New dress WIP

This is a new pattern --Jane's First Day Dress, by Sew Beautiful. I'm not sure if it's still in print; I got it off eBay. The fabric is a teeny blue tattersall I got from Farmhouse Fabrics with the embroidery done in dark blue Floche. It's not done -- no sleeves, the collar is pinned in place and the chain stitch edging around the white is only half complete.

I don't like the collar -- the whip stitch edging is too dark. Thinking of doing either a white collar with a little bit of white lace trim or else a white collar with a blanket-stitch edging in the Floche.

The sleeves will just be short-sleeve caps, probably with some little white edging.

My girl isn't so sure about this dress -- she thinks it doesn't have enough pink or flowers. I keep reminding her that I'll add some sort of lace trims and that it will have a bow on the back. She's unconvinced. . .

5/6/11 update

Here's the finished dress, complete with blue Floche embroidery, chainstitching (in lieu of piping) and double blanket-edging around the collar:
And my girl *does* like this dress, in part, I think, because she likes the bow on the back. My favorite thing is the teeny Swiss embroidered edging at the bottom of the sleeves.

Embroidered winter dress

When cold weather arrived I realized my daughter had no long-sleeve dresses in her closet. Last year I think she was wearing jumpers over t-shirts but she's decided she doesn't like jumpers (too bad because I think they're cute). And I don't think she's worn pants except during cold soccer matches in at least six months. So I ordered some feather-wale cordury and started sewing.

This was the first dress I made for her. The sewing itself was quick; I used the Daisy May pattern from Petite Poche and modified for long sleeves. The embroidery was time-consuming but not difficult -- just satin stitch, French knots and backstitch. It's based on a design in Alicia Paulson's Embroidery Companion -- one of several things I'd like to stitch from that lovely book.

Two Frannie dresses

I made both these dresses (from a Lyn Weeks/Especially for You pattern called Frannie) last summer. I like this pattern because it protects my kid's shoulders from the sun but seems really cool. And it's got such a cute, vintage-y feel. It's fun to make because there aren't many pattern pieces and the sleeve construction is unusual. It goes together pretty quickly -- very few pattern pieces and only two buttons on the back -- but the piping (which I love) does add to the time and complexity of the pattern.

The pink & blue fabric is from a line called Hello Betty.

The red gingham dress was more work because of the embroidery. I used Floche for the padded satin stitch and got the P pattern from a French embroidery book called Alphabets. It has red & white picot trim on the sleeves & collar and the piping fabric on the yoke seam is white with tiny cherries.

Liberty shirt

Last summer was hot and I was enjoying the blessed coolness of my own Liberty of London shirts so much that I decided to make a couple for my daughter. I love this one, both because the fabric is so beautiful and because it was a new shape.

I made the shirt by modifying the Frannie dress pattern by Lyn Weeks (Especially for You). I've made this as a dress multiple times; for the shirt I narrowed the skirt and changed the neckline to be a v-notch (inspired by an Oliver and S pattern). I lined the yoke only with white batiste.

I dithered about whether to add some trim to the edges or the curved yoke seam; in the end I just chain-stitched along the yoke seam. I think it would have been cute to add something to the sleeve edge -- a tiny trim or piping or something.

Ruffle collars

This summer I made a new variation of the basic shirt I've made multiple times for my daughter. I use the shirt pattern from the Kitty pattern by Children's Corner -- it's a Peter Pan collar shirt without puffed sleeves. This time I decided to add a ruffle to the collar. I made a bias strip about 36" long, hand hemmed it and then sewed it into the collar seam (I made the collar a little shorter to adjust for the width of the ruffle). I narrowed the ruffle as it neared the edge.

I made the short-sleeve purple gingham one first and liked it but thought the ruffle was a little too deep and the collar itself a little too wide (the ruffles overlap a little where they meet). I like the proportions on the long-sleeve pink one better.

My daughter loves these ruffles, and I like them too. It did take forever, though, what with hand-hemming the ruffle and then fiddling with the gathers to make them even. . .

Little girl room

My girl's room is the smallest one in the house (maybe 10' by 9') but also my favorite with beautiful light and nice windows. I like the challenge of making it great for her to play in and good for us all to look at.

When we switched the girl to this room the key purchase was her bed -- a captain's bed with 4 drawers and 2 shelves. All her clothes are in the drawers (with space to spare) and books and toys are on the shelves (just visible at the head of the bed). We were trying to maxmize floor space and it's worked out great.

The girl has a decent closet with a hanging rod for her dresses and shelves above for toys but we still needed visible storage. We revamped the hanging bookcase at the foot of the bed by adding a tackable surface and the pegs. And built a ton of shelves with something like 14 pegs total to hang bags, medals, toys and even a crib for her baby doll (OK, it's a plastic basket I bought at the hardware store -- you can see it hanging above the tent at the foot of her bed -- but it works great).

Speaking of the tent, this is where we get into enhancing play space. The door to the attic is at the foot of the bed so you can't put anything permanent there. I took fabric & 3 tension rods and made the play tent, which just today had 2 kids and 2 adults crammed in there to eat brownies. When we need to get to the attic we can just pull the rods out.

For pretty things, I cross-stitched a monogram on the wool blanket and did chicken-scratch embroidery on the curtains. The chicken scratch took *forever* but it is really pretty. . .

Corduroy

Over the past 3 weeks I've discovered corduroy! OK, *I* didn't discover it, obviously, but for the first time in the ~30 years I've been sewing I made something out of it! Actually, three things:

1. Oliver + S sandbox pants for the boy. OK, these weren't the most fun sewing I ever did but the pattern was well-written and the pants turned out nicely.


Last year the boy wore Comfort Cords from Hanna Andersson. These are great but they're expensive ($34 plus shipping) and the corduroy just can't match the quality of the gorgeous Spechler-Vogel featherwale from Sweet Treasures (that might sound like a sex toy site but it's actually an heirloom sewing shop). It's so soft and smooth. . . .

But we'll see how it holds up. I'm not optimistic; corduroy shows wear terribly and I patched the knees in all the boy's corduroy pants last year at least twice. But this year at least the patches can be the same fabric as the rest of the pants.


2. Navy Mary Jane jumper from Collars Etc. This is a good, plain jumper for everyday. The pattern only has two pieces (one front, one back); you cut them in the outside fabric (here the same beautiful Spechler Vogel corduroy) and in a lining. Sewing was easy and would have been fast except for the rickrack trim around the neck, armholes and hem. I sewed the rickrack onto the corduroy super slowly and carefully and then sewed on the same lines again to attach the corduroy and lining to each other.

Instead of one large button on each shoulder I used two small ones that I pulled off of a 10-year old J Crew sweater that was in my donation pile.

3. Bright pink Kitty jumper from Children's Corner patterns.


When I pulled out the fabric from the Sweet Treasures envelope I thought, "Oops. Too bright. This is what I get for ordering off the internet." But, happily, once sewn up it looks great to me. The jumper is certainly bright but not overwhelming as it was when seen in one big piece.

I think this jumper is gorgeous. The girl wishes it had pockets.