KCW Day 5: Farbenmix Henrika & Jalie 2796 Shorts

Days three and four got away from me, but yesterday I went to work and busted out a dress and shorts for E.  Tee-shirt dresses are my favorite. (Okay, I say a lot of things are my faves, but they're so quick and cute and comfy!)

The dress is a modified Farbenmix Henrika.  I made her one in size 98/104 for the Spring 2012 (!) KCW, and it's really just fitting her nicely now, so I used the same size.  For this one, I raised the back neckline and scooped the front more.

Back neckline

I'd added an inch of length to the bottom last time around.  I added another two inches to the middle (where I figured a lengthen/shorten line would have been) for a total of 3".  The original skirt has four panels, but I didn't want the extra seams this time, so I doubled the pieces to make just a front and back.  It's nearly a circle skirt, so when it was time to hem, I first serged the bottom with the differential feed set to 2.0.  This gathered it a bit and made it really easy to work the ease in.  I will definitely do that with similar knit skirts from now on!  Added the neck and sleeve bands and it was done.

While she will mostly wear this with some pink and white striped capri leggings that she already has, I also wanted some brown undershorts for when it's too warm for capris.  I traced Jalie 2796 for that purpose last year and never got around to making any, so I was all set to make a quick pair.  She has a super tiny waist and butt, so they are a size F for the width (and length, not sure what past Sarah was thinking on that -- they're quite short!) and size I for the rise. When I finished, they looked impossibly small, but they're actually a perfect fit, other than the leg length.  They do cover her diaper, though, which was my main goal.  I'll lengthen the legs quite a bit for more modesty in the future, though.

The main fabric is pretty thin rib knit, which is one of those stash fabrics from before I knew what I was looking for in a knit.  I'm not crazy about it, and it was a pain to hem, but for something that's going to be covered most of the time, it's fine.  I used ribbing for the waist, since I didn't think the other stuff had enough recovery to hold up.

Not my best work, but it got the job done.

KCWC Days 3 & 4: Farbenmix Henrika

I just finished up a little knit dress, the Farbenmix Henrika.  It's the smallest size (98/104 or 3T/4T), but with an added inch of length to both skirt layers.  It looks a bit wide, but that seems to be typical of the Farbenmix patterns I've used.  E still wears the 86/92 Olivia I made for her second birthday as a tunic!

Henrika is written for wovens, which probably added to the roominess factor also.  The pattern suggests that you can leave out the closure if you use a knit, which is what I did.  I also added a neckband and changed the short sleeve to a cap sleeve by eyeballing one of E's RTW shirts.

The instructions on this pattern are very, very minimal, so while construction is fairly straight-forward, I wouldn't recommend it to a beginning sewist.  The pattern could be more clearly marked as well.  It took me a ridiculously long time to figure out that one of the lines on the bodice sections was meant to be for the neck facing (which I didn't use, since I made mine like a tee).

I used Wooly Nylon for the lettuce edge for the first time, but didn't think it looked any different than using regular serger thread.  Maybe it'll fill in more once it's been washed?

Have you been to the KCWC flickr group yet this round?  SO many cute things.

¡Feliz cumpleaños!

I'm seriously considering renaming the blog "Desperation Sewing", as nearly every post includes some reference to my being stressed about a project because I procrastinated for too long.  This week's lesson: If waiting to start something until the day before it needs to be mailed, make sure you have enough matching thread, or you'll have to do most of the sewing on the designated mailing day and will have to drive way across town to the one post office that accepts mail after 5:30pm.


On to the project!  A birthday dress for the younger of my two nieces, who turns nine on Sunday.  This is the Feliz from Sewing Clothes Kids Love.  It was also available as an individual pattern from Farbenmix, but I believe they discontinued it when the book was released.

Front

I had wanted to use the outer print for E's birthday dress, when I was going to make her a Kyoko (which just came out in tween and misses sizes, btw.  I think there are matching dresses in our future.  Yes, I'm a nerd.  And I'm cool with it), but I couldn't find a coordinating fabric that I liked.  I was excited to find this fun floral this time around.

Back

Overall it went together pretty smoothly.  I did get confused about the straps, which were the second-to-last step, when I thought I was nearly done.  There is a front and back piece, as well as facings, and I wasn't sure if I was putting them together the right way.  This sewalong was incredibly helpful!  I think next time I'll eliminate the seam at the shoulder. I assume it's there for some reason dealing with the grainline, but I didn't really care for the bulk the seam allowances.  After that I had trouble with strap placement.  The line drawings in the book don't show the straps in the same spot as the mark on the front bodice.  Fortunately the photos of the dress showed that part pretty clearly (the mark is correct).  And then I didn't have the back strap placement marked at all!  The notch is only marked on the largest pattern size, so if you make it in a smaller size, watch out for that and make sure you transfer it.

I didn't make any changes to the pattern, but did include two optional features.  One was to have a few inches of the sash, which is sandwiched between the two layers of the dress, be elastic, so the wearer doesn't have to retie the sash every time she puts it on. I thought that was a clever idea.  I also included the facings on the back sides of the overdress.  It seemed more finished with them, rather than just hemming the sides.

I think this is the kind of dress that really needs to be modeled to not look like a sack.  It has a lot of twirl factor going for it! When I asked O. if he wanted to see the dress before I packaged it up, he misunderstood me said, "I'm not putting that on!", so no action shots.  Hee.


Next week is the Kids Clothes Week Challenge.  I have a couple of spring/summer outfits planned for E.  The boy doesn't need much, but he does have some buddies with birthdays coming up, so I'm going to see what he thinks about making them fun tees.  I wanted to make a shirt for myself for the Spring Top Sewalong, but it's not looking likely, as it's O's birthday tomorrow, and I also have to make an Abe Lincoln costume in the near future.  ?!?


P.S. Anyone know why my first two pics look so blurry?  They're really not.  They're clickable, if you want to see them in their larger, non-blurred glory.  Found a fix here, although it's a bit of a pain to have to edit the HTML.

Sewing Déjà Vu

Are you thinking, "Gee, Sarah, I think I've seen those patterns and fabrics before"?  I've finally accepted that my fabric stash is out of control, so I've vowed to only buy fabric if it's absolutely necessary for a project I'm going to sew immediately.  Otherwise, it's stash and stash alone! We'll see how long I can last...


One of my recently finished projects was an outfit for a first birthday boy.  I'm sure you're shocked to see another Patrick Curved Raglan.  For gifts, I tend to go with tried and true patterns, and that certainly is one for me!  The matching pants are from Ottobre 5/2006.  The pattern includes knee patches, which I was going to make from the robot print, but fortunately it occurred to me in time that using a white-based fabric on the knees of a toddler's pants wouldn't be the smartest move.

The second was also a birthday gift, this time for a three-year-old.  I knew I wanted to make a red knit dress, and decided on the Farbenmix Olivia.  I've made a couple of these for E, but haven't done the hood or pocket before.  I didn't have enough of the cherry fabric to make the full length hood, but I think it's still cute with only one knot.  The cherry rib is sooo stretchy that it was looking a  little wonky there for a while -- especially the sleeves, which had gotten pretty distorted when I hemmed them, but they bounced back into shape after a quick wash and dry.  Whew.

 

Next up is hopefully going to be a Jalie top for me for the Sewing Mamas January Challenge.  I also need to make a final decision about E's birthday dress.  I *think* I've settled on a pattern, but still need to choose fabric.

Ooga Olivia and Lily

My last project for KCWC was this dress and leggings set for E.  I've been hanging on to this purple Ooga Booga print and coordinating stripe for months, and it was time to sew it up!  The dress is the Farbenmix Olivia underdress without the hood or pocket.  E's tall and thin, so I added an inch of additional length to the size 86/92.

The pants are the Lily leggings from Ottobre 06/2007.  She's moving into 3T in RTW, so I made size 98 without a seam allowance on the legs, but the fit is more like pants than leggings.  She'll either need to chunk up, or I have to remember to size down more for a slimmer fit.  ;)

I was really excited at how nice my hem with the twin needle turned out!  I've tried it less successfully in the past, but read to use Wooly Nylon in the bobbin, which made a huge difference.  I'll definitely be using that often.