The Sew Tina! book - Part the Second

[The Sew Tina book tour giveaway is the next post down]

I thought I'd devote this post to talking about the three projects I've done from the book, and have a little giveaway as well. I think I'll have to do yet another post on the projects I'd particularly like to do next!

The first thing I made was the Zigzag dress. It only has 6 pieces - two bodice pieces, two skirt and two neck bindings and as you might expect it was super easy to put together. I love the kimono-style neckline and the whole aesthetic of it.  Not to mention the gorgeous Nani Iro fabric I used. Hazel on the other hand...well it's just so different than what she's used to I think it will take a bit of getting used to. But look what I managed today!

Very exciting - and after the photo shoot she actually left it on for most of the day, only insisting that she needed to change right before we left to go to an ex-pat Canadian Thanksgiving dinner. Darn! But small victories, small victories.  The picture above is very sweet and pensive, but really 90% of that set looked more like these (which actually give a better idea of what the top looks like on)

One of Hazel's friend's mum says that Hazel looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but I tend to think of her more in this kind of light :) "Please" I say, "Please just stand there and smile nicely? No, not like that, put your hands down, stop jumping, what are you pretending to be? Oh, a puppy? Well puppy could you put your tongue back in for a moment? Puppy!" Who'd work with children I ask you?

The only problem I had with it was judging the distance to set the neck edges apart on the bodice. The instructions said no more than 8" which I tried for, but it was hugely too wide and I had to pick it all apart and bring it in. Markings on the pattern to suggest the overlap would have been really useful.

The next item was the Reversible Skirt.



I asked Hazel to pick the fabric and then tried to work with that. Using this kind of bright fabric and putting other prints with it really takes me out of my comfort zone big time. I feel totally lost trying to judge whether the prints go well with each other, whether I'm over-doing it, or under-doing it, ack!  It's a very simple pattern though, just two tubes of fabric sewn together at the top with a channel for the elastic, and binding at the the bottom.

(sigh)

When I'd finished with it last night I was slightly appalled with what I'd wrought, but Hazel leapt upon it this morning with cries of delight and put it on immediately. When I saw her in it outside it actually looked much better than I'd imagined it would, somehow it blended in with the rest of the clothes or something. Well as much as it could anyways...

Personally I prefer the reverse side :)  Hazel says it's the "autumn side" and the other is the "spring side"

Lastly we have the Bouncy Beret

Hazel picked out the outer fabric and I selected the lining and binding. I really enjoyed making this hat, it has a cunning way of using up the inner circles from cutting out the bottom edges - they form the embellishment!

It's being modelled by a teddy because although the pattern says it fits up to age 7 or so, Hazel has been blessed with so many brains that she has a simply enormous head (just like me actually, bane of my hat-wearing life!) and it's too small :(  It fits ok around her head circumference but isn't deep enough top-to-bottom.  I'll make her a larger one by scaling up the pattern a bit, although looking at the photos in the book they seem to have more depth to them and I'm now wondering if I stuffed up the pattern somehow...maybe when I printed it from the pdf it scaled it down a bit or something?

Anyways! Her loss is your gain - I'm going to give away the beret so that some other little girl can look extra pretty walking down the street.  In case you're wondering if it will fit your little muffin, the unstretched circumference of the band is 55.5cm/22" and I can easily make that a bit smaller for you before sending it off if you needed.

I'm limiting this giveaway to NZ and Australian residents only, my apologies to non-ANZAC readers.  To go in to the draw simply leave a comment telling me about the best hat you ever wore (or the worst!) and make sure I have a way to contact you. I will use a random number generator to choose the winner on the afternoon of Friday 15th NZ time.  Good luck!