First Ottobre Pattern

 

My Ottobre subscription came for the first time in the mail this week. What fun!! I'm so excited and so are the children.  Great styles and the directions look to be great too!

 

First up? Pants for Big LIttle Guy. He is growing like a weed and we needed to replace some floodsy pants in a big way!

It was a bit of a challenge but not too difficult.  First off the directions and measurements are all in centimeters.  Kind of a funny story right off the bat - as I'm tracing the pattern I'm thinking I need to add 10" to the length. I go to trace and I'm looking at what I'm doing and in my brain I'm thinking "What?" he's a bean pole for sure but these will fit a professional basketball player LOL Then I have the ah-ha moment! 10 cm NOT 10 inches! We had a really fun afternoon transferring all the children's measurements into centimeters. They love to be measured. Of course in the hopes of something new being sewn by mama!

All the patterns come all jumbled all over 3 or 4 big sheets of paper, front and back.  So the next challenge is to figure out which pattern pieces need to be traced. Once I figured out the maze of pattern lines it was fairly easy to sew.  The directions have no pictures along the way to guide you so I would say that the patterns are designed for at least intermediate sewers.  I've been sewing for 25 years so I did okay.  Still... each pattern company is a bit different. ie: the zipper insertion was not like I've done with Kwik Sew before.  It wasn't bad, just different.

From the 1/2013 issue - relaxed cotton pants #19.  I sewed size 110 and lengthened the legs by 10 cm. But ended up cutting off 4 cm at the end.  I did it exactly as the directions specified but I left the belt loops off.  The welt pockets went fairly well but next time I will not insert the flaps as far into the welt as the directions suggest. They would have been smoother and better looking if I had attached them a bit lower in the pocket opening.  Also, I put 26 cm of elastic in the back waistband and I could have brought that down to 24 and it would have fit better in the back.  And last but not least, I will definitely replace my broken double needle before I sew them again!! Maybe with these fun new patterns I'll pick up a few sizes of doubles. I'm finding them wonderful to put ribbing on T-shirts in a new way too.  Gotta love continuing to learn!!

Over all - I enjoyed sewing the pattern and I am excited to try more Ottobre!!  The kids are having a ball looking through the catalog/magazine that came.  They love the styles!! When I finished the pants two of the littles commented "Hey mom those look the most like store bought of anything you've ever sewn!!" LOL I guess if they look RTW then it's a success!

Oh, and he NEEDED to do his Super hero pose (he's so 7!)... so here ya go....  And again a barefoot kid in the middle of winter LOL Hey... it's 72 inside and a balmy 34 outside. But yes, I made him put socks on when he went out to build the snowman!

Tunic and Leggings for Little Miss

These were done a couple days ago but I haven't "caught" her for a photo shoot.

The shirt/dress (tunic) is McCall's MP424 size 8 with no alterations.  I seriously considered making an alteration to the sleeves because I don't like how they roll up the wrong side of the fabric into the cuffs.  But Oldest daughter said they looked fine so I went with it.

The leggings are Simplicity 2156 size 8, lengthened 2 inches. And they were still a bit on the short side.  I stupidly cut out two pairs at once too so the next pair will also be a bit short.  They come to her ankle bone which is what the pattern picture shows.  I think leggings can be any length and work okay. So not a huge deal.

This is my silly girl who wants so badly to grow her bangs out like her big sister. So she lives in a headband.  Don't you just love the bare feet in the dead of winter too? None of my kids like to wear socks LOL Saves on the sock bill for sure! We heat with wood so our home is always toasty warm - just like summer!

I'm thankful she loves to wear mama sewn clothes and is doing very well on her own sewing too!

A Quilt for Littlest Man

The quilt is finished! It only took me about 2 years! Really just a couple days last year and a couple days this year LOL

I had asked my mom to sew it for him a few years back. She willingly cut out a bunch of squares and sewed many of the blocks for me. She also had an idea of how I should do it. But of course by the time I got to sewing the blocks together (2 years later) I couldn't remember what she was planning so I "winged" it.

I machine quilted the main block part with horizontal stitching lines. The end borders were my first attempt at ever doing some original quilting. I thought about stippling but in the end decided to print a design off the computer and used tracing paper to transfer it to the borders. It turned out okay but I kind of wished I had stippled.

I laid out the blocks and it only amounted to a square 67" X 67". Rather short for a twin size bed. So I sewed as many blocks together as I had in a design that kinda made sense. Then I took some other homespun and made a wide border at either end to add another 16". So it ended up 67" X 83". It is a bit wide for the bed but is long enough to tuck in at the foot so I'm good with it.

Best part.... he likes it and is glad Mom is done with his quilt, finally!

A New Sewer

Yeah, I open a new blog, post a couple times, and disappear! No..... I've been teaching a new sewer how to sew! VERY time consuming :-)

Our daughter got a beautiful gently used sewing machine for her 8th birthday last week. So we set her up her "sewing space" and she took off!

First she sewed on paper. Learned straight lines. She got really good at presser foot down, needle down - needle up, presser foot up. Then she turned corners on paper lines. Next we threaded it and practiced tons that way. She caught on like she was BORN to sew! I love it!!! I'm excited to watch her sew for many years to come!

Forgot to take a picture of the first Doll Skirt - but suffice to say she's doing well!

Now... maybe I can get some sewing done.  I have the whole quilt sandwich quilted except the end borders which I hope to do this evening. Then hopefully I'll get the binding on later this week and it'll be done and I can resume apparel sewing :-)