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I <3 Grainline's Moss Skirt

Seriously, I love it!  I have been reading about the moss skirt and archer shirts all over the blog-o-sphere.  I finally dove in and purchased both patterns.  I put the pattern together, cut a muslin, and sewed away.  

A few things I love:  the style, the instructions, and the fact that you can make this skirt with about a yard of fabric!  A lot of reviews mentioned confusion @ the fly front insertion, but IMHO, I thought the method was easy to follow and resulted in the best fly front I've ever done.

What I didn't love:  I cut a 6.  It was HUGE!  Not to mention, like others have pointed out, the waistband is drafted about 4 inches short.  Boo.  So, I added a bit to the waist band...and wore my skirt to Thanksgiving dinner.  I ended up pinning the waistband to keep it from falling off.  It's destined for someone else.

For skirt #2 - yes, I've made 2 skirts in three days - I used a piece of leftover denim and cut a size 2 - I kept the size 6 waistband.  A little snug in the hips this time, but a keeper!  I top stitched...

Look @ my badass skills - done without a twin needle, thank you very much.

And, here it is...my micro mini moss.  I will definately make it again.  Now. On to my archer top!

Teen Beach Movie shirt

Haha!  The girls wanted to watch "Teen Beach Movie" today.  So, I decided to get  a bit do sewing done.  I made the Tessuti Mandy shirt - a free downloadable pattern.  I love it!

I bought this fabric on sale at Hancocks for $4 yard.  It's a sheer sweater fabric & I thought about making a slouchy cardigan with it.  I decided to use it for this instead - glad that I did.  Normally, I'm not a big fan of oversized...but Mandy changed that.  Comfy, with slender arms to give it a sense of style.  I see more comfy sweatshirts in my future!

Well, the shirt was done by the time the movie was over - that included printing & taping together the PDF!  Woot!

 (Sorry @ the bad pic - my 5 year old photographer wasn't cooperating!)

Pika, pika, pikachu!

Happy Halloween!  I love Halloween!  It's the one time of year that kids (and kids at heart) can be anything they want to be.  My mom is an amazing seamstress and we always had the best Halloween costumes.  I remember telling her what I wanted to be and a few days later, the costume would magically appear!  Well , the tradition has carried over to my kiddos.  They are lucky, lucky girls!

Here's a picture:

Mom made the vampiress costume and I made the Pikachu costume.  I absolutely love how they both came out.

The biggest struggle with the Pikachu costume was the hat.  I actually used an old Japanese pattern book pattern for the shirt and a self-drafted pj bottom pattern for the pants.  The hat, however, is a different matter.  To save myself time, I bought Simplicity 1953 - a simple hat pattern.  Trick on me, it was not simple.  To sum it up, I spent more time on that hat than I did making the shirt, pants, and tail!  Oh well, the end result worked out.

Some more pictures:

The back - she was super excited about the tail!

The front during the "trying on" phase!

Hope you got lots of candy last night!!

A sweet little dress

Well, it's been a while since my last post. My sewing mojo has been a little off sice my jean fail.  I did wear them once - just to confirm my suspicions - definitely not my style.  Onward and upward as they say.

I started this dress last weekend and finished it yesterday.  It was a quick make out of a lovely fabric I have been saving for some time.  The fabric is 100% cotton and I thought it would wrinkle a lot, but as you can see in the photos, it held up nicely to a day of wear.

So, let's talk the dress, shall we?  The pattern is New Look 0112.  I love the raglan sleeves!  I originally bought the pattern for the jacket (that's one of my next projects).  I cut a straight size 10 - and there is plenty of wearing ease.  The only modifications I made were to take in the bust darts, take in fabric on the front sleeves to get the dart placement right, and take in some at the top of the sleeves because the back was gaping A LOT.  All of these adjustments I just did by pinching fabric here and there.  It's an easy style to modify this way.

A modification photo where I took out some fabric in the sleeve cap:

I didn't really follow the directions - it's straightforward to sew.  The only difference I made was to blind hem the front and back facing to the dress vs. stitching around the neck.  I think it looks better that way.

A photo on my dress form:

I am really happy with the final product and fit.  The opposite of an epic fail, IMHO. Though, I must work on my picture taking...I'm not exactly known for my photogenic qualities.

Next up, a draped front cardigan!

A wadder - or a case of something's not right

So, I finished the trousers.  The fit was awesome, the sewing was perfect, but when I put them on, something just wasn't right.  Perhaps it was the style that didn't work with the jean fabric?  I felt too momsy and not very feminine.  I also could not figure out which shirt to wear with the bottoms.  Nothing looked right.

Sadly, these pants are destined for the wadder pile.  Sad face.

Here are some pictures.  The pattern is Simplicity 1783. 

 

Cute, right?

I added pockets using Very Purple Person's tutorial.

A shot of the fly front with some more hidden zebra print - fun, right?

Bummer.  I know I won't wear them.  Maybe I will cut them off into shorts.

Tackling trousers, finally!

What a crazy month! With our California trip and back to school, there hasn't been much time for sewing or blogging.  But, a little sewing has been happening - more importantly, I finally decided to do the whole pant - not just shorts!

A little teaser!

Some much needed jeans will be added to my wardrobe soon!  And yes, I snuck some zebra stripe in.

Also, my next project is in the planning stages.  I've had this fabric FOREVER.  I think a dress would be good, but haven't landed the perfect pattern yet.  I draped the fabric on my dress form today, and it reaffirms my dress thoughts.  Perhaps a more fitted silhouette would be good?

I also like the idea of adding a red belt or something.

Ok, I better get cracking!  More photos to come!