Long time gone

It's been a long time.  Mainly, I guess, because I finished with Christmas projects like Gracie's dress--

And then I haven't sewn a stitch since.  I've been sick, having computer problems, and just plain pushed for time.  More projects coming soon, though, because I'm getting another baby niece any day now, and so I'm making presents!  That, and, well, Evie needs some new dresses!

It seems to me that I most often blog to complain.  I don't mean to, really, I just don't have much available computer time.  It goes hand-in-hand with caring for and sewing for a toddler.  I did finish that last project--and a few others besides.  Now, aside from Christmas presents, I'm working on Gracie's Christmas dress.  I'm making an early 90s this time-- Butterick 4404

I've made a few changes.  I put lace on the pinafore straps, changed the collar to a lace one, added embroidery to the fancy band of the pinafore skirt and pinafore waistband, added lace to the bottom of the pinafore, lengthened the dress, and did some double needle pintucks on the dress bodice.  (I'm making view A)

The embroidery is a heart and holly motif that echoes the holly in the holiday calico I got out of my stash.  My only problem is that I messed up.  I grabbed two skeins (I thought) of dark gold metallic effects DMC floss.  It turns out that one of the ones I grabbed was white gold.  I have three holly leaves left to do in gold and no thread.  And there's no way in hell I'm going near the mall (Joanns is on the same street here) on black Friday.  I'll have to brave it on Saturday, but I'm going early.  It opens at six and I intend to be there.  I can see the end in sight, damnit!  It took me four days to get this far and I'm finishing the project this weekend so that I can cut out everything else that needs done and get it over with.  I don't own an embroidery machine, so any embroidered decoration I do is with my own two hands.  Which means that this really makes me mad, because I could finish tonight if I had the thread!  So my finger ends are sore and cut (but luckily not bloody) and I haven't been sleeping because I don't have much time and have lots to do.  I'm going to cut out Evie's dolly dress, transfer the design, and hand it to my mom to embroider it.  I don't have time and it's simple.  She *did* teach me, after all.  I'm not looking forward to doing the dollies' faces.  Crap.  I'm buying a yard for the skin just so that I don't have to look for it.  I have two dolls to make before Christmas.  And a turtle, three pairs of footie jammies for the kids, the Christmas dress, four and a half pairs of womens jammies, three mens...

At least I'm not doing quilts this year.

Misadventures, or time to trash the project.

Okay, I'm working on Vogue 8060.  My sister-in-law's grandma gave her the base fabric and told her to get me to make Gracie a dress.  So the dress is almost done.  It's taken longer to hem it than anything else.  This entire project has been something of a disaster.  And I can't throw it away, because Joanna's grandma supplied the print, and it would insult both of them!

First of all, I don't like the dress.  At all.  With the right fabric, it could look okay, but this isn't the right fabric.  It's a large oriental print quilters cotton.  The overlay is dusky rose broadcloth.  Which I wasn't having any luck sewing.  And I cut the dress longer because Gracie is tall and forgot to cut the overlay longer.  I didn't want to waste the fabric, though, so the proportions are just a bit off.  Since fall is coming, we decided that it needed the jacket to go over it.  Now, I've had this cut out since the middle of July.  And Gracie has grown.  So I recut the sleeves to lengthen them so that they wouldn't be too short.

I started sewing Thursday night.  My sewing machine decided that it hated me.  When I got to the overlay, it decided it wasn't going to work.  It was doing wonky tension things.  I tried lots of things and managed to get through the dress.  To save me some time, so that I could get through the entire damn project (pardon my french), I pinned the hems and handed it over to my Mom for hemming.  I figured I was ahead of the game.  The dress was being hemmed, the panties were done, and the jacket was cut out.  WRONG.

I transferred the markings for the tucks and spent hours trying to get the machine to sew them right.  It was essentially tying knots in the fabric.  Not pretty.  It would do that at the beginning, and then go too loose and too tight at intervals with changeable stitch lengths.  I ruined a needle with this one, too.  I even grabbed what I thought was pink scrap fabric to test stitches on it and traded my good Gutermann thread for crappy Coats and Clark.  After a few hours and getting Gracie to bed, I decided that there had to be lint fouling the bobbin, so I took off the needle plate and found the problem--the feedey bit was very, very loose.  I untangled what thread had wrapped itself around bobbiney bits, tightened all the loose screws, and screwed the needle plate back on.  After rethreading the machine with the good thread again, it was all better.

I tried to salvage the jacket body, but it was a lost cause.  I just couldn't get the hard knotty bits of thread unpicked.  It was only then that I discovered the worst part--the "scrap" fabric was the sleeves!

So Monday, I'll cut out the jacket again. And unpick the top stitching on the placket of the dress.  And I'll need more thread and fray check. And hopefully, it will go together fast, because I simply don't have the patience to make it a third time!

I haven't posted yet this month, and there's a reason for that--I haven't sewn a stitch since I finished the 1946 dress and go withs.  Instead, I've been gathering--gathering fabric, patterns, and gearing up for more wintery projects, like a new coat for Evie.  Today, though, part of that ends.  Baby is getting a new outfit!  Last month, my sister-in-law, Joanna, went to visit her grandparents.  Now, her grandma was a big quilter and has a large stash.  Apparently, she liked what I've made for Little Bits, so she gave Joanna around a yard of fabric for me to make Evie a new dress from.  I gathered all my size 2s... which, believe me, I have a lot of them!  And Joanna picked the pattern.

Vogue 8060--




I'm making the dress, panties, and jacket.  I don't have enough fabric to make the shirt and pants, and Evie won't wear hats, so since this is the pattern Joanna decided on, it's the way to go.  The overlay and jacket are in old rose Symphony Broadcloth, and the donated fabric is black with an almost Oriental floral pattern on it.  I found a rose patch for the overlay that goes very well with the fabric, and I got some fancy, but inexpensive, buttons for the jacket.  I haven't decided if I'm going to use them on the back of the dress yet.  They're the kind of buttons that you want to show off.  This being a Vogue pattern, the instructions are fairly useless, so is it any wonder I've been putting it off?  I've actually had this cut out for over a month.  In fact, I recut the sleeves today because Gracie's arms have grown and they would have been too short.  The old sleeves will probably end up as quilt patches.  Today, I will try and sew the dress and panties together.  The only tricky part of the jacket will be the folded tucks that go around it.  I'll do my transfer trick to get them straight and even.  And set my machine for 1/4 inch seams.  I'll post updates on this project later on.  Heck, there are several requests for a review of this pattern over on Pattern Review.  People have reviewed the panties, but not the rest of the pattern!

How to measure your toddler

If your toddler is anything like mine, measuring him or her is pretty much an impossibility.  My niece, Gracie, whom I do most of my sewing for, goes from a sweet, tractable child to screaming, crying, red-faced monster in 3.5 seconds when you try to measure her or get her to try on  something you've just finished making.  From listening to that child, one would think you're doing something horrible to her by running a measuring tape around her chest or arm!

Don't get me wrong--she loves measuring tapes.  Gracie steals them whenever the opportunity presents!  She just hates anyone trying to measure her!

I've given up trying to measure her... while she's awake.  Just about the only thing she has tantrums over is Auntie Laura trying to find out what size she is.  So here's my favored method.

Wait until she's fallen asleep, preferably in someone's arms so that they can help.  Tiptoe over to her, and slide the measuring tape underneath her. Slowly and carefully  tighten it to get your measurement.  Write that down.  Get your accomplice to lift the baby slightly so you can get the measuring tape back.  While you're at it, measure the kid's arm because you'll probably need that, too.  Write that down.  Get your accomplice to lay the baby on her back with her legs straight out.  Measure from neck to knee and neck to ankle.  Write those down, too.

If you've managed to make it this far without her waking up congratulations!  If at any time, the toddler has woken up, distract with kisses, cuddles, tickles, and if all else fails, cookies or cake!

For the curious, the insides of the 1946 dress and the 1948 undies!

The insides of the dress--
The front--

  

And the back--

The panties, front--

         

 

And back--                                                        

And finally, the slip. Front---

 

And back--

1948 slip and panties

And now on to the rest of the outfit--what other people won't see!  The dress definitely needed a slip to go underneath, and while I was at it, my SIL can always use another diaper cover for Evie.    This one started different-- drafting facings for the inside of the slip.    I traced the back and front, went about three inches down on each side, and connected the sides with a nice, curved line.  On the front facing, I added an inch to the straps so that I could have them button instead of sewing shoulder seams, as I was unsure if it would fit over Gracie's head.

I used regular tracing paper to do it, and made sure to cut two of each piece--one of the fabric, and one of the interfacing.  The next step was cutting out.  I added two inches to the bottom of the skirt pieces and an inch to the front shoulder strap.  I went ahead and cut the slash lines (one of the weirdest parts of this pattern) and then basted down the previously traced transfers.  After stamping, I embroidered them.  As with the 1946 dress, it used outline stitch and french knots.  Unlike the dress, it also used colonial knots and satin stitching.  Colonial knots are pretty much  just bigger french knots.  I hooped it because that makes it easier.

  After that, I just followed instructions.  The slip is lace-edged, and the ruffles are serious!  I cut them on my rotary cutting mat, sewed them together, and then narrow hemmed and added lace before I gathered them for ruffles and sewed it on.

The pattern actually called for french seams!  The most interesting part of the pattern was the way the skirt of the slip was gathered only at the sides, then sewn to the top.  I encased that seam in bias tape.  I also encased the ruffle seams in bias tape.  After that, it was just a matter of top stitching the waist seams, edging the neck and sleeve holes in lace, and sewing on the facings.  The edge of the facings were encased in bias tape, and then whip stitched to the waist seams.  After that, I added the buttons and buttonholes, and here's the finished product--

And here are details of the embroidery--

 

   

The large knots are colonial knots.  :) I made a few construction changes to the panties, as well.  The main change was that I assembled the front and back and even ran the elastic through the casing before I sewed them together.  Everything else was pretty much as the pattern asked for.  Here is the finished product--

  And here are details of the embroidery--

 

  Oh!  My other change to this was embroidering the yoke of the panties.  It wasn't on the pattern.  The yoke and the released tucks are the most interesting part of the panties, I think.  And it's also interesting that the legs are just left open.  Out of different fabric and lengthened, this could easily be a pair of shorts for Gracie!  Tomorrow,  for the curious, I'll post pictures of what the inside looks like, and I'll be reviewing the patterns over on Pattern Review.