My Latest: Dollhouses, Pumpkins, and Pants

a round-up of pumpkin recipes

a round-up of dollhouse projects

and a tutorial for adding knee patches to pants as you're sewing them

These pants were *supposed* to be for Will, but as the first pair of pants that I've sewn her since her recent series of growth spurts, I measured only her waist size, NOT her hip size, and therefore the poor girl couldn't actually get them on!

And that's how it's Syd here who's showing off what then became HER brand-new pair of pants:

Unfortunately, that plain blue was the only length of flannel that I had in my stash that was somewhat normal, so the five or so pairs of pants that I did eventually manage to sew for Will are significantly louder and more chaotic, but fortunately, my girl is pretty loud and chaotic, herself, and she loves them. 

And if anyone in town ever sees a lost kid who's wearing flannel pants that are pink with horses on one leg and grey with butterflies on the other, or are blue with checks on one leg and blue with stripes on the other, then it will immediately be clear who she belongs to!

My Latest: Colored Cellophane and a Junior Ranger Vest

a tutorial for copying an existing piece of clothing, using this Junior Ranger vest I'm making for Will

I used her Girl Scout vest as a template.

a tutorial for the 3D glasses that Will made, also as a Girl Scout project

and a tutorial for these color viewers that I made, inspired by the 3D glasses

I was worried these color viewers would be a little baby-ish for my two, as they're usually used for sensory play for preschoolers, but oh, my gosh, they LOVE them, and they're a useful addition to our science enrichment supplies. 

I've got a couple of etsy orders to make early this week, but other project goals include sanding and varnishing one last bookshelf from the old general store; sorting, cataloging, and scanning a whole box of World War II correspondence that I found in our attic on Saturday before I call our home's former owners and tell them what a treasure I found (and sorted, and cataloged. I might stay quiet about the scanning...) for them; chipping old cement off of marble slabs that used to be bathroom counters in some fancy bathroom at the university, but that I would like to be wall shelves here; and lengthening some pants for Will, because it's getting cold here, and the poor kid has stretched out of all of her pants!

I know I should do that last project first, on account of cold weather, but yeah, I'm probably going to play with my World War II letters all week instead.

A Rose Dress Bodice Muslin, of Sorts

Yes, it's fashion show season again! This year, Syd designed a "Rose Dress," one whose details were a little on the light side this time around, since all her design sketches turned into grand "Sydney on the Runway, Framed by Lights and Surrounded by an Enamored Audience" sketches.

Although my main goal is that Syd take ownership of her design, I didn't push too hard for additional details since, just between you and me, this way it's a little more likely that I'll be able to actually create the dress. Suffice to say, the dress should be red, have a skirt that looks like rose petals, be sleeveless, have wings, and be just as short as I will let it be (and that's knee-length, poor kid).

I have an old bridesmaid's dress given to us by a friend, that I hopehopeHOPE will have enough fabric for the dress' bodice and outer skirt, but I'm trying to be extra careful with the fitting and patternmaking, to be sure, and thus I've been sewing up some practice components in quilting cotton as muslins, of sorts. They're not *real* muslins, because I can't stand to sew anything that isn't wearable on its own, but they do help me create/refine my rose dress pattern, so there you go.

This bodice, for example, comes from Little Girls, Big Style, a book that I LOVE for sewing for Sydney, and I am going to be really sad when she soon maxes out the sizing, sigh:

I used some stash cotton for the outside and the lining (playing for a bit with the idea of making it reversible, but thankfully I abandoned that unnecessary headache), and two giant vintage mismatched white buttons from my stash for the straps. 

Nota Bene: The night that I was sewing this bodice, Matt was out for the evening. He came back quite late, and still found me hunched over the sewing machine (I have terrible, non-ergonomic sewing posture, despite the fact that I sit on a yoga ball). 

"You're not supposed to sew after 10:00," Matt said. "You know you make mistakes." We created this rule after several late-night sewing sessions in which, yes, every evening ended with me making some critical, careless, late-night-induced sewing mistake.

"But it's not ME this time!" I griped. "THIS time there's something wrong with my buttonhole foot!" Indeed, I had been futzing with the damn buttonhole foot for nearly an hour by that time, and I just couldn't get it to work. Clearly, it was broken, or the sewing machine was broken, and I'd have to take it in to THAT sewing machine repair shop, and you know how I feel about that place.

Eventually, bribed with an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras, I did leave the broken buttonhole foot and come to bed. The next morning, walking by my sewing machine on the way to the bathroom, I looked over at it and thought, "Oh, I put the lever on the wrong side!" Problem solved.

And that's why I'm not allowed to sew past 10:00 pm.

The bodice fits perfectly snugly, but was inches too short, so Will helped me measure out and lengthen it:

After lengthening the pattern, and changing the straps (the back of the rose dress will have a zipper, so the straps will be sewn in and needed to look smoother), I've got a rose dress bodice pattern that I'm very happy with. Next, IF I can stop being sick for a few days--can you believe I got the norovirus this weekend?!? That's my third illness since December!!! Whine, whine, whine!!!--is a hoop skirt constructed from unbent wire hangers, and then a circle skirt to encase the hoop skirt, and two layers of petal skirts.

Oh, and wings.

My Latest Over at CAGW: Sticky Jar Labels and Recycled T-Shirt Dresses

a tutorial on removing the paper labels and sticky glue from glass jars

and a review of the Lil Blue Boo Recycled T-Shirt Sienna Dress pattern

Of course, sewing new things for two little girls is simply an excuse to go to the park and have a photo shoot!

I think I'll be making a lot more of those T-shirt dresses. 

Willow's New Pajamas

Somewhere in the midst of the vampire cloak and the mermaid skirt and the biography fair project and painting the girls' new bedroom purple and orange and putting our community garden plot to bed, Willow's new pajamas got themselves sewn:

The pattern is an old McCall's 6535. I like the style of the shirt quite a lot, but the sizing is way off--Willow is lost in her size 7!

Fortunately, the size 7 pants are perfect, and may find themselves sewn up some more in fleece this winter. Time will tell if I attempt to re-size the shirt for another go, or if I just use a different pattern next time:

Will chose the fabric, of course. Now that I've given up craft fairs for the foreseeable future I don't thrift constantly, and thus don't have a huge stash of thrifted material always on hand, so we're visiting the fabric store a lot more these days--thank goodness for sales and my educator's discount card!

I still try to keep my rule that every project must include SOME components from the stash, however, so these pajamas are made from a flower flannel purchased for this project and a purple hearts fabric purchased who-knows-when:

I made a second pair of these pants in that flowered flannel, and I think that one pajama top with two matching pairs of pajama pants will serve nicely in lieu of two complete sets of pajamas. Syd is getting one pair of pajamas and one nightgown, AFTER the Halloween costumes are finished:

And then both girls are getting some pairs of fleece pants for the winter, for everyday wear accompanied with thrifted T-shirts (or thrifted elaborate party dresses, in the case of the younger sister):

And what will I wear this winter?

Eh, who cares?

Battle of the Home-Sewn Shorts: Oliver + S Bedtime Story Pajama Shorts

Near-ish the end of summer: the perfect time for a kid to have a growth spurt, wouldn't you say?

Will has spent years at almost the same waist size, shooting up primarily in height. This means that each summer she could wear the shorts of the summer before, if they hadn't gotten TOO short, and the pants of the winter before, only we called them capris.

In the course of just the last month, though, the kid has not only shot up again in height, but also gained an entire inch in her waist measurement. All those old shorts and pants? They're gone, baby.

These days, I generally only buy kids' clothes if they're 1) dirt-cheap (think garage sale), 2) vintage (think Syd's Partridge Family dress--squee!), 3) ridiculously fancy and therefore impractical to make at home (think party dresses for Syd), or 4) cheap but with an awesome print (think all of Will's dinosaur/Star Wars/comic book T-shirts), and even then only if they're thrifted.

Everything else, from underwear to pants to pajamas, I've been trying to make myself. So in the next few weeks, I'll be testing out a few of the kids' shorts patterns that I've gathered here and there, to find the ultimate pattern for home-sewn picky child shorts.

This Oliver + S Bedtime Story pajama pants pattern wasn't intended to be sewn as shorts, but since the pants are pretty much straight-legged, I just measured up 12" from the bottom hem and then folded the pattern there to make the longer shorts length that I prefer--shorts that cover the knee are obviously going to suffer a lot more wear at the knee, but I prefer my fair-skinned babies more covered than not, generally. Not that you'd know this if you lived near me, since I struggle on a daily basis to keep a single stitch of clothing on them as they play out in the yard, but sun protection is always a good thing in my book.

The Oliver + S pants pattern was really simple to work up, which will be great if I want to make multiples, but my favorite thing about Oliver + S patterns is how no matter how simple the pattern, there are always some special details, such as a separate waistband and binding for the bottom hem, allowing me to do them in a coordinating print:

Again, I just really like the length of these shorts, and the fit is roomy without being TOO roomy, you know?

Of course Sydney, wearing a leotard and cut-offs of last winter's pants, also feels the need to model:

How did I come to have children this unutterably ridiculous?

Will prefers to wear her shorts with a plain white T-shirt (oh, the agonies that I suffer to keep those damn things white!):

The shorts have clearly passed her test, because she can wear them unimpeded as she climbs every single thing in creation, which is her second-favorite pastime:

The shorts also work well with her most favorite pastime, of course:

Also in contention, to be duked out in future blog posts, are a vintage Simplicity pajama pants pattern, the pajama pants pattern from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing, and a second Oliver + S pants pattern, all cut down into shorts.

An Easy-Peasy Superhero Cape Pattern

After making children's superhero capes for a while (superpowers guaranteed!), I've settled on a couple of standard sizes that I think work well for most little superheroes. I've also settled on an exact width that I like, and so that means that it's time to make a pattern!

A superhero cape is a super-easy pattern to make, since it's simply a trapezoid. My pattern piece is a half trapezoid, meant to be placed on the fold and cut:

The length of the pattern piece is the total finished height of the superhero cape, plus an inch at the top to fold over the elastic neck piece. The top width is half of the total finished top width, and the bottom width is half of the total finished bottom width.

Now that I know one or two specific sizes that I prefer for these capes, having a pattern piece is MUCH easier than measuring out each individual cape.

P.S. Want more patterns and tutorials and other awesome stuff? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

A No-Sew Barbie Dress, and a Young Fashion Designer

Ever since our fabulous Barbie dress design workshop at the Indianapolis Children's Museum, I have been quietly whiling away my hours attempting to create a similar design from scratch-ish. I knew that I wanted the dress to have that same simplicity and ease of construction, but knowing what you want a garment to look like isn't really enough if you don't actually know much about patternmaking.

Also, Barbie has really skewed dimensions. It took a while.

Although I still have some corrections to make to my pattern before I share it with you (it needs to be 1/4" wider, I do believe, and the hem should curve more, and I might make it a little longer), my latest mock-up was accurate enough that Sydney and I were able to spend a happy afternoon actually, you know, USING it.

Part of my intention with this pattern is to make it simple enough for even a small child to use, but I ended up cutting out and constructing several dresses all by myself anyway, because Sydney remained focused on one thing only:

DESIGN AND EMBELLISHMENT.

Glitter glue:

 A lot more glitter glue:

 It actually took this particular dress over a day to dry, on account of the two entire tubes of glitter glue that it sports.

Buttons and baubles:

 And a generous helping of hot glue to make it all stick:

And then, a fashion show!

 
 
 
I made these out of felt just so that they'd be quick and easy as a spur-of-the-moment project in which Syd walked up to me as I was working on something else and said, "Let's make doll clothes now!", but once the pattern is all settled and she's actually used it a few times, I plan to open up the entire world of my stash fabric to her, and then I think that the young designer will really be in runway heaven.