Pattern Testers Needed

Good morning and Happy Monday blogland!

I’m partially back at it, at least on the blogging side. I have use of a work laptop at home right now, as my regular machine, which broke down, seems to be just two weeks outside of the warranty! *Sigh* I don’t want to pay to have it fixed, because I could almost just buy a new laptop for as much as it would cost to fix the one I have. So for now, I’m borrowing a laptop from my dad’s office, so we’ll see how consistent I can be until I get the techno situation resolved.

Otherwise, I’ve been sewing tons and tons! I have three new dresses finished for myself (yeah!!!) and a new pair of dresses finished for the girls. I hope to get those blogged here shortly, I think you’ll like them!

But what I’ve been really busy working on is a new pattern! I’ve been reading and learning about pattern drafting, and more specifically about pattern grading and I’ve just about finished my first multi-sized pattern. I’ve decided I’m going to open a little pattern shop (and I do mean little!) and just add to it as I go. I’m not coming out with a full wardrobe all at once, but I would like to eventually get a mini-wardrobe of sorts set up in a shop. I will still have lots of tutorials and I even have a few freebies in the works right now too.

That being said, I’m looking for a few pattern testers, to give my new pattern a test drive for me. It is a pattern for toddlers carpi pants, and I’m looking for testers in sizes 2T, 3T, 4T and 5T. I would love to have testers finished by Wednesday, June 27th and return a brief survey on the pattern so that I can get some feedback.

If you are interested and can be finished by the 27th, please email me at unpetitdesignblog {at} gmail {dot} com

OH – and now I have to mention – for anyone who has ever emailed me at unpetitdesignblog {at} gmail {dot} com – I have never received your emails until just tonight. I AM SO SORRY!!! It’s crazy to think that I missed so many nice emails and questions and such. Please know, I was not ignoring you. I had some settings setup funny and I honestly thought I had never received an email there before. Oh, I’m so embarrassed! But, I have fixed it (and now read through emails back to January!!!!) and I will receive anything new sent there. Big HUGE sorry to anyone who ever sent an email.

OK, any pattern tester out there?

A Blog Award + Other Updates

I just received a blog award!! I’m so surprised and very excited. Thank you so much to Lily at Lily Can Sew for nominating me for the Liebster Blog Award. Please go visit her brand new blog to see her sewing creations. Her little girl is super cute and Lily has made her some really sweet dresses this month!

The Liebster Blog Award aims to recognize blogs with fewer than 200 followers – the up and comings! To ‘pay it forward’ I’ll select 5 blogs to nominate myself. So here goes:

Sara Jane Sews – go check out her post on the Petal Skirty & Ruffled Leg Warmers, SO CUTE!!

Sophisticated Seams – she’s working on a great maternity mini-wardrobe right now, and I’d expect lots of new baby goodness soon!

Sew Easy Being Green – she’s go an eye for design and makes some great outfits for her kids.

Frogs In A Bucket – I really love her style, she makes the best dresses for herself.

It’s Elementary! – I may be biased on this one, but it’s deserving nonetheless. This is my mom’s blog, she was an AWESOME homeschooling mom to my brother and I and now is working with my three kids. Check out all the great stuff she does with them and see why my five-year-old son is reading like a 1st/2nd grader! (and leave her a comment too, she loves comments!)

I’ll go let all of these great blogger know about their awards too. Thanks again Lily!

 

And since I can’t leave without a project update, I do have four new finished dresses for the girls. Plus some extras, I just have to get them photographed on the girls. I’m writing a nice tutorial on one of the dresses too, so watch for that later this week. Here’s a sneak peek to get you excited!

I’m Alive!!! And returning to blogging…

Really, I am still here!!! All I can say is… whew!! What a winter. We were hit with every single virus under the sun, and were pretty much continually sick with one thing or another for months!!!

One of the twins started school in the fall. Prior to this, they’ve all stayed home with me. No schools, no daycare and therefore no regular exposure to viruses. Which has been great, up till now. With the introduction of one child into the school system, we were hit by everything we’ve missed these last five years. Yikes!!! I’m so glad spring is here!

Because of the afore mentioned state of our house this winter, I barely did any sewing at all these past few months. I think I went about six weeks strait without going into my sewing room. So, I have some pent up sewing in me!

And what better time to get back to it than Spring! I’ve already made a few new things for the girls, and I have lots more planned. I made my annual spring fabric shopping trip a couple of weeks ago, and it was so much fun. Last year, JoAnn Fabrics was the spot, I hit their Quilters Showcase sale and got tons of cotton prints for $2.49/yd and made so many little summer dresses. This year, when the sale came around, I was seriously disappointed. There was not selection at all.

While my favorite local store is still SR Harris, it’s a bit of a drive for me to get out there, so I stopped at another local shop, Mill End Textiles. They carry mostly quilting cottons, but some apparel fabrics too and I found a ton that I loved.

This Fat Quarter stack came from JoAnns, and will soon become a pair of pillowcase dresses (I hope! Not sure if there’s really enough there for two dresses)

All together I have an overflowing laundry basket of sprint/summer fabrics, all ready to go and with pattern/design ideas picked out for each of them.

So check back later this week for a look at a few of the things I’ve already stitched up this spring. Here’s to staying healthy!

Updates and Notes on the Little Grey Dress

Wow, a whole month has gone by already. We’ve been busy and sick over here!! We all caught a nasty flu virus that just.would.not.let.go!!!! Add one ear infection and one case of pneumonia and it’s been a very unproductive month in my sewing world!

Thank you so much for all of the comments on my last post, the Little Grey Dress. My girls have just loved wearing them, they are really warm and comfortable. (and yes, to those who asked, this is one of my two daughters. She thinks she is a model.)

There were a few questions that some of you had left, so I thought I would try to answer them in this post.

What size is it? My girls are 3 and a half years old, but very tall for their age, so most of the Big 4 patterns I make them are size 4, and if I buy RTW I’m buying 5T or even girls size 4/5 or XS. So based on that I would put these dresses at a size 5T, if comparing to RTW. This is just an approximation, as we know sizes can vary so widely.

Can I make it in a woven fabric? When I drafted this pattern, I had in mind an very easy, pull over dress that did not include any closures (zippers, buttons, etc.). So it is designed to be made with a stretch fabric, like fleece. While you could choose another type of fabric other than fleece, it would still need to be something with stretch, so that it can fit over a head. That being said, you could certainly alter the pattern to include a center back seam and a closure to make it work with a woven. I have not done it with this pattern so I have no other specific advice on how to execute this, so if you have your heart set on a woven, go for it! Experiment away, if you make a change that works out well, make sure to come back here and share with everyone too!

How are the raw edges finished on the sleeveless version? All I did is turned them under, about 1/2” and hand stitched in place. I hand stitched (yuck) because I didn’t want visible topstitching right there. I thought I might compete with the pleats.

How can I make it in a different size? Most who asked this had smaller little ones in mind, I believe one person was in need of a larger size. Let me just say, size grading is not my specialty!!! I am not at all experienced in grading for different sizes, at least not from scratch! If it were me though, I would probably just take this pattern and compare it with a similar type of pattern that I had in the correct size (in this case, a simple jumper pattern would be a good starting place) and I would adjust the pattern as needed to match the design of the desired garment. Does that make sense? I sure hope so. I would love to eventually learn how to grade patterns into all sizes and have a little pattern shop, but right now I have neither the time nor experience to do it.

Did you make the headbands too? Yes, I did. I’ve been trying to make an effort to make some sort of matching hair accessory for each dress I make for the girls. I find it so much easier to do something quickly with their hair if I have a specific hair piece to go with an outfit.

These are headbands, made with plain old 1/4” elastic. I used a combination of fabric/felt flower tutorials to make them.

The grey rose I made using this picture I found on Pinterest a while back.

Source: fromwillyoutoido.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

 

It really is that easy, I’ve made roses a bunch of times now just by looking at this picture. I do adjust the size of my starting square of felt/fabric based on how big of a final flower I want. I used the same fleece that the dresses were made of to make the grey rose on this headband.

The black flower I made using this tutorial by Jess over at Craftiness Is Not Optional. I used a piece of craft felt that was 11” long by 1.5” wide and followed the steps in the tutorial.

The third flower is made of a sheer fabric with silver glitter/sparkles on it. It was an old wrap of mine from a wedding I was in about 10 years ago. It’s now in the “hair stuff” bin, to be cut up and used for little projects like this! It’s just a strip, about 2” wide and 12” or so long that I ran a running stitch down one of the long sides and gathered  to form the flower. Add one pretty button in the middle and call it done!

I also threw in a piece of black tulle just for kicks, it’s just a little rectangle, maybe 5”x6”, folded in half and bunched up.

All of this is attached to the elastic band with a oval shaped piece of felt. The next time I make headbands, I’ll be sure to take photos of the whole process so that it’s a little clearer!

 

So what’s next? Well, I have another girls dress design in the works, but the collar has been giving me fits!! I’ve even had dreams about the collar on this dress. It’s driving me crazy because it’s really a simple little dress so it shouldn’t be giving me this much trouble, but I think I’ve finally thought up a solution. More on that later!

I’ve made up my second Oliver + S pattern, the Sunday Brunch Jacket and Skirt. It turned out so cute!! I still need to make the second jacket and then I’ll take some photos. I also ended up changing the construction on the skirt so I’ll be sharing my tips on that too.

And I’ve got a few items in the works for myself. I was sure hoping to have some of them done this week, but this week has flown by! Maybe next week.

And as a final note, I stopped into my local JoAnn’s this afternoon to pick up one thing and saw that everything in the store had been changed over to spring! The florals and pastels all over were calling my name. I guess it’s time to get started on Spring wardrobe planning!

Still Here!! Just Busy Sewing….

So sorry for the posting drought last week! I’ve been working on the coats so much and really nothing else. I did get the girls coats finished on schedule!!!

They have worn them a couple times already and they are fabulous!! I want to do a proper post on them, and I haven’t had a chance yet to photograph the girls in the coats, so I’ll leave you with this teaser photo.

This tag is so true, this has been a labor of love. My kiddos will be warm and cozy all winter long.

Also, the size tags that I mentioned before came just in time!!! I absolutely LOVE them. They came much faster than expected (I was told it would take three weeks, they arrived in one) and are exactly what I was looking for. In case anyone else is interested, I ordered them here. They have some other labels that I just might order in the future.

One of the things I like about these tags is the fact that they are reversible. The size is on both sides of the tag and can be sewn in vertically or horizontally.

I’m making progress on my boy’s coat, and would be farther along if not for the light bulb in my sewing machine burning out the other day. Little hard to do strait topstitching without the light. I do plan to finish it up before the end of the week still. The long weekend will help!

And I’m so excited about my most recent pattern purchase!!

I have been wanting this pattern for sooooooooooo long, but have not ever been able to find it in the above highlighted size range, as it is OOP. But I happened upon a shop in another state (via an internet search) that had some left in stock and I was able to order it. I’ve been just dying to sew it up, but I’m determined to plow through this last coat and get that finished before I start anything else new.

Next post, I promise, will have some finished objects!

Sewing Expo and Other Updates

It has not been productive over here this week. One of my girls had a serious case of the stomach flu this week, therefore not much sewing has taken place.

However, I did spend yesterday at the Original Sewing and Quilt Expo in Minneapolis. My mom and I went together. In previous years, this has been at the Minneapolis Convention Center and has been really fun. But this year it was in a hotel and much smaller than before. I must say, we were both very disappointed.

We went through all the vendors in less than an hour and I really didn’t see a whole lot that thrilled me. I did pick up one neat tool though. This bias ruler and binding tool. The woman at this booth had a few great examples as she demonstrated it, so it came home with me. It will likely come in handy when my latest pattern purchase arrives in the mail – I FINALLY found the Oliver + S Sunday Brunch pattern in size 4-8 - so I’m anxious to try it myself then.

There is also a helpful YouTube video on it here.

There was a booth with lots of trims. ribbons, elastics and buttons, so I picked up a handful of buttons for my girls along with a piece of wide cotton elastic.

Since we left the Expo disappointed, we went to JoAnn’s and I picked up a few patterns for $1 each (except that Burda, that was a bit more)

some cute printed sweatshirt fleece that was in the Red Tag section with an additional 50% off

and some fabric dye, to go along with that cotton elastic from the Expo -  more on that later!

And I actually have made progress on the coats! They are even starting to look like coats. Really the only things left to do on these are construct and attach the lining and add the buttons/button holes, so these will definitely be finished this week!

My plan is to have my boy’s coat finished no later than the end of next week, but I’m still throwing ideas around in my head when it comes to the closures. I love the toggles, and I will keep those for sure, but I think I may want to add a zipper to make it easier for him to get on/off himself. Supposedly other have done this with success, but I’m not finding any photos or blog posts about it out there. Leave me a comment if you have made this coat with a zipper or know of someone who has!

Dress Coats – Lots o’ Prep and Cutting

I’ve started work on my big coat project and it is already a lot of fun! All of my materials and the Oliver + S pattern arrived last week. Here are the details.

All three coats are being made of the same materials, just for the sake of simplicity. I order a black wool coating that is 95% wool and 5% nylon. I am interlining all three coats with 100% cotton flannel for some added warmth. The lining is a 100% polyester Satin Charmeuse, also in black. I haven’t yet decided on my interfacing yet, I have to test a few out and see which works the best with my wool.

Over the weekend I prepped the wool and flannel. The flannel, simply by washing and drying twice to preshrink. The wool I preshrunk using the dryer method, which worked out very well. My piece was 7.25 yards and I did not want to cut it into sections before preshrinking it. So at first tossed my yardage in the dryer with two wet towels and ran it on high for 40 minutes. But it didn’t seem to shrink much, so I laid the whole piece out on my kitchen floor and sprayed it down with a water bottle, making sure the entire surface was good and damp/wet and then put it in the dryer again for another 40 minutes.

Here’s a sample of the wool I cut after using the dryer method. Both pieces are exactly 3” x 3”. One I steamed to death with my iron, the other I left alone, then I compared to ensure that they dryer method really did steam/shrink all my yardage completely. I’d say it worked, as both samples are still exactly 3” x 3”!

Saturday I started cutting out the Burda pattern for the girls coats, because I had that one traced already. I have both coats cut out of the wool and most of the interlining. Just a little more cutting to go. But I think tracing and cutting is the most tedious and time consuming part of sewing. While I’m at it, I think I’ll trace off and cut my boy’s coat now and get all of the cutting over with at once.

The other exciting piece of this project is the size tags I found on Etsy this weekend!!! I’ve been searching for a place to buy size tags that didn’t require a 1000 tag minimum of just one size. I sew a lot, but I will not sew 1000 garments in size 4. But I found this Etsy shop and I ordered 100 tags in a combination of sizes from 4 to 7 and in a few different colors. I cannot wait for these to arrive, I’ll definitely post again about what they are like once I see them in person.

So that’s that on the coat front. The girls’ play coats are fantastic now after a week of wear. They are really warm and cozy.

I also decided (about two seconds after reading the post) to enter the So You Think You Can Sew contest over at Mommy by Day, Crafter By Night. It sounds like lots of fun!! I entered my yellow jacket project.

That’s what I’ve had going on this week. Amidst the coat project, I  do have a half finished dress for the girls that is an original design. I’m going to try to get that finished up this week and possibly even get a tutorial up for it.

More Setbacks

This is not what I want to be posting right now. I planned to have a week long series on Boys clothes – the huge pile of boy stuff I have cut out and sitting in my sewing room. I found new fabric for my next Inspired By project and I have about a hundred dresses I want to make for the girls for this fall/winter. But we are sick. All five of us. Very sick, so I haven’t been in my sewing room in over a week. It’s terrible.

Then, just to add to the fun of a house full of sickness, my son broke a toe on his right foot on Monday – our first broken bone (he’s actually somewhat proud of that, in a strange sort of way). So now I’m tasked with making a four year old who lives to run, stand on his head and find a way to climb on anything everything, sit and keep his foot up for three weeks. Sigh!

So I’ve been just chilling on my computer between wiping noses and laying in agony myself. I’ve been filing up my Pinterest boards with all sorts of inspiration and ideas. So this aptly sums up all the creativeness I’ve experienced here in the last week and a half:

 

Source: marlenemccune.blogspot.com via Lorenza on Pinterest

Please stick around, I really do have lots and lots of sewing goodness coming up!

So much to sew, so little time…

 

I've been busy over the past week, but without much to show for it.
I've been doing quite a bit of thrifting and have some amazing stuff to upcycle from my finds. I've also been doing a lot of cutting - just not a whole lot of actual sewing. I usually do this though. I love to cut and prep a bunch of projects all at once, then I can just go to it at my machine for a good while.

I am putting my latest Inspired By project on hold for now. It was coming along, and will be great when finished, but I think I might be happier with the end result with a different choice of fabric. Sigh...

On a really positive note, I FINALLY took the time to go through the process of creating a skirt sloper for myself. It was really fun to do and I have a perfect skirt pattern now. This is the tutorial I used to create the sloper, and I'm looking forward to trying my hand at making a pant sloper and a bodice sloper... someday. Right now I'm really excited about my skirt sloper, and I have lots and lots of suiting fabric in my stash that will finally get put to good use now!

Hopefully I’ll find some time to finish a project or two this week and will have something more exciting to post next time!

Long time, no posting

Whew! It's been a while since posting anything. I've been sewing up a STORM and have lots of great new things to share in the coming weeks.

I'm also getting ready to send one of my twins off to school and will have some school clothes to sew for her soon as well. Please stay tuned!