Why do I even bother?

I've spent hours hand embroidering a dress/cat bed. Awesome.

roses? maybe a whole bouquet?

I was working on some embroidery tonight, and then after I finished it, I still had 15 minutes of tivo'd Glee to finish watching... so I pulled out a pipe cleaner to make these roses (aren't they amazingly pretty!)... but I don't love it when I do it....

I think it needs the raggedy edge, and I only have rotary cut scrap strips... So I'll have to revisit those later... But I still had 7 minutes left... so I grabbed another strip... and then grabbed a bead, and made this:

isn't it pretty?

I"ll hunt down some felt and a head band tomorrow, and whip out a few more of these, and then I won't have to worry about my hair during the trip....

I love using scraps... (I think I might need to get some junk jewelry to put something more sparkly in the middles... I think the Bean might like some barrettes with sparkly flowers... to match her dresses, of course)

redemption

here's the mostly fixed version of the 1930s apple dress... clearly I need to read more Anthro catalogs, because I am HORRIBLE at naming dresses...
I called it the Mavis dress on the pattern pieces I drafted... My wonderful grandmother doesn't like the Bean's real name (Leonora)... she wanted me to name her Devery. (NOPE! not going to happen. Darren and Devery are totally the names of someones pugs, NOT the names of my children!) Anyway, my gram said she liked the name MAVIS (D's suggestion, because he likes the Thomas train named Mavis) better than Leonora.
But Mavis is just such an old-fashioned name! Maybe one who's time has come back around? are there lots of baby Mavises running around? because I could totally see this dress being worn by all the super stylish babies on the block....

the back has 3 buttons to close (but could have snaps or a zipper if preferred)
the collar and sleeves are contrasting, and the skirt has 3 pleats on each side of the center, so there's lots of fullness for running and jumping...

(She's also wearing the leggings I made as part of KCW, and D's first pair of shoes, from when he was 10 months old)

I think I just need to widen the shoulders and cut the bodice of the dress on the bias so you can see the inset part.... it's super cute though, right?

the aviatrix dress...

when I was younger, I totally adored Shirley Temple (if I still had time to watch her movies, I would)...
I particularly love her wardrobe... and now that my daughter can wear dresses, and I can sew, CLEARLY I need to make her some Shirley Temple-esque dresses! (right? RIGHT!)
unfortunately, I can't find patterns... When there are really cute vintage patterns for sale, they're $40+ and I don't think my daughter needs cute dresses THAT badly.
so I decided to draft my own patterns, given my reasonable successes during KCW
first I tried this dress, but it totally flopped, so to clear my brain, I tried to make THIS one.

(Now that I think about it, this is the dude from Stowaway, not Curly Top, so the Aviatrix name doesn't work, but it's already on my pattern pieces... oh well...)
here's my verson:

I think it's a reasonable winner, don't you?
here's the back:

and a close up of the front:

and my awesome model, being very tolerant of her mama's photographic needs....

I'm thinking of attempting to draft this pattern in various sizes (2T-6?), and then maybe selling it as a PDF pattern...
of course, I'll need pattern testers, and input, so if anyone's out there....
(ahem)
... email me?

rough week last week...

last week was a real bummer of a week. nothing ACTUALLY horrible or tragic, just a bunch of crafting problems. but when you're me, that's a MAJOR bummer. so this is my venting post, and hopefully it will be cathartic, so then I'm going to post my redemption...
first up: a pair of socks for my grandfather-in-law.
see the fancy cable pattern? yeah, so it turns out I TOTALLY can't read cable charts. thought I could, after all, I can read lace charts, but cable charts are WAY beyond me. (It might have helped to mark my stopping points, so I could KNOW where I was when I restarted, rather than guessing.... maybe next time?)

so I frogged that. (btw, notice the knitting needle in the upper right? it's a size 1. the lighter colored piece of wood is a TOOTHPICK! do you know how long it takes to knit 3 inches of sock on TOOTHPICKS!)
Then, thinking I was on a roll, I drafted and tested a really cute 1930's frock (so much cuter than a dress), for the bean.... and my sewing skills were NOT up to par:

see the puckering?
I finally basted the inset in by hand, and then sewed it... it's better, but all the manhandling I did (sewing then ripping then sewing, times 3 or 4) has made this totally not good enough... but it was a good lesson to learn! (also learned that I need to use a small directional print on the bias for the bodice)
and lastly, I was working on a sweater for the Bean, but I also had to frog that, after hours of knitting (albeit on larger needles this time!)

so... hopefully all the bad is well past, and next up I have some super cute success stories to share!
(I think failures are as important to record as successes...don't you?)

Check off the stem stitch!

I finally (FINALLY) feel like I have mastered the stem stitch.
Hopefully this dress will get fully embroidered/sewn/finished in the next week so I can wear it to a wedding (!!!!!!) next weekend.

Apple Dress

the pleated jumper pattern I drafted a few days ago, plus an apple pocket and some puffed sleeves!

the apple pocket is VERY much appreciated by the bean....

and I love the flare of the skirt.... tres Shirley Temple, n'est pas?

the apple fabric is a remnant from Joann, and the apple pocket is from some polished cotton remnant...
I shirred the cuffs of the sleeves, put an invisible zipper in the back....
we'll see how this zipper survives the laundry here.... It's one of a pack I bought at Marukai, which is an awesome Japanese store (sorta like a small Target, in that they have groceries, housegoods, stationary... like CVS without the pharmacy?) near me... they have the coolest zippers, and the cheapest... instead of $1.50-ish each, they have PACKS of 3-5 invisible zippers (depending on the length) for $1.29.... but instead of having fabric sides, they have what feels like fine polyester webbing.... I'm intrigued....
Now I just need to go through the button jar with her to find something awesome for the top closure....
while I type this, she's systematically coating the front of this dress in vanilla yoghurt, so I've got to go do some laundry....

same dress, different pics...

I finally got this dress off her, so I decided to seize the moment and photograph it before she grabs it back... it's a little wrinkled, it's been napped in, eaten in, etc, but it's still cute!

I used hem lace for the first time; I didn't have brown, so I used bright red for a little secret pop of color....

the back has an invisible zipper and an AWESOME vintage button...
the embroidery took me about 4 hours, and the dress 2...
it's always a good idea to spend oodles of time embelishing a toile, right?

these boots were made for walkin'!

Tada! here's the finished dress! the embroidery spruces up the plain pleated top, and the pleated front makes the skirt much more fun!

we found these awesome boots in our garage, not sure who handed them down to us....

they're still too big, but she loves them!

I'm psyched to make her a little ruffled-collar, puffed-sleeves white tshirt to go under it, with white tights.... it'll be perfect for the cooler weather we get here all winter (if we EVER get cooler weather! we're in the middle of a VERY unusual heat wave!)

HEAT WAVE!

My kids may have lots of awesome, cute, tailor-made (or mama-made) clothes, but during record-breaking heat, they prefer nudity, so I have no adorable modeling photos tonight.

I'm pattern-testing right now. I really want to make the Bean some Shirley Temple-esque dresses... modernized for easier construction, but with that really-expensive-vintage look...

First up, to check my sloper, is a simple pleated-front jumper.
I found some brown wool (a remnant from m&l, maybe? I think I bought it to make D pants, but there isn't enough), and it's super soft. But plain. And DARK brown! (like a Hershey bar)
So I spent my evening under very warm wool, trying to cool off, embroidering this design on the front bodice.
I really like it, even if it didn't come out perfectly symmetrical. I need to figure out a better way to transfer to dark fabric...