More kid sewing

Well, I know it isn't quite as exciting to some but I seem to be on a roll for kid sewing right now. I traced and cut out two patterns from Ottobre 4/2009. They are #6 "Bubblegum dots" skirt and #9 "Reversible top". I am using some of my Hilco purchased last month.

I am using the one on the left and the one in the middle for the reversible hooded shirt. And the skirt is out of the one on the left. That fabric has a soft backing, like a sweatshirt fleece and the one in the middle is a cotton knit with some lycra in it.

The hooded shirt in this picture below is the pattern I am using for the top.

The little skirt in the picture is the pattern I am using for the skirt.

I am using the size 92, this is for my 3 1/2 yo dd. She is still really tiny around, so on the skirt I traced the waist for the size 80 and the length for the 92. These are all cut out sitting next to my serger awaiting time to sew! Maybe tomorrow........if not hopefully this weekend! :)

Another addition to the outfit!

This is Ottobre 04-2009-22 and it is a reversible skirt for girls. This is made with the same materials as the previous shirt and leggings and is made to coordinate with those items. In this first view I have the skirt all periwinkle with a ribbon hand sewn (ugghhh..) onto the skirt to hem band seam. Here is a close-up of the black petersham ribbon that I sewed on to cover up the seam between the skirt portion and the hem band. Have I mentioned how much I hate hand sewing? It took me over an hour to hand sew this on. I didn't have a choice though, because I didn't want the stitching to show on the reverse side, being a reversible skirt and all.....

Here is the reverse side of the skirt. On this side I incorporated the stripes. I love these stripes!

Here is the hem band/skirt portion on this side. I just topstitched close to the seam.

Here is a fun picture of the skirt becoming a hat! She loved the skirt and the fact that it is reversible, so overall this was a success! Yay!

Gotta love a happy kid!

Ottobre 4/2009-35

Here are my final photos on the model. Read my previous post for the musings of the makings of this shirt! The shirt is Ottobre 4/2009 - 35. The pants are blogged about below too. I am pleased with how the outfit looks and have more outfits planned. The shirt was supposed to be long sleeve, but it is still too hot here for that!

Back side.....

Fashion model pose...

Side ways pose:

Not meant to sew....

Have you ever had one of those days, or projects, where everything that could possibly go wrong does?? This little t-shirt did that to me. It is not a hard pattern. There aren't too many pieces. It started out wrong from the get-go, though. I had the pattern traced out - sans seam allowances. I usually just cut my seam allowance in by cutting a 1cm border around the pattern piece pinned to the fabric. Well.....I had a few minutes to cut out the fabric while dd's were playing and dinner didn't need started for a few minutes. I was proud of how quickly I got the 7 pieces cut out. A couple days goes by and I haven't had a chance to start sewing said project, but I have been thinking about it and decide to read over the pattern instructions (this is a project from Ottobre kids 4/2009 - 35). I immediately realize that I forgot all of my seam allowances! The only pieces unaffected were the binding strips. AARRGGHHH!!! Well, I thought to myself, this was a tad on the large side for my dd, so maybe I will go ahead and proceed and hope that it will work out. So, first things first, I put the yoke on the gathered front. I topstitch like it says to and it gets all stretched out and wonky. I try the back and get a little better results and decide dd's hair will cover the areas that aren't perfect. I pull the topstitching out of the front and decide I really don't need it. So, I proceed to bind the front yoke using my binders and coverstitch. Well, it was f*** up! It looked absolutely awful, everything stretched out and was unfixable at this point. Frustrated, I tossed that piece aside and started on the back piece. The binding went on much better for that piece, except for some reason, there wasn't enough to finish the binding!!!! I thought it would be hidden and I would just piece another bit of binding on. So I did it, it looked crappy but it would be hidden. Exept.....re-examining the instructions shows the back laps over the top so, nothing is hidden. AARRGGHH!! Next step was to wait a day to cool off!@! Coming back to the project somewhat calmer, I decided the front was trash and recut those pieces (still with no seam allowance so as not to screw up things further). I got the front gathered and the front yoke pinned to it and managed to get it all sewn together great. Except I sewed the yoke on upside down. Rip out all of the serging and put it in right. Recut my binding strips, got the back binding ripped off and sewed the new binding on with nice results! I go to sew on my front binding and realize I actually put the yoke onto the front with the wrong side facing.......I consulted my dh to see if he could tell and he couldn't so I just left it. I got the binding on great. I basted the top shoulder area together....not sure how the instructions were trying to tell to do it....but I got it to work.....I think there was a typo in the instructions. It said wrong sides together, when I believe it should have been wrong side of back to right side of front, since the back overlaps the front. I got the sleeves put in with no issues. I started to pin up the sides and realize that my stripes aren't lining up quite right on one side with the under arm area. I fudged it in. When I went to hem the bottom, I realized that I had mismatched a whole stripe at the bottom and that is why under arm area didn't line up right.....had I worked from the sleeve down I wouldn't have had this problem.....oh well. So, my bottom hem isn't straight with the stripes as it should be.....but unless you sew, you would probably never even see this.....no one I showed it to did! I don't think I was meant to sew this shirt!I hope to add some pictures of my dd wearing her new ensemble and I hope she appreciates the trials and tribulations that I endured making this for her!! :)

Ottobre 4/2009 - 23 Girl's Pants

Here is my latest sewing! I made up a pair of stretch pants for my dd. These are from Ottobre 4/2009 - 23. I especially like the pintucking on the legs! There are 11 rows of pin tucking on each leg.

Here is a close-up of the pin tucking. I used the pin tuck foot on my sewing machine with a twin needle to do this. I followed the grooves in my pin tuck foot instead of the lines on the pattern for the spacing. This made getting the rows spaced evenly very easy. This is a bamboo/lycra material that I got from Fabrics & Notions coop group. The color is a periwinkle. My dd tried them on and loved them. Of course I didn't have a picture of them on her!! I need to make a top to go with them. There are some more patterns from Ottobre 4/2009 that I want to make for the girls and there are some t-shirt patterns that would go with these. I was thinking of using a black and white stripe cotton/lycra and incorporating some this material to have something that coordinates.

I also included a little loop on the back out of some stetch cording so she knows which side is front and which side is back! Don't look too closely, I had some issues with the chain stitching on my coverstitch skipping stitches and ended up throwing it on the sewing machine to stitch down the waistband in a few areas! (Normally, my waistbands look much cleaner!)

Here is the rest of my latest fabric acquisitions from fabric & notions coop:

The farthest left is a navy corduroy with a little stretch in it, then there is a black, burgundy, yellow and white high tech outdoor materials (think ski jackets/pants), and last is a rayon batik which is an olive base color with purples and greens in the flowers. The corduroy will be pants/skirts for the girls, the high tech stuff is for jackets/pants, and the batik will most likely be for me (I have no idea for what though!).

I am off to trace some patterns!

Back from paradise!

Well, I am officially back from vacation! I have caught up on laundry, unpacked the suitcases (and put them away), went grocery shopping and other various errands. I have unpacked a box of fabric that I received from the Fabrics & Notions group while I was gone (although it didn't get very far, just out the box onto the table where it still sits). I uploaded all of my photos onto my computer, managed to go through them and upload some of them to picasa online. Here is a link if you want to view them! Hawaii pictures

I have been catching up on my favorite blog readings. I perused my newest issue of bwof (not much I am overly excited about yet). I don't have any sewing inspiration at the moment. I have included two pictures from our trip here. The first is the sunrise from our balcony in Kauai and the second is the sunset from our balcony in Maui. Enjoy them, I sure did every day!

Time to go

This is a no photo post. I have nothing new sewing wise to share with you. I had hoped to complete a couple of bathing suits this week to take on our hawaii trip (we leave tomorrow for 2 weeks!), but alas life took over every last minute. I spent a lot of time this week with my Aunt in the hospice facility. She left us this morning. It was her time to go. So sad, though. She was diagnosed with lung cancer in May. We were her family, she had no kids, and her dh had passed years ago. She was supposed to go with us to hawaii. I am glad that I got to help her this last week when it was so hard for her to do anything, she will be deeply missed by many. I have to pack my bags today so we are ready to go too....life is always some sort of adventure. I depart for now, but will be back.