So I’ve completed all the sewing projects I wanted to for the fall. Now to start working on Halloween stuff and pieces for Luv-able & Hug-able as well as Stuff This.

When I went back home to STL in June I dug through a box of old patterns my mom and grandma had used to make clothes for us kids. It was fun seeing all these 70′s and 80′s patterns. I took a few back home with me and planned to make my daughter one or two outfits. I chose this one first. I thought the dress would look cute this fall with a long sleeve shirt and leggings and maybe some cute boots.

I love the illustration on the envelope.

I literally made this from scraps I had left over from another project.  In fact I wanted the center panel to be the same material as the two side panels but I just didn’t have enough.

With this pattern you can add pleats or not. I chose to add them and use bright pink so they’d really pop. I’d love to make another that is plaid, maybe in a lightweight corduroy.

This is a size 3 and follows all the same measurements as size three’s do today however it’s big. I had to take it in a bit.

I finished my jacket last night. This pic is of a real Cynthia Rowley jacket in leather. It costs $550.00. Mine cost maybe $20 bucks. I do like the leather version and I bet it has a good weight to it.

This pic doesn’t really do it must justice. Looks a little boxy here.

My only complaint about how mine turned out is the sleeves. They turned out a bit puffier than I had hoped. Also, because I have thin arms, I can’t tighten the D rings any tighter on the sleeve cuffs. I can’t push up the sleeves like in the pattern photo because they just keep falling. I should have cut the size smaller for the sleeves or measured my arms and the pattern and then adjust it. Oh well.

Here’s my attempt to take a photo of myself wearing it. I would have taken a pic outside but it was already dark.

I haven’t made anything for myself in ages so I decided to tackle this Cynthia Rowley pattern from Simplicity. I wouldn’t say it’s a really hard pattern, but it does have lots of pieces to keep track of.

The pockets took some time.

I can’t wait to see how it looks with the sleeves.

I went a bit crazy on making skirts for my daughter for the fall. There was just so many cute fabric combos. My daughter has finally decided that she likes to wear skirts and asks to wear “pretty drresses” just about every day. These are super quick to make. A great project to whip up during nap time. Simplicity pattern 2356.

Princess Castle Skirt. This print reminds me of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.

Little Golden Books Skirt. My daughter has a shelf of Golden books that belonged to me and me mom. One of which is the 1951 printing of Mary Blair’s I Can Fly.

Flower Skirt. I love this fabric combo.

Gnomes Skirt. Who doesn’t love gnomes?

Halloween Skirt. Great print. Cute and not juvenile looking.

Thanksgiving Skirt. I really wanted to find a fabric print with turkeys. I searched everywhere and found only one and it was ugly.

Skull Skirt. This is my favorite. Cute and punk all in one. Will be great for the Halloween season and beyond.

Christmas Skirt. Very cute and retro.

I then decided to make a quick poodle skirt as a costume for my daughter to wear to school. She’s got black and white oxfords that’ll look really cute with this.

My little model. I took about 15 pictures and only had one descent on to use. It’s really hard to get a 2 year old to stand still or pose for you.

Wish this had been available a year ago! It would have been a lot better than trying to make up the Alice costume out of two patterns like I did.

2009 Alice costume.

I know it’s only the first of August, but I’m already gearing up for Halloween. Crazy I know. But I like to be done with everything the first of October so that really only gives me two months. I’ve got materail and patterns already purchased and waiting to start. My husband will also be dressing up this year. Surprising! Stay tuned to see what our group costume will be!

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I love coming home and finding a package at my door. Especially one full of new fabric. I recently ordered a bunch of fabric from fabric.com to start making some new fall clothes for my daughter. Last year I made a bunch of jumpers. This year I think it’ll be skirts and she can wear leggings under them. Now I just have to find some time inbetween plush projects and Halloween stuff to start working on them. Luckily a skirt doesn’t take much longer than an hour and I don’t have to worry about zippers and buttons. I’ll post pics when I’m done.

I took a little detour this past week to finish up some baby items for a friends baby shower. I have finished the heads of my Magicians Assistants and hope to start the bodies this weekend.

Everything is so cute and small. The shoes are from Simplicity pattern 2471 and the horse is from Simplicity pattern 2763. The large bib I think came from Martha Stewarts website a few years ago. I made about a dozen of these about 2 1/2 years ago before my daughter was born. The small bib I made by tracing a store bought bib I had had for my daughter. It was great having small ones like that when my daughter was a new born.

I really love how the horse turned out. But it was a pain to sew. The horse isn’t very big so  just sewing it together and turning it inside out was a pain. I recommend enlarging this pattern about 10-20%. It would make it a whole lot easier. I did add a rattle and squeaker inside.

I reprints of retro patterns.

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Here’s what I’ve been so diligently working on for the past month. Toddler clothes. It really is fun sewing for a girl. The above tunics are made from Simplicity pattern 4203. It really is as easy as it says it is. Though the pattern didn’t call for it, I added the band at the bottom of the tunics and made them a little longer. I also crisscrossed the straps in the back. I  made the dress that was included in this pattern too. No pic to show though.

Here’s my little model! This tunic is my favorite. I LOVE the ice cream print. They don’t look to bad over a long sleeved shirt either.

I cleaned out my closets about a month ago and was bagging up some old clothes to donate when I decided to save some stuff and repurpose it. This was originally an old dress of mine that I turned into a skirt. I made the lining a little longer so it would hang lower than the printed material. Added some white ric-rac and a bow.

This was a last minute dress. I found this material and had to have it. I used McCalls pattern 5836.

I also made three dresses for myself for the summer. I’ll post those later.

I think I’ve got all the flower making out of my system now. Here’s the last two necklaces I made. Again I followed the tutorials in the book The Artful Ribbon.

I’ve noticed lots of embellished t-shirts lately too. Lots of flowers, lace and ruffles. These four are from Anthropology. I love Anthropology but can’t justify spending money their. They are a bit out of my price range. But they have some pretty stuff to look at and be inspired by.

This my attempt at creating my own flower embellished t-shirt. I bought two t-shirts of the same color, one in my size and the other in a large. I then created a template of circles. I cut the circles out of cardboard and used these to trace circles onto my large sized tshirt. After cutting out many circles in the three sizes I started to stack them together. I stacked one large, one medium and one small circle together. I then sewed these together in the middle. After having a bunch of these sewn together I started pinning them to the t-shirt. The key to getting them to look full is to clump your circles close together. The closer you sew these together the fuller it will be. Hopefully that makes sense. I really need to get better with taking pics of my work in process. I get so busy working I just forget.

Below are the circle sizes I used. Just click on the image to make larger and print these to use. It should print out at actual size.

I’m still on my month long kick of sewing. I’ve almost finished the four tunics and dress for my daughter and I finished putting the hooks in the two dresses I made for my self. At some point I need to take pics of those. I’d love to get outside to take some pics but it’s always raining : (.  I also finished another flower necklace. When I get in this mood I start looking through my history of fashion books. I just discovered the Victoria and Albert Museum, V&A for short, Fashion in Detail books. The books only show close up photos of garments. You really get to see the construction of the clothing. There are also diagram like drawings of the garment as well as detailed written descriptions about the history of the piece. Very interesting.

17th and 18th Century- Fashion in Detail

19th Century-Fashion in Detail It looks like this book is no longer in print. However Borders website has it but it is back ordered. Luckily I was able to order this book through my works library and they were able to find it for me. We have an awesome creative library here at work, one of the great perks.

Images from 19th Century Fashion in Detail

20th Century- Fashion in Detail