My Sewing Space

Another new dress for the little girl (who insists she is not little). The dress is a very basic T-shirt dress, made by modifying an out-of-print Kwik Sew pattern (2315 - actually for pajamas). Inspired by her beloved stuffy, I added an appliquéd pair of elephants. I'm terrible at drawing, so this is a rather modified form of an image I found online. The braided tails were a hit, but I think they're a little long. Also, maybe I should add eyes. I didn't think about that until looking at the picture just now. It seems I have difficulty making complete elephants . I stitched a tear-away stabilizer to the skirt piece and fused the elephant shapes on. I opted for the raw-edge appliquéd look and stitched about 1/8" away from the edge all the way around. I stitched around each shape three times to give it a slightly bolder line. The fabric for the dress and leggings came from three XL adult T-shirts purchased from the clearance table at Zeller's. There are...

More angels for M's shop here in town. Nothing more to say - just posting for my future reference.

I knit this sweater for my daughter more than three years ago. It was just a wee bit big for her at the time. Finally, it fits. Mostly. Overall, it is not a great fit - too wide everywhere. But, if I wait until the width is right, the length will be far too short. That's the story for everything I make this girl - start with a small size and add a whole lot of length. I'm not adept at altering knitting patterns yet (and was really clueless three years ago). So why have her wear it if it isn't a great fit? Because I can't let a hand-knit sweater just go without wearing! Maybe that's crazy. But that's me. I actually think it looks better on her than it does in the picture, but still not great. To make it wearable, my daughter needed some coordinating clothes. She initially requested a jumper to wear with it, but I didn't find any fabric that I liked for a jumper. Instead, we went with a peasant-style skirt and surplice top. The skirt is the Can-Can Ski...

Right after I finished this coat , I made one more just like it for another new niece. I really liked the pattern and having it all out and being familiar with it made it come together very swiftly. For the second version, I used a corduroy fabric that I have been hanging onto for awhile. I really like the fabric - both the print and the very soft feel of the corduroy - but I was having a hard time knowing what to do with it. This coat pattern seemed like a good match. I used covered buttons on the front and the sleeve tabs. The lining is a lighter shade of the pink flowers in the corduroy. You can see some of the lining fabric used for the under collar to reduce bulk. Ideally, that wouldn't peek out. Oh, well. Such a great pattern. I'm sure I'll come back to it again sometime. What? Another coat that fits me but isn't for me?!? Oh, the injustice...

Continuing with my new styles/silhouettes kick, I tried a skirt style that is a little different for me - the straight skirt. Now, this isn't something that is entirely new to me, but I haven't made one in a few years. I thought it was time to try it again. My pattern of choice was as basic as could be. I wanted to get the fit good without working around a lot of details and since I wasn't sure I would really like the shape on me, I didn't want to invest a lot of time in it. Enter McCall's 3830 . For the first try, I used a piece of corduroy leftover from this jacket . I had just enough of both the corduroy and the lining left for the skirt. In the past, I have been unhappy with how the front of straight skirts fit me. This time I left out the front darts. While I do curve out quite a bit from waist to hip, I don't really curve much at the front - it's all on the sides and at the back. I was really happy with how the fit turned out. This was posted ear...

My youngest daughter turned three yesterday. So hard to believe. I mentioned in this post how she only likes to wear dresses, skirts, jumpers and nightgowns. So, I made her another dress (because I thought she would like another and because I thought I would like fewer tantrums when there are not any clean dresses in her drawer). Both the dress and the leggings are from Ottobre 1/2010. The bubble sleeves are unique and the pleats on the leggings are a nice detail. In order for the outfit to be a surprise, I did all of the work while my daughter was sleeping and I was nervous about how or if it would fit. The leggings are a little looser than I would prefer, but they are a good length. The pleats don't match up well because I was in a great big hurry to finish them. The dress turned out to be a pretty good fit. I used size 98 and added 0.5" in length to both the bodice and the skirt. The neckline is gathered with an elastic casing. It looked too loose when I was making i...

It was cold here today (-26C when I took the kids to school this morning- brrrrr!) but I stayed warm inside working in my sewing room. Back in July , I started knitting a cardigan for myself - Rosamund's Cardigan by Andrea Pomerantz from the Fall 2009 issue of Interweave Knits . I finally finished knitting it while we were away for Christmas and today I finished the finishing - refining the shape and sewing on buttons, hooks, and eyes. Now I am happy with it. Before today, I wasn't sure about it. While I was knitting, I knew that I was going to want the sweater to be longer than what the pattern said. But, I added the length at the very bottom (the sweater is knit from the top down) when I should have added it in between the waist decreases and increases. It resulted in a sweater that had a shape very different from my own. Ripping out half of the sweater didn't sound appealing to me (remember that it took me six months to knit this!) so today I decided to try steam...