Dresses

I have been hard at work on the dresses for us girls to wear to Sunny's wedding. I finished Nin's and mine, but KK is holding out for this huge swirly, gathered, ruffled dress. I don't have time and she can't even be bribed with a different dress.

So here is Nin's.

Pattern:
Olabelhe's Ameila
Size 7 with extra length since her patterns run small
fabric is from Ikea from my last trip to Oregon!










And here is my dress in possibly the most unflattering picture of myself to date. Taken by my 8 year old. This dress required so many alterations from the original pattern to even fit properly. I lengthened it overall, and it could still stand to have another inch or so, lengthened the bodice, elimiated one set of the back darts, enlarged the bust, took in the back neckline and took in the waist.

This is a Simplicity pattern.

I chose this fabric so it would match my fabulous gray shoes, but now looking at the picture I am not sure that I like them together.....

Flashback Friday

I am starting a new tradition! Flashback Friday!! Two reasons really. One, I have a ton of old kellybellybag photos and two, this week I have been hard at work and don't really have anything to show for it. I made a Superman shirt for my nephew Theo for his first birthday, but I serged the shoulders pieces on backward and I haven't felt like seam ripping. And Sunny's wedding gave me the perfect excuse to work on a very tailored, well constructed dress for myself. I don't have a lot of occasion to wear fancy dresses and as a result I haven't ever challenged myself to make one. So, I started this week with altering my pattern, making a muslin (practice) dress and finally cutting out the real deal and starting to sew last night. It's a lot of work beause my body proportions do not match up to the patterns out there. But that's the main reason seamstresses sew their own clothes right! I just can't walk into Macy's and ask for a dress that is one size on top, a different size on bottom, longer bodice, extra length in the skirt portion and fewer back darts.

Whew! So here are some older kellybellybag creations.

A dress for my little Nin in 3/09. A Farbenmix Vida. I love this pattern! Look at that short hair!



Same pattern, same timeframe for KK.



Baby clothes and diaper bags for 3 pregnant women!! That was a couple week long project. It wears me out looking at all that! 6/09



Purse from 3/09. Wasn't this for Trisha for a birthday.....



Wow, this is an oldie, May 2008! But I love the colors.



A tunic for KK. Sold old,this is pre glasses! 1/09. I believe this is a McCalls pattern.



Hope you enjoyed Flashback Friday!

First day of school

The girls survived their first day of school Monday. Up early and ready 20 minutes early. Let's see how long that lasts!

They are in 3rd grade and 1st grade this year. I requested that Nin be moved to a different classroom because they initially put her with KK's crappy 1st grade teacher and I wasn't about to repeat that again. After I explained how bad that teacher was and how I had to call my Board of Education member because of all the problems with her, the Principal had Nin moved to a new teacher within a few hours. Everyone is settled and I have just one more school supply to purchase because the last 2 containers I bought are not the right size. But don't get me started on school supplies. ;)

Purses!

Until I have some Stash Game items to show and the pictures from our trip uploaded, I will leave you with these!

Some recent custom orders.

Who am I?

Kinsie drew this lovely picture for me Friday night and asked me to guess who it was. I never managed to guess correctly until I had a few hints! When I wasn't able to guess correctly, she said, "I guess he does look like he has a chicken leg on top of his head instead of hair!"

Here are your hints:

that is a collar on top of HIS shirt and not boobs

he also has fringe on his arms

people recently celebrated the 33 anniversary of his death

Who am I?

Disclaimer: I didn't pick out her clothes!

Look at KK's new classes! They are very stylish for the 8 year old crowd, being that they are Hannah Montana and all.




All week all I have made is one little bitty ole shirt. This has been in my cut out pile for some time and since I am trying to work my way through that pile before fall gets here I thought now was as good of time as any. KK and Nin have exactly 8,329,487 of these shirts. One, because they take hardly any fabric and two, well I like instant gratification and I can sew up like 5 of these in an hour. They are quite possibly the easiest shirt pattern to sew. However, as the title says, I did not make this shirt to match this skirt. I made the skirt last summer and it still happens to fit, but she thought they matched because they had the same colors. Because I was already 15 min. late that day, I didn't argue.

Pattern:
Angie, by a German pattern designer
Size 122 with lots of extra length added

Strike a pose

Nin is always hamming it up for the camera and everytime she sees me with it out she starts posing. I snapped these shots Thursday before work so we were on a time constraint or she would have kept posing all day. Girl needs to grow up to be famous and make her mama some money.

Thank you Jerry Rice.

So this post has nothing to do with Jerry Rice really. Except that his induction into the NFL Hall of Fame kept my hubby out of my hair for hours and I managed to sneak in lots of sewing on Saturday!

I decided to start with my "to do" pile. Which is a huge pile of stuff that I had cut out some time ago and put it into a pile and never got around to it.

From the pile emerged...

a skirt for KK

pattern:
Ottobre 3/2009 # 30
Size 122

This skirt looked so much more full in the picture. I think I must have goofed in the conversion from centimeters to inches. I think it looks like an apron, but KK likes it.



pockets- see apron like



yellow zipper that KK picked out. I didn't have to many choices in my stash. :)



Shorts for my niece. These are the cutest thing ever!

Pattern:
Ottobre Design 3/2009
# 6
Size 74



side vent with "fan"



and since her last name is Fish, she gets a little fishy tag!



A super adorable camp shirt for my cousins son. My girls call him Baby Chey Chey. Baby Chey Chey loves dinosaurs so when my girls saw this at JoAnn's they said we had to get it for him!

Pattern:

Ottobre Design 3/2010
# 11
Size 92, which is about a 3T



buttoned up and formal. Well as formal as you can get in a dinosaur shirt. Instead of using buttons, I actually used snaps. For 2 reasons really. One, I am lazy and making 5 buttonholes and then sewing on 5 buttons did not sound like fun. And 2, I figure since the kid is 2, snaps would be easier to operate. I thought it might help out his mom. Making life easier, that's just the kind of person I am. :)



nerd tag!



Dress for my Nin. This was supposed to be a tunic, but please refer to the paragraph above about my laziness. If I made it as a tunic, I would have had to make leggings also. And they weren't cut out ready to go in my "to do" pile. So I added a few inches to make it into a dress. Looking at it though, I could have added a few more.

Pattern:
Viola by Hexchen Marie, a German pattern designer
Size 128



Halter top



This was not in the "to do" pile, but KK needed a first day of school outfit. So this is what she picked out. Skirt, tunic and leggings (which are not needed the first day of school), seem to be a staple of the 8 and 9 year old girl's wardrobe.

Pattern:
Ottobre Design 04/2008
Tunic is # 34 in size 128
skirt is # 15 in size 122
I did not make the shirt.





pocket with pintucks



I also made 5 burp cloths but they didn't get pictures, because really they clean up baby puke.

Fall clothes for Nin

I finished up both of these things for little Nin the other night. I was like a madwoman, determined to stay up until they were done. :) So at 11:30 I was finishing the hem on the dress. The dress was supposed to be for her first day of school, but she has decided that she doesn't want to wear it, she wants leggings and a tunic. I may just have to hold her down and dress her in it myself!

Pattern:
Ottobre 1/09
design # 14, Kerttu tunic
size 122, lengthened from tunic to dress



Look at that cute binding! Little hearts!



and a long sleeve top

Pattern:
Ottobre 1/09
design # 18, Orvokki top
size 122



I have 2 more things in progress that I hope to finish soon, but Shark Week has provided an excellent distraction this week.

Garden Tour

Here are a few pics from the garden the last couple days.

pumpkin- do you think he will grow to be 400lbs like his parents? My girls sure hope so!



Bell pepper- anyone know what kind this is? I bought it as a surprise variety and I can't figure it out.



red bell



purple bell



5.4 lbs of tomatoes that were picked in one night (yes, they are in an Easter basket)