You may have noticed this new button on the right hand side of my blog, I planned on mentioning it on Monday but completely forgot. I decided to join a few of my friends in the Kid's Clothes Week Challenge this week. This was just what I needed to get back into my sewing. My goodness, I have about a hundred dresses I want to sew for the girls for this summer alone and I really need to get to it. I don't know why but I just have a really hard time transitioning from knitting to sewing and vice versa. Since I have been so wrapped up in cabling, all my sewing just sat on my desk waiting for me to pick back up again. Well on Monday, I finally did.
I wanted to make K a dress to match C's birthday dress, since the girls love to be matchy-matchy. The problem with that project was that I cut the pattern to a size three for C so I couldn't make the size five I needed for K. Then I realized I could just do the other dress in the pattern for K since they are very similar.
I spent Monday cutting out the pattern and fabric with a little help from C (she loves to hand me pins as I need them, and put them back in the pin cushion when I am done with them). Then that night I sewed most of it together.
Tuesday morning I had K try it on (over her PJs) to see how it fit and she refused to take it off. She proclaimed it to be her 'May Faire dress' and went off dancing and twirling in it until I called her back for our pancake making time.
It seemed to fit well, I like my girls' clothes to be loose on them so I made it one size up and omitted the ties in the back that made the pattern more form fitting.
I did manage to get the dress back from her before bed Tuesday night and I tried to hem it but had no luck. C's dress was easy for me to hem as it was just a gathered skirt, but K's is pleated front and back so I am totally confused. I tried pinning it up different ways but no matter what I did, it was all uneven. I haven't had any hemming challenges in years so I am at a loss. Anyone have any tips or know of any online resources for hemming skirts with pleats?
I have just enough of that fabric left to sew the matching bloomers for both girls' dresses so I plan on doing those next (after I figure out this hem issue). I think I'll make one or two simple skirts for K this week, too. I need to buy more fabric soon so I can keep up with my dress assembly line. I have a decent fabric stash but most of it is in 1/2 yard or less pieces which makes it a bit hard to find clothes to sew for the girls with.
Since Mother's Day has passed, and Nana and Grandma both received their gifts, I thought I would share K's presents for them - Handmade book marks. I had her use a disappearing fabric pen to draw and write whatever she wanted to and then I embroidered the images in. The ink hadn't fully disappeared yet when I took the picture. Purple Grandma's had purple fabric for the back (surprise, surprise!) and Nana's had orange. We hope they liked them!
Ok, well back to sewing. Anyone else joining in this challenge? Wishing you all the best!
Happy creating!!
19 comments:
what sweet bookmarks. and I love the dresses. I'm so inspired by all this kids clothing sewing.
K's dress looks so cute on her. She's getting so tall! No hints on the hem, sorry. Elizabeth has her exact same slippers. :) Those bookmarks are adorable! I may have to borrow that idea for grandparent gifts.
I am afraid I won't be joining in on this, as I am not a very good sewer! I really do want to get better at sewing, it just seems there aren't enough hours in the day to tackle all of the things on my creative to-do list! My mother-in-law is an excellent seamstress though, and she has recently made my daughter the most beautiful dresses for Summertime. I'll have to share some photos soon on my blog.
I love the dress(es) you made, and I truly admire your skill and talent---and your devotion to handmade things for your girls. Fabulous!!
I usually do my hems before I attach the skirt to the waist or the bodice. But now that I'm thinking about it more, I don't know how that would eliminate the unevenness. But maybe if the girlies just twirled more, nobody would ever notice the hem?
Next time, instead of cutting out the pattern tissue paper provided in the package get some Swedish Tracing Paper or Pattern Ease (this one you can get at JoAnns). Then trace the pattern lines onto that paper and cut that out. Your original pattern stays in tact and you can continue to reuse the pattern to your heart's content. As an extra bonus (at least with the Swedish Tracing Paper) it's a far sturdier medium to work with than the tissue paper in the package.
I look forward to seeing a pictures of the girls matchy-matching! I love the print you're using, it's so cute. I finished my girls pajamas before I got to know of the kid's clothes week challenge and now I moved on to a different project sdo I'll miss out on this one. I'll keep an eye out for the next round.
You could hem the skirt before putting in the pleats, even before doing gathers. You made great progress on that dress! How sweet K is! I sewed even more late last night, Chessa's birthday is very soon, hoping I have enough fabric to make a dress, not just a top, but now that the girls are so much bigger it takes lots more fabric.
I should learn how to add buttons to my blog. I should learn how to do anything to my blog, ha...
Happy sewing!
Such sweet dresses! I'd love to start sewing again so I can get better at it. I find boys stuff so uninspiring though. I have the hardest time finding cute stuff that I can actually do!
I just made a dress for Layla with the same exact fabric!!
Thank you for reminding me of the lazy day skirt pattern. I was looking for a simple skirt pattern.
Are you on mysewingcircle?
Cute fabric for the cute dresses. Love the embroidered bookmarks - great idea, will try to remember it for when my kids are a older!
i don't know how helpful this suggestion might be, but i was working on the skirt in weekend sewing and she suggested hand-sewing a rolled hem for a neater look. love the matchy-matchy! i'm doing the kid's sewing challenge too!
Don't ruin your multi-size patterns by cutting them out. Instead, purchase a bolt of non-fusible lightweight interfacing and trace the size you need onto the interfacing with a marker. Then cut that out and use it as your pattern. Don't forget to write the size on it. Store it in a ziploc bag after.
You know I was afraid of sewing for years because I thought I was lousy. But I got a Bernina and I realized that it wasn't me it was the machine. And yet I've never tried to sew any clothing since I got the machine. I'm still a little fearful of it but I am inspired by your post today. I really should do some sewing for Keiran this summer.
I admire all you mamas that sew your children's clothing...
I am not there yet.
Warm wishes, Tonya
I'm seeing all these lovely mammas sewing the sweetest things for their kiddos...it is encouraging for me to see the possibilities...I've not yet mastered the art of sewing clothes, but the desire is definately there! I love your blog...full of such goodness and creativity!!! I'll be sure to come back again!
bloggy bliss
Maureen xo
Oh, I'm going to do this, even though I'll be starting a bit late. I have a hard time getting into sewing as my machine has to be set up on the kitchen table, then taken down before morning...I feel like one of the cobbler's mice. I did sew for an hour this evening, so I'm going to start today and do it for a week. Glad to have seen this! Love your daughter's dress fabric (and of course, dolly's matching one). I hate hems too.
Hey everyone, thank you for your kind words and help! Idid learn my lesson from that dress and traced the bloomers pattern on interfacing so that I could use all the sizes, thank goodness!!
I still have K's dress hanging there waiting for me to hem it.. I'll try it again, eventually. Although, I do love the idea of just having her twirl more! :)
Imene - I just joined mysewingcircle but can't figure anything out on there! Ha,ha.
Hi there - I saw your post on mysewingcircle.com and decided to check out your blog. We're neighbors :)
Are those horizontal or vertical pleats? Have you tried measuring and then pressing first before hemming? Sometimes because the bottom hemline is slightly larger at the bottom, you may have to "ease" in a bit of fabric. You can do that at the side seams. Another thing that helps is to have narrower hems (not so practical, though, if you want to have something that you can hang on to and grow with your child.
I also saw that you are having difficulties on the site. Hang tight - Mike will try to get it resolved for you. He's been working really hard trying to get things going. It's going to take a while to get up to Ravelry standards. I think Ravelry was in beta stage for quite a while with limited members before they opened it up to the public.
That picture of her stirring the batter is so perfect, you should frame it. The light is beautiful, the colors are so complimentary -- the sun on her golden hair... It's really lovely!
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