*sigh*

Today was, unfortunately, not a sewing day.  More like a shopping/cooking/comedy of errors day.  I pulled my pattern pieces out, only to discover that in my sewing fugue of Christmas (13 pairs of pajamas in a little over a month--I'd lost my ever-lovin' mind!)  I'd cut off the size I needed for Joanna's birthday summer PJs.  Luckily for my budget, Simplicity patterns are on sale this week for $1.99 each, so it was off to Joanns.  I also discovered that I was out of waistband elastic, which meant that Wal-Mart was on the list for today.  Now, at Joanns, elastic sells on average for $0.99/yard.  If I go to Wal-Mart, they've been selling pre-cut, pre-packaged elastic for years for that price... 3 yards each.  The price has gone up a bit, but I'll take $1.37 for three yards over Joann's price any day.  I cleaned them out, which, frankly, with the way they've cut the craft department, isn't hard.  I also got new sheets because mine are almost pretty much worn out.  Not a fantastic deal, but meh, they were what I needed and I couldn't wait for a sale.  Last stop was Publix.  We've been looking into the coupon thing, because, well, if anyone needs to save money, we do.  (So I can spend it on fabric ;) )

Today, we think we got a good deal.  This week, Publix has a deal where you buy 1 box of Pillsbury brownie mix (which is on sale for $0.99) and one container of Pillsbury frosting (BOGO $3.00) and get $2.00 off milk.  Now, we had a $0.40 coupon for the brownie mix, which doubles and makes the brownie mix $0.19/box.  and a $0.50 coupon for the frosting, which also doubles, so it was $0.50/canister.  Which made it so we were going to pay $1.00 for a gallon of milk.  Score!  Only they were out of Pillsbury brownie mix.  Because it was so complex, they told us to choose another brand and they'd give it to us for the sale price, take the Pillsbury coupons, and we could still use the milk deal.  Double score!  We got the Ghiradelli brownie mix as a substitute for $0.19!  I can't buy the flour for that.

Then I got to go home and start cooking.  We had a turkey in the deep freeze that needed to leave, and so we had a mini-Thanksgiving for Joanna's birthday.  Which meant that while I managed to cut the new pattern apart and out of the surrounding paper, I didn't mange anything else because I spent the rest of the day in the kitchen cooking.

Tomorrow, I have a lesson on my new serger, and then if I'm lucky, I can get stuff cut out and start sewing.

yuck

Didn't get stuff cut out last night.  Don't think I'm getting things done today, either.  Sick.  There's a stomach bug going around and guess who caught it?  It's almost 3:30 in the afternoon, and I've pretty much spent today either sleeping or in the bathroom.  Hopefully, it'll go away enough for me to sew tomorrow.  Please. 

No Sewing day

Hopefully, I'll at least be able to manage cutting stuff out, but no guarantees.  Other than that, today's been a no sewing day.  Probably the first of many as in about two weeks, we'll have the girls regularly.  Joanna's birthday is tomorrow, and they really couldn't afford to go out do much to celebrate this year.  Finances are extra tight with the new baby and Joanna on maternity leave.  So we babysat both girls while they had a burger and free redbox movie (coupon).  I was planning on cutting out pajamas today, but didn't manage it.  Well, the night is young, we ordered pizza for dinner, and Joanna and Jared have taken the Bits home.  That's right.  I now have two Little Bits.  Only one is littler than the other because she's only a month old. 

Really, they're somewhat boring jammies, but I was driven by 1) poly/cotton blend and 2) price point.  Honestly, for something that's gonna be slept in, I don't want to pay much more than I would for a commercial pair.  The fabric is blue and white stripes and it was $1.95/yard.  Works for me.

Busy, busy!

I've been a busy little sewist these past few days.  I finally finished Gracie's birthday dress.  It's a 30s Hollywood pattern, Hollywood 984--

And I used another to make matching panties to go underneath with Hollywood 1111, which is also late 30s--

I also finished three coordinating sundresses from modern patterns, Simplicity 2375, and Butterick 3477.  This year, they're made from cupcake fabric--


(the reviews are last year's models)

And Rickie's tractor overalls were a big hit--




They're from Jalie 972.

And I hope his new tractor shirt that he hasn't seen yet will be, too.  It's from Advance 4440, which is a 1940s pattern.  Unprinted, too.

And I've reviewed all of these, at one time or another. My next project is more pajamas.  Lightweight summer ones for SIL.  After Christmas, I swore off 'em, but I just can't seem to stay away....

why do I get myself into these things?

My brother came over last night and brought the Bit with him.  Normally, this is a cause for joy, because since she's been home with Mommy, I don't get my hug and sloppy baby kiss fix for the week or the lap sitting cuddles you get for story reading time.  Oh the sweet rewards of helping raise little ones! 

But last night, I was cutting out tractor shorts to go with the tractor shirt for my nephew.  I finished Alina's sundress.  Now all three girls can match.  But after cutting out Ricky's shirt, I had about a yard and a half left, so he got shorts.  And as soon as I'd pulled the pins out of the pattern paper and folded it, Evie stole the shorts pieces.  Apparently, anything I make belongs to her.  I explained that they were Ricky's shorts, and asked if I could have the pieces back.  Now I've got over a yard of tractor fabric left. 

Gracie informed me that she wanted tractors, too!  *sigh*  She needs summer clothes.  I have the fabric.  And a favorite pattern.  Butterick B3477--

And some yellow cotton/poly batiste and a tractor patch.  So I guess my little girl will be wearing John Deere this summer....

three days, two projects...

My brother is going to Tucker on Friday.  Really, it doesn't mean much except for the fact that my sister lives out that direction, and I need to finish up Alina's new sundress and Ricky's new tractor shirt before he goes so I can send them along.  With the price of gas these days, it's just better to send it if he's already going there.  And we can send Lizzy's other birthday presents at the same time.  So today, I need to sew together Lizzy's sundress and get Ricky's shirt cut out and the interfacing fused.  If my fabric.com shipments get here, I can start getting Joanna's birthday present cut out, too.  See, they sent the wrong things the last time around.  If you sew a lot (like me) a glace tells you if something is the standard width (43-45 inches) or if you're lucky and it's 60 inches.  I ordered some 60" fabric from the $1.95/yard clearance section and received 44" fabric.  Thin is, I wouldn't have had enough fabric at 44" inches!  And it was the wrong fiber content, too.  I'd ordered a cotton/poly blend, but got 100% cotton.  It was an easy mistake to make.  It looked the same at first glance.  After all, the color and pattern were the same on both.  I sent 'em back, and according to my information, I should be getting the replacements today.  Which is good, since I need to get sewing to get it done by Monday.

I don't think she's reading this.. heck, I don't think she knows where this is.  Joanna's favorite things are sheet sets and jammies.  And last year's jammies weren't a good fit.  Thanks to the pajama explosion we had at Christmas, I now know exactly what sizes to make out of my pattern.    She loved her Christmas flannel ones, next comes lightweight summer jammies that actually fit her.  I'm making the tank top this time, too.  Now that I have a serger, it seems like a waste not to use it.

I'm considering a new feature.  I love patterns.  I spend a great deal of time looking at them and I have a fairly large collection, most of which I got by accident, since I buy in large lots.  And in my pattern browsing, I've found joy in stumbling over the weird, the wacky, and insane.  You know, the patterns that make you wonder what their designers had been smoking at the time.  The craptastic and cracktastic patterns of the past and present.  And then there are the pretty ones, the ones that I find and have to have.  So, I'm thinking of perhaps having a pattern of the week.  It'd be fun!  I know I have no readers out there at the moment, but I think I like the idea...

Make and Mend (or a new outfit a day, pint-sized style)

When I heard about Make and Mend 2011, I wanted to participate and luckily, I had just the thing--an outfit of Gracie's we bought second hand last year, thinking she'd grow into it and knowing we'd probably need to tweak it.  Exhibit A.  This is a 3T, that's too wide and too short, both.  Thing is, from the capris, which are perfect (3T pants are usually too big) I'd say that it runs small, except for the fact that the top is both too wide and too short.  And we hated the shoulder strings.  (They were tucked inside when we bought it for $1.50.)

So, my first order of business was to do a bit of seam ripping.  Bye, bye weird shoulder strings!  Too trailor-parkish for us.  :D  Next, I took the shirt in to make it fit better.  It is after all, shirred with elastic thread, so baggy wasn't going to work. 

Then, I undid some of the side seam so that we could add some lace to make it longer.  At 3, a lace ruffle on the bottom isn't a bad thing, and since it already had a ruffle, we're just going to exaggerate it a little!

I tend to buy lace in bulk. Even with shipping, I save money that way since even eyelet can cost you more than fabric yardage in the chain stores. Ebay is a favorite source for lace since I can get it for around $1 a yard there. Needless to say, I have a lot of lace stashed away for just such an occasion. Marissa, over on A New Dress A Day, convinced me that RIT was useful to have on hand, too. And I didn't want white lace here, so out comes Petal Pink dye to take care of my lace. And lucky for me, I had lace that was a decent match for the lace already on the capris.

And since it was her "new" outfit, Gracie insisted on getting into a picture--









After it was dyed and dry, I trimmed the lace to the width I wanted, (this is where getting really, really, really wide lace from the stash is useful.) 

threaded pink ribbon through the beading lace,   (I have a large ribbon collection from sewing for the Bit)

and started sewing. Rather than overlock, I sewed wrong sides together--and then sewed the beading lace over the raw edges. Then I sewed up that side seam and overlocked the raw edges.

Next, came the shoulders. If Gracie weren't three, I probably would have left them alone. But she is three.  And as anyone who takes care of a toddler will tell you, if it's easy to take off, you're going to have a naked kid on your hands in about three seconds flat.  So, taking some of the leftover lace, I sewed shoulder caps in place so that she can't just pull the shirt off by pulling it down.  I tucked the raw edges underneath and sewed them in place so that it wouldn't fall apart. I had some leftover ribbon, so I tied it in bows, sealed the ends, and hand sewed them in place on the shirt.  Now, the capris had one problem--one of the appliques had come loose on one side.  So I turned my sewing machine to buttonhole and zig-zagged over the raw edge with pink thread.

Voila!  Two days later, when my model returned--

If I'd had just a little more ribbon, I would have added bows to where the new shoulders meet the shirt, but I ran out, and actually buying some was out for this project!

And to think, it only sat around a month this time waiting for me to fix it! I'm much faster at making clothes than I am fixing pre-existing ones! (In my defense, I do have a distraction in the form of a brand new niece--Nikki--

(Gracie, aka. Little Bit, Nikki, and my brother, Geoffrey)

And since it's going on, anyway.... The New Vintage Lady's Make and Mend Giveaway....