Sewing Squared

A new V-neck tutorial

2011-06-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

A little over 2 years ago now, I made and posted a tutorial for a V-neck shirt. It seems to have helped out a few people, so I thought I'd post another one. (Here is a link to the original, if you're interested)

Cut your neckband piece to needed length and width (for this shirt I cut mine at 2" wide and 28" long). Place raw ends right side together, and measure 1/2" up from the center and mark it with a dot. Then mark from that dot to each corner like this..

Sew basting stitches along the dotted lines, and trim off excess fabric.

Turn neck band right side out, and iron with raw edges together (ironing it in place will help prevent shifting, and ensure that you don't end up missing a layer of fabric while sewing it together). Sorry, I didn't get a picture of that part, but I'm sure you know an iron looks like. ;)
Place the neckband at the center front of the shirt. This is what makes a v-neck the trickiest, because you have to match up opposing angles. ****BEFORE DOING THIS, MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE THE SHOULDER SEAMS OF THE SHIRT SEWN UP***

But, with pins, it's not too hard. So pin the center in place.

Then manipulate it and place 2-3 more pins on each side of the center pin.

Sewing carefully, so as not to hit a pin, baste this center area to the front of the shirt. You've now completed the most arduous part of the v-neck shirt.

Finish sewing on the neck band (I like to serge mine, but you can use a sewing machine if that's what you have available).

You're done!! Well, with the neck band at least. You might want to add sleeves and sew up the side seams. ;)

I hope this helps you, but if anything is unclear, please don't hesitate to leave a comment with questions.

Diapers, wipes and bibs

2011-06-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

Here are a few Very Baby fitted diapers I made. I forgot how much I love sewing up this pattern. The curves on it make it so easy and quick to sew.

I also made up a couple of Happy Snap one-size diapers. I made these as an all-in-two/pocket hybrid. They're made with a PUL outer, hidden bamboo fleece and an inner of bamboo velour, with a snap-in soaker AND a pocket opening for stuffing in extra layers.

Then, I made up this fitted diaper. I really like the curves of the Very Baby pattern, but what I don't like is the sizing. It tends to run pretty small, so each size is outgrown very quickly. I have the Darling Diaper Unlimited (DDU) pattern, and the sizing is much better, but I didn't like the front and wing curves. So I just merged the two patterns together, and I now have a better sized diaper with curves that are extremely easy to sew.

I also made a few bibs. I ordered a couple of bibs from a WAHM and I love them, but they'd get very expensive very quickly if you wanted a stash of them. So I used the ones I ordered as inspiration for making a few more for my own stash.

Lastly, I used up a few scraps to make some wipes/washcloths. They're 8"x8", and while I intended them to be the start of a wipes stash, they've very quickly been snatched up for washcloths. :)

DONE!!

2011-06-13T21:59:00.001-07:00

Here we go, a clean sewing room (just ignore the sandals in the middle of the floor). Time got away from me though, and I didn't get to snap a few pictures of recent sewing projects, so those will come tomorrow. :)

Accountability

2011-06-13T10:09:00.000-07:00

Here's my cleaning accountability post. My sewing room has been a *disaster* for a couple weeks now, and my goal today is to have another post by the end of the day with updated pictures of a CLEAN sewing room. And while I'm at it, I'll take and post some pictures of recent sewing projects...which all happen to be cloth diapers. :)

Messy room pictures...

Bubble dress take 2....& 3

2011-05-13T12:00:00.001-07:00

Here're 2 more Oliver + S Bubble Dresses. I really love this pattern. Goes together fairly quickly, and the finished product is so cute!

Diaper, diaper, wherefore art thou diaper?

2011-05-09T12:27:00.000-07:00

We've been heard a time or two....or two thousand, quoting Romeo and Juliet in our house lately. Not that it really has anything to do with this post, only that it might help explain the silly title. ;)

I've been sewing up quite a bit lately, but as is my typical fashion, I rarely get around to taking or posting pictures. Since I have a bit of free time today though, I figured I should get caught up.

Up first are some diapers that I made last week. We were working on an adoption of a little girl, but that feel through a few days ago. Instead of spending the day feeling sad, and decided to spend the day working on my boy diaper stash. Now we're on our way to being a little more prepared for either, or perhaps even both, a boy or a girl.

All but 3 of these dipes are from the Darling Diapers Unlimited (DDU) pattern, the other 3 are from a Very Baby pattern. Some of them are just serged, and some are turned and topstitched. I prefer the look of the turned and topstitched ones, but I much prefer the speed of making the serged ones. lol

Next up, a couple Oliver + S Tea Party dresses. I actually made these about 2 months ago, but I never posted them, so here they are.

Here is my very favorite dress; the Oliver + S Bubble dress. I love, LOVE, *LOVE* this dress. It didn't, however, love me. Or perhaps my tired mind just didn't want to comprehend what I was doing wrong. I took me about 5 times to get the bodice and skirt sewn together properly. I finally had it right, topstitched it....only to realize that I did not, in fact, have it right. So out came all the topstitching, serger stitching, and the sewing machine stitching...again. I did finally get it right though....only to want to throw it in the trash when it came to the bottom button hole. Grr..... My button holer was working perfectly on the scratch fabric, like it always happens, and it even did the top 2 button holes perfectly, but for some reason, it was dead set against sewing that last one. I must have ripped out those stitches 6-7 times before I gave up, and just moved the hole up about 1/2". For some reason that worked (I think the edge of the button hole foot was partly on top of the seam allowance). After all of that, I still love both the dress and the pattern. I plan to make a few more very soon.

And lastly, a few baby girl outfits. All random Ottobre patterns, except the gown in the very last picture; that's a Kwik Sew pattern.

PJs and an AWESOME gift from my dad

2011-02-09T20:04:00.000-08:00

Here are 2 pair of PJs that I made recently, and hadn't gotten around to showing yet. First up are the kids Christmas PJs...of which I only have one modeling picture, and they're getting shown a bit late, because....well....they were made a bit late. :p

Each of the kids got the same PJs, with the only difference being the neckbands (there's green, red, orange and blue).

Then we move onto the "cowboy" PJs. I made a pair of these pants for each of the boys, but I'd only managed to make the shirt for this little man. I do have the embroidery done on another shirt, just haven't gotten around to sewing it up yet. *This was my very first embroidery project, and I think it turned out pretty well. I did learn a thing or two about placement (this one is a little bit for in my opinion), and I also decided that I'm going to go ahead and stabilize on the top AND the bottom when embroidering on knits*

And the grand finale....

....

My dad come to visit me today, and he decided to gift this Cricut Expression (along with all those extras) to me!!! He had it laying around his house thinking he might use it (gotta say, my dad's a sucker for infomercials lol), and when he realized it was just collecting dust, he decided that I should have it! How amazing and generous is that?!?! I've been wanting to try one for a long time now, but I just couldn't ever bring myself to spend the money on it, especially when I didn't know how often I would use it. But now that I have one for FREE, I don't feel guilty about it at all! I've been wanting to get back into stamping and making my own cards, but now I'll be doing that with my Cricut! (Just incase you couldn't tell by all those exclamation marks, I'm totally stocked about this!! lol)

Another try at a difficult pattern

2011-02-04T10:53:00.001-08:00

So you may, or may not, remember my post about sewing up a Jetro romper from Otto 4-08. Here's a picture of the original romper I made.

It had a few problems. Some where the way I sewed it, and some were just the result of the pattern itself. The placket was really hard to manage, and binding it was a nightmare. It's no surprise to me that I left that pattern alone and never came back to it....until last night.

You see, last night I saw a tutorial for modifying the pattern to be a full front snapping pattern, and I decided to give it another go. This is the result.

I'm very pleased with the outcome, and sewing up this version was much, much easier than the original. I did have a slightly hard time trying to get the snap placement correct at the crotch area, and I'll make sure to space it out a little better next time, but other than that, it was great improvement on a pattern that I thought I'd never touch again.

Back in action

2011-01-25T22:17:00.000-08:00

I'm finally back in the sewing game after having my sewing room packed up for almost a year. We bought a house in December and finally got the sewing room painted and set up.

Here are a few pictures of the room.

Here is a picture of the last two day's sewing projects. I finally decided that I wasn't going to hang on to this fabric anymore. I'd rather see it get used than see it on the fabric shelf, so I used up the last of my Japanese VW buses fabric and made BBs for the boys. :)

I've also sewn up 9 pairs of pjs, but I haven't photoed them yet. As soon as I do, I'll get them posted on here.

And in very exciting sewing room news, I've acquired an embroidery machine...and even figured out how to use it!! I know how to center the design, but I just need to find a good formula for figuring out how high or low to place the design. I embroidered a pj shirt for my daughter, but the design is about 2 inches too low, and I'm sure there's a way to figure out the perfect placement without trial and error.

before and after pics

2010-01-04T16:02:00.000-08:00

One of my very dear friends wanted to know what my sewing room was looking like now that I've gotten rid of so much stuff. I don't have a before picture from very recently, but this is a pretty good representation of how much fabric there was, just fill all the shelves and add a bunch more on top of the shelving units.

This is what I have left. The shelf of the right side of the picture, plus the box just to the left of it, has all the fabric that I still need to get rid of. The top shelf has a couple of boxes that are already sold (these will get mailed tomorrow) and some Christmas fabric I'm not sure if I'm keeping or not, the shelf under it has some more boxes that I've packed up to sell as a FRB lot and some Heather Ross fabric I have listed on Ebay, and then the bottom 2 shelves are things I still need to find a home for.

The shelving unit in the closet has what I'm keeping; 1 box of bamboo jersey, 1 box of knit prints, 1 box of wovens, and then my bamboo velours and fleeces.

Making PJs/Using Up Fabric

2010-01-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

Did you know that sewing is a great way to use up fabric? What a novel concept! ;) I've been downsizing the sewing room, and decided last night that I'd actually sew up some of this fabric instead of just selling it.

Miss C has been going through a MAJOR growth spurt for the last month, and has outgrown almost all her clothes. About 2 months ago I was sewing a size 140 (or 10 in US sizing) for her, and today I made this PJ set for her in a size 152 (or 12 is US sizing). At least as an infant it took her about 3 months to go up one size, but she just grew 2 sizes in a month! No wonder she's had so many growing pains. :/

Anyways here's the photo. Pattern is from Ottobre 4/2004, leggings and girls shirt.

Cleaning and downsizing

2009-12-31T14:43:00.000-08:00

That's what I've been doing in the sewing room for the last month. :/ My husband has decided that he's going to get out of the military and go back to school. Whoo-hoo! I'm actually really excited to be done with the military life. It's been good for our family, but it's time to move on. Unfortunately, he still has a little over a year left before he can get out, and he got orders back to Iraq for another 8 months, leaving in the next couple months. Sooo, the kids and I are moving in with my mom and dad in February, where we'll be until Josh is done with school. (he wants to go to school in Seattle, and we just can't afford for all of us to live there)

That brings us the the cleaning and downsizing. Since most of our stuff will be in storage for about 3 years, we decided that we really needed to downsize, and the easiest place to start is the sewing room....of course. LOL Actually it hasn't been traumatizing at all. In fact it's been pretty liberating, being able to get rid of so much of my fabrics and threads
(I've gotten rid of 97 spools of serger thread so far, and I still have over 50 left! Who on earth needs that many??). I have/had so many fabrics that I love, but unfortunately I loved them so much I couldn't even bring myself to use them (like this huge stash of Heather Ross fabrics). It feels great to be able to rid myself of them, because I know I'll never use them, so they may as well be sold so that someone else can use them (or maybe they'll just horde them too lol). :)

I'm limiting myself to 5 boxes of fabrics that I can keep, and that IT! I have one box for my bamboo jerseys, which I use for sewing my shirts, one box of knit prints, for the kids, one box of wovens, and then 2 long totes that will hold my bamboo fleece and velour that I use for diapers (which I'm still hoping I'll have a need for sometime). That'll still allow me to have enough fabrics and variety that I'll be able to sew anything I want without having to buy any extras.

I've sold quite a bit of stuff on sewingmamas.com (a sewing forum I'm on), and ebay (for the more valuable stuff), but I've got so much more fabrics to sell that I think I may just list it as one big lot on craigslist. Has anyone had much luck selling or even buying fabrics there?

Christmas Eve PJs

2009-12-10T12:44:00.001-08:00

One of our family traditions is opening one gift on Christmas Eve. My parents did this with my sister and I, and we've carried it on. However my husband and I streamlined this a little bit by always giving the same gift; pjs to wear that night. :)

Sometimes they have matching pjs, sometimes not. This year I decided to go with matching, because it's been a couple years since we've done it this way.

I found a super cute penguin flannel at JoAnns, and bought was I thought was "more" than enough, and ended up only having about 2 inches left over. :/ At least there was enough though, and I didn't have to hunt down more. I used a different, matching, color of cotton/lycra jersey to make shirts for each of them, so they match, but not too much so. Cortney has pink, Ryley has red, Jacob has green and Jordan has orange.

Please ignore all the string on the floor. It makes the sewing room feel a little more used if I leave them there. :p

Blocked no more!

2009-10-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

I think I finally got over the sewing block, now I just need to get over the picture taking block. lol I've sewn 4 shirts for myself and 7 cloth diapers in the last week, but I haven't photographed a single thing yet. I cut out a pair of pjs for my 7 year old, but I haven't gotten around to actually sewing them yet, but I'm going to try to get that done today. And I'm hoping to convince my DH to play photographer, so I can get some pictures updated.

So what have all of you been sewing recently, and are good sharing photos of your latest work?

Sewing block?

2009-08-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

If writers can get writing block, does that mean that sewers can get sewing block? I think it must be possible, because it's happening to me. I want to sew, really I do. But I walk into the sewing room, see all the fabrics, look through all the patterns, then uninspired, I walk back out of the sewing room. Anyone know how to cure sewers block?

another Soap Nuts giveaway!

2009-08-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

Passionate Homemaking is doing another giveaway for Soap Nuts, only this time it's a liquid version!! To be entered you just need to go the the website and leave a comment, and then for a second entry just blog about it.

A few more burp cloths and an outfit

2009-07-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

Here's another outfit with a matching bib (pattern here) that I made today. I really need to just wait until it's daylight outside before taking these pictures, but I never remember until it's dark, but I hate the horrible lighting. Anyone one know of a good, and cheap, artificial light setup for photos?

And here's 6 more of the burp cloths that I shared yesterday. I really, really can't believe how fast and easy these are to sew. I can see myself making loads of these when I want to sew, but don't know what to sew.

Burp cloths, receiving blankets and onsies

2009-07-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine posted a link to this free New Conceptions burp cloth pattern, and I decided to try it out yesterday.....

LOL I *LOVE* simple and quick projects, and this is both simple and quick, so I made up 10 of them and still have 5 more cut out. I used flannel as the top layer and organic bamboo fleece as the bottom layer. There's also 2 receiving blankets I made, one is done just by serging the edges and one done with mitered corners. Serging is definitely quicker, but I like te look of the mitered corners better.

Here's a few onsies I made yesterday as well. The 3 on the left are made using Kwik Sew 2433, and the 2 on the right are from Ottobre 5-06. the Kwik Sew pattern seems to run wide, but maybe I just don't remember how chubby babies can be. ;)

A sweet newborn outfit...

2009-07-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

I made this sweet newborn outfit for a very dear online friend of I mine who's expecting a little girl. I'm super pleased with how it turned out, and I hope she loves it.

Gown and hat are kwik-sew patterns, and dipe is a very baby fitted.

I really want to sew, but....

2009-07-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

my sewing room is a disaster!! I have several projects that I need to get done, including my sisters b-day present. (her b-day was last Tuesday :S ) I just can't do anything in the room when it's that bad, and unfortunately I know I can't, because it gets that bad frequently.

Anyone want to help clean this mess up??? LOL

Okay, I guess I'll have to tackle the mess on my own. Hopefully I'll get it done tonight....

I love giveaways!

2009-06-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine posted about this giveaway on her blog, and I just had to enter. Passionate Homemaking is doing a giveaway for twenty 5 load samples of soap nuts. I've heard of soap nuts before, and I'd like to try them, but I've never quite gotten around to it. This giveaway seems like the perfect opportunity for me (or maybe you, if you enter too) to have a chance at trying them out for FREE! I love free things, don't you?

A slew of new shirts and single skirt, all for me!

2009-06-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

Here are the shirts and skirt that I made yesterday. All the shirts are from ottobre 2-2007, and the skirt is just a self-drafted yoga waist skirt.

All of these fabrics are bamboo jersey. I absolutely *LOVE* my bamboo fabrics, you'll never find anything that feels so yummy against your skin. :)

In order, there's one more of the modified Rose tops (different sleeves, and knit band), the shirt in the first picture and the green and purple one here are both actually Rose tops too, I just changed the neckline and sleeves, then there's 2 tank tops.

Catching up a little bit

2009-05-11T17:06:00.000-07:00

I really need to be better about posting what I'm working on. I've sewn a lot lately, but I never seem to remember to take pictures until I have too many things to post about. So here's just a few of the things that I've worked on in the last week or so.

Here's a few dipes from the Darling Diapers Unlimited pattern that I recently purchased. So far I like this pattern, though I've changed a couple of things about the soaker, where it snaps in (the snaps were *really* low, so I raised them up), and also the shape (just made it a little narrower and rounder at front).

A couple outfits from NCBE and a laptee set from Ottobre.

This Jetro romper from Ottobre was a HUGE nightmare for me, until I emailed Ottobre and asked if they had any other illustrations for this and they sent me a wonderful PDF that better showed how to do the front placket.

Here's a couple Rose Top shirts from Ottobre with self-drafted yoga waist skirts for myself.

A little late and a little early

2009-04-26T15:29:00.001-07:00

I'm a little late in showing the Easter shirts I made for the kids on Easter morning, but here they are. I hadn't planned on making anything this year, but when I woke up that morning I decided that they needed something after all so I made them all matching shirts. I love how these look together, just like little Easter eggs. :)

Then I'm a little early with the baby outfits, since we don't have a baby on the way yet. Hopefully we'll be expecting again by the end of the year. For some reason I have the assumption that we'll have another boy. I have 16 outfits made so far, and 14 of them are for a baby boy.

Ottobre 3-08 Baby Romper Sew-Along

2009-04-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

Hopefully this all makes sense, and helps you make this outfit.

Cut out all pieces, and mark snap placements according to pattern.

There are 2 different front pieces for this pattern. Both are pictured here, though a little backwards, because the one on the right side, with the crotch seam (which I'll call pattern piece "B"), will actually be on the left side and overlap the other piece, without the crotch seam(which I'll call pattern piece "A").

This piece is the one that was on the right in the upper picture (piece B), the one with the crotch seam. Make sure that you remember NOT to sew this shoulder seam until AFTER you're done binding. I learned the hard way the first time I made this, so I wrote it on the pattern, and I also mark this shoulder with a pin so I can't sew it. :)

Sew the back pieces together.

Sew the shoulder seam of pattern piece A (the one without the crotch seam) to the back.

Sew on the sleeve.
*I had already done the binding on both sleeves*

Line up crotch pieces of pattern piece B and back.

Sew together.

Now, sew the side seam closed on the side that you've attached the sleeve to.

Starting at the shoulder on pattern piece B that you haven't sewn together, apply binding to right side of fabric, and go all the way around until you get the shoulder on the back of the outfit.

Fold binding over and topstitch down.

Sew together that shoulder seam now, then sew on sleeve and bind the other leg. Then sew the side seam. (my picture doesn't show the side seam sewn, because I forgot to take a pic of that step)

Now I take 3/4" twill, tape fold it in half, then half again, so it's now 4 layers thick. I sew on a piece to the wrong side of the fabric at each spot where the snaps will go on pattern piece A. This way I won't tear the fabric when unsnapping.

I also use twill tape that I sew onto the seam allowance, as shown, so that I can apply snaps to the inside of outfit and don't have to use ties as the pattern originally calls for. Just make sure that the twill tape sticks out enough so that you can apply a snap to it.

Here's what it looks like on the inside with the snaps.

And here's the outside, all finished up.

More baby sewing!

2009-04-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple more baby boy outfits that I finished up yesterday. All the patterns are from Ottobre. I'm really hoping that someone I know has a little boy, so I can send these to a good home. Either that or our family needs to grow. :)

I was so proud of the dye job I did on the brown in this set. It matches those brown monsters perfectly!

Dipes, dipes and more dipes!

2009-04-07T10:22:00.001-07:00

20 diapers in 2 days. I know that may not seem like a lot to some, but wow, I don't think I'll try to do that many again any time soon. Here's 20 size small Very Baby fitted dipes, 10 of them are side snap (my preference) and 10 front snap (my DH's preference). I decided to just go with a natural bamboo interlock for the outer layer that way they're gender neutral, since we don't know if we'll need them for a boy or a girl, or both. :)

Inner layer is OBV, and absorbent layers are bamboo fleece.

Here's a closeup of one of the side snap dipes.
And a closeup of a front snap dipe. I added extra snaps to these after I took the picture, so that I can cross over the front wings to make the waist smaller.

Baby sewing!

2009-03-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

I absolutely *love* sewing baby stuff. There's something that is incredibly satisfying about it for me. So I was very excited when I learned that a very dear friend of mine in Texas had another little boy, and also to receive a invitation to a baby shower for an acquaintance.

These first 2 outfits are for my friend in Texas (I'm really hoping that I actually get to the PO and mail these before her baby outgrows them). The dinos outfit is from the New Conceptions Baby Essentials pattern, and the romper is KS 3090.

These 2 outfits are for tomorrow's baby shower. The robots outfit is from the New Conceptions Baby Essentials pattern, and the gown is KS 3090.

Here are some wool diaper covers that I sewed up today also. I've, at times, thought about breaking into the WAHM cloth diaper business, and so I like to tinker around with sewing dipes and covers. Maybe one day I'll feel confident enough to actually go into business, but until then I'll just keep sewing these cute little things that I have no need for. :)

I got the pattern for these covers from Katrina's blog. After I traced the NB size I thought that there was no way they were going to fit a baby because they looked sooo small, but there they are next to a NB diaper, and they fit over it perfectly. There's even a picture showing how well they fit over the dipe. The pattern is so easy and goes together very well, I will definitely be making more of them.

Sew along for binding in the flat...

2009-02-15T18:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a tutorial for how to do binding in the flat.

Here my tank top front and back pieces with one shoulder seam sewn together. (when you're sewing in the flat you only sew one seam together before attaching the binding)

Before sewing one the binding I adjust my stitch width on my serger to the widest setting.

Take your binding strip and lay it right sides together on top of the neckline for the shirt.
I leave my binding strip overlapping a little bit so that it's easier for my coverstitch machine to grab it later on.

Start serging it on, gently stretching the binding as you sew.

Here it is once it's all serged on.

Turn the binding strip over so that it's now covering the threads.

And turn it down once more so that it's now looped to the inside of the shirt.

Now coverstitch (or top stitch however you normally do) the binding in place.

Now take your other shoulder seam and serge it together.

Stitch that seam down, I always do it so that the seam in pointing towards the back of the shirt.

Here's what it looks like once it's stitched down.

And here's what it looks like when you're done.
(Obviously the whole shirt isn't done, but the neck binding is.)
If you're binding the arms (like I will be because this is a tank top) then apply the binding to the arm holes now, coverstitch it down, and serge up the side seams.

A tutorial for a V-neck shirt

2009-02-13T22:17:00.001-08:00

***Update: I've posted a newer version of a v-neck shirt here***

Hopefully this is helpful to someone. My sister asked me to show her how to do a v-neck and I thought I'd go ahead and post it here. This may not be the best or easiest way for everyone, but it's the way I do it, and I love the results.

First thing I do is cut my neckband and iron it in half lengthwise.
Then overlap the ends to form your "v" shape.

I then sew the edges down, so I don't have to worry about them shifting while I'm actually sewing this piece onto the shirt.

Here is the stitching.

I then trim off the excess fabric from the corners.

Here is the front of the shirt with the band right under it. The angles are completely the opposite, so you'll have to pin this together to keep everything in place.

Here is mine pinned in place.

And here's what it looks like form the opposite side.

Then I serge the band in place.

Stopping when I get to the corner and turning it.

A picture of what it looks like on the inside once the band in serged on.

Then you flip it and topstitch it.

Here's the final product.

Ottobre 2-07 Rose Shirt

2009-01-21T15:09:00.000-08:00

I love this shirt, and I can see several more in my future. The pattern is the Rose Shirt from Ottobre 2-07 (with a couple of small modifications), and the fabric is a delicious bamboo/cotton/lycra jersey.

Little sis's pjs, and some shirts for me

2008-12-15T17:25:00.001-08:00

My little sister (who's 10) is, well, kind of bright and loud and obnoxious, and I absolutely love her. Really, I'd have to love her to make these pjs for her, because they just scream 1980's, and for some reason I find that reprehensible. These fabrics were in a box of fabrics that my mom gave me, and were some of the ones I planned on tossing because I didn't like them. However my little sis saw them and instantly fell in love with the bright yellow flannel and panda bears interlock and asked that I make her some pjs with them. I hate these pjs, they're hideously ugly, but it's what she wanted so now she's going to have to live with them. (and she's probably going to love them because that's how she is)

Here are 2 long sleeve shirts for me, using ottobre 2-07 and adding a little length to the 3/4 sleeves.

And here are the two pj shirts that I needed to make to match the flannel lounge pants that I made a few days ago.

PJs for me.....

2008-12-10T20:04:00.001-08:00

I thoroughly enjoy sewing for myself just as much as I enjoy sewing for everyone else in my family, so I was rather thrilled when I realized that I needed more PJs. I still need to make 2 shirts to match 2 pairs of the flannel pants, but for now I'm just using other PJ shirts I have that match. Pants are KwikSew 3602 (watch out, they have a 5/8" SA) and the shirts are from Ottobre 2-07

Christmas sewing!

2008-12-10T19:47:00.001-08:00

I love Christmas, and I love Christmas sewing. So I've been very happy this week to spend hours and hours in my sewing room. Here's what I've been working on...

Lounge pants for my dad. I don't have a tried and true mens shirt pattern, so I just bought a RTW shirt. Pattern is KwikSew 2687

Chef's hat for my youngest nephew, Nathan. I still need to add the velcro to the back, but I love how cute this is and it'll go perfectly with his felt food I made him. Pattern is from Ottobre 4-04.

A set of 4 cloth napkins and 2 facecloths for my mom. The napkins are just 2 layers of cotton woven serged together with a rolled hem, and the facecloths are flannel on one side and organic bamboo velour on the other.

A set of 4 cloth napkins for my Aunt (on top) and a set of 4 for my Grandma (on the bottom).

A warming bag filled with rice for each one of my kids.

A few of the fabric gift bags that I've made. Several of them are already being used, and I still have a pile that I need to finish topstitching.

Felt Pizza

2008-12-02T21:32:00.000-08:00

I was a little late in sewing my nephews birthday felt food (I just mailed it today and his b-day was almost a month ago), so I decided that I wasn't going to procrastinate on his Christmas set, a felt pizza set.

Felt food has taught me a few lessons, the biggest one being that I hate, I mean really, with every fiber of my being, *hate* hand sewing. His birthday food was a sandwich and pita set, which I hand sewed (and mailed before photographing). This pizza set was all done on the sewing machine. It took me about 15 minutes to make this set on the machine, but it would've taken days for me to get it done if I was hand sewing it all (okay it probably would have taken me weeks to finish it). I will concede to the fact that hand sewn felt food looks much better, but my nephew is 3, I don't really think he's going to care very much how I sewed it together, he's just going to be happy that I made it for him.

My sewing room is finally all set up!

2008-12-02T21:24:00.000-08:00

I finally got my sewing room all moved and set up. I've even sewn a few things in it and made it look a little cluttered. Here's a few pictures of my sewing space, starting with the closet (which is just inside the door) and going counter-clockwise around the room.

My dad and I just went and picked up this Koala cutting table tonight. Oh my gosh, it was so heavy and hard to get up the stairs. This thing is not leaving this room, unless my DH wants to move it. It's a wonderful table though, and is absolutely *huge*.

I'm very happy to have it all done, and I feel like I have so much room, which makes me want to sew even more.

BB's for DH

2008-12-02T12:16:00.000-08:00

Do you ever make something just because you have this hysterically funny idea in you're head that needs to come out? Well, a couple of days ago my DH let me know that he needed more boxer briefs, and immediately this idea popped into my head of using one of the iron-on appliqués that I have. Here is a picture...

I love the "hot diggity dog" appliqué, and hopefully my DH gets a laugh out of this pair.

Then I decided to use up the last of this dragon knit I had, and used it for the front and back cod pieces.

Yet more PJs

2008-11-22T21:55:00.000-08:00

Here're a few mores sets of PJs, 3 for each one of the boys. The pants pattern is from Ottobre's 4-03 issue, and the shirts are from my most used Ottobre issue, 4-04.

I've sewn up 4 more pairs of pants, but I haven't gotten the shirts sewn yet. I have the fabrics picked out for these 2 pants,

but I need to get for cranberry interlock for these penguins pants, and more white interlock for the ladybug pants.

Hopefully I'll be done with these soon. I actually like sewing pjs, but I've been doing nothing but sewing them for the last week, and I'm ready to move on to something else now.

Modified Jalie Cross Front Top

2008-11-22T14:57:00.000-08:00

I searched high and low for a good knit dress pattern for my DD. I never did find exactly what I was looking for, but I did find this cute Jalie cross front pattern that was very close. So I just modified it a little bit by adding some length to get the dress that I wanted.

I'm very pleased with how this turned out. Cortney loves it, and has requested a few more.

Pajama-Rama

2008-11-19T10:18:00.000-08:00

Why do all of my children seem to run out of PJs before anything else? Maybe it's because I tend to leave sewing them until last, which really means I don't make them often enough. Well, I decided to fix that, and I made whole stack of them this past weekend. I made 7 pairs for my boys, and 2 for my DD. I still have a bunch more to do, but here are the ones I finished.