KCWC Days 6 and 7 - Success and failure

Days 6 and 7 of KCWC were meant to be spent making up the Vappu voile tunic from Ottobre 1/2010

I had a lovely blue polka-dot voile from my stash all picked out until Hazel said that no, actually she didn't like that one and how about this old voile shirt of mine I was going to pick apart at some point? So I agreed to pick it apart right away and make her top from it. It was one that I loved and would still be wearing if I hadn't somehow managed to spray bleach up the front and ended up with a fine scattering of white dots. But I figured that I could disguise that with a bit of fabric pen and organise it so it was on the back of something for Hazel. It worked out pretty well (though I still wish it were mine)

This was the first time I'd ever done shirring and I don't know what I was so scared of! Well I do know - the variety of ways of doing it and number of problems I'd read about on other people's blogs. It seemed too complicated and waaaaay too daunting. When I read the instructions in the magazine I was all "yeah right it's that simple" but dammit it was! At least on my machine. The only quibble is that perhaps it wasn't doing it tight enough, but I knew you could pull on the elastic to tighten it up and I needed to do a lot of that around the neck. I especially love the ruffly sleeves and bottom - it's a rolled hem on the overlocker and then shirred. Yummy.

Sadly, Hazel and I aren't in a very good place vis-a-vis the handmade clothes so she's refusing to wear this or the zigzag dress I made for the first project - so no pictures of her modelling either of them at this point. She's wearing that Fancy Flower Fields tunic though, so I guess it wasn't a total bust. Sigh. I'm trying to remain upbeat about this because I know it comes and goes and I can't make her wear things she honestly doesn't like, but I know she likes this top. She loved it while it was in progress, but now she says it's disappointing. Seriously, she knows the buttons to push! I'm going to take a break on the kid's clothes front I think, let us both recover.

Tina Givens blog tour update

Tina's blog tour has started over at Lark Crafts so I thought I'd give you a bit more information about the tour and the prize that I'm going to be giving away! And can I tell you how gutted I am that I can't enter for it? I wonder if my cat Lucy could...

So  in addition to a lovely interview with Tina I will be giving away the book, 4 yards of fabric, 2 boxes of stationery, and 2 extra sewing patterns. Seriously.

My date is the 8th October (man, the American way of doing dates just caught me out bigtime, luckily I noticed I'm on the 8th not the 10th! How embarrassed would I have been?) but I highly HIGHLY recommend you increase your chances of winning a prize and follow the blog tour along through all the other wonderful blogs, many of which I already have in my reader (and I'm looking forward to adding a few more)

9/24 Lark Crafts.com
9/27 A La Mode Fabric
9/29 Quilters Buzz
10/1 Sew Baby
10/4 Sew Chic
10/6 Sew Mama Sew
10/8 Hazelnuts
10/11 Mama’s Pocketbook
10/13 House on Hill Road
10/15 WhipUp
10/18 Quilt Dad
10/20 HodgePodgeFarm
10/22 Pink Chalk Studios
10/25 Fat Quarterly Blog
10/27 The Jolly Jabber

KCWC Days 4 and 5

I went ahead and made up the Fancy Flower Fields tunic from Ottobre 1/2010 (image from magazine in the previous post here) and although it was a size 128 it seemed like it would be ok. But of course it was miles too big so I had to take it in down the sides on Day 5.

It's turned out ok, I think my vague dissatisfaction with it is more to do with the quality of the fabric than anything else. It looks nice but it tends to stay stretched rather than rebounding to the original shape, so I think it will spend a fair amount of time looking baggy despite being taken in down the sides.  I love the shape of the hem though and it does look very nice in RL.  In this photo the wind has blown it out to the front a bit

I can't quite get my head around the Ottobre sizing - in terms of height she's just over 110cm but all her other measurements are more like a 98 which is two sizes smaller. Are Finnish kids incredibly stocky or something?

The funny thing is that I realised after she got dressed this morning that everything she's wearing bar undies, socks and shoes was made by me!  The mess from chocolate icecream on her face, the pastel crayon smudges on the top, and the soy sauce on her leg was made by her. 

KCWC Day 3

My hour today was taken up with redoing that Zigzag top, sewing some more dachshunds, and tracing out a pattern. I've decided to try making this top from Ottobre 1/2010

 It's for 128cm and Hazel's only just over 110 so I'm going to try and take it down a size. If it's too big it doesn't really matter, she'll grow into it!

I'm also thinking about this top as I have a perfect spotty voile in my stash.  Luckily this one also comes in a smaller version that's identical except they haven't put the shirring on the bottom, so I won't have to change anything. I've noticed that there is a slightly odd distribution of sizes in the Ottobre magazine and Hazel is slightly in-between the smaller and larger size groups. There are a few pieces that transition across but it would be interesting to know how they decide to allocate the styles and sizes.  The skirt that goes with the spotty top is also really sweet, very A-line so it has a great shape, especially in heavier fabrics. 

Sort of wish I hadn't gone to the Ottobre site to get the images now, the latest women's magazine looks great and I've been hankering after 1/2008 for awhile. Damn...

Kids Clothes Week Challenge - Day 2

The pillowcase skirt.  I've been buying old sheets with the aim of making a quilt at some point and Hazel took a shine to a pillowcase in this blue pattern and asked me to make a skirt for her. And I thought "why not?" and did.  Of course when I opened it out I realised it was faded in patches but went ahead anyways. I notice it for sure but I'm not sure if others would or not!  She's pretty keen on it - it got a much better reception than the Zigzag dress, although I'm still holding out hopes on that one and preparing my psychological assault on her to get her to love it as much as I do!  Anyways, this skirt amuses me and I'm pleased I made it.

The pillowcase opened out to one piece of long fabric so I just sewed it up in a seam at the back, hemmed the bottom and folded over the top to make a casing for elastic. It's trimmed with giant ric-rac and a couple of ric-rac flowers. Unfortunately I pressed them with the iron and can't get them to look as lovely and full as they did initially! And I also slightly melted the giant ric-rac because I thought it was cotton and it's obviously a blend. Oops! But you can't actually tell except that one little spot is slightly smaller and feels a bit hard.

If anyone has tips on sewing this giant ric-rac I'd love to hear them - as you can see above I did the usual straight line through the middle as waggling up and down was too hard. But it's not sitting particularly nicely and the tips are curling in. Do I need to get the free motion foot out?

Kids Clothes Week Challenge - Day 1

Yeah yeah yeah, so I should be writing a lecture but who can resist?!

The brief is to commit to 1 hour of sewing a day for a week. This dress took just over an hour to sew up, I'd done the cutting last week.  Super-simple and I love it!  Whether Hazel does or not is another matter but I'm hopeful.

It's the Zigzag Dress from Tina Givens.  Since I'm hosting her on her book blog tour next month I was really keen to try one of her patterns beforehand and this one looked like it would suit the Fuccra to a T.  It's only 6 pieces - two bodice pieces cut together on the fold, two rectangles for the skirt and two strips for the neck binding.  I love how the bodice is put together

It's still unfinished at the seam for skirt and bodice as I need to try it on Hazel to make sure the neckline isn't too wide.  I'm also considering putting in a lining on the skirt as the double gauze is very 'sticky' and I think it will cling to leggings something awful which would negate the lovely looseness of the dress.  It's designed to be tight along the sleeves and then it goes all big just past the elbows - lots of room to move in! Geez I hope she likes it...

ETA: Mixed reaction from Hazel (she laughed because it was too big). It's too wide across the neck so I need to dismantle it and increase the overlap. The sleeves are close-fitting on her lower arms; it looks nice but she's a bit funny about things being tight. She hasn't complained yet so I'm not about to ask about it!

They Might Be Giants for kids

Ok, hands up who remembers They Might Be Giants?  Me! Me! And I've discovered they have a whole lot of very cool songs for kids over on You Tube - Hazel's class is often watching them in the mornings before the bell rings.  This is my favourite, and Hazel's, because she wants to be one, but they also have a cool one about Mesopotamians. Though that's a bit above Hazel's head at the moment!  Now if only they'd do one for Archaeologists...  Actually I must admit I do sometimes sing the chorus and put in archaeologist instead.