First up for Kid's Clothes Week Spring 2015....

This is how blogging during Kid's Clothes Week ends up - a back burner to the actual sewing and photographing.

This dress was made probably in 5 minute spurts; lots of them.  This was actually how I used to sew in the "old days" when my 3 older kids were little.  I would just leave a project out on the sewing table, and every time I walked by, I'd sew a teeny bit.  Things actually did get made that way.

This dress started because we got a bunch of really nice linen in the shop.  Now, when I was a kid, and I would shop with my mom, she would always tell me never to get linen because it wrinkles too much.  Since learning more about fibers, and kids clothes, I think that linen is perfect for kids clothes.  Yes, it wrinkles.  Yes, you can both wash and machine dry it.  You can iron it.  It's super durable.  So, if you can stand an imperfect slightly wrinkled look on your kid (which I actually like) then linen is for you.

This pattern is the Little Ellie dress from Peach Patterns (formerly Wink Designs).  It's a really sweet pattern - what I absolutely love is the round yoke.  The directions are excellent, and the yoke kind of goes together like a magic trick with no exposed seams anywhere. 

So, the red linen is a great dress weight.  My child likes breezy dresses, and this is what she gets.  The print fabric is a quilting cotton - a very large scale print by Jane Sassaman's Wild Child collection.  I'm a huge lover of large scale prints, but probably not on an entire dress.  When you cut it up as an accent, it's pretty much perfect.

See the butterfly?  So, it works for Kids Clothes Week theme of Wild Things, right??

Skirt Fixation Fabric Swap Challenge - Linen Edition

I was asked by the lovely ladies over at Skirt Fixation to participate in their very interesting challenge - a fabric swap!  A very cool idea so I signed up for the linen edition.

I'm a big lover of linen - it's all natural, very strong, and easy to wear.  I got my swap fabric from Jenn at A Jennuine Life.  I don't know if she looked at my blog/sewing stuff before she sent the fabric, but she chose a color palette that I absolutely love!

The print is a linen/cotton blend from Westminster by Amy Butler in her Hapi line.  I love the boldness!  The solids were a beautiful complement.

The fabric screamed "make me a bag...", so I did!

I used a child's bag pattern from Ruby Jean's Closet - the Ready Set Go Overnighter.  It's a perfect size for kid-size stuff, and for the kid to actually carry it herself.

A very cute bag, yes?!!  I made a couple of teeny changes as I made the pattern - I changed the handles a bit - I actually had some black ultra-suede lying around in my stash - who knew! - so I used that for the bottom accents and the handle holder.  I used black nylon web that I also had lying around in place of the fabric handles.  The pattern also calls for some adorable blows on the straps - and, for the life of me, I couldn't make a decent bow, so I just gave up! 

The other linen pieces met their destiny as a dress for my kid - I used my much-used and much-loved Tinny pattern by Straightgrain.  I think this is the 4th I've made, but sadly my little girl is growing too fast; I had to size up to the size 5.  I'm still in denial.....

I changed up this pattern a bit as well - I added the lighter color pink inset in the bodice, piped with some cotton couture in teal.  I (obviously!) added a contrast bow at the waist.  Instead of gathering the skirt, I made pleats - pleats that will probably last an hour or so in the linen, but I love the look nonetheless.

Thanks to An at Straightgrain, I actually have the ability to insert an invisible zipper and have it be invisible!!

Thanks to Skirt Fixation for asking me to participate - it was really fun!!

Happy Homemade - A Beachy Pull Over Parka...

So there was a sew-a-long going on over at You and Mie and Elsie Marley.  I'm not a huge sew-a-long person, but this one made me FINALLY break out a Japanese pattern book and make something.

Granted, I bought this book in English.  I have a ton of Japanese pattern books, and have yet to make a thing from them.  Mostly, it seemed like so much work - hunt out the pattern pieces, trace, add seam allowances, try to figure out the directions.  Well, now, having made one pattern from a Japanese book (even if it was in English) did make me really want to actually use the books I already have.

The pattern they chose was the Pull Over Parka.  I had seen this pattern made up tons of times in blog-land.  I was always kind of wishy-washy about it.  But, I really wanted to sew along, so I decided to make my kid one that's kind of beach inspired.  One of the things that Julia and I really like to do together is go to the beach and walk, and collect shells.  So, obviously, she needed a big pocket.  That's the inspiration.

I used some Riley Blake fabric for the contrast, and whale embroidery.  The main parka is made from white linen - yes, I'm a brave woman - white linen on a 4 year old...

So, my thoughts on the pattern - the neckline bugs me.  It's too low.  Other than that, there's things I really like - I like the bound neckline.  I like the drawstring waist.  This is a size 110 and it fits perfectly.  I like the ability to make a sweatshirt-type garment from a woven.

All in all, I'm really happy I did this.  There's other super-cute dress patterns in the book and now I won't be intimidated to try them at all!  Thanks to Meg and Cherie for organizing the sew-a-long and giving me some inspiration!

KCW - Days 6 and 7 - The Skunk Dress

Really, you say, a skunk dress?

I did a pretty good job starting out this Kids Clothes Week - I made a blazer, two Skater Dresses...then, I stalled.  I did work 55 hours this week, so that's my excuse....

I had planned a couple of dresses to go with the screaming green blazer I made earlier this week, but lost my motivation.  Then, yesterday, while I was driving home from my second overtime day of work this week, I had a thought....

I wanted to use my applique skills and make a simple dress.....but what?  I searched sewing blogs, Pinterest, Flickr.....everything cute had been done - even over-done....elephants?  hedgehogs? bunnies?  puppies?  kitties?  All done.

Then, it occurred to me that the much aligned skunk needed a shout out.  Really, what a beautiful, albeit stinky, creature.  I love black and white, in fact, most of my wardrobe is black and white.  They have beautiful faces, beautiful fur.  But, yet, they can be stinky.  Well, kind of like my kid.

So, I picked some turquoise linen from my shop, and some scraps of black and white linen, and had at it.  I used the Kate's Dress pattern from Lily Bird Studio.  A simple A-line dress.  I didn't add any of the details, but was more than pleased with the result....

Ignore the dog slobber on the dress....when we were out for our walk, we met a huge slobber-dog and Julia just had to go give him a kiss....

As you can see, my applique is not perfect, but it's a skill that I haven't used in a while, so I'm pleased with the result....and, I'm going to practice more....

So, Kids Clothes Week is over for this season.  I consider it a success, even if I didn't get everything done I had planned!

"I'm a Princess..."

One thing that I have to come to terms with is having a semi - girly girl.  She's not totally girly girl - she plays in the sandbox with the best of them, gets filthy, runs, scampers, and picks her nose occasionally.  But, she, like most girls of 2 1/2 years, she is into the "princess" thing.  As much as we try to not do a lot of commercial type things, like commercial TV, shirts that say "Daddy's Little Princess", the girls in her pre-school peer group seem to just naturally gravitate towards princess-like things.

I'm trying to work on making her things that (1) work for her coloring and (2) that she will like.  The majority of my wardrobe is black.  Probably not the first choice for most two year olds.  And, what she really wants to wear, is what she calls a "pretty dress".  I don't know how some of her dresses qualify to become the "pretty dress", but some are, and some are not.

This is the Jump Rope dress from my absolute favorite pattern company, Oliver + S.  I made this in some pale green and pale coral seersucker.  The placket and collar are white linen.

When I completed the dress, and she put it on, she said "I am a princess".  Success.

The dress is not easy, but it is not crazy-difficult.  It has a perfect collar, that is the perfect frame for a little girl face.

The instructions to construct the placket are perfect.  Probably the most important instruction is at the end, where you are instructed to do a "little fiddling" to make it look just right. I sewed this over about a week - doing just a little bit in the evenings after work.  I'm usually good for about 20 minutes of sewing at the end of a long work day....

It has a sweet belt, that hits just at the waist, and the gathers are slightly below, which I think may be the part that Julia likes the best.  I love the way this looks at the back...

I did make the button tabs on the sleeves a bit larger - I used white linen for the placket and collar, and I wasn't able at all to make the tiny tabs that the pattern included.

I did search about a million images in the Oliver + S Flickr group to decide if I should make a white belt, a self belt, white belt loops, or self belt loops.  Then, of course, I had to find the absolutely perfect buttons....I wonder if people who design/manufacture children's clothing for a living agonize over details as much as sewing moms do....