A new dress for me!

I made a dress for myself out of a lovely weight knit I bought at JoAnn's. When I bought this material I immediately thought it should be a cowl neck top. I found this Butterick pattern and thought I would give it a go, even though it wasn't a shirt but a dress and even though Butterick patterns tend to not fit well. But I actually like it! I wore it with tights and boots and it was the perfect fall outfit.

Pattern: Butterick 5247

Halloween 2010

The only part of the girlies costumes that I made this year, were KK's leggings. I could not find the motivation to make them! So we went with store bought 98% of the way. Both of them were butterflies, one pink and one white. But if you ask them what they were, on any given day you would get the following answers:

cheetah butterfly
bride
pixie
fairy
butterfly princess
blah blah blah

All I know, is that those suckers had a ton of glitter on them. Wherever the costume was put down, it left a trail of glitter.

The girls together..



Aaarrggghhhh matey! Pirates don't take pictures with lambs and butterflies!

(the girls with their cousins, Baby Averie the lamb and Kaden the pirate)



The girls in the leaf pile with Addi B. Can you see her in the middle under the leaves? I promise she is there.



See there she is!

The boy and his coat

The only problem with the boy and his coat is that I probably won't ever get to see the boy in his coat. Specifically, the boy is Theo. Theo Leo, TheoRama, Baby Theo, my only nephew. I was pretty sure, thanks to mom, that I was going to have a second nephew that same summer, but I got a niece! Maybe one day I will do a post of my mom's amazing ability to accurately predict when a person is pregnant and what gender that baby will be.

So, I made Theo this coat. It is super adorable and super soft! Hopefully, wink wink, I will get a picture of him wearing it.

Pattern: Ottobre Design 4/2010 #6.
Size 86 which is a little big for him right now, but hopefully he can wear it for awhile.
The coat was made from a dinosaur twill and is fully lined with cotton velour. There is velcro on the front pocket flap to keep it closed, a zipper in the side seam since the twill doesn't stretch and it's a pullover a little ease is needed and snaps on the front placket. Luckily I had bright orange snaps which match perfect!




The front pocket



The side zipper



The front snaps



With the hood up

Quiz

When would be the appropriate time to start the pair of leggings that your daughter needs for her Halloween costume?

These leggings.. You know, the only part of her Halloween costume I chose to make this year.

A. 2 weeks before the Halloween party



B. The weekend before the Halloween party



C. 2 days before the Halloween party



D. At 9:37pm the night before the Halloween party



If you picked D, you would be right. To be fair, I could have started them right after my daughter reminded me at 8:50pm, but I couldn't find the pattern. So I had to get out my Ottobre Design book and trace it again.

What's the matter Nin? Don't like your picture taken?

Ooooooh spooky!

Remember last week when I told you I was working on a skeleton outfit that someone ordered?  Well here it is!  I used a Target gym suit so that I didn't have to make that, and then just free hand traced bones onto freezer paper with a sharpie.  Freezer paper is great for crafting because it's cheap, you can see through it and it takes sharpies really well.    You can also iron freezer paper onto fabric to create a stencil so that you can paint on your fabric.  Did I mention it's cheap?  Anyways, this post isn't about the virtues of freezer paper.

After I made my bone patterns, I cut them out of felt and then appliqued them onto the gym suit.  I had cut the side seams of the sleeves and pants so that I could get to the appliques and then just serged the side seams back up!  I even changed the thread in my serger.  In fact, it took longer to change the thead spools then it took to actually sew the seams back up.  If this were for my kids, I wouldn't have changed the thread.  ;)  It's pretty awesome if I do say so myself.  It's just a good thing I am not an anatomy major.  I am sure it's not anatomically correct!  The rib cage was too short so I added a couple extra ribs so that it took up more space..... 

The black line down the center of the pelvic bone is actually the drawstring to pants! 

Flashback Friday

I am in the process of making 2 baby coats and a skeleton outfit so today I have more Flashback Friday pictures!!  I think the skeleton outfit is going to be super cute and if I dare say so, I have done an excellent job of freehanding the shape of all the pieces!!  Stay tuned!

First up is a purse.  I love this pattern, a little small for me, but then again my purses are so big I can actually fit small children in them.  Ask me how I know. 



A shirt I made for myself. The only reason I picked this one is because I am wearing it today. BTW, I am not standing sideways to show you my sculpted abs, I am showing you how perfectly those stripes line up. Go me.



A trio of outfits for cousins



A butterfly skirt for KK made out of cord. The pattern is Farbenmix Insa. I love this pattern because you can go with one fabric, or a multitude. It's hard to tell in the pics, but the top layer is panels so you could use a different fabric for each panel. You can also rusch the panels like I did here. If you ever need something to do you should google Farbenmix Insa. Lots of great examples out there with ribbons, lace, pom poms, trims, colorful fabric, etc. I love it all!!

A tale of 6 shirts

This weekend I was very productive in the sewing room.  I managed to churn out 6 shirts for various recipients.  In no particular order.....

3 Farbenmix Antonias.  Have I mentioned how much I adore this pattern?  I have made enough of these shirts to outfit a small village.  There are 2 for my niece in NY and one for my nephew in OR.  My niece is a tween and her favorite color is green so she gets this in size 158......



And this is a cool rock and roll print, also in size 158.



My nephew gets a cute little Halloween Antonia in Ooga Booga in size 86. Please don't tell him this is a girl pattern, he may hate me forever for it.



Next up are 2 shirts for my girlies. Nin's is a regular shirt made to match a pair of brown cords I made here several weeks ago. KK's has an additional 7 in. of length to make it more tunic like so she can wear it with leggings. Like every other 9 year old in her school.

Pattern:
Ottobre Design 4/2009
#21
Size 122, since this top is really wide.



A close up of the yoke..



KK's



And finally, a tunic hoodie thingy for KK. She is in love with this! She wore it to school yesterday. It is everything a 9 year old could want. A hiood, pockets, hearts, pink, colors.....

Pattern:
Ottobre Design 1/2010
#30 in size 128