Pattern Review: Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones - Kimono Style PJs and Cutie Booties

Hi!

  On Tuesday, I received a baby shower invitation to a party which was happening just 4 days later! That's not a lot of time to really do much of anything BUT that's right up my alley. Nearly all my projects are on the rush. Time to use what I had on hand... Hence, Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones book.

  I've not tried these patterns before but have read the book several times. The sizes are much too small for lil AC. Every time I look at this book, I'm always drawn to the same 2 patterns, the Kimono Style PJs and the Cutie Booties. Using fabric I had in my stash, I selected 2 fabrics to use for the kimono and booties.

One of the things I like about this book is that all the projects have difficulty levels. The most difficult are rated a 5 while the easiest are rated a 1. Both the kimono and booties were rated a 3. Personally, I found the pattern rating to be quite accurate. They were not difficult nor super easy. I stumbled slightly in 1 place for each of the patterns. For the kimono top, I stumbled at bit with the bias ties that go around the neckline. At 1st, I did not realize that there are ties in the inside of the kimono as well as one on the outside. Clearly it's been a while since I looked at a kimono or I would of remembered about the ties. If you forget too, this portion of the instructions will make no sense and there is not a photo of the inside of the top to remind you.  Sorry, I should of taken one to post here. Here's a photo of the inside ties from a 2nd boy version I did.) Also, when attaching the sleeves to the top front panels, be sure to mark the "Attach Sleeve" side to your fabric. I do have a serger but decided to use french seams for both the top and pants. It's a little extra work but really like the look because it looks so polished and a bit couture.

I embellished the kimono top with 3 crotchet flowers. I attached them with my machine by sewing a circle in the white portion of the flower to ensure they were secure.

 The construction of the kimono bottoms was very easy and straight forward. I'd probably give the little pants a difficulty rating of a 2 and not a 3. I attached a matching flower in the front of the pants.

Next came the Cutie Bootie... I've never sewn shoes before and I was a little apprehensive of the curves. I think they turned out fine for my 1st attempt.

I marked the placement of the Velcro on both the lining and exterior fabric. This helped both with Velcro placement and the placement of the flower. I added the flower before I sewed the lining and exterior fabrics together.

 Sewing the lining and the exterior fabric together is where I stumbled. I misunderstood the directions and sewed too much around the upper panel piece.

I deviated from the instructions in regards to the fusible fleece and fusible interfacing. I kept thinking this was going to get really bulky and sewing that curve around the toes was going to be tricky. I decided to leave out the fusible interfacing. I didn't have any fusible fleece on hand and it was 10pm on Friday when I was sewing the booties. As always, I used what I had which turned out to be Warm and Natural and some fusible hem tape. Here's a brand that is sold at JoAnn's. Basically, it's double sided fusible web tape. I used strips to attach the Warm and Natural to the fabric. It seemed to work just fine for me.

Here's what the description says: "The great no-sew iron-on adhesive makes hemming easy without a needle or thread! It creates clean, secure hems in seconds with no sewing¿ and is completely machine washable! Available in regular and super weight. Use with cotton poly blends, cotton, rayon, acrylic, linings and much more. Machine washable and dryable. Paper backed.". My hem tape was not paper backed nor do I know if it is regular or super weight. I've had this hem tape for quite some time now.

Credo,
Lisa

Toddler Jacket - McCall's M5697 (view B)

Hi!

  I'm been organizing... My sewing room was in real need of some help. It took me several weekends of sorting, purging and organizing to get it in a reasonable state. I'm not done yet but the room is so much more usable and I don't have to clean up anything to start a sewing project. In the process, I learned a few things like... I honestly thought I didn't have a lot of fabric until I went to organize my fabric. It became very clear that I had too much sitting around and not being used. Surprisingly, I have way more fleece than I thought. We all know how bulky fleece can be. So, I'm on a mission to get rid of the fleece by sewing up whatever I can. Well, I'm not interested in making blankets out of the fleeced but just about anything else will probably work. Got any ideas for fleece sewing projects? Leave me a comment. I would love to hear your ideas. Well... I've had this cute little jacket pattern, McCall's 5697, which I had bought to use with some cute corduroy fabric.

Well, instead I got out some grey fleece and went to work. I decided to do View B, with the elbow length and ruffle sleeves. The jacket is unlined. I found the instructions easy to follow. Since I used fleece fabric I wasn't concerned about finishing the edges, as fleece will not unravel and cause a messy hem. I do like finished seam and I'd like to try a french seam on my next attempt. I think I might try View D (long sleeves with button tabs). The fleece might be too bulky but for the thin corduroy fabric I have, a french seam might work. For the most part, I followed the directions. I did add a small black braided trim to the collar, sleeve hem, and pockets. I used approximately 65" of braid for a size 3T jacket. If you're going to buy trim for this jacket, I would just get 2 yards to ensure you have enough trim.

When I did the edge stitching, I did increase my Design Diamond stitch width to 4.5 because of the thick fleece. The longer stitch length seem to allow for a more defined edge stitch, meaning the stitch did not get lost in the fleece. Also, the jacket calls for 1 1/4" hem but I only did a 1" inch hem by simply folding up the bottom jacket edge. There just didn't seem a need to turn the hem under and tuck it in the hem allowance since I was using fleece. The only part I was not completely happy with was the lack of fullness in the sleeve ruffle. I'm not sure if the pattern was not sufficient to have a more substantial ruffle or if it is the fleece the inhibits the ruffle. If I were to make the fleece ruffled sleeve again, I think I would add more fabric to increase the ruffle. In general, I would recommend this pattern because it was fairly easy to put together, cute and there a lots of ways to make this jacket unique by adding trims/embellishments.

Credo,
Lisa

Beginner quilt - Free quilt pattern

Hi,

  I was so thrilled when I found Pat Bravo's site. She's got a great fabric and pattern line. As I browsed her site, I found a free quilt pattern (Le Petite Garden) that I thought I could make fairly quickly.

Well, "fairly quickly" is a relative term when speaking about quilt making, right? The quilt was to be made as a gift. As always, I was short on time. The design seemed simple because there were no seams to match-up. No, points to connect. Just plain straight 1/4" seams. I was pretty sure I could do that successfully. I believe the beauty of the quilt can come from the fabric selection. The quilt is basically cut from 6.5" fabric strips. Although the pattern did not have any cutting layout instructions, it's straight forward to figure out because everything is based on that 6.5" strip. There are 6 different fabrics that are cut into 6.5" strips. The cotton fabric I selected is by Riley Blake Designs, Summer Song from My Mind's Eye. I loved it because it was bright, cheery and had bold colors.

I washed and dried my fabric before I began to make my strips and I'm glad I did. I measured the fabric to get a rough idea of how many pieces I could cut from each 6.5" strip of fabric. After the washing and drying, the width ranged from 40" to 42" and it was originally 44"/45" wide. Here's my guideline for cutting out the quilt pieces based on my washed/dried size (yours may differ):

I started making the quilt on a Tuesday night. I spent about 2 hours cutting the fabric out and getting it stacked and in the right order.

On Saturday, I spent almost 6 hours sewing the quilt top together. The directions were very clear but I decided to deviate slightly in hopes of speeding up the processes. I started by sewing the 38 blocks, as directed. I chain stitched the strips to produce the block. I placed one green strip on the button and then placed the center strip on top, centering the strips.

And then fed it through my sewing machine like so...

When all the middle strips where gone, I knew it was time to stop my chain stitching (cut my thread) and take it to the ironing board and iron. My pile looked like this.

One more strip and the block is done.

The blocks end up looking like this

These blocks are used throughout the quilt, alternating between the remaining rectangles. All odd rows will use the large rectangles, (11"x 6.5") and will have 4 of these rectangles alternating between the 3-strip blocks using 3 3-strip blocks/row. For instance, all rows will begin with a cut rectangle (large or small) and then followed by the 3-strip block pictured above. The even rows will contain the 5 of the smaller (7 3/4" x 6.5") rectangles alternating with the 3-strip blocks using a total of 4 3-strip blocks. The rows are laid out as follows:

Row 1: B, F, C, G (11"x 6.5")

Row 2: G, D, B, F, C (7 3/4" x 6.5")

Row 3: F,C, H, B (11" 6.5"0

Row 4: D, G, C, H, D (73/4" x 6.5")

Row 5: G, H, F, B (11"x 6.5")

Row 6: H, F, D, G, C ( 7 3/4" x 6.5")

Row 7: C, B, C, H (11"x 6.5")

Row 8:  F, C, H, D, F (7 3/4" x 6.5")
Row 9: G, F, C, D (11"x 6.5")

Row 10: B, H, E, H, G ( 7 3/4" x 6.5")
Row 11: F, G, B, C (11"x 6.5")


I stacked up all my rows and started to sew the blocks so that the block was on the right side:

I continued to take a rectangle from my sorted stack and sew a 3-strip block on the right. As I pulled a rectangle from my sorted stack, I checked the next size rectangle to see if it was a different size. If it was, that was my signal that the rectangle I had in my hand was the last one in the row and  I needed to open what I had just sewn and sew that rectangle to the 3-strip block making sure the last rectangle in the row was sewn to the right of the 3-strip block.

My rows started to look like this:


When I was through with my sorted stack, I re-stacked my rows as I clipped the threads. My next pass was to completely connect each row, making sure to each rectangle sandwiched in between a 3-strip block.

In the end, this is what my finished quilt top looks like. Sorry about the poor photo.

Credo,
Lisa

How to sew a Colonial Dress

Hi!

  Several days ago, my niece asked me to make her a colonial dress for her school's Colonial Day Celebration. She sent me the following picture as a guide.

  When I saw this, it reminded me of the Cinderella dress I saw Ashley create over at Make It and Love It. I followed Ashley's lead and this is how my niece's Colonial dress turned out:

  And here's a view without the apron...

I started out just as Ashley suggested, I used one of my niece's tops as a pattern. Since it was a knit t-shirt, I did add 1" to the side seam. The fabric I used was left-over Halloween fabric. It has some give but not as much as knit. Because my niece is not a petite girl, I was very generous when adding to the side seams. That stretchy knit made me nervous and I knew I needed to account for it when making the dress. I figured, I'd rather have it be too big (and she could gather it up with the apron) then have it be too small/tight. Here's how I started:

I folded the t-shirt in half and traced around the edges. I did fold back the sleeve to get just the bodice portion. Sorry, I didn't take a photo of that. From this next shot, hopefully, you will get the idea.

Please excuse the "extra" green markings. Lil' AC was "helping" me create this pattern and made her marks. You can see where I added the extra 1" to the side seam to accommodate for the give in the knit t-shirt. This will actually give 2 extra inches to the pattern. Remember, I have not added in seam allowance yet. I just traced the t-shirt and added 1" to the side seam to compensate for the stretchy knit t-shirt I used.

 From this photo, you can also see that I folded back the neckline, to trace the lower front of the t-shirt.

I used the same pattern for the front and back of the bodice. Here's a close up

The original front neckline is in green marker. However, I needed a square front neckline. I just drew in a square neckline matching the end points of the original t-shirt.

The back of the bodice was NOT cut on the fold. I added 1" to the back seam to allow for a zipper. Ashley used Velcro but I thought a zipper would be better for my niece. I did not add any seam allowance for the neckline because I was going to add a ruffle and I knew the seam allowance on that was about 1/4". I did add 1/2 " to the shoulder, arm and side seams.

The front of the bodice was cut on the fold and 1/2" seam allowance was added to the shoulder, arm and side seams. . I also cut out the square piece to accurately cut out the front bodice.

To make the white front on the bodice, I measured the length of my square bodice. In this instance is was approximately 5" (2.5 * 2).

I decided that I wanted to shave off 1" at the bottom. To do this, I took my white fabric (which I had already squared up) and folded it in half. I lined up the top of my ruler at 2.5" and the bottom at 2" and cut using my rotary cutter.

I centered my white fabric with the dress and sewed the edges down. I then started to use my square ruler to layout the white braided trim.

On my Designer Diamond, I used stitch #13 with 5.0 width and 10.0 length to sew the braid in place. This stitch makes a zig zag pattern out of several straight stitches.
Now, here's where I deviated from Ashley. I sewed a zipper in the back. If your zipper comes in a package, then you should have instructions on how to add the zipper. Very briefly, to add my zipper, I sewed a basting seam all the way down the back where the zipper would go. I then took my zipper and lined up the top with the neckline. Using a zipper foot, I basted the zipper in place by creating a basting seam down the 2 edges of the zipper (making sure not to sew close to the teeth of the zipper.) and I basted the zipper in with the wrong size up. I then flipped the front over and used my zipper foot to get close to the zipper teeth to permanently sew the zipper in. Once the zipper was in, I pulled out the basting stitches. I then sewed the back and front of the bodice at the shoulder seam. I then added the little lace ruffle to the neckline which finished the neck edge seam.

Next, I created a sleeve pattern. If you've never created a sleeve pattern, take a look at this. I kinda of followed the way they made a pattern. I figured out what my arm hole depth was for the dress (9").

I also knew that my sleeve had to be at least 13" wide (around the bicep) and 4" down from the underarm point to hit the elbow. I then created a rectangle that was 13" tall by 7.5" wide. To get the height of my rectangle, I took the armhole depth (9") and added it to the elbow length. This gave me 13". My bicep measurement was 13". Since my pattern was going to be cut on the fold to ensure symmetry, my rectangle width had to be 1/2 the bicep (13/2=7.5).  I then marked 9" down the height of my rectangle to accommodate the armhole depth. I then added my sleeve curve by free handing a slope down to the 9" mark. Like so...

I cut the sleeve pattern on the fold. For the white ruffle that begins just above the elbow, I cut 2 rectangles that were 5" tall by 20" wide. On one of  the long edges (20"), I added the same lace ruffle that's on the neckline. I then gathered up the opposite end by sewing a long straight stitch and adjusting the gathers. I then sewed the gathered end to the bottom of the sleeve. I did the same to the remaining sleeve and then sewed the side seams. That finished the bodice portion. The skirt was the easiest part. I just used the remaining part of the fabric by sewing a tube and then gathering one end. I lined up the skirt seam with the back zipper seam and attached the skirt to the bodice.

Fabric:

• 2 yards of brown Halloween fabric that was 60" wide
• remnant piece of white fabric for center of bodice and sleeves. The fabric was also 60" wide but I probably only a little over 1/3 of a yard.
• The apron is made out of osnaburg.

Credo,
Lisa