a zipper in the back.  I also did my standard alterations thru the hip/buttocks area.

I hate that I didn't take a picture of my form prior to my padding alterations; but it is what it is.

My original dress form is a Fabulous Fit form that I purchased several years ago.

Its a decent duplicate for now.  Over time I can adjust the padding as I get a better feel for the accuracy of my padding.  

Dide

Back

Front

The bagginess at the bottom is from the drawstring at the bottom of the cover.  Because this dress-form has a wire rack at the bottom the drawstring can only be pulled in a certain amount.  Maybe, I'll think of tapering the bottom of the cover to fit the dress form.

I've still got some fine tuning to do such as adding more padding in the shoulder; but the padded form is a lot closer to my actual body.

Happy Sewing. . . . 

Halloween has come and gone!

Well as a follow-up to my prior post, my granddaughter had her first Halloween.

She wore her kangaroo outfit, with "baby roo" in hand:

There was one accessory that my son and his wife bought that I totally never thought about.
He and his wife decided to dress as Aussie "croc hunters":

But the most memorable moment for me is when she discovered her "baby roo".  My son got it on video and sent to me. It's moments like this that made the costume worth the effort, and is why I sew!

Hope everyone had a pleasant Halloween!

Sandy

Prepping for Halloween

Well, its getting to be that time, HALLOWEEN!

So my son wanted to dress my first grandchild up for Halloween.  They were going to dress her as t bumblebee!  A bumblebee, of all things!

Grandma to the rescue!  No way is my first grandchild going to be a Bumble bee!  Why not a Mama kangaroo with a baby in her pouch!   So Simplicity 8765 to the rescue!

This is close to a onesie!  It’s got a hoodie! (This works wonders for the cold climate they live in).  And then finally the baby roo!!!

So off I went to JoAnn’s fabric, to get some “plush” fleece at 1/2 off (plus 20% coupon).  All total the materials only came to $14!

I did decide to make an alteration to the pattern.  I decided to put a draw string in the hoodie, so they don’t have to worry about a hat for her, and it won’t slide off.

.

Of course I made it a size larger than needed (so she can wear her clothing underneath and have some “growing room”, in case they want to use it again.

It only took about 4 hours to make.

When I was making baby roo, I forgot to fold the ears before sewing them in.  So the fun about sewing is that its easy to recover.  No, I didn’t grab the seam ripper, no way was I picking this little fella apart.  Instead, I took needle and thread and hand-stitched a fold in the ears.

Baby Roo with out folded ears

Baby Roo with hand-stitched ears

Finally, I decided we needed to make sure “baby roo” was safe and didn’t fall out of her pouch, so I added a seatbelt!

I'm going to hand-stitch around the eyes/nose to ensure everything stays put.

Here's the almost complete outfit!

Vogue 2067 Donna Karan

I've had this pattern in my stash for quite some time.  Last year before my sewing mentor passed away she helped me alter the pattern (you'll see why in the pictures).

I decided to make View B.  I did my initial alteration of widening thru the hip.  Here is a picture of the initial dress I made in a grey knit:

Front View.

This is the front view of the dress.  I got the fit down pretty good.  Of course I forgot to lengthen this, so it placed it at just below my knee.

Side View

However, when I looked at the side; this was just way-y too low in the arm and back area.  There was no way I could wear a bra with this (not even a strapless one).  Besides I'm not into showing that much of my back and sides.  

So my first job was to alter the dress in those areas, that means bringing up the side and back.  The key thing was to alter the side and back pieces correctly since the side seem is actually along the back:

As you can see from the line drawing the dress is cut pretty low in the back.  So off to do my alterations I went.  The pattern pieces for the dress are circled.

The side and back pieces was alter as shown on the picture; the light blue line represents the original pattern:

Back

Side

So I re-made the dress with these alterations in a black knit:

 Here is an image from the side, so you can see how much I raised the side.

The back has been raised considerably (now I can wear a strapless bra with it). And finally the front view:

Needless to say it lengthened it. Although it looks floor length on my dress form, its just above the ankle on me.  This dress was more comfortable for me to wear.  I still wear the first dress; but as a jumper with a t-shirt.

As I look at this dress on the dress form; I think my next project will be to alter it to my size.

Also, I made the dress a third time in a brown knit.

Happy Sewing!