Category: Sewing

Halloween 2017: Lion Costume – Tail

To make Anya’s lion tail, I started with an elongated trapezoidal piece of furry fabric — not quite a rectangle because I wanted it thicker at the base of the tail and thinner at the end. I folded it in half length-wise, with the right sides together, and used the serger make a fabric tube. Turned it right side out and stitched the ‘tip’ of the tail closed. I used a bunch of poly-fil and slowly stuffed the tail (using big wads to stuff the tail made it look lumpy. I took small pinches of the stuff and pushed it to make a firm filling.). Then I hand-stitched a strip of long fur around the tip.

I wanted something Anya could put on by herself, so clipping the tail onto her clothes wouldn’t work. I decided to use an elastic band – cut a 4″ wide strip of the lion fur fabric about 6″ longer than Anya’s waist circumference, folded it in right sides together, and serged it into a tube but left a few inches at the end. I then inserted the tail into the tube and folded it so the top fabric of the tail was aligned with the top fabric of edges of the waistband fabric and finished serging the strip. I then turned the whole thing right-side out — so the tail was firmly held into the band and dangled down. I measured out a strip of elastic about 2″ bigger than Anya’s waist, threaded it through the band, and sewed the elastic together with a lot of overlap. My hypothesis is that I’ll be able to open the seam and make her bands bigger as she grows. Once I confirmed it was tight enough to hold the tail up on her waist, I hand-stitched the tube together at the ends to make a band. Voila, one lion tail!

Baseball T-Shirt: Completed

I finished Anya’s baseball t-shirt!

I sketched a quick heart in Photoshop, and drew in two lines of baseball-style stitching. The image was printed on Transfer EZE ‘paper’ using our laser printer (which answered the question: can you laser print on this stuff?). I then took a little scrap of quilt batting and laid it on the shirt. Placed a scrap of white satin on top, then stuck the Transfer Eze print onto the satin. It adhered quite well to satin – was a little concerned!

Put it in a hoop and embroidered the red stitching to hold the whole thing in place. I then trimmed the satin about a quarter inch outside of the heart’s lines; the batting was trimmed to be about a quarter inch smaller than the satin. Finishing the project was just needle turn appliqueing the heart to the shirt (using what amounts to a really short satin stitch).

The quilt batting really enhances the stitch definition for the red lines, and it makes the whole design puff out a bit from the shirt.

Baseball Shirt

Anya’s preschool class has “baseball day” on Friday, and they are to wear their baseball shirts. It’s an interesting assumption that everyone has a baseball shirt to wear. Three years ago, I happened across an Indians t-shirt on post-season clearance. It was a size too large, but she grows. Beyond my “you cannot go wrong with a 4$ t-shirt” purchase, we don’t have anything baseball related. I don’t particularly want to pay inflated MLB-licensed in-season (and the Indians are doing well) prices.

I picked up a bunch of blank t-shirts for embroidered designs, so I decided to make Anya a baseball themed shirt. She chose the green shirt, and I drew a heart and added baseball stitching. The black and white image was printed on this Transfer Eze paper that I love. Then I cut out a slightly larger heart of white satin and a same-sized heart from a very thin quilt batting. Laid out the t-shirt, centered the quilt backing, then affixed the Transfer Eze heart to the satin and laid it on top of the batting. Going with the quilting principal of working from the center out to avoid bubbles, I started with the red stitching. Now I’m using a satin stitch around the edge to needle turn appliqué the whole thing onto the t-shirt.

Peppermint Swirl Dress

I started cutting the peppermint swirl dress. I cannot wait until fabric can be 3D printed (yes, I’ve seen Electroloom … but they went under, so don’t really count. I totally would have purchased one and started a custom fabric business. In the solid color realm, you could do some amazing pre-cut kits. Or white and hand dyed the printouts). This dress would be so much easier to make if you didn’t have to cut twenty eight little swirl strips 🙂

Wow does this use a LOT of fabric! Especially if you don’t think about it for a second first and cut the fabric folded wrong sides together. *Not* symmetrical. D’oh! So now I have to order another yard of the cream fabric. I’ll get the rest of the cream cut, all of the blue cut, and start assembling the dress. It’ll be 75% done before I actually need that last cream strip. I’m curious to write an algorithm to place the pieces on a length of fabric. It seems like the S-shaped combination of the two strip pieces could be nested to decrease the length of fabric required to get seven sets. Haven’t yet, so I’m getting two sets from a 44″ wide piece of fabric — cut the fabric in half and laid them together with both right sides up. Important, that.

 

Peppermint Swirl Dress

I came across a new pattern this weekend – the Peppermint Swirl Dress from Candy Castle Patterns – that I absolutely love. I can think of a lot of combinations that are holiday specific — red, white, and blue Independence Day dress, or a red and green Christmas dress. But didn’t want a wear-once dress.

It would also be great for a single color with gradients — take eight shades and arrange them 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 (loop back to #1 at the beginning). *But* this dress takes a lot of fabric. Like five yards for a 5 year old kid. At ten dollars a yard, it’s a fairly expensive dress using two or three fabrics. Even if I could get half yards for the skirt segments and use Kona cotton solids at 6$ a yard … that’s around 50$ for the skirt. Which, unfortunately, makes it a special occasion type of outfit.

Maybe as I get more fabric scraps, it would be a neat use-the-scraps project. But, for now, I wanted to get two colours that could be worn pretty much whenever. And I’d rather not spend 10$ a yard 🙂 So I began searching for closeout fabrics. There are a TON of cool closeouts in the 4$-5$ a yard range, but finding two that coordinated well … not so much. I thought about getting a print and then picking up a coordinating Kona locally. But then I came across a sale on marbled fabrics. I should have a blue and cream marbles in a week or so. I plan to use the blue as the dress top, make some piping with the cream fabric to go along the neckline, and use the cream fabric for the sash.

Blindly Following Instructions

I purchased a table runner kit after the holidays. I’ve never done paper piecing, but I like the Mariner’s Compass patterns. It’s a technique I wanted to learn; and I wanted a clean, modern table runner for our dining room. I didn’t see a whole lot of modern-looking quilted table runners.

I’ve watched a couple of online videos showing the paper piecing process, and thought I was ready to give it a try. Traced the A variant of the block four times, cut all of the fabric pieces, and got ready to sew. I was halfway done the first block when I realized that the instructions have a point made of a blue piece and a yellow piece. Not a darker and lighter blue or a darker and lighter yellow. Checked the B variant of the block – same thing.

Well, that’s not right! I can see the intended result and it’s clearly got points that have a shadow effect created by using a darker and lighter shade of the same color. And if you combine two of the block units, you’ll have nothing but yellow/blue points.

I ended up re-writing the fabric to be used – and realized that there isn’t actually a B variant of the block anywhere in the thing. It is 8 identical blocks. A dark blue, light yellow/dark yellow, then a light blue. That light blue connects to the dark blue on the next block.

One of the challenges of working on something new … I don’t know enough about what I’m doing to question the instructions. Until it becomes obvious (and I have to cut new pieces to re-do an entire block!)

Overlaying Fabrics

I played around with overlaying fabrics – I used an organza with a silver snowflake design over a deep blue satin. The resulting color is a much lighter icy blue (pretty much what I was going for).

I had a lot of trouble handling the fabric – I cut the circles and basted the two pieces together at the waist and hem. I then used the lower baste-line to fold and hem the skirt. That worked well. For some reason, though, I could NOT get the waistband to attach. I ended up catching the skirt in the serger and slicing the fabric. There’s a fairly large (3/4″ wide by 3″ long) gash that I had to patch up right along the band. Not something you notice when Anya is wearing it, I didn’t have enough fabric to cut new circles, and it would look worse if I spliced in an entire wedge of the skirt.

The organza material is a little plastic-y, and difficult to work with. My original idea was to do a rolled hem on the bottom of both materials. Couldn’t get a nice rolled hem on a straight piece of sample fabric … so that was out. Once the organza was combined with the satin, it was pretty easy to work with. It doesn’t drape like cotton, though (hence my problem with the serger).

The end result, however, looks really awesome. And Anya loves having a glittery silver snowflake skirt.

Anya’s Easter Dress (2017) – Almost Finished

In fitting this dress, I decided to split the dress into a top and skirt to produce an outfit Anya can put on herself. As a dress, it was a little tricky to get into. I considered putting a zipper in the back, but she wouldn’t be able to dress herself.

Since the skirt is basically a circle skirt, I added a wide waistband with 2″ elastic. Done.

I’ve extended the lining (attached a strip of cream Bemberg lining material to the navy fabric which stops at the top of the white fabric).

Anya’s Easter Dress (2017) – Getting Started

I started making Anya’s Easter dress using the Kinley Cascading Flounce Dress pattern from Simple Life Sewing Company. I’m using a bright-ish blue main fabric with white Fairy Frost (glittery silver on white) as the underskirt. I have a navy blue Bemberg lining on the bodice – it’s a little dark, but it was something I already owned 🙂

I’ve got the pieces cut and am ready to start assembling the dress tomorrow.