Blue & Black Checked Shirt

 Littlest Man was SO excited to actually pick out his own fabric on-line so when my fabric order arrived this week his shirt was the first project undertaken.

I used Ottobre 3/2012 #19, size 110 with no alterations. Fabric: Prepster Stretch Yarn Dyed Shirting Plaid Turquoise/Black. 98% cotton, 2 % Lycra from Fabric.com

At first I was just going to do it as a plain shirt but as I began cutting it out I thought "oh, what the heck he deserves something different and unique". Ugh! Stupid thought!

The binding on the bottom was a pain in the rump. Actually the binding went on fine but the directions said not to add seam allowance to the bottom up to the side vents. The directions didn't make sense regarding how that was supposed to meet up with the seam allowance that was added to the side seams. So... I made it up as I went along.....

The sleeves are not how they should be even though they turned out looking alright. Those directions were a bit whacked out too.

I told him this wasn't a mug shot but.....

It turned out OK and wearable, but I will not repeat this pattern (as written) again. I'll use the pattern itself but will make it how I want to make it and not follow their directions. It fits well and the sizing is wonderful. I was so pleased with the pants patterns and directions... I hope this was just a fluke as far as their shirt patterns and directions go.

Oh and don't worry - he's up for a haircut tomorrow!! So he won't look like such a wild man after that LOL

Black leggings

Have I mentioned that I just LOVE being able to spend a bit of time in the sewing room rather than heading to a store to fulfill our clothing needs?? I love that many projects are so simple that I can finish them quicker than getting in my car and driving to the store!!

Little Miss wanted to wear a shirt that she had worn to her brother's wedding. It was a bit too fancy to wear with jeans so she requested some leggings.

A few minutes later I had her try these on.....

Ottobre 1/2013 #37 size 140, no adjustments made. She requested I leave the pockets off. I actually like that they turned out a bit baggy rather than tight leggings. She can wear them as leggings or as knit pants with shorter tops.

Once again the Ottobre's fit my kids wonderfully! LOVE it!

Done (for now) with pants for Little Big Guy

First a picture of WHY I have been sewing pants lately....

He's blowing out the patches and he is ready for a flood should there be one!

So... I made one more pair of pants for my growing weed! He has 3 now so that should last through the summer. So I'm officially done sewing pants for him until at least the fall. These are the Ottobre view 24 from summer 2012 again - size 122 with no changes. I bought 3 and 4 inch zippers on line so that was kind of neat. Then I also ordered some 1/2 inch snaps in a copper and silver color. I'm not happy with this waistband but they're wearable so we'll just go with them for this time.

I am planning to make a couple of t-shirts and then I need to make some summer clothes for Little Miss. And then hopefully I'll be dropping some pounds soon so I can make some legging to go with my tunic. sigh

I probably should make me some pot holders though, since I didn't win them from Mama Pea! LOL So many needs..... sew little time........

Ottobre T-shirt

A black T-shirt for Big Little Guy.  Just trying this one out with some scrap fabric. I ordered some nice single knit jersey to make some summer T's for him. In the mean time while I wait for the fabric to arrive, I thought I'd play around with the binding methods from Ottobre.

This is from Summer 3/2012 - #24 - size 122. I lengthened it by 2 inches but then hemmed it up 1 1/2 inches and it is plenty long. I can't get over how well these Ottobre patterns fit my skinny kids!

The neck hole turned out a tiny bit big but I'm not sure why. I'm thinking of cutting the binding a tad bit shorter next time.

The directions called for the binding to be cut 4cm wide. Next time I'll try 5cm. It was a bit narrow to have enough on the right side and still catch the wrong side in the top stitching.

I look forward to trying some contrasting binding, fun prints with solid binding, and..... lots more ideas. Kids can never have enough T-shirts can they?

Not quite a wadder.....

Kwik Sew 3632 - size XL with hefty seams.

It turned out great - IF(when?) I was about 30 pounds lighter :-(  I'm excited about this top but will have to wait until I loose weight to wear it!

 My hope it to make up a pair of legging to wear with it too - but I'll wait for a few weeks and see if some spring gardening helps loose a few pounds....

Ottobre 1-13

One more Ottobre pair of pants.  The best yet! They turned out great - fit great - and he loves them!

Same Ottobre pattern from Jan 13 - size 122 lengthened 2 inches and then 1 was cut off before hemming.

I am loving Ottobre!

Zipper Woes

This is a heart wrenching story so get a Kleenex LOL

Remember that last pair of Ottobre pants that I made for Big Little Guy? Yeah, well we decided that they were a titch to tight for him so I whacked off the legs a smidgen, opened the waistband to snug them up just a tiny bit and passed 'em on down to Littlest Man. They fit him perfect!

Pants number 1 on Littlest Man

 So onto the tear jerker..... of course I began another pair of pants for Big Little Guy because he SO desperately needs them. I swear if I sit and watched him I could see him growing! The pants came together beautifully once again in two afternoons and I was on top of the world with Ottobre patterns. I got them hemmed up, waist adjusted, snap put on - all that was left was the back buttons. I asked him to try them on and as he took them off... are you ready for this?.... he got the zipper STUCK on the thread where I had shortened it!!!!!!!!! Aack! Oh my! Oldest Daughter and I worked at that zipper for over an hour. I have to confess part of that time I was in tears. It was the icing on a rather difficult day to begin with. That zipper was not going to budge!!!

Pants number two on Big Little Guy

The worst part was that I felt bad because I was frustrated and yelled at him. He was so sad. The next worst part was that I realized that I had screwed up by buying a 7 inch zipper instead of a 7 cm zipper like it called for. If I had gotten the right one I would never have had to shorten this one! This centimeter thing rather than 40 some years of inches is hard to relearn!!!!!!!

I interrupted their legos for a photo shoot!

Ok wipe your eyes and blow your nose. Because the story has a happy ending! After I told hubby my sob story he took a look at the pants. He got out his leatherman tool and had it fixed in less than 2 minutes! Can you believe it? He so frustrates me sometimes. Things always take me two and three times longer and harder than they do for him. I'm so glad I have my man!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We'll see how long the knees last when Legos are involved :-(

Pair number 2 was size 122 not lengthened at all. I should have lengthened them by an inch or so considering how FAST he's growing! Only change on this one was that I left off the button loops again. They don't wear belts anyway!

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 :-)