Gracie's First Day

It's Gracie's first day of school today.  My brother and sister-in-law took the day off of work so that they could drop her off, and we're all a little choked up.  Gracie is excited, though!  She proudly wore her "Aunt-Laura-Loves-Me outfit, and I finished her blanket and matching pillow Saturday night and did some emergency sewing yesterday to finish her pink leggings for playground modesty.  (They took longer than expected because I accidentally sewed the ruffles to the wrong side on one half of the pants!)

We did a mini-photoshoot Friday so she could show off her new dress, and I'll be baking her the cookies I bribed her with today.  (They're to be her afternoon snack tomorrow after school.!) 

She loves the buttons on it!  And, of course, that makes tracking down three packages of vintage Pooh buttons worth it.  The Danford Mint made a series of pewter jewelry and buttons in the late 90s, you see, and I remembered the buttons (I actually have some of the earrings) and set out to track them down.  Took a few weeks, and I can honestly say it's the most I've ever spent on buttons, but I managed.

The bows are courtesy of ribbon obtained when My Friends Tigger and Pooh was still on Disney channel, and I found the premade bottle caps that I used for flower centers on etsy.  I was also lucky enough to have coordinating whipstitch piping in my stash--it's the same green as the vines on the print.




 

The piping was difficult because Nikki ran off with my piping foot, so I ended up having to restitch the piping seams by hand so we didn't have the gapping around it, showing off the twill tape.  She's wearing some tights and Sunday shoes in this picture that I happened to have laying around, but today she won't be.  She has plenty of casual Mary Janes and some white sandals, too. 

I'm happy, but I'm sad, too.  Our baby--all grown up and going to school!  Wasn't it just yesterday that I was making tiny baby clothes and she fit in just my two hands?

one of those days....

Gracie starts preschool on Monday.  This is only important because I promised her a new dress to wear the first day of school, and she requested a pink Winnie the Pooh dress.  I chose a 1983 pattern-- McCalls 8859.  It was interesting, and I kinda liked the look of the short sleeve version.  Of course, I updated it a bit--a wider neckline, longer, one fabric only, and no flower appliques.  I spent a lot of time tracking down some vintage pewter Pooh buttons and I'm finishing it off with some faux "frogs" that go between the buttons.

And it's in the only pink Pooh fabric I could find.  It has the most complex pleat system I've ever seen, combined with piping down the princess seams.  First in today's comedy of errors, my buttonhole/piping/cording foot has gone missing.  I know what happened to it--she'll be fifteen months old in three days and she goes by Nikki.  I love her to pieces, but like her sister before her, she picks up things and hides them.  I still haven't found all the bias tape that Gracie hid at that age!  Sewing frustrated is a bad idea.  Very, very, very bad idea.  I sewed through my right pointer finger.  And not just a nick--I had to physically remove the needle and then cut the thread so I could pull that out, too!


I lost the sleeves more than once.  After I got the pieces of the princess seams sewn together and serged, I discovered that my lack of the proper foot had screwed me up and I had to redo the piped seams.  Which meant hand sewing for two and a half hours.  And during this I clipped myself with the point of my shears.

It's not finished yet.  The sleeves are pinned in, and all six frogs are pinned on so  I can't lose them.  I'm about to do something similar to the baggie of Pooh buttons!  Here's hoping that tomorrow is better--I still have Nikki's new dress to make, and Gracie needs a blanket to take to school with her!

Summer dresses!

Okay, so I currently only have one.  :)   And it's Nikki's.  But hey, I'm cutting out one for Gracie today because they both need some pretty dresses for Church.  This particular one is Simplicity 2376.  It was one of those patterns that went out of print fast--I mean, it was only really available one season, while they still have some patterns in print that I bought when Bit was a baby.  My only real complaint is the fact that it fastens with a zipper.  I mean really!  A zipper on a baby dress?  Granted, this is technically a toddler dress, even if it is the smallest size.  And it's not alone.  Winter dresses for the girls will be including dresses for Nikki that have zippers, too.

The only thing I purchased for this dress specifically was the purple, 9" zipper. Everything else came from my stash--like most people who sew, I have a habit of picking up fabric I like when I can get it cheaply.  And I knew that my SIL loves both purple and plaids, so I knew it would be a hit.  I might have to make a bow for Boo to wear in her hair--she kept trying to put the dress bow in her hair yesterday before I sewed it on and got mad when it fell out!

Next up, a vintage sundress for Gracie!

Whoops, I did it again!

This is the needle that sewed through my finger this weekend.  It doesn't hurt this time, but then again--it's not a double needle.  It'll be going out with the garbage in the morning!  It just goes to show that you can still make mistakes after sewing for years, and klutziness is eternal!

Happy Independence Day!

I meant to have dresses made for the girls to show off today, along with a tutorial on pattern hacking to get matching dresses, but the past two weeks have been so insane that I never even managed to get them cut out.  So happy Independence Day, anyway, and here's a project from last year!

This is a favorite summer sundress pattern around here, and I was going to "fix" a pinafore pattern to make a matching one for Nikki.  The fabric for this year was different and since I have five yards, will probably keep until next year!  ($1.50/yard from Wal-Mart plus red broadcloth = inexpensive dresses!)

Tutorial: adjustable waistbands

When Gracie got into toddler clothes, adjustable waistbands were something of a revelation.  I mean, I'd seen buttonhole elastic at Hancock Fabrics when I was a teenager and wondered why in the world would someone want something that already had holes in it!  I'd never really seen it used before, and had no idea what it was for.  And to be perfectly honest, I sewed things here and there and knew the basics and taught myself tricks along the way (I never owned a sewing book or even looked at one until I won one in 2009!), but I didn't really get serious about sewing until I had a problem--see, I was diagnosed with lymphedema and suddenly had three inches of bandaging on each leg to contend with and none of my pants would fit over it.  Suddenly, I had to make pants unless I wanted to go naked!  And then, a couple years later, my sister and my sister in law both got pregnant, so I had little kiddos coming to sew for and decided to try my hand at quilting and started making them clothes.  But I digress.  :)

When Gracie got her first pair of pants with an adjustable waistband I spent a lot of time examining them to figure out how they were put together.  After all, if I could figure out how it was done, then I could replicate it in homemade clothing and even convert regular waistbands that were too big without too much effort.  If you're dealing with RTW clothing, you'll need to rip out the topstitching holding the bottom of the back middle belt loop to the waistband, and rip out one to one and a half inches of waistband on either side of the side seams.

 Okay, so we've got out pants cut out.  The first thing we need to do is sew together the backs.  Measure the entire back side and then cut the elastic three buttonholes bigger.  This enables you to finish the raw edges of the elastic.  I burn it with a lighter to seal it, and then do a rolled hem just so that it looks nicer.  (I keep lighters around just to seal ends of elastic and ribbon.)

Next, it's time to break out the iron.  Iron down the waistband and the seam allowance, and fuse a 2.5" piece of interfacing to either side.  This stabilizes the weave and prevents puckering of the buttonholes.


For RTW, simply fuse the interfacing and open the waistband for marking.

Next, measure the elastic, not the buttons (I almost made this mistake!) and mark the fabric. Make sure that it's right outside the seam allowance. This is for both you-made (I hate the term home sewn.  ;) It brings to mind home ec classes and it's often almost used as an insult!)  Make the buttonhole, and well, my next step is to always fray check the buttonholes before I open it.  I was even more thorough on this particular pair of pants because the bottomweight I bought for it online turned out to have a looser weave than I was expecting.  Cut open the buttonholes before you do anything else.

For you-made, the next step is to sew the pants as normal.  For RTW, sew up the waistband, but don't mess with the belt loop you ripped the stitches out of.  After you have a complete waistband, slip a safety pin through the buttonhole and thread the elastic through one buttonhole, the back waistband, and out the other.

This is what it should look like.  Now, the next step is to sew buttons right over the side seams on the front side of the pants.

Put the knot on the inside of the waistband so that all you have is neat stitching on the outside. 

Button the elastic and stretch out the middle and pin it.  Sew over it three or four times to lock the elastic into the waistband.  Pin the belt loop in place and top stitch it in place.

Now the waistband of your new (or old) pants is adjustable!


If it's an old pair of RTW pants that already has an elastic waistband, I'm afraid this can't be done without ripping out the old elastic, but it will work on just about any pair of jeans that didn't come with one--even adult sizes!  (Perfect solution if you're in-between sizes)

And here's the result--pants with a waistband that can be tightened or loosened according to need.

For cuteness--Sandy in its natural habitat!

Poor Nikki scraped up her little nose, but for cuteness, she's wearing the Petite Poché Sandy outfit sans bonnet.  (My nieces are not fond of hats, thus I rarely make them!)