Birthday Twirls

If you've been following this blog for a while you know that I do very little sewing for my own girls.  They have tons of clothes (handmedowns and grandma gifts) so they don't really need anything, and I prefer to build up my own wardrobe during my personal sewing time.  But I do make a birthday dress for each of them and the non-birthday girl gets a skirt from the leftover fabric.

Belly's birthday is today but I had to get her dress ready for the family birthday party that took place over the weekend.  Belly has a light yellow eyelet dress that was a hand-me-down from someone.  She decided she wanted a pink version of the dress for her birthday this year.  The original dress has princess seams, empire waist, ribbon sash and full gathered skirt. 

Inspiration dress

In drafting the pattern using the pin through method, I skipped the princess seams since their only role was to hold the ribbon sash and Belly didn't want to have to tie anything.  I also decided to make the skirt a circle skirt because my girls are currently in love with twirling.  And there's nothing like twirling in a circle skirt, right?

We couldn't find any suitable pink eyelet fabric, so Belly helped me dye the fabric early last week.  I used RIT fuchsia dye because I hadn't gotten around to ordering fiber reactive dye in time.  She had a lot of fun watching the fabric turn from white to pink.

Sorry for the blurriness - I took the photo while it was still steaming

From this point onwards I wanted to use what was in my stash which led to a bit of a hodge podge construction process.  We decided to line the dress in dark gray cotton lawn except that I didn't have enough of the dark gray so we used light gray for the skirt lining.  I wanted to add piping at the neck, arms, and waist, but I didn't have enough 1/8" cording so I used 1/4" cording for the waist.  Belly had chosen decorative purple flower buttons but I misplaced those in my sewing room (ack!) but she settled for these slightly different purple flower buttons.  And, Watch out! Here she comes!

Check out the twirl!

I did a variety of rolled hems for the skirt: a serged rolled hem on the lining (since it was short enough already) and a regular rolled hem on the eyelet.  It was a little tough sewing the thin hem on the embroidered bits, but no one will notice the bumps on this.  Cora wanted to help with this but she got fed up about half-way through the first pass on the hem ("This is hard, Mama." Sigh.)!

I also made fancy cupcakes for the party and Cora chose popstar microphone cupcakes from the crazy cupcake book:

And today my big girl is 6! 

Simple Fun

One of my new clients asked me to replicate a skirt she bought at J Crew some years ago.  It fits her perfectly and she wanted to have more versions of it.  The original skirt was made from a coral poplin, and she wanted one with a dark chambray (Robert Kaufman Cotton/Linen Chambray Shirting in Indigo from Fabric.com) fabric. It was a fairly simple design with some lovely details.

Piping on the waistband, made from 1/8" cotton cording and bias strips (Coletterie has a good tutorial):

Side seam pockets (I found a good tutorial for adding side seam pockets around a side seam invisible zipper - just ignore the red/white stripe background fabric):

And contrast hem tape with blind hem stitches:

I love it when a garment looks almost as pretty on the inside . . . .

. . . as it does on the outside!

I used the pin-through technique for copying the pattern and it was easy to do but took some patience to do well.  I love it when designs like this have that little bit of extra that takes them from simple to special.

Next up, I'm fitting this same client for a corsetted pencil skirt.  And if the sky stops being gray long enough to take some pictures, I'll finally be able to show off my new peplum knit tops.  Have a great weekend, everyone!

Basement Treasure

Oh, my sewing friends, just wait until you see what my mother-in-law found in her basement recently.  My level of excitement will surely give it away.

A bonanza of notions, buttons, fabric, and patterns!

Deb's (my MIL) mother was a talented home seamstress.  She made clothes for herself, her three daughters, and her three grandsons.  I've seen photographs of her lovely work: a wedding gown, a light blue long coat, Madmen dresses.  She also did general DIY like headboards and furniture upcycling when this was just called "making-do"  - necessary activities in the home of a state policeman and part-time switchboard operator.

Deb has been clearing out her basement in preparation for some remodeling, and she came across a cupboard full of sewing related items.  Some are from her own work sewing clothes for her three boys, but a lot is leftover from her mother's stash.  Part of what's fun about receiving all these items is imagining what Deb's mother was going to make with them.  For instance, we found five packets of light blue piping. Five??  Did she just like the color or was there a pattern that called for that many?  Maybe a dress with coat to match?  Or matching dresses for her three daughters?

And take a look at that cheery cherry trim (top right)!  I can't wait to use it on something for girls, and can't you just see the black one trimming a black sundress for me?  And, thaks to Grandma Bobber (she didn't like her own name - Gladys - so everyone called her by her nickname), I will likely never need to buy embroidery thread ever again.

I'll save the fabric and patterns for another day, but I must show you the buttons:

Buttons are one of my favorite thrift store finds.  It's like discovering a box of jewels or a bag of gold coins.  I don't know why this is - maybe it's because a tin of buttons represents so many potential projects, a richness of opportunity. 

I also love the connection to the past that these items give me.  If I make a dress for my girls and use buttons from their great-grandma's stash, they get to touch the memory of her in a small way.  When I sew a blouse using one of her patterns, I get to finish a project that she perhaps planned but never had time to complete.

The sewing machine I sew on once belonged to Bobber, and receiving this machine is what started my whole sewing journey.  And so it's fitting that two years later I finally found this:

Sometimes it's better to start a journey without the instruction manual.  But I'm glad to have it now!

Have any of you found a treasure in an attic or basement?  What was it?

Peter Piping Pencil Skirts

It has been WAY too long since I last put up a post, but I have been busy busy busy.  I feel like a little sewing worker bee! 

As you know, I fell in love with pencil skirts a while back and I've been playing around with new styles.  My latest inspiration came from fellow Etsy seller Dig For Victory.  Eleanor Callaghan has created a line of lovely dresses that she sells through Etsy and her own website.  This is my favorite:

Stunning, right?  I particularly love the contrast lines around the midriff.  I wrote to Eleanor to find out what it was and it's piping - that's right, the stuff that you often seen on the edge of a throw pillow!  So I experimented with using it to define the yoke on a couple of yoked pencil skirts.  And, ta-da!, here they are:

(Remember this fabric?!  It was one of the prints I listed in my post on corduroy for grown-ups.)

And here's a yoked pencil skirt without the piping:

I found this stretchy twill fabric online at Mood Fabrics - and then learned that the Project Runway contestants get their fabric there, so I felt very cool and trendy!

I bought a couple of Vogue dress patterns recently and I'd like to try the piping around the midriff idea on these, too.  What do you think?  Can you picture it??

Vogue V8555 & V2960