End radio silence. Ask a bunch of questions. Resume radio silence.

First question. Is there anything cuter than this?

Wait. Before you answer, look at this.

Eric won tickets to Sesame Street Live and Rylee and I went last night for a girls' night out with some BFFs. I didn't make an Easter dress for Rylee this year so I would have time to make matching Elmo groupie outfits. It's about priorities.

The top is a simple pillowcase shirt made from a yellow poly-blend knit with the cuteness pumped up by a lettuce edge.

I got the Elmo applique pattern from this Etsy seller and you should go buy many appliques from her because they are adorable and easy to make AND she lets people sell things made from her patterns. Skill and generosity should be rewarded.

The skirt is my third attempt at a Kitschy Coo pettiskirt and this time I used some stretch mesh based on Amanda's suggestion. Less puffy, more swirly. Observe.

I only used three layers of mesh with a satin underskirt because I could only scrape up 2 yards and a few inches of the wonderful stuff. Three layers was plenty and allowed me to make two skirts. The Sesame Street Live motto is GO BFF MATCHY OR GO HOME.

A few more questions, inspired by this picture.

Q. Are you really that excited to see Elmo's Healthy Heroes?
A. No.  But it was actually pretty cute. Lots of showtunes and other adult references to keep it tolerable.

Q. Since there was only one camera taking your picture, where are you looking if not in the lens?
A. No idea. I didn't even have a margarita at dinner!

Q. How much sunscreen are you wearing at the pool these days?
A. Not enough, apparently.

It was fun and the girls had a blast. And seeing them swish around like manic muppet twins was worth gathering more yards of mesh than I care to contemplate.

*******************
Now about that radio silence. In late February I actually got a short-term contract and spent some time Working For The Man. No time for blogging or even sewing, and since I was doing a lot of writing there weren't any excess words for blogging even when time allowed. I'm hoping (and they indicated) that they'll have me back on a semi-regular basis so I think I'm hanging up the keyboard here. Thanks to everyone who spared a moment to read my ramblings when I was going toddler-mommy stir crazy. You can find me on Facebook with my handle (auntninn) attached to an email account at gmail.

Tutorial: Lazy Bubble Skirt

Skirts were the very first thing I ever sewed for Rylee, mostly because toddler skirts are about the easiest things in the world to sew. There was a period where she didn't wear them because they got in the way of playing, stooping and crawling. Now that her legs are much longer she can wear them again without interfering with all the glorious rampaging and mess making that compose her days. But A-lines and twirly skirts started to bore me so I decided to try a bubble skirt. I searched around and found a number of tutorials that, while good, seemed needlessly complicated. At the rate she's growing I want a minimum investment for maximum cute.

Thus, I give you: the lazy bubble skirt. I hesitate to say *easy* since one step is a little tricky but it's the laziest possible way I can think of to construct a cute, poofy skirt for a little girl from about 12m - 5T or so.

You will need:
* Approx 1/2 yard of shell (main) fabric
* Approx 1/2 yard of lining fabric
* 1/2 yard of VERY soft and stretchy 1/4" elastic. I like knit elastic for this. For a stiffer elastic you might want to allow a little more.
* Approx 1/2 yard (waist measurement) of 3/4" elastic
* Waist measurement and skirt length measurement of the child to be clad

NOTE: Because I really, truly mean it when I say I wanted this to be a lazy undertaking I give myself a lot of "slop" in the yardage so I don't have to do things like iron 1/8" hems. Because who wants to do that? So if you have a piece of fabric that you are just DYING to use but it's a little bit short you can get by with less if you use narrower elastic in the waist and narrower seam allowances.

Step 1: Measure child from waist to the desired skirt length. I love to have these hit around the knee. I made the one in the tutorial a little longer because I want it to last. For Rylee this was 12".

Step 2: Cut your main fabric four inches longer than your desired skirt length. E.g. for this skirt I cut the main fabric 16" long. One full fabric width (usually about 44") should be right for 12month - 5T. At the outside edges of that range you might have to play around with cutting it narrower or sewing a few extra inches on the edge.

Step 3: Cut your lining fabric two inches longer than your desired skirt length (or put another way, two inches shorter than your main fabric). For Rylee's dress that was 14". Trim the fabric if necessary to make the lining and the main fabric the same width. I also trimmed the selvage here to avoid a huge seam allowance on the fashion fabric.

Step 4: Right sides together sew the short edge (marked with a red line in the photo above) on the main fabric. Repeat for the lining fabric. You should have two tubes (i.e. you are not yet sewing these together). Make sure to use the same seam allowance to keep the tubes the same size. Press the seam allowance open.

Step 5: With right sides together, aligning seams, slip the lining tube into the main fabric tube, aligning the bottom edges. NOTE: Very important that you align the BOTTOM edges, especially if you have a directional print. I had to check with my video game geek husband AND the internet to make sure I had my invaders going the right way. In the photo below I am pinching the BOTTOM edges of the fabric.

Step 6: Divide the bottom edge into quarters. One mark will be the pressed seams. Mark the opposite edge with a pin (show above), pinning fabric and lining together. Mark the points midway between the pin/seam by either folding the tubes in half again or measuring. Your fabric should now be pinned together in three places.

Step 7: Cut 18" of your soft, 1/4" elastic. This will be stretching around the entire circumference of your skirt (approx. 44"). This is also the part that will be around the little knees and you want to make sure there is still room to run. If your elastic won't stretch that far then cut a slightly larger piece.  Divide the elastic into quarters by folding or measuring, marking with pins.

Step 8: The only tricky step in the whole process. The one place where speed and slapdashery are  NOT your friend. Go slowly in this step and you will be amply rewarded because it is really 2-3 steps in one. You are going to attach the elastic AND seam the shell/lining together in a single step. I use a triple zizag for this to make sure it's nice and stretchy. If your machine doesn't have a triple zigzag then double should be fine. Starting at the pressed seam(s) lay the elastic down just inside the aligned edges of the shell and lining. I like to line the fabric edges up with my presser foot and have the elastic just slightly inside that. You might need to mess around with the stitch width to make sure you are catching the elastic. Hand crank a few stitches and stop with your needle down in the fabric. Now stretch the elastic until you align the first pin in the elastic with the first pin in the fabric as shown below. S-L-O-W-L-Y sew the elastic to the first pins.

Step 9: Repeat for each quarter section of fabric and elastic ending back at the pressed seams. The last section won't have aligned pins, you'll just be finishing up the last piece aligning it with your starting point.

Step 10: Check and make sure you seamed all the way around. If your elastic doesn't quite reach it's ok. Just make sure you complete your seam all the way back to the beginning and do a few reverse stitches to secure. At the very end of my seam here the elastic snapped away and I couldn't quite make it reach. It doesn't matter as long as the fabrics are joined all the way around.

Step 11: You now have a gathered "bag" of your fabrics.

Step 12: Turn the skirt so that the wrong sides are together and your lining fabric is to the outside. Line up the top edges of the fabrics.

Step 13: To make the waistband first turn under about 1/2" on the top. If you are short on fabric you can serge the edges together here, but I like a neater look. You can also make this first turn a little narrower, but it's hard to turn both much narrower than this and an extra 1/2" of fabric is worth it to me to be lazy.

Step 14: Turn again about an inch to an inch and half. A little less if your waistband elastic is narrower than 3/4". Again, lazy wins the day for me here and I make a very generous band. Sew around the lower edge leaving a 2" opening to insert your elastic.

Step 15: Cut your waistband elastic about 1" shorter than child's waist measurement. I sometimes do a little bigger if the elastic is stiff and I want to make sure it doesn't pinch. Bonus tip: Use tailor's chalk, pen or marker to mark once side of the elastic so you can check to see if it twisted while you pulled it.  This happens to me all the time and I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out.

Step 16: Using a safety pin or bodkin, pull elastic through the waistband, secure it and then sew the seam shut. Done!

 

Side note: I'd love to say that this was all part of sewing things up to match Rylee's orphan garments, but the plain truth is that I bought the fabric because I was coveting. BUT, I did just buy the shirt at a Just Between Friends sale and both it and the baby legs *were* orphans. And I really dig the demure plaid collar with the over-the-top geeky fabric. So we'll call it a win.

McCalls 6155 or Bamboo Jersey, where have you been all my life?

This shirt has already been through the wash twice, so I guess it's about time to blog about it. 

I've been trying to sew pieces for Rylee that go with orphans in her wardrobe. I'm a total sucker for discount and clearance shopping and I tend to buy things just because they are cheap. She has a pair of Gymboree teapot leggings I got for something like $2 but they have been languishing with no match.

 

I bought THE most beautiful fabric from The Fabric Fairy. They say it's made of bamboo with 8% lycra but I suspect it's actually spun from sunshine and puppy kisses. It's gorgeous to sew and moves beautifully. Just holding it makes me happy and it was embarrassingly difficult to throw out the scraps. I think I might make myself something out of it.

I used McCalls 6155 and I agree with the comments of the first reviewer at that link. The cut is very pretty but I hated the neckline, which was folded over and sewn down. The pattern also calls for interfacing and putting buttons in the back. That sort of misses the point of a knit in my world, so if I sew this again I'll just cut the back on the fold at the center and use ribbing at the neck.

To embellish the front I bought some pre-made fabric buttons on Etsy. Not because these buttons are hard to make, but because it was cheaper than buying this obviously awesome teacup fabric. More precisely, it was most likely cheaper than starting a hunt for this fabric that would certainly have lead to a purchase of at least five other fabrics.

I made size 2 and the fit is absolutely enormous on her. She's tall, lean and lanky so the shoulders in particular are huge. She runs around rocking the Flashdance shoulder reveal and you can see by the pooling of the fabric how long the sleeves are on her. But it's wearable now and will probably need a matching set of leggings soon since she's sprouting out of pants every time I turn around.

I've quit telling her to smile in pictures and tell her to laugh instead. It makes for a better shot and also gets me poses like this that tell me quite clearly what kind of teenager I'll have.

Fall paisley and philosophy

I made this dress a few days ago and I've been wanting to get a modeled picture of it. But Rylee and I are both sick so there's no energy or patience (on either of our parts) for that.

The picture doesn't really do justice to the colors which are lovely, creamy browns and pinks. I bought them for her fall wardrobe but with no particular pattern in mind. I finally decided to use Simplicity 5695, which I originally bought because I couldn't get hat measurements quite right.

Because it's for fall and temperatures in Arizona in the fall can drop all the way into the low 70s, I made the sleeves slightly longer. I had my Cool Girl confidence to do something so simple and I like how they came out.

Sewing this pattern coincided nicely with a philosophical discussion over on Amanda's blog about non-technical sewing.  My first official foray into sewing was helping my mom, just a tiny bit, sew a prom dress for me. She was an accomplished sewer and made a lot of our clothing back when it was something you did to save money rather than the complete money-sucking hobby it is today. She was very clever with mixing and matching patterns and I remember picking out a couple patterns to merge for that dress. (I also vividly remember being tortured as a smaller child by long trips to the fabric store, a tradition I have happily continued). She could make anything. Anything. She once made my dad a suit. Although I don't think she ever drafted anything from scratch.

After she died I sewed a few costumes for my nieces because that was something she had always done and I wanted to continue that. Sewing costumes can be low stress because as long as they last a single night or two you're good. The most involved modification I ever did to those patterns was replacing all zippers with velcro. I also made a very easy vest or three for my sister's girls, cutesy little things made from holiday fabric with festive buttons.  Back when I was super skinny I made a few sundresses for myself but with no knowledge of FBA even skinny-me wasn't going to get a big wardrobe by my own hands.

Fast forward to now when I'm starting to sew more for Rylee. So far, this time around has been a LOT more fun. Why? Because of the wonderful, generous non-technical (and technical) sewers on the internet. There's a post I've been meaning to write for awhile called "Why Commercial Patterns Make Me Cry" and it will be heavy on those line drawings that purport to show three steps in a single picture. Because I usually have to stare at them for a good hour or so to figure out what is actually going on. The instructions usually make that worse. I think this is why I stayed away from sewing for so long (that and the FB with no A :-)

As I sewed the dress that is ostensibly the topic of this post I was thinking "This is just like vegbee's peasant top and I can make two of those in the time it's taken me to trace the pattern, cut out the tissue, pin the fabric and cut it out."  And you know what? Vegbee's tutorial was just as cute, way more fun and a LOT less stressful. I'll probably make the next dress like this one from that tutorial plus a few rectangles for the gathered tiers. Because do perfectly squared off corners REALLY matter in a dress for a two-year old?

I'm so grateful to and indebted to those I've met through these sewing blogs not only for the support and friendship but for the loads of free information. And this isn't limited to tutorials and patterns, either. I also now know that the Big Four aren't the end-all of commercial patterns. I bought my first Jalie pattern earlier this year and I'm going to put some Ottobre issues on my Christmas list.

So there, Butterick.

Scotty dog plaid in peek-a-boo pleats

Rylee foiled my plans to reuse a lot of last winter's wardrobe, purchased a bit large, by having a growth spurt over the last few months. I recently inventoried her warm weather clothing and came up with several pieces that still fit, but precious few outfits.

Being a crazy, anal-retentive, list-making psycho prudent shopper, I made up a list of everything she has that still fits and what she needs to match it.  I then cross referenced this against my stash, my patterns and my lusty sewing dreams and came up with a pretty big project to get her outfitted for the winter with minimal outlays of cash.

Here's how the first one of those projects shaped up.

Had this shirt which should still fit this winter:

Had these in my stash. The dogs from an impulse purchase last year and yards and yards of the black for making boys bowling shirts:

Found this on Etsy. And after purchasing it even saw the same style skirt on Peggy of Mad Men wardrobe lusciousness.

And had this today:

I'm planning to add black quilted buttons to the top of the pleats. Those need to be purchased and coupon commotion starts tomorrow.

Kitschy Coo Pettiskirt, Version One, Lessons Learned

Because princess-itis has seized our household - earlier and with greater intensity than I could have ever imagined - I decided the time has come to venture into tulle territory. I didn't enter lightly, having wandered on these plains of desperation, climbed these cliffs of insanity while sewing a Tinkerbell costume ten years ago. But motherhood has its costs and pay them we must.

I armed myself with the high quality Kitschy Coo Pettiskirt tutorial and took Rylee shopping to pick out the tulle. I have to thank Amanda here not only for a great tutorial but also for her unwavering support as I begin life in a princess inhabited household. It's nice to know we're not alone in our trials.

My first attempt will be for At Home Dressing Up and not for Public Wearing or Viewing but I do have some valuable lessons learned.

1. Gathering on the serger does make quick work of the gathering but it will certainly eat into your seam allowance if you're dumb enough to forget to add extra for the necessary trimming of the ugly serger seams. This will render your pettiskirt a tutu.

2. Cutting tulle while it's still warm enough to require ceiling fans running will make you cry.

3. Things that are more fun than gathering yards and yards of tulle.

4. Even if you spend an entire nap time (PLUS some) sewing something you already spent an entire nap time cutting out, right after nap is not the best time to present a bratty little ingrate slow to wake toddler with her new princess dress.

5. Things that are higher quality than the tulle I bought.

6. Things that are sadder than watching your rolled hem fall right off the skirt because it was too narrow and the satin frayed away right underneath it.

7. The smirk that makes it worth it and might even make me try again.

Apples and Pears shirtdress

Well, one post in two months is pretty pathetic, even with a long vacation thrown in there. I keep planning to post some pictures of what we've been up to but we didn't really take that many on vacation. And sewing is dragging right now.

But I did manage to sew something with the Alexander Henry Apples and Pears that I coveted for so long. Thanks to KID, MD (the sewing goddess) for the idea for this adorable shirt dress. So super cute!!

Because I just took a serger class and was all geeked out with new techniques, I did a rolled hem on the sleeves and bottom. I wanted a more casual look and thought it might be cute. Eh. It does look cute enough, but I'll probably save it for knits from now on.

I also tried cloth covered buttons for the first time. I don't know why I waited, because if you can put the lid on a bottle of ibuprofen, you can make these things.

I made size 2, even though Rylee is very small in the chest. It came out a little long, but not ridiculously so. She refused to hold still long enough for a picture so all the pictures from the front are just of her lunging for the camera with a maniacal grin on her face. So here's the length from the back.  With all her newly grown curly hair.

Disney Princess Dress

My very first commission! I made this for a friend for her daughter's birthday. She bought the fabric and paid me in a precious barter more valuable than gold: a night of baby sitting. Woot!

It's the same design as Rylee's ladybug and monkey dresses. Time to get away from licensed fabric for awhile, but children want what they want. :)

A certain, covetous two-year old had to keep repeating the mantra "is add'son's pre'cess shirt"

These tops are licensed for home use only

Rylee's current obsessions - held with the ferocity and transience typical of toddler obsessions - are Dora and Toy Story. So what's a mommy to do but bust out some licensed fabric for her precious?

Behold the Dora top, with another pair of shorts made from the same pattern as her birthday shorts.

The polka dot fabric was supposed to be for a dress someone asked me to make her daughter, but it didn't match the main fabric for that outfit. The perils of online fabric shopping. Lemons into lemonade at the neckline and in the britches.

Woody and Buzz don't have matching bottoms, but we have plenty of shorts to match this peasant top.

Here was her reaction when I showed them both to her and asked her which one she wanted to wear. We have the same problem when she's trying to decide which one to watch. Why not both?

And here's her reaction when she figured out I was taking pictures of her reactions.

Butterfly Mini-Mod

I felt like sewing this weekend and even found myself with a nice bit of nap time to do it.  I made another Butterfly Kitschy Coo Mini-Mod Dress. (Since the lovely Amanda is on holiday I can't link directly to the pattern in her Etsy shop, but it's one of my FAVORITE dresses to make for sun dresses or layering.)

It was only after I cut it out that I realized this would be Rylee's second in the butterfly genre. But the first one was black with jewel tones. So.

This one is pink, lavender and brown. And has ladybugs. And I did the middle panel as an outtie rather than an innie. So am I boring and repetitive? Perhaps. But oh well.

I wanted to try something new, so I did the facings right way out just to see what it would look like. It looks cute!

And since a) I'm spatially challenged and b) I only had naptime I didn't try to puzzle out beforehand a new way to do the back since the facings would now be "inside out" in back. So there's just a teeny, not-very-professional twist in back where I folded the back slit over to hide the raw, serged edge. You can't see it and I think it looks fine.

A little girl's sundress. Not for the Grammies red carpet or anything. :-)

Birthday Model in motion

We finally had Rylee's postponed birthday party and it was a blast! And I even got a few pictures of her birthday outfit before she spent the rest of the party in a bathing suit. I should probably quit making special outfits for her party since they're always pool parties.

Mommy got the gift of catching her playing with her handmade tea set. We've had a few impromptu parties with it and she will seek it out on her own. Score!

Although I love to bake and even showoff by creating the fanciest desserts my skills can muster, this year's cake was made with the guest of honor in mind. Behold, the cake that love baked.

And here's the good side of having her in her bathing suit instead of her fancy birthday clothing by the time cake rolls around.

Alas, she had a 2nd piece after being changed into dry clothing and in spite of mommy's careful pre-treating the new top came out of the washer with mysterious blue dye stains. :-(  I washed it once and it came out with no stains but some ground in dirt, so I tossed it back in with a second load. I'm not sure if there was frosting left over from the Backyardigans cake or something in the second load that stained it. Bummer!

So far the stain treating is promising, so maybe this won't be the last picture I have of it unstained.