Winner of the Lily Bird Studios Giveaway

The winner of this weeks giveaway is: comment #8 by Mhairi

Congratulations Mhairi! I’ve sent an email to you and Cecilia over at Lily Bird Studios.

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.

Ben & Mia Pants–Review and GIVEAWAY!

Last week Cecilia, over at Lily Bird Studios, released a great new pattern: Ben & Mia Pants.

These wide leg pants are perfect for boys or girls and feature adorable belt loops and lined pockets. The elastic waistband makes them super easy to wear and comfortable too!

I’ve recently been on the search for my go-to pants pattern for my kids, I had even drafted my own. But after receiving this pattern last week, my search is over. These are by far the best pants I’ve yet made for my kids. I liked them so much in fact, I’ve made two pairs just since Wednesday!

The pattern is designed for two different coordinating fabrics. It contains directions for creating your own custom piping too! These were made of a chambray and cotton print combo and I love how they turned out.

So much so, I went hunting through my fabric stash to find another pair of fabrics to put into combination. This is what I cam up with the second time.

These are made from a fine wale cord paired with velveteen and I love these even more! I even hand-stitched (I know, I can’t believe it either!) the inner waistband so that there would be no visible stitching in the velveteen.

This pattern sews up really quick and easy, with great instructions and clear photographs of each step. The pockets (both front and back) and belt loops are optional too, making it a very versatile pattern. And what is even more fantastic? This PDF pattern is in 7 sizes ranging from 12months to 6yrs. I highly recommend it! I’ll be making a lot more from this pattern, and soon!

So now that you know that you need this pattern too, would you like to win a copy?? I thought so.

One reader will receive a free copy of the Ben & Mia Pants PDF pattern from Lily Bird Studios. You have FOUR chances to enter!  This giveaway is closed.

First Entry (REQUIRED): Go check out Lily Bird Studio’s shop and leave a comment here telling me which is your favorite pattern.

Bonus Entries:

- Be a Follower on this blog, and leave a comment here telling me that you follow Un Petit Design.

- Be a Follower of Lily Bird Studio’s blog, and leave a comment here telling me that you follow LBS.

- Follow Lily Bird Studio on Facebook and leave a comment here.

Giveaway starts today and will close at 5pm on Friday, November 4th. Winner will be chosen at random on Saturday November 5th.

*Disclosure* I received the Ben & Mia Pants pattern free for review. All opinions in this post are my own.

Bring on the Cold!

I’m in coat making mode! I’ve been planning wool dress coats for all three of my kids over the past few weeks, but my girls needed play coats and fast. It’s getting cold out there! So I thought it would be good to work on a couple of play coats as a warm up to the big coat project I’m planning.

I started with McCalls 5743 which is an unlined fleece jacket/coat, I’ve had this pattern in my stash for more than a year. I actually started to make it last fall, but abandoned the project as it just wasn’t what I was hoping for at the time. This year I found success though!!

I definitely wanted a lined coat, so after tons and tons of fiddling with the pattern pieces, I was able to draft a jacket front lining that worked with the front facing. This is what the assembled lining looked like before it was bagged with the outer coat.

Excuse the messy sewing room floor – I completely tore my sewing room apart last weekend and rearranged everything and it’s not really all put together again yet!

Anyway, I was excited to bag a lining (which I’ve never done before!) and it turned out great!! It’s one of those things I could never understand when reading about it online, but once I did it in real life, it was a piece of cake! Even the sleeves are perfect. Though this may not be the most tailored application of it, I’m glad I got to accomplish this a couple times before starting on the wool coats.

I used a Cuddle Fleece (or Flurr as I’ve recently seen it called – a mix of Fleece and Fur) from Hancock, the lining is a crepe back satin and it is underlined with a 100% cotton quilt batting. It gets cold here in MN, so I wanted to make sure it would be warm enough to last the whole winter. The cuddle fleece was crazy to work with! It shed EVERYWHERE! At the raw edges, not when finished. My sewing machine handled it well, but the pile was so thick that I would actually loose pins in it! The only down side is that the gathering detail around the yoke in the front and back is pretty much lost with the thickness of the fleece. But it’s soooooo soft and cozy, so that makes up for it!

My other big design change was to elasticize the hood. I wanted it to be snug around their little faces to keep the cold wind out. I cut four of the pattern hood piece (instead of just two per the instructions) and stitched them RST at the indicated fold line. Then I stitched again 5/8” from the edge to form a casing and inserted 1/4” elastic. I added the elastic and then placed the hood on one the girls heads and pulled until it fit snugly to get the right length on the elastic. Worked like a charm!

The buttons, as cute and perfectly coordinating as they are, are just for show. I used large sew on snaps for the closers. I just didn’t feel like attempting button holes through this fleece!

The girls love them!! They fit really well, they are a little big, which was intentional, cuz these girls grow like weeds.

Excuse the iPod, it was the only way to keep a willing subject for photos!

Goofy girls!

Check out my pattern review here and be sure to check back here on Monday for a giveaway! Now excuse me while I go de-fuzz my sewing room….

Jumping in the Deep End!

Well, I’m diving in to Winter Sewing head first – I just ordered everything I’ll need to make all three of my kids Wool Coats – eek!

I’ve never sewn a fully lined, tailored coat before. But, I’m confident and I think it will go smoothly.

For the girls, I’m going to be using Burda 9501, view A.

For my boy, I’m going to be using Oliver + S, School Days Coat (it just went OOP btw – I cannot believe it!)

I’m very excited to get started with both projects. I’m going to be referring to The Great Coat Sewalong and Sewaholic’s Coat Sewalong for tips along the way.

I’ll post about the process on each pattern too as I go along. Now I just have to wait for the fabric to arrive!!

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!

Inspired By: Crew Cuts Jitterbug (and a series!)

Today I’m kicking off a series here on this blog – INSPIRED BY.

There are a few other sewing blogs out there that do a great job at taking RTW/Designer clothes and matching them to sewing patterns and fabric to recreate the look for less. I’m always interested in these posts, because that’s why I sew! I love the clothes in many a store out there, but I know I can make the same thing myself, often with better quality, better fit and for a fraction of the cost.

But what I haven’t found is very many posts showing these items actually done! So I’m going to be sharing my recreations of RTW clothes in this series. I’ll show the inspiration piece and how I achieved the look in real life.

This week, I was inspired by the Jitterbug Girls Striped Dress at Crew Cuts.

It looked so cozy and a simple for the cooler weather that has settle in, at least where we live. I found this sweater knit at SR Harris and thought it would be perfect for this project.

I love that I found a sweater knit vs. just an interlock or t-shirt knit. I think it makes the dress just a bit dressier and it will be warm enough for both fall and winter.

I started with my favorite TNT t-shirt pattern, Jalie 2805. Any good t-shirt pattern would work, or even drafting a pattern from a well fitting RTW shirt. I adjusted for an a-line skirt, starting just above the natural waist line and down to, what I thought would be, knee length. Later I found I did my math wrong and it was actually ankle length…

I constructed the whole thing with my serger, which took no time at all. After a quick check for fit on the girls (and discovering the ankle length and needing to remove about 3” off the hem) I determined where I was going to place the bodice gathers.

The inspiration dress appears to have gathers at the waist line, but I decided I wanted them to be just a little above the waist line, about 5 inches down from the neckband. For these three-year-old girls, currently wearing size 4 or 5 (I traced a size I or girls 5 in this pattern) I used a piece of 1/4” elastic that was 5 1/2 inches long. I placed each end 2 inches from the side seams and stretched in between with a zig-zag stich on my machine. I hand stitched on a white ribbon bow.

I made one design change though. I wanted to be sure these would last till spring so I purposely cut the sleeves long. And they were long! So I decided to add some ruching on the sleeves to shorten the length for now, with the idea that when they get a little bigger and the sleeve length is too short, I can add length by removing the ruching.

Here is the finished product. I love how they turned out.

I hope you enjoyed! And please continue to stop by and visit my Inspired By series. Next up will be a great dress for fall for me!