Pretty in poppies

Possibly the prettiest dress I've ever made, this was sewn from a Bambiblauw panel from Maai Design. When I saw these stunning panels I just couldn't resist, especially once I realised that R would soon be too big to make a whole dress from one - it was my last chance to try a panel print! Here is what the panel looked like before I finally bit the bullet and cut it up:

The cotton panels are 70cm wide and 140cm long, so finding a way to get the style of dress I wanted out of the limited metrage was quite a challenge. I cut off the skirt sections at either end, which left me with a blue centre section from which to cut a bodice. I tried out the fairy dress bodice (no) and a couple of Japanese sewing book bodices (no, no) before finding one that fit: the top part of dress F from Girls Style Book. I made a muslin first, then added a few centimetres so the bodice would end just below R's belly button. It was a rather tight fit getting the three bodice pieces from my little piece of fabric, but it worked out (just!).

Having splashed out on the stunning panel fabric, I wanted this dress to be perfect. I added lining to the bodice, took my time with the invisible zipper (as opposed to my usual slapdash efforts) and sewed the skirt with French seams. I used some of Maaike's cream piping at the waist, ending it a centimetre or so before the zip to avoid bulkiness. With the Bambiblauw fabric pretty much used up, I bought bias binding to finish the hem and face the armholes, then handstitched (ugh) the armhole facing and the lining.  The results are rather pleasing, if I do say so myself!

Conveniently, the sun came out today after weeks of wintry weather; perfect timing for a trip to the park and some photos of the dress in action!

I just love this dress, and R says she will keep it FOREVER. Poppies and winter sunshine - how wonderful!

Kids clothes week: a Bearlin skirt and a school bus tee

Recently I ordered a little bunch of goodies from Maai Design, among them a half-metre of this fabulous bear fabric. It was no easy task getting this skirt out of my little half-metre, and in the end I had to compromise by making the pocket bags white - much to my frustration.

The skirt is self-drafted, with hip-yoke pockets edged with gold piping (I just LOVE Maai Design's metallic piping), gathers at the centre front and back, and a wide waistband with an elasticised back. Apart from endless rearranging of pattern pieces to get the most out of my fabric, this was a straightforward and pleasant sew. I didn't even have to unpick anything!

To go with the skirt I made a school bus tee out of cotton jersey. This was a bit of a rushed sew, so don't look too closely at the neckband or hemming! The top looked a bit long when I finished it, so I ruched each side a little at the bottom and it turned out to fit beautifully this way.

How funny is R's face in this photo?!!

I really like these as an outfit, even if it's a little cool for bare legs at the moment. Now to see if I can finish something else before the week is up!

Kids Clothes Week: cat dress

I've only made one thing this Kids Clothes Week and I'm pretty sure I won't finish anything else by tomorrow. So here it is, the 'ribbon-back tunic' from Linen Wool Cotton: Kids. I made the sleeveless version of this top (here) and loved it, but this one didn't quite turn out the way I imagined.

I had a vision of the tunic lengthened into a dress, but I was far too short of fabric to make the double-layered skirt I had envisaged. And as it was, the skirt part of the dress turned out rather too short. As I did with the previous version, I lined the top (and also the sleeves) instead of using facings, and I should have narrowed the bodice like I did last time, but I forgot, which made the neck and shoulders a bit too wide.

I'm not thrilled with the giant flutter sleeves - they look ready to take flight! I prefer a far smaller flutter, so if I made this again I would be chopping a fair bit off their width. I'm also not sure about the merits of the waist, where a gathered top part meets a gathered skirt part, which is kind of weird. Then there's the back - there's something about the way the tunic/dress hangs that makes its loveliest feature, the open back, not sit as nicely as it does in the sleeveless version, which has a band at the bottom. But as I didn't manage to get any decent photos of R from behind, you'll just have to take my word for it!

It's not so obvious in the photos, but the unlined skirt portion of the dress is quite see-through. As I write this, R is wearing the dress with leggings and a cardigan, and it suddenly looks much better. Given the issues of size, length and transparency combined, I think it's destined to be worn as a tunic. I'm not sure if I'll shorten it or just wait til R grows into it - she's shooting up fast lately - but as a top/tunic with a pair of leggings or pants (will she ever agree to wear pants??) it's clearly going to work much better. And it HAS to work, because I adore this fabric with its little hidden cat faces:

So not a total sewing success, but not a complete failure either. I reckon by next summer this dress will have a new life as a top!

KCW - a party dress

Every little girl needs a party dress, right? Well actually, no - not when birthday parties typically involve such activities as trampolining, swimming, racing around play centres and going wild in a giant room full of inflatable things. But do you think I'm going to let the fact that R doesn't need a fancy party dress (complete with tulle petticoat) stop me? No. As the mother of a girl, it is my right to make one, so make one I did!

I wanted a fitted bodice and a full skirt, so I diverged from my Japanese pattern books and bought Dana's First Day Dress. It's such a cute pattern, and seemed perfect for the job. But it turns out the back closure is basically just a small slit with a button, and I could imagine the shrieks of outrage from R as I tried to pull it over her head. I decided to do a little modification and use an invisible zip instead, a nice long one that extends into the skirt. This worked really well and I don't think I'd make the dress any other way now. I also recut the neckline a little to make it lower - this thing has a super-high neck - and I'm happy with this change, too. I fully lined the dress - instructions for this are included in the pattern - and spent an unhappy few hours trying out various ways of adding a layer of tulle between dress and lining. I eventually hit on a solution that didn't look ridiculously bulgy, which was using a folded-over section of cotton lawn for the top part of the tulle petticoat, and gathering the tulle before sewing it to the lawn, sandwiched between the two layers (I have no idea if that makes sense, but it's late, I'm tired, and also I don't really want to revisit the trauma of sewing the tulle). The result is rather nice even from the inside, and it hangs well.

The fabric is Dear Stella Confetti Dot, which I got on sale a while back when I ordered some stuff from Fabricworm. I like it, but fear it may be horribly crinkly once washed. Time will tell! The lining is cotton lawn which is lovely and soft. I bought a few metres so I'd have plenty left for future projects, then wasted most of it making stupid mistakes with the lining. In fact, the litany of errors, blunders and stuff-ups made during the construction of this dress could fill an entire blog post, if not a series of them. Honestly, I'm surprised I emerged from this experience with a decent garment and my sanity (kind of) intact. Marisa's law: whatever can sew wrong, will sew wrong.

I made the bow on R's headband using the Oliver + S felt bow pattern. These things are so quick and satisfying to make - and I know my finger will recover from the glue-gun burn in no time at all. I didn't have any felt, but I think I've found my favourite use for all those scraps of Mexican oilcloth I can't bear to throw away.

How is Kids Clothes Week treating you?  I hope your sewing is not as frustrating as mine has been!

KCW: a woollen coat dress

Thanks to two birthdays, a guitar concert, a sick child and a busy last week of school, Kids Clothes Week hasn't been working out very well for me this time. This is going to be my one-and-only contribution to the pool: a coat-dress (pattern O) from Linen, Wool, Cotton Kids. Although the book specifies linen for the dress, the design really lends itself to something warm and cosy, so I used a pure wool fabric from Kim Anh, with some black linen for the facings. It's a sweet and simple design, with tucks at the front and back and a nice long row of buttons at the front (where my daughter says buttons should ALWAYS be). Seven buttonholes, seven buttons... I totally failed at spacing them evenly and had to re-do a few. Unpicking buttonholes is so unpleasant, don't you think? Good thing I bought myself a brand new unpicker along with the fabric. And although the dress looked a bit scrunched up between the buttons in these photos, I promise it hangs beautifully off-camera!

I made a few alterations, one of them inadvertent: I was forced to cut the back bodice in two pieces due to not having bought enough fabric (it's fortunate that R has long hair so nobody will ever notice the mismatched pieces). And since R's waist measurement has remained unchanged for years (the only things that grow on this child are arms, legs and hair) I added cuffs to the sleeves so they can be lengthened as she grows. Unfortunately I managed to make the dress rather short - I was aiming for just above the knee but I have a knack of stuffing these things up - so it might be more of a tunic by next year. It does have a decent hem on it, though, so I guess I should unpick it and hem it with facing or something... but I'm probably too lazy to bother at this point.

R is unwell today and wasn't exactly enthused about modelling, so I had to rope in my lovely feline assistant. Please note that no cats were harmed in the taking of these photos; Morry just loves getting into suitcases!

KCW: Baby geranium

Just when I thought my Kids Clothes Week sewing was done, my brother-in-law and his girlfriend had a baby girl, for whom, of course, I wanted to sew something. Yes, it's another geranium dress, this time in the mimosa double-gauze that Shino sent me from her Etsy shop. I had just enough left over from R's mimosa dress to make a sweet little dress for beautiful baby E in size 6-12 months, and as this fabric is so baby-soft it seemed the perfect choice. I did the same little trick as last time to make the back skirt opening line up nicely.

And that's it for another Kids Clothes Week. A couple of wild things and a not-at-all-wild thing. I'm not usually that into the themes, but this one had pretty broad appeal, I think. How about you? Do you like sewing to a theme, or do you prefer to do your own thing?

KCW: forest friends dress

Another hastily-photographed garment on an unwilling model, this time a simple dress from Kids' Clothes Sewing Lesson Book. The star here is the fabric, a beautifully soft Birch knit from their 'Acorn Trail' range.

The fabric is utterly divine, from the unusual bluey-green hue to the sweet little girl and forest animals pictured on it. When I chose it I thought R would probably welcome a change from the plainish fabrics I tend to use, and I imagined her closely examining each little creature on her dress and making up stories about where the girl is going. To go with the dress I made some leggings which match far better in real life than they do in these photos (I promise!) using a corally-pink cotton jersery which had been waiting in my cupboard for this very purpose. They didn't get modelled but they do fit wonderfully, which is more than I can say for most of the leggings I've made in the past!

I've made a dress from this pattern before - see here - and although the neckline of that one is slightly too large (it slips off her shoulder) the fit is otherwise pretty good. So with this version I kept to the same size, adding a bit of extra length, sewing in-seam pockets instead of patch ones, omitting the back closure and using a neckband made of the same fabric. I hoped this last modification would make the neck a little smaller, and while it doesn't slip off R's shoulders like the other dress, it seems a little baggy around the neck and chest - in fact, it hangs quite differently from dress number one. Never mind; the colour is stunning on R, it's had compliments already and - who knows - it may change a bit once it's been through the wash. Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm making a t-shirt dress in late autumn, it's because I didn't have enough fabric to make the long-sleeved tunic I was planning to make!

KCW: a faux fur hood with ears

Never mind the sewing - the most challenging thing about Kids Clothes Week is getting things photographed. And I don't mean just draping them over a chair - it's having your child put them on and model, knowing that it needs to be done NOW (quick! before it gets dark!) if it's going to get blogged in time. So please forgive the hurried nature of these photos and the (mostly) sullen and irritated expressions on R's face. I basically just stuck this hood on her head while we were at my son's footy training session and snapped away while attempting to distract her with knock-knock jokes (an unsuccessful technique, as it turned out - despite my being the inventor of the world's best knock-knock joke*).

OK, preamble over - now for the details. This is the Faux Fur Hood from Lemon Squeezy Home. The 'fur' is a precut piece from Spotlight, of the less genuine-looking variety, as some of the others were a bit too realistic for my animal-loving tastes. I love the way this hood turned out, and I think it will be wonderful for R to wear throughout footy season when we are forced to spend long hours standing around a windswept oval in all kinds of hideous weather conditions. I'm not sure if R likes the hood or not - she was noncommittal - but I think it looks very cute and I'm tempted to make them for the whole family (except for K, who can't believe anyone would choose to wear anything so ridiculous, and who has specifically requested that R not wear it to his football matches).

A hit or a miss? Only time will tell. But if R doesn't wear it I'll take it for myself, because it's damn cold outside!

Lastly, I should acknowledge the inspiration for this hood: our own little wild thing, Zindzi. Who is much more pleasant to photograph than my daughter.

* Warning: it's puerile. As all knock-knock jokes should be.

Knock knock.
Who's there? 
Europe. 
Europe who? 
I'm a WHAT??
(Equally puerile variations: replace 'Europe' with 'I'm up', 'You're up', 'Dad's up' etc.)

Sunsmart bathers

In the two evenings before leaving for our holiday I managed to sew (at breakneck speed in between packing, cleaning and child-wrangling) a rash vest and bather pants set for R. She loves her spotty bathers I made earlier this summer but really needed something a bit more sunsmart, and as this Chloroban fabric is UV-resistant it should do the job very well. 

For the top I used a pattern from an old Ottobre I found in an op-shop recently (a real bargain at just one dollar). This was my first time using an Ottobre pattern (and my first time sewing raglan sleeves), and although the instructions were minimal, the construction was very simple. The pattern was for a boy's top with ribbed neck and cuffs but I lengthened the sleeves a little and hemmed them instead, also drafting a fabric neckband in lieu of ribbing. The size was total guesswork as I sewed it at night when R was asleep, but when I tried it on her in the morning I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was perfect. The pants - which I adapted from the Cosi swimsuit pattern - are quite a tight fit and I doubt they'll last til next summer. But never mind, I have enough fabric left to make a larger version when required.

We were lucky enough to have some beach weather today and the bathers had their first outing. I feel very satisfied with this last item for Kids Clothes Week. Simple, practical, cute - and for probably the first time ever, I didn't have to unpick a single seam!

KCW: A trio of t-shirts

The theme for this season's Kids Clothes Week is 'upcycled'. I'm not a huge upcycler, mainly because I wear my clothes til they are literally falling apart, and by then there's not much left to work with. And while I have my eye on a few of my husband's shirts, he's not prepared to part with a single one (despite having nearly 100 of them, which I think is ridiculous). Nevertheless, KCW provided the impetus for me to clear out a pile of old torn, stained and too-small clothes that I'd kept in hopes of repurposing them in some way, and in doing so I found a couple of upcyclable tops.

Daydreaming about what to make, and having decided that this will be the year I sew some boring things like plain leggings and t-shirts, I sketched some ideas for t-shirts for R. I was aiming for 4 and managed to make 3 before preparations for our family holiday took over and I had to call it a day.

The grey t-shirt turned out the best. I used one of K's t-shirts and retained the existing neckline and shoulder seams, but cut out all the rest using one of R's tops as a guide. I also used the sleeve hems to be the hems of the flutter sleeves, which worked out great.

The bluey-grey t-shirt is not upcycled. It's made from some stretchy cotton jersey, with the flutter sleeves made from South African Three Cats fabric. I got lazy and didn't use my double needle for the hem; consequently it doesn't look great. Oh well...

T-shirt number three is made from an old top of mine and I have no idea how it looks on R because I haven't yet tried it on her and she was too hot and bothered after school to model anything (and I was too hot and bothered to take decent photos). I'm thinking the sleeves look kind of ridiculous - I didn't have much fabric to work with as I had to avoid a paint stain on the original top - but if they look silly on, I'll just downcycle it into a rag and call it a learning experience.

In my enthusiasm for upcyling I made a little stamp with a recycling symbol on it, so my upcycled garments now have their own special label!

Halloween, and a KCW interview

Halloween for my kids: lollies, fancy dress and door-knocking. Halloween for me: a lovely warm evening out on the street with my neighbours, drinking champagne and sharing stories.

To my great relief I didn't have to sew any costumes this year. R wore her Elsa dress from a couple of months ago, and K wore a supermarket-bought vampire cape and fangs. My only creative effort was a night-before-Halloween ghost garland. When R saw it in the morning she rushed off to make her own version (below). So sweet!

And that's all I've got for you today, because I've been busy writing a post for the Kids Clothes Week blog: an interview with the very talented Amy of Amos El. Go on over and have a read!