Sunday, May 29, 2011

The swimsuit round

I needed a new swimsuit so I whipped one up last evening. It's KS 2962 for those playing along at home. I made View B with the high leg opening in size small. I like the racer back style for myself. The fit is great, though I may cut the regular height leg opening next time. This fabric has been curing in my stash for about 5 years. It finally spoke to me :) The color is brighter than the picture shows.


It wouldn't be a very fun blog entry without a doll item, so here's a little swim suit for you. I got Kanani last weekend in Minnesota, as a total surprise. She is fabulous and her hair is incredible. I believe a proper Hawaiian girl ought to have a drawer full of swim suits. I made her one to match mine to get her started. My mom bought me her AG swim suit outfit and it's really cute! She's well on her way to a drawer full :)


Hopefully we'll get some warm weather soon so we can go to the beach and try out our new suits. We were at the Teddy Bears' Picnic in the park this morning and it was cold. I was wishing I had brought mittens for everyone!

Thanks for looking!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Sew Liberated laptop bag

I bought a copy of this super fun book the other day and found (among it's great patterns) something perfect to make this week. A laptop bag. Not a boring ordinary one, either. It's pretty and was fun and easy to make. You should make one too, friends. Your laptop is sad without a pretty bag to ride in.
I think I will make more things from book. It's good for using up bits and pieces that are not enough for something on thier own, but enough for embellishing and that's what this book is all about. Sewing useful things and making them unique. I managed to make this entire bag out of things I had in my sewing closet. It's fun to see what I can whip up for no cost. Well, except the cost of the book but that's minimal considering how many nice projects are in it.

I spent some time yesterday afternoon doing the hand embroiderey. It's time consuming but well worth it.
 The bag is padded in front and back to cushion the laptop.
 There is a little flaw/pucker on the front because I didn't use a walking foot. My Kenmore didn't even want to look at the layers in this bag so I used my trusty vintage machine. No walking foot there, but it's a small sacrifice. The flap covers the pucker anyhow. The red strip is the top of a document pocket.
 The printed fabric of the birds and the lining is leftover from an ice cream dress I made last summer. I used every shred of it.
 French knots adorn the tree. At first I was just going to make the simple bag, but I am glad I decided to do the whole embellishing thing. I love it! It's truly not just an ordinary laptop bag now.

Thanks for looking!

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Back at it.

I am home and recovered from my trip to NYC with my mom and my sister. We had a blast!

Shortly after I got home I got to work on some pants for my oldest. He's so hard on pants, store bought ones just don't cut it. He needs double knee, pull on pants. I cranked out 3 pair for him last week but he will not let me take modeled pictures and I can't afford his bribery rates these days. He wants thousands of dollars for a photo shoot. Sorry son, I can't do it. Maybe I'll take a few pictures as they come out of the wash tomorrow.

This morning my husband took both boys to the Y for swimming and gymnastics fun. With some time to myself I cut out a new free pattern from Heritage doll designs that my husband printed out for me. You can get your own copy of the Drawstring Dress. I made this one out of scraps from an ice cream dress I made a couple of months ago.

I use different construction methods than what is described in the pattern. I like using my vintage Singer, "Aunt Millie." She can only go forward in a straight stitch so I'm not using any zig-zag or serger finishes. It is more time consuming but I love the finished products I make with Aunt Millie. I usually flat fell side seams but this time I decided to make a French seam because of the tiny 1/4" seam allowances. It worked well. I stitched them together, wrong sides together with 1/8" allowance. I pressed them towards the back.
 I stitched again, right sides together to enclose the seam allowance. I pressed these to the back again.

This is how the seam looks on the inside.

I attached the armhole bias differently too. I ironed them in half and then only 1 edge was pressed up 1/4" to the center.


I wanted to take a picture of the binding getting sewn to the arm holes but my camera batteries had run out. Oh well. I went ahead and finished the dress while the battery was plugged in. Leonie, my Maplelea Girl scooped this dress as her own.


I added some narrow elastic to the inside to give it a nice fit. It was ok without it, but I didn't have any ribbon to match and elastic was a decent solution.

Thanks for looking, have a lovely weekend!