Kids Clothes Week: Day 4!

by alwaysacraftylady

Yeeeeeesssssssss. Look at this corduroy. Isn’t it pretty? I was really really looking forward to cutting into this length of Small World fabric by Rae Hoekstra. I have the Lemon Drop and Small World prints too, but these umbrellas named Signin’ in the Rain really called to me to be sewn first.

Sadly it was also printed a little off gain.

I know little rain cloud. It is sad. But the resulting skirt is anything but sad. I cannot wait to buy buttons for it so I can have DD1 give it a twirl!

I did a search for patterns this morning and ultimately decided on the Hopscotch Skirt from the amazing Liesl at Oliver + S. Her patterns create the most professional garments and this was no exception. It only took any hour and a half to cut it out and sew it all together sans buttons and buttonholes.

I thought this would take two nights to complete so now I get to pick out a new project for tomorrow. Lucky me!!!

23Apr2015

Kids Clothes Week: Day 3!

by alwaysacraftylady

Today’s sewing brought to you by this tool

That’s right, a seam ripper. Adding the piping didn’t go very smoothly. It’s been more than 10 years since I last tackled sewing in piping so I did what lots of people do…I headed to the internet for some tips. I don’t have a piping foot for my machine, so I tried using my zipper foot and then proceeded to swear and yell while ripping it out 3 times. Finally I put my regular foot back on the machine and got the piping to go in nice and smooth. Well, except for sewing the skirt into the waist multiple times in both dresses. It’s that kind of night.

In the end I got both finished except buttons and buttonholes. I couldn’t find any buttons to match in my stash, so I’ll hit up a store this weekend or maybe even one of these evenings if I have a chance.

I think I like them as is with the selvedge edge as the hem. What do you think? I’d love to hear some opinions since I have a few more days to finish these before the deadline!

I tossed these cute fabrics in the wash tonight. Tomorrow I think I’ll start on a skirt for DD1 in either the umbrellas or the lemons.

22Apr2015

Kids Clothes Week: Day 2!

by alwaysacraftylady

Dinner time, bath time, nurse the baby, and do the dishes. A mother’s work never seems to be done, but tonight I carved out my sewing hour again. I made good progress on my girls’ outfits! Bodices are ready to be attached to the skirts. I made could have kept going tonight, but I want to add navy piping between the bodices and skirts. I need to be more rested to tackle piping!

I think they are off to a good start. And it is nice to make clothes with just plain quilting cotton. I’ve been using other types of cotton fabrics lately and quilting cotton is just so much easier to work with.

I’m exceedingly pleased with the the way the backs of the skirts meet.

However the back of the viewfinder bodice was not as orderly. Of well. Tomorrow I tackle piping, hemming, and buttonholes.

21Apr2015

Kids Clothes Week: Day 1!

by alwaysacraftylady

And so it begins. Today is day 1 of Kids Clothes Week and I am joining the challenge to take an hour a day to sew for my kids.

Step 1: Get your dog to get off of the fabric.

I have some good fabrics to pick from, but I only had a couple choices washed and ready to go, so I picked a couple prints from the Cotton + Steel Playful collection. Did you know the jacks fabric has a border? I did not, but now that I do it will be at the hem of DD1’s dress.

Tonight I was able to get DD1’s dress and DD2’s tunic cut out. Tomorrow I’ll start doing the sewing!

15Apr2015

Clothing Sisters

by alwaysacraftylady

So confession time. My favorite part of having two girls…matching outfits. It is soooooo about the matching outfits when your girls are young and the parent is still mostly selecting their clothes. I live for holidays. My husband is not a huge fan of putting our girls in perfectly matching outfits, so we reached a compromise. Coordinating outfits.

For Christmas they had coordinating sparkling dresses I knitted. (This is seriously the best picture I have.)

So as Easter approached I started searching for the best pattern and the best fabric to use. Ultimately I landed on the pattern Geranium Dress by Rae Hoekstra. If you’ve read pretty much any blog that features little girl’s clothing you have seen this pattern before. I’d say for good reason, because is it dead simple to make, classic, and easy to modify.

For the fabric I settled on two prints from Nest by Free Spirit Fabric. The fabric is so lovely. Soft, easy to work with, and washed really really well.

I did the ruffle trim on the sleeves for both, but DD1 has a dress and DD2 has a tunic. She’ll be trying to crawl soon and I know dresses are much less practical for that stage of baby-hood. Both outfits are fully lined. DD2’s tunic was pair with Rae’s pattern Big Butt Baby Pants that I shortened to bloomers. They’re trimmed with some sweet lace I purchased at a rummage sales more than a decade ago.

Sadly I have no photos of both dresses together. DD1 was recovering from a stomach bug and DD2 only has short windows of time when she is willing to be photographed. Oh well. There’s always the next holiday.

Anyways, I really loved making these outfits. I love it a whole lot and seeing these photos is making me even more excited for the start of Kids Clothes Week! I wonder how many things I can crank out in 7 days? I’m hoping at least one school dress for DD1 and one more tunic/bloomer set for DD2.

16Mar2015

Birthday Quilt

by alwaysacraftylady

Oh hi! I didn’t mean to disappear for 2 weeks. I went back to work on March 2nd full time, and then DD1 had her birthday the very same week and my life went a little crazy. But I’ve been hard at work with many things. I still have some clothing items for me to share, but in the mean time I bring you a quilt made for my pretty little birthday girl on her 3rd birthday.

As you might remember from my Quilt Layout post I’d been struggling with how to fit together all the little triangles I’d cut out. I could never get things to line up in a perfect way. I took it to a vote with some of my crafting friends and they overwhelming voted for a more random placement.

I tried to finish it for her actual birthday so she could take it to school, but I was too busy making 3 dozen cupcakes. So she opened it on her birthday party instead. And then at her party it was the very last gift opened and the immediately threw it aside so she could play with her new tea set and doctor kit and OMG Mulan doll instead.

But that’s okay because the next day when she went to school her snuggly blanket went with her and my heart filled at the thought that her momma’s love was wrapping her up tight while she’s away from me during the day. That kid. She’s a cute one.

This quilt was made with fabric from the Princess Life line by Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman. Such cute fabric, but a little hard to pick a pattern that actually showed off so many larger scale prints. I hate needing to decapitate princesses to make the blocks. The backing is some minky leftover from making the Fairies Quilt. Both came from the fabulous Hawthorne Threads. I have to admit I often look there before any other online shops because they have such a large selection and usually have things available by the yard as well.

15Feb2015

Quilt Layout

by alwaysacraftylady

Whew, this week has been interesting. Exhausting. DD2 is not sleeping as well at night all the sudden and we’re all feeling the effects after several nights of less sleep.

What was I say? Oh yes. Quilt layout.

So someone asked in the comments of this blog about how I decided to place my fabrics in the Fairies Quilt. Really it isn’t all that hard, just takes some thinking. For this quilt I had nine different fabrics. The first thing I did was look at the scale of the prints.

White – 2 – both large scale

Teal – 2 – 1 large scale, 1 small scale

Yellow – 2 – 1 medium scale, 1 small scale

Burgundy – 2 – both medium scale

Pink – 1 – small scale

In order to best show off the prints, anything large scale needed to be a corner. The small scale needed to be in the center. The medium could fill in where needed. So I place the white and one of the teals in the corners to start and the pink in the middle. Then I played around the the remainder of the colors until I settled on the arrangement you see above. The goal was to make sure no two prints of the same color were right next to each other. In the end you have stacks of blocks that look like this.

Then I just needed to place with the orientation of each square so see what looked best to me. There really is no perfect way to do it. Just a personal preference.

Here you can see two slightly different layouts I tested. The one thing I would do differently next time is to do all the 9 patch squares exactly the same. For this quilt I wanted to be “fancy” and switched the placement of the burgundy fabrics in half of the squares and then when I went to lay everything out I didn’t have each fabric in the right amount for what I wanted. Oh well. Making my own quilts is about the process as much as the product, but perfection is not my goal.

In new project news, I do have a little something I’ve started working on using Princess Life by Ann Kelle. It’s another day care nap blanket for DD1, but I haven’t been able to land on an arrangement I like yet. Have thoughts? Let me know! I am stumped.

27Jan2015

Fairies Quilt

by alwaysacraftylady

Why buy something when you can make it with a skill set you already possess? One thing I’ve learned over my lifetime is that what I make for myself lasts a lot better than what I can buy in the store so when I realized Darling Daughter #1 really needed a bigger blanket for nap time at school I decided to try my hand at making one.

As I posted a few days ago, last fall I took up quilting. So DD1 and I set off looking
for fabrics she would like for her blanket. Choice #1 was the Girl Friends ballerina print from Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman.

But I didn’t love it for a blanket.

So we looked again and found the perfect collection, Fairyville by Heather Rosas from Camelot Fabrics. I also found a tutorial for making disappearing nine patches on Cluck Cluck Sew. It worked out perfectly.

And she loves it.

This project has a couple of firsts for me too. First time machine quilting, first time binding a quilt, and it was my first time sewing with minky. But all want together smoothly and I am so pleased with her little nap blanket. No more baby blankets for my big grown up preschooler.

25Jan2015

Story Time Sampler – January

by alwaysacraftylady

Anyone else working on The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery’s 2015 Story Time Sampler? I haven’t finished a cross stitch project in years, but when I found out about the 2014 version I couldn’t wait to sign up for the 2015 stitch a long. This year’s version is going to feature some favorite characters from children’s literature, but before I can fill in January’s details (Alice in Wonderland), I need to finish all the prep. Four frames down, 8 more to go!

I hope I can get to Alice before the next month’s pattern comes out on February 1st!

24Jan2015

Doll Quilt

by alwaysacraftylady

When I went to the quilt store to buy notions for the Rainbow Quilt I couldn’t help but also buy notions to make a doll sized quilt for the big sister.

Same fat quarter set and block pattern, but a little different look.

I love this little quilt. It was so sweet to put together and a great way to practice before I tackled the larger quilt.

I put it away intending for it to be a Christmas gift, but then my older daughter received too many things and I knew this would get lost in the shuffle. So I held onto it until last week.