Monday, January 21, 2013

Girly and purple

I don't often get to make little girl clothes, being the mother of two boys and all.  Thankfully little M has some adorable girl friends who I can make things for.


And one of them just turned three, and loves purple.  Seriously, everything she wears pretty well must have purple in it.  So since last year I made her this purple backpack, I thought I'd use this chance to make a top!  I had some of the polkadots left from my Kobo cover, and a fat quarter of this floral which I thought would be perfect!  And I had just enough, although the skirt of the shirt is in two pieces.


The pattern is one of the many cute patterns coming out of the Peek-a-boo pattern shop, the Hopscotch top, tunic and dress. And it provided the first opportunity for me to make button holes with my new machine, and they were a success!  Now I'm not so scared to tackle some other waiting projects with lots of buttons!

Sunday, January 13, 2013

A book cover of sorts

I love books,  especially old, musty ones,  books and fabric are two of my favourite things.  So I feel a bit like I'm cheating when I got an e-reader for Christmas (it's a Kobo, the most common type in Canada).  I love supporting our local book shops and e-readers have played a part in several closing this year.  


But when one is stuck on the couch with a sleeping baby that doesn't like being put down, a nice light e-reader is waaay better then heavy books.  Plus it keeps me away from surfing the net on my phone and buying things I don't need, and is a change from re-watching every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix.


I'm also making a point to really just rent e-books from the library (which I frequent otherwise) rather than buy books for it.  I have had to cut down on book buying lately (no space really!) and so I'll keep my infrequent physical book buying to my remaining local shops if at all possible.

So this Kobo needed a cover, and naturally I had to make one.  I took the opportunity (and the gift cards my lovely family got me) to pick up some gorgeous fabrics from the new local (and seriously awesome, I want to move in there) fabric store Fabrications.   I'm so happy they opened up shop, it's pretty much exactly the kind of shop this city needed, and if they have what I want/need, I plan to buy there!   They now also have an online store set up too, you should all check it out.  The owners are lovely people (they put up with little me loitering around for long periods of time! ha!) and I seriously want to buy everything there.

But for this project I picked up some Echino fabric for the outside and some dots for the inside.  I love how I was able to to use the entire pattern on the outside, wasn't sure it would work, but it did!


 I used this tutorial for the cover, and it was pretty easy to follow, just make sure you keep your seam allowances small or the cover will end up too small.  And what's worse is when you've already cut your corners before turning and then... well lets just say, I had to waste a bit of this lovely fabric and start over.  Oops!


Generally it turned out well, although I seem incapable of making square things like this actually square, but it serves its purpose nicely so I try not to notice its slightly wonky shape :)

I may or may not have picked up a bunch of other awesome fabric from Fabrications that's just waiting to become other things you'll hopefully see here in the near future!

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Baby in a Gown

After cutting out in October, I finally got to the last thing on my to do list for fall's KCWC.  What can I say, I'm always a bit ambitious.

I love Growing up Sew Liberated and wanted to make something for the new babe from it.  So I thought I'd try my hand at some more knits (now that I have my new machine with all it's fancy knit stitches!  yay!) And made up a baby sleep sack (or a sleep gown as I like to call it) hehe.


It was super quick and easy (thank you new machine!) And it was actually my first time making a shirt with those cross over shoulders.  They always intimidated me for some reason, I think a fear I'd sew it backwards, but nope, super easy!

The smallest size is a 0-6 months, which on my 5 week old, is just about perfect in length (I'm not sure how tall he is but I'm guessing taller than I think!)  The neck is a bit wide, so I think it I make another, I'll lengthen this size and I figure he'll grow into the neck!


As I suspected, the sack (while a bit of a pain to put on) is super handy for quick diaper changes at night (boy do I look forward to the day when I don't have to change him multiple times at night!)
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