Simplicity 2902

I noticed I get a lot of search engine inquiries for sewing patterns I blog about. I can see why, I always like to see what sewing or knitting patterns look like on people before I spend my time on using the pattern. In reality the drawn pictures on the pattern or the pictures of the models don't really give you a good idea of what it looks like on a real person. I think ravelry has really cut back on the inquiries for knitting. But I still get a lot for sewing so here is my review on Simplicity pattern 2902.I made size 9/10 and ended up not pulling the darts in as much as the pattern recommended. I also took the straps in about an inch and they are still a bit to big. And then I moved the pockets more forward then the pattern recommended. I will wear this probably a good bit around the house or at the beach but not out and about. It's a bit on the short side. I guess if I wore some shorts or leggings under it then I would feel more comfortable wearing it other places.

I do love the pockets and thought they turned out nice.
Overall a cute little dress. Not very hard to sew together. I guess the most difficult part would be the pockets with the little pleat and binding but even that wasn't bad.



Anybody want to guess where my babies are at? Rudy took them to visit his parents for a couple of weeks. I'll give you some hints. Most the names in the area seem to have more vowels then consonants in them. With their light colored hair and blue eyes they are considered a minority, Haoles. There are no snakes there and more than one-third of the world's commercial supply of pineapples comes from there.

Kwik Sew 3497

I made the top awhile back. It's been getting a lot of use. I made view A, with the gather in the front, and used a cheap lycra fabric I got from Hancock fabrics.

I usually wear a tank underneath the top. It would probably work fine with out it but I feel more comfortable with the tank.

I made the size small and had to take it in around the arms. It bagged out a good bit. Maybe if I used a fabric that was less stretchy, an interlock, it wouldn't have done this. Other then that there were no other modifications that I did to the pattern.




On a different note, have you seen the Terrible Yellow Eyes blog? It's wonderful. It's an online tribute to Maurice Sendak, who wrote Where the Wild Things Are. Different artists/illustrators are posting their art work that was inspired from the book. I loved looking at all the art work, very nice.

The book has been made into a movie, which you can see the trailer for here.

Simplicity 4282 another apron.

I made this apron for my sister. For some reason I kept thinking of that movie Enchanted when I was making it. You know the movie that has the main “princess” like character singing and cleaning with the help of rats and ahm roaches.

I have to say I wasn’t very happy with it. It was the binding on it. It gave me fits. It kept bunching up on me.
Finally I got in a “whatever” mood and just finished it and gave it to her. I figure since it’s already kind of a sloppy job she should feel comfortable about getting spaghetti sauce stains on it or craft paint or whatever she might use it for.

To keep in the theme of things here’s a picture of Dax and I at Epcot’s flower festival. We were in France smelling the perfume flowers and saw Aurora just standing there by herself. Usually there is a long line for Disney characters so we both looked at each other and said let’s go get a picture with the princess. That's my bayerishce socks I have on there.

Btw, it you love gardening and plants then you should really try to get to Epcot for the flower festival. It’s absolutely gorgeous.

Apron Swap

I received my apron from the Sew Obsessed Ravelry apron swap on Friday. My swap partner was Marie from knittedgems blog or knittedgems Ravelry. She did a wonderful job on the apron she made for me.

Unfortunately I only got two pictures of the apron. I had to use the timer thing on the camera because the kids were still asleep and Rudy went for a bike ride.
Rohan became intrigued with the beeping noise of the camera. This one is when he noticed the beeping.After that the only pictures I could get using the timer was a close up of him.

The note with the apron says she made it from an old jean dress and the other fabric came from a small local Ma & Pa store. I love that she made it from recycled fabric and that it is denim. The denim will be very durable which is much needed for an apron being used by me ;). The buttons she put on it alternate between white buttons and red heart buttons that coordinate with the red fabric very well. It makes it very charming and I can’t help but keep thinking of that saying, “home is where the heart is” when I look at it.
Marie also sent a leather hair barrette that she picked up at a Ren Faire. Thank you so much Marie!

Shirred Shirt

Awhile back when we went to Disney Dax saw a shirt that she thought was cute. I of course took a picture of the shirt and told her I would try and make something like it. Here is a picture of the shirt she liked.
I wasn’t sure how the top of the shirt was gathered and then I saw a tutorial at kuky ideas. It’s called shirring. I keep thinking of Lord of the Rings every time I say that word. Anyway you use elastic thread in the bobbin of the sewing machine and use normal thread in the top. From the tutorial it sounds like it is suppose to draw the fabric up automatically but I couldn’t get it to do this. I had to pull the elastic thread, like for gathering. Also my sewing machine was not too pleased with having elastic thread in the bobbin. Occasionally the thread would get stuck in the bobbin case and brake the top thread. I would have to clear the bobbin area of the thread and start again. It didn’t do this to me a lot but enough for it to be annoying. I’m not sure if it was something I was doing wrong or if my sewing machine just didn’t like this technique. I have a babylock esante ese.

I used McCall’s pattern 5050. The modifications I did were the shirring, I also didn’t gather up the sleeves and I put the bottom elastic casing in a little lower then on the pattern. I did originally put the casing where the pattern suggested but it gave the top too much of a maternity look. So I dropped the casing below the seam line where the purple fabric meets the blue. Actually it’s right on top of the seam. This helped gather the purple fabric making it drape better. I also cut about 3 inches off the length.

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If I did this pattern, with this method again I would try and use a lighter weight fabric. I also wouldn’t pull in the elastic around the neck line as much as I did. All in all, I think she likes it.

We went to Targets yesterday to get the spiderwick movie on DVD. I noticed when I was there they had the top that we saw on the person at Disney. It was on sale for around $7.00, hmmm.

New Look 6678

Thank you for all the comments on the Easter egg dyeing. The dye did stick and WOW are they bright colors. I was so impressed that when I saw Easter egg dye on sale after Easter I couldn’t get to it fast enough.

I finished sewing the shirt I had sitting around. I had posted about this project when I first started and found it posted on March 23, 2007. This surprised me. A year, this project has been sitting around for over a year. I really need to try and stay focused a little more.

New Look pattern 6678.
I had issues with the collar. The collar was a bit big and would drape outward. I had to make it smaller and adjust the neckline to make it lay flat. Because I shortened the collar it caused a lot of gathering around the neck arm area, which makes the sleeves look puffier then what I think they are suppose to be.
The bottom part of the sleeve is also bigger looking then the cover of the pattern but over all I really like it. I have worn it a couple of times already and I got a lot of nice comments on it. The main reason I think I get a lot of compliments isn’t the style of the shirt but the color. It seems to bring out the color in my eyes.

To add a pet photo to the blog, here is Rohan asking if anybody wants to play ball with him.

I hope everybody has a great weekend.

Stockings

I figured I better post about Christmas before the year is over. We had a great Christmas and your not going to believe what I got as a gift but I’ll save that for another post.

This one is about the stockings. I will remember this Christmas as the Christmas of the stockings. It started when I wanted to give a little something to all my co-workers at school. I wasn’t sure exactly how many there are but I thought 40 was a good number. I was thinking of making some kind of felted ornament, maybe a sheep but then I saw these while looking for ideas. It came complete with a (PDF) pattern. I thought great, I don’t have to think about it that much, all I have to do is follow the pattern.

It took longer than I expected. I ended up making mine a little bigger so I could stuff candy in them. This took a little time to tweak. I also started off hand sewing them but quickly realized that I wanted to be done before the New Year so started machine sewing them. The hand sewn ones did look better but I was beginning to get in a time crunch. I finished them the morning before the last day of school, whew.


After getting those done I was about to go into relax mode, but then noticed the kids stockings got ruined from being neglected in storage over the years. So on Christmas Eve I got it into my head that we all needed new stockings. Into the fabric stash I went and managed to come up with these.


I had used a pattern that my sister in law’s mother gave me several years ago. I couldn’t find the pattern but kind of remembered how it went.
After making Rudy’s I started running out of fabric remnants that had a Christmas theme so Dax’s has more of a fairy theme. The sayings on it says things like dance like no one is watching, sing like no one is listening, never stop dreaming and love like you have never been hurt. I’m not sure where the quotes originated; one source I’ve heard is Mark Twain.


Tyde’s was the last one I made. I was really getting burned out by the time I got to his. I didn’t think I would have enough green fabric so started cutting the red fabric in much bigger strips. This was also less time consuming because I didn’t have to sew as much. He likes surfing so the fabric I used with his has sayings on it like, checking out the waves, shoot the curl etc.


When it came time to making myself one I decided it could wait till next year.
I hope everybody had or is still having a wonderful holiday break.

costume

Dax wanted to be Elizabeth Swan as a pirate this year for Halloween. Here is a picture of the costume used for the movie.


This is what we ended up with.


We used a combination of simplicity pattern 0527 and Simplicity pattern 0627. There were a lot of modifications done. The 0527 pattern was a children’s pattern and it was a little too small. The 0627 was an adult pattern and it was too big.

For the shirt I used the adult pattern. Since the arm length was already long I did not add the cuff per the pattern directions and just gathered up what was already there. The v in the neck was also to low so I cut it a considerable amount less.

The adult pattern was also used for the pants, but I did not use the elastic waist band. I had to cut the size down a good bit because they were to baggy then I used darts to pull in the waist and used a button down fly. I should have taken the leg part of the pants in more because they are still a good bit baggy in that area.


The vest was from the children’s pattern. The length was fine but I had to add a little bit to the width. I also changed the tab on the back to lace up instead of button. I used buttons that you cover with fabric. I have never used these kinds of buttons and was very impressed with them. I got mine at Hancock fabrics but saw that wal-mart sells them to. Here is a picture of the buttons I’m talking about. Dax also wore the vest to school for homecoming week. They are the Minutemen and it tied into the theme very well.



The adult pattern was used for the coat. I had to take in the sleeves a good bit and did not add the cuff part of the sleeves. I also did not add any buttons to the coat. I didn’t have buttons in the stash for this project and it wasn’t in the budget to buy more buttons. I thought the braiding did a good job at hiding the fact that there are no buttons.

The boots are from the children’s pattern. The boots was one of the few things that we didn’t alter very much. The only change we did was that we tacked the boots down to some old flip flops so they wouldn’t shift around on the feet. We used the directions from here to make the hat. We took a buckle off an old belt for the belt that holds the sword and just cut some scrap upholstery fabric to fit the buckle. The sword is a rubber sword we picked up from wal-mart.

Most of the fabric came from my stash. We had to buy the braid for the coat, the sword, the fabric for the boots and buttons for the vest.

Tyde was a dementor and did not want to pose for me. His costume was pretty easy. It was basically a black hooded sheet that was ripped up.

Rohan didn't want to be left out of the picture taken so here he is showing he can be a pirate to.



Take what you can give nothing back.


Arrrrrrrr
I'm going to try and catch up on reading blogs now. I hope everybody has a great week.

New Look 6705

It’s time to start Halloween costumes. So I decided to finish the sewing project I had sitting on the machine. It’s a shirt from New Look pattern 6705. This is what the pattern cover looks like.


This is what I got.


I had a hard time with front yoke. I cut it to my size but the top part at the neck would buckle out. I assumed it was because I had made it too big. So, I took it apart and cut it down a size and it still buckled out. Finally I just folded the part that buckled and pinned it down. I took it apart again to re-cut a new yoke using the pinned down top yoke as a pattern and walla no buckle. For those who are making this shirt it was pattern piece #1 the yoke front that gave me such a hard time. I also did not put the tie straps on it. Actually I did but ended up taking them out to because they didn’t seem to pull the shirt in around the waist. This shirt would be nice for someone who does not want a shirt to cling to the waist area. It’s not one of my favorite shirts but I’ll wear it here and there.

Now I can move on to Halloween costumes. I hope everybody has a good weekend.

We're ready!

We’re finally ready for tonight’s activities. I finished the crochet wizard/witch hat. I tried to keep to the pattern but went astray near the end and did not increase as many times as it said to. Here is the final product.


Dax insisted that Rohan would make a good model so here he is showing what the inside looked like.

I wasn't sure how to do more then one color in crochet so I just carried it on the back like doing stranded knitting. I kind of like the inside better then the outside.

Dax was persistent; this is probably the best picture she got from Rohan.


He let us know that hats are not really him when he finally got the hat and ran off with it, LOL.

I also finished the Hogwarts cape. I used simplicity pattern 5840. I added the red color liner to it, which was not in the pattern.

As you can see it is a bit oversized. This one should fit her for a long time, unless she decides to sprout into something like the Jolly Green Giant.

I hope everybody has a great weekend. We will probably spend a good bit of it arguing over whose turn it is to read the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. I guess I should have got more then one book but some things a family just has to learn to share :).