Fat Tuesday's sole other pattern...

This is it- Easter dresses (and pants) 2011 ! 

The way I got conned into doing another pattern was really quite good. It was a present. My birthday is in February and my (very brave) friend gave me two patterns and two bolts of fabric as a birthday gift. Crazy? Yes. You should never, ever, do this to someone- way too much pressure- and what if they hate the fabric? Or the pattern? UNLESS they are your very best friend and know you well enough to take raving mad risks like this. 

She was, (is,) and it was perfect.

(Mali's dress- reversible to the birds from Owen's dress on the other side)

This was for my littlest one. 

I added the little cinch up on the left because I just can't bear to

 leave well enough alone. It's outgrown now but I love the style because it can be a shirt with jeans or bloomers this summer for sure. The dots fabric is Heather Bailey's "Dream Dot" in Splash and the green pattern is from JoAnn Fabrics. I'm so sorry I don't have the name on it but it comes in a few colorways and I've used both the blue and green in various projects. The name of the bird print on the bodice of Owen's dress and inside of Mali's is Valori Wells "Nest"- BIRDS in Teal.
The patterns are both McCall's, M6058 and M6271 respectively.

(my favorite photo)

(or maybe this one- that was not posed, I swear)

Owen's skirt was a balloon skirt. SO much easier than I imagined it being. Honestly the only tricky part about sewing this was the pleats in the bodice had some very confusing directions.....  I will say that I have no idea how to make all of the wrinkles come out of the skirt and the balloon-ness of it poof up again after a washing...you can't exactly straighten it out...drycleaning? For kids clothes? Hmmm. Well thankfully I had the good sense to not wash them before Easter.

(except that this one makes me laugh)

Keler's pants are some light green stripey twill from JoAnn Fabrics, I think they still carry it, the pattern is Dana's "Kid Pants" from Made. I love that pattern, use it for everything- especialy shorts. Thanks Dana! The shirt was two season's ago Gymboree.

(My three babes- Mali tearstained but smiling after some rather excellent brother snuggling)

All in all, quite the success, even if Mali's headband is too wide and makes her look balder than usual, (maybe that's why she was crying?). 

(If I did it again I would cut down the width and length of the ties, maybe even just use ribbon?)

Check back Tuesday for this year's skirts and a little bit more hair on everyone!

Happy Easter sewing out there....

Fat Tuesday sewed a pattern

(and she kicked and screamed and only did it one more time ever)...

Easter is coming y'all! Remembrance of the greatest gift ever given, the annual Smith egg hunt.....and new dresses! Well here is my first attempt, (two years ago), at an Easter dress to get you in the mood to sew something for the little one's in your life...

This was my second sewing project ever. It's a "See & Sew" pattern #B5198. It was a bear to sew. I'm not sure if it was the pattern or just that I was so new to sewing in general but it seemed excessively hard at the time.

(PS- check out that wrist chub- she slays me. I'm so in love)

 It's supposed to have a zipper but I fell for these buttons so I adjusted it a bit for elastic loops and buttons instead...

In retrospect I should have used a solid fabric, it turned out way too busy for my taste even with the seemingly simple pattern. I like the bright springiness of it, but it seems a bit overwhelming.

So there you have it- dress, bag, and headband (way too scrunchy- live and learn) all made by Mama for my first girl on her second easter. (And for the record the things she's double fisting are grapes and strawberries- a treat but not one to make a kid go crazy in church, just one to make Mama stress about the dress and strawberry juice...).

I'll be back next week with last years dresses for both my girls (and a pair of pants for the boy!), and the week after that with this years skirts.  Happy dress making folks- 

Tropical Love is in the Air!

After a splendid hiatus from real life, I’m back with a bunch of fabulous inspirations.  My love and I just returned from a week long Caribbean cruise, during which I went from status girlfriend to fiancé!!  So, now I am a betrothed woman – I like the word betrothed, and I’m set to bring it back into our daily lexicon! 

While we shopped around on the islands, I saw many a cute beach cover up, tote bag, and sundress that as I checked them out, I realized I could definitely make those items.  So, hopefully as the spring and summer months are close approaching, I’ll remember my tropical inspirations and then be able to post tutorials and pics along the way. 

On a totally separate note, remember my last minute costume for a birthday party that I made a Marilyn Monroe dress (my first attempt at sewing clothes) in 3 short days?!?! If not, here's that post: click here.  Well, I finally have photographic proof.  Ta da!!!

That's all for me for now.  We're off to go camping in Mexico this weekend.  My eyes will be open for sewing inspirations while I'm there.  Until next Wednesday...

Ciao!

The humble beginnings of Fat Tuesday

 So, waaaay back two yearsish ago, our beloved nanny, Ledah, decided to go and graduate college and get married. I know right? Uncalled for- we miss her terribly, still. Her husband is lovely though and I suppose everyone has to grow up sometime... She told me about her engagement by way of asking if she could have the kids (just Squeaker and Odie, who were barely four and two at the time. Missy was just a large bump on me) in her wedding. Yes!! Yes, you may!  Now what to wear? My first thought was tutu and when she called and said "well, I know it's unconventional, but what about something in the tutu sort of genre?" I knew I was going in the right direction. Except that we couldn't find anything in ivory- only white. Her dress was decidedly ivory with touches of a darker coffee with cream color- white just wouldn't do. So I opened my big mouth and offered to make it... What was I thinking? I didn't sew! My machine was given to me by my grandma (another story for another time) and was circa 1950's. Plus it had serious bobbin issues... Hmmm... Well I was committed, so I borrow my neighbors sewing machine and set off to find a base shirt to work with.

(the dress)

Baby Gap tank in the clearance section- score!  I bought a lightly patterned quarter yard of ivory cotton to be the under skirt, a yard each of ivory and shimmery ivory tulle, and a quarter yard of white jersey knit for the sleeves. 

(Odie 2, Squeaker just barely 4- both mine)

I started with the sleeves. All I could find was white jersey (this was way back before I knew where to look) but my mother in law had the great idea to tea dye them- which worked wonderfully and gave it a lovely vintagey look where the dye gathered at the edges of the fabric and made it darker, so cute. (I will warn you though that when I washed it-,(thankfully I had the good sense not to wash it before the wedding), the tea DID wash out and I was left with white ruffles like you see in the top photo; so beware). I cut three half moon shapes of varying sizes for each sleeve and gathered one edge and then just stitched them on in progressively smaller sizes one on top the other. 

 (Miss Odie on the swing that Mr Handsome made for photos of the bride, adorbs, I know)

The under skirt when on fairly easy, I just gave it a quick gathering stitch and then basted it directly to the bottom of the shirt. Same thing for the tulle. I cut it into strips about eight inches wide and sixteen inches long and folded it over to make an offset square. Then I gave it a gathering stitch on the fold and sewed it to the skirt alternating shimmery tulle and matte every other one. This is where things got hairy. All was well but it was getting later and later and I guess I was getting tired because I ended up catching a bit of the shirt in the stitching I was doing for the skirt. Oh horrors- I picked it out as carefully as I could, (my MIL was in town and she helped- but I was using very tiny stitches and even with the patience of both of us...well), but it was no use- there were holes in the shirt and still a bit of shirt tucked up in the skirt that refused to yield to my seam ripper...sad. Off I went to Baby Gap with my fingers crossed and a prayer in my throat. Yes! They had one more on the rack in her size, hurray! Home again home again jiggity jig. I just snipped off the skirt whole and sewed it on the next shirt. Probably not the most professional method but it looked fine and I was not starting all over again...

(Mr Handsome and one of his three favorite girls)

Lastly I stitched on a few rolled flowers at the waist, some dyed, some not, and called it good. The bride LOVED it- which is all the matters- and Miss Odie looked precious all day long. Even when she sat down at the end of the isle and bawled and refused to go down it even with Squeakers encouragement and I had to carry her down and got to be in the wedding for several impromptu seconds huge belly and all- even then she looked adorable. 

(gazing)

This last photo clearly has nothing to do with the dress, but aren't they the sweetest? I could just eat them with a spoon, to say nothing of that cake and our dearest Ledah's fantastic taste in flowers...

And that my friends, was my first "real" foray into sewing...

How do you unwind?

How do you unwind after a long day of work, carpooling, errands, etc.?  I prefer to sit down at my sewing table and work on various projects, gifts, etc.  I prefer to keep the TV off, and crank up some tunes.  Usually I spend most of said "sew-time" searching for a tutorial of the project to be made, then when I find one/few, I get stuck perusing the blog or site where the tutorial resides.  Many a time, my rabbit hole of looking at cute tutorials leads me to start pinning the pics of the projects I want to do someday on Pinterest, or getting ideas for totally different projects altogether.


When it's all said and done, I need to conciously tell myself to focus on the project at hand.... and then I sew.  And once I'm started, I don't want to stop.  I'd rather keep going on a project until 2 AM - it's like an adrenaline rush, and the importance of the time of night (or early morning) goes by the wayside.  My latest project & oh-so-incredible-first-time-feat was actually make a piece of clothing.  Not like a one size fits all apron, but a dress... from a pattern.... that was to be worn... for an audience... and to be finished in... 3 days!  It was quite an endeavor, one for which my fellow Monday sewing ladies called crazy. Yet, I did it!  My costume dress came out great and I am so excited that it turned out well.  Plus, now I'm no longer afraid of venturing into a new world of sewing and crafting my own clothing/costumes. I'm hoping someone caught a pic of me wearing it, otherwise I'll lay it out and snap a couple soon.

Oh, and back to the original question at hand: "I unwind by spooling up" as my boyfriend so wittily described.