Little Joey - Apples

Some time ago, Toni from Make It Perfect emailed me and asked if I would like to test her new pattern, Little Joey. The dress looked so cute, I said "YES," and immediately ordered fabric from Crafty Mamas to put it together with. Crafty Mamas is my go-to shop for high quality stretch fabrics, and this Snow White themed apple fabric came in a Creative Pack with some coordinating dark grey and red fabric, some ribbon and a cute little bird iron on. I had my eye on that fabric pack already, and I knew that the Little Joey pattern was the perfect excuse for me to buy it.


Little Joey is a cute little jersey dress with a waistband and kangaroo pockets. This particular pattern is for little girls from six months to five years. There is also a Big Joey pattern for your Little Joey's big sister, aged up to about 10, and a Skippy pattern, perfect for mums on the go. I made the size four pattern and chose to make it with the short sleeves.


The fabric pack I had purchased only had 50cm of the apple fabric, and I was determined to make the pattern fit, despite the recommendation being for 110cm of main fabric. I think my piece was actually about 55cm or so, and I did make the skirt shorter to get it to fit. Something I did find odd about the pattern was that the bottom corners of the skirt come to a point, instead of being a neat curve. I trimmed these bits off before hemming. I did mention this to Toni in my pattern testing notes, but the final pattern was not changed.


Whilst I would say that the fabric requirements are generous, I do recommend that you have a bit more than I did and it will be a less stressful exercise, especially if you wish to make a larger size, or long sleeves. Alternately, I could have had a grey bodice and ironed on the bird, but I am glad I persevered with making the apple fabric fit. I used some of the red coordinating fabric from the Creative Pack for the neck and sleeve and waist bands.


I think Amélie's favourite feature is the kangaroo pockets, where she can store matchbox cars and all sorts of other treasures. I just can't go past those cute little puffy sleeves. The sleeves were a little bit tricky because there were no notches to match between the sleeves and the armholes, so there was a bit of guesswork involved there. Whilst I still think the Make It Perfect patterns could use a little polish, the pattern was easy to put together and the end result is a cute little dress, perfect for playing in and easy to care for - no ironing!

Made for Me - March Dress

Ok, so I realise that it is now June and I still haven't showed you the dress I made for myself back in March. I am finding it challenging (on many levels) to take photos of myself, wearing the things I have made. Never mind, I will get over myself and catch up eventually, I am sure...

Anyway, this dress is made using New Look pattern 6429, view C. As I have a long torso, I attempted to lengthen the top half of the dress. There is a seam across the back that is already above the waistline, that would have looked really funny if I had not. Lengthening the torso was not easy, as there are no shorten/lengthen lines to be able to do so, so there was a bit of fiddling around, and some moving of dots and notches. I am still not sure I really got this right, but it seems to work.


Oh, by the way, this is my mannequin. She has come from my mum's house to stay here. As you can see, she is a bit skinny and it looks like her boobs are in a completely different place to mine, but maybe with some padding, I might be able to sort her out. Or she can just become my clothes horse for modeling my new clothes if I am too shy, or technically challenged to do it myself.


Another modification I made to this dress was that I replaced the neckline facing with some binding that I cut from the same fabric as the dress. I found the concept of a facing in a stretch dress to be a bit strange. Particularly because that facing is to be interfaced, which would make it not stretchy. When I added the binding, I made sure to stretch it a little tighter across the bust area, where the dress "crosses over". This was to help keep everything inside the dress, where it should be. I have a tendency to burst out of cross-over dresses and tops as time goes by, but this dress is safe at least for long enough for me to go out for dinner. I really do wonder about that facing and if there are advantages to having those parts of the dress stabilised in such a way?

Overall, I am fairly pleased with this dress. I may even make it again, out of some better fabric. We shall see...

Another Shirred Dress

One of my favourite things to make for Amélie is a shirred dress. They are relatively quick and easy to make, and fit for a long time. A couple of her older ones have been worn as tops as they got too small to be dresses anymore.


You don't need a pattern, just a rectangle of fabric. There is very little wastage as I use the whole width of the fabric and just square it up. This particular dress was extra thrifty as I purchased the fabric (poly-cotton) which was already cheap, on sale and I used (Spotlight) vouchers as well.

Do you have any easy things that you like to make over and over for your kids? Particularly pattern-free things?

Hollywood Cherise

The Hollywood Cherise features in the Summer 3/2012 issue of Ottobre. The main part of the dress is gathered onto a yoke and as the little cap sleeves are part of the rest of the dress, there are no sleeves to sew, making this a quick dress to put together. I made this gingham version for Amélie around the end of November or start of December.


I omitted the pockets from the pattern.The instructions suggest cutting them on the bias, but I had trouble maintaining the nice square shape when I did that, so ditched them altogether. Most likely they would only end up full of sand at this time of year, anyway.


As you can see from the photos, it is a comfortable dress to wear. Amélie has no trouble playing in it, and it is perfectly breezy for a hot, summer day. It can also be made shorter, if you like, so it can be worn with pants or shorts as a tunic, rather than the full-length dress.


The final detail was the pearl snaps I added to the back of the dress. Easy to do up and undo, and a perfect compliment to the classic red gingham fabric I used. I love this pattern, and Amélie seems to love wearing it, so I might revisit it some time with some different fabrics.


The Hollywood Cerise used about three fat quarters of fabric from my stash. The Christmas Tree Skirt in the previous blog post used approximately 10 FQs of fabric, but I bought six FQs of fabric and used the rest from my stash. I also purchased 15 FQs of fabric to make myself a top and a further 12 FQs to make Maxx a shirt. Why, oh why does this feel like a major confession?! SYST13 Running totals: in = 140, out = 268, total = -128

Kokeshi Tea Party

I finished the Oliver + S Tea Party dress last weekend. I bought the pattern from Duckcloth, who are closing down their online store. Their Oliver + S Patterns are 40% off. This only cost $15, which is a bargain for such a well drafted pattern.


I originally purchased this fabric from Spotlight, quite some time ago. I loved it because of the Japanese Kokeshi Dolls and the slubs give the fabric awesome texture. I kind of wish I had bought a co-ordinating print when I got it, but I didn't have any specific plans. I have a feeling there was only black there at the time, which is probably why I never bought it. I have seen red and I think navy as well. I am sure if they had those I would have got some?


So once I decided that this was the fabric I was using for this dress I went off to my local quilt shop to find something to co-ordinate. I really wasn't sure if they would work or not. I really liked the way the red, floral fabric matched the Kokeshi Doll fabric, but wasn't sure about the purple. The purple against the red was a little scary, but there were little hints of purple in the Kokeshi fabric that I wanted to exploit. In the end, I decided to just go with it.


I hadn't really planned what to do about buttons. I saw there was two buttons in the list of items that I would need to complete the dress, but for some reason, I didn't think of them as being important. I envisioned some decorative buttons somewhere, completely forgetting that I would need them for the straps. I don't know what I was thinking? Anyway, I remembered that I had a little pack of self-covered buttons from Pack It In that would do nicely, especially since I had the ideal fabric to use, with tiny motifs that fit the buttons perfectly. I put a bit of interfacing on the back to help reduce the shine-through from the button. I KNOW I have seen this suggested on a blog somewhere, but I can't remember where??? If someone knows, can they please tell me so I can credit it? The blogger may or may not have suggested wadding as well??


I love these little buttons so much, I may need to make some more...


For this project, I used some fabric from my stash as well as some that I purchased.
SYST13 Running totals: in = 176, out = 58, total = +118

Amélie's Jump Rope Dress

As part of Kids' Clothes Week I decided to make Amélie the Jump Rope Dress by Oliver + S. I bought the pattern as a download late last year and it has been sitting in my to-do pile ever since. There were lots of different fabrics in my stash that I would have loved to use for this dress, but it required more fabric than usual. Most things I have about 1m of, but I needed about 1.5m for this dress as the skirt is quite full.

There are some awesome details in the dress. I love the pockets. I was initially thinking that navy or red buttons would be nice, but finally decided on pearl snaps. Pearl snaps may just be my "thing". I love the way they look and they do make getting clothes on and off much easier.

I also love the little tabs that hold up the sleeve cuffs. For the pockets and the sleeve tabs, I just used a snap, the way you would use a stud - with just the female part on the back. They don't need to come undone.

The dress used about 1.5m of fabric, which is equivalent to six fat quarters.


SYST13 Running totals: in = 168, out = 44, total = +124

Little Lady in Red

I made another shirred dress for Amélie. This time I made a matching hat and bloomers. I really like this red fabric that I picked up from Spotlight the other day. I think red really suits Amélie, you may see more of her in it in the future.



The shoulder-tie detail is actually fake. The straps are plain, with extra "straps" just tied onto them with a bow. If we get sick of tying them up all the time, we can just take them off. Or I could stitch them so that they stay tied.



I also added a ruffle to the bottom, which I ruffled and attached all in one go, using the ruffling foot. I did have a few hiccups, with the needle screw coming undone. I had been warned about this, but it hadn't happened before for me. I wonder if it is because I was ruffling and attaching in one go, or if I was going faster than last time? Anyway, I noticed it doesn't "ruffle" as much when that screw is loose, so if you notice your ruffles aren't as ruffly, then you might need to tighten that screw - BEFORE the needle pops out!



I did a rolled hem along the top and bottom edges of the dress with machine embroidery thread in the upper looper, it gives a nice luxurious finish. I did the rolled hem on the bottom of the ruffle before I ruffled it, so I was hemming a nice, flat piece of fabric, rather than one that was ruffled and attached to a dress.

The hat is from Nicole Mallalieu's book, You Sew, Girl! This hat pattern is the same as the "Kids Hats" pattern by Nicole Mallalieu, but in baby size. These hats are easier to make each time, as you get used to sewing the curves together.



The bloomers I am really happy with. I am going to make more of these. I actually used a shorts pattern and added some to the bottom, and took some from the top. I did a rolled hem at the bottom edge, and then added some narrow elastic about an inch up from the bottom. I also added a couple of little ties at the sides, which was a detail I liked from another pair of purchased bloomers that Amélie already had.

Shirr and Shirr Alike

I'm really liking making little shirred dresses for Amelie at the moment. I love the freedom of not having to use a pattern. I made this one for her on New Year's Eve. The fabric is a cute Japanese fabric, Minny Muu from Lecien, and features French words and little houses, cars, boats, trains, flowers and birds. I've done a rolled hem at both the top and bottom edges of the dress this time, which I think works better than a regular hem.



I would love it if someone could try and translate some of the writing on the fabric, as I have no idea what it says, though there seems to be a lot of references to cafés and travel. Maybe it is just gibberish?

To Be Shirr, To Be Shirr

I had never had a go at shirring, and I purchased some shirring elastic some time ago with the full intention to have a go one day. Yesterday I decided to do so. I was quite surprised with how easily it worked. It was a case of hand-winding the bobbin and dropping it in. No tension adjustments or anything! The result is not bad considering it was made with no pattern.



Of course, a cute little dress requires matching bloomers, so I made a pair of these as well. I hope the recipient (and her mother) likes her gift!

Paper Dolls, Lady Bugs & Unicorns

I've been wanting to make this outfit for Amélie for a while now, and finally managed to get the fabric and the time to do it.



I've made this once before as a gift for a friend, and when I heard that the pattern was being discontinued, I went and got myself the one in the larger sizes - before I even had a girl to sew them for. Let's hope I can still convince her to dress like this when she is pre-school aged!



The pattern is the "Puppet Show" Tunic & Shorts by Oliver + S. The patterns come with a cute paper doll that you can cut out and dress up in the same paper outfit as the pattern. I wonder if I will let Amélie play with these one day, or if I will still want to keep them for myself!



The fabric is Heather Ross' "Far, Far Away" Unicorns for Kokka, and I used some Kiyohara Clover & Ladybug for the shorts and the bodice and sleeve cuffs. Both fabrics are double gauze, which is lovely and soft and light. I was looking at the unicorn fabric, and noticed the Kiyohara on the same page at Kelani. The colours are a pretty close match.



I also thought of a way to make use of the cutest selvedge I have ever seen...

12 Challenges - January (Something for ME!)

Carolyn over at My Favourite is hosting a meme this year. The meme is 2010 - 12 months, 12 challenges.

There is a different challenge every month and for the month of January, we were challenged to make something for ourselves. This is rather appropriate, since we have been rather busy making things for others in the lead up to Christmas.

I made this "two hour dress" (NewLook 6889) for myself. I am fairly long in the torso, but an average-ish height, so I made the shorter of the two lengths and added 7cm to the top half  of the dress but made no modifications to the bottom half. It finished up a nice knee length dress, perfect for wearing around the house on hot days. 

Now, I bet you are wondering, did I do it in two hours? After tracing and adjusting and cutting (which isn't included in the two hours) it took me somewhere from 2.5 - 3 hours. I would imagine it would be quicker doing it again.

Next month the challenge is to sew something from a knit fabric. I have a plan, hopefully I get it under way nice and early in the month.