Sewing for me! Yay!

I made a very liberating decision the other day. I am not going to be sewing for Cobblestone Park anymore. Given that I have had exactly four sales in more than that many months, I think that's a pretty sound business decision! It's disappointing, of course, but it certainly takes a lot of pressure off me. Now I can get back to sewing for me! That has been a huge temptation lately, due to all the yummy fabric that surrounds my daily life. And last week, I made another pilgrimmage up to San Francisco and stocked up on more lovely mama knits (some of which you can see on the bar to the right.)  I cannot possibly restrain myself anymore - mama needs some new clothes!

Anyway, on to what I made for myself. Here's the first:

Pattern: Simplicity 3536

Fabric: Bamblue Fabrics

I love this pattern. So many variations, and I've tried most of them and all have been terrific. This fabric is really lovely too - so soft and buttery. I just love rayon!

Another recent rayon creation is this:

Pattern: Butterick 5242 

I have made this pattern before, and the result has become one of my favorite dresses of all time. I'll try to dig up a picture in a minute, but I love this one too. The fabric is rayon jersey which I did sell on Bamblue Fabrics until a customer took my entire supply. Thank heavens I cut off a couple yards for myself first! This pattern is a little more fussy than other knit dress patterns I've used, but I think the end result is worth all that pleating nonsense.

Here is the other version I made of this dress last summer. This fabric is an ITY jersey.



Cutting myself free of Cobblestone Park sewing has also allowed me to do some very necessary and overdue sewing for the kids. Like pajamas. I made 4-5 pairs of pj's in the last week, as well as some underwear for my husband (modified from the Jalie pattern - he thinks it is SO cool that he can request specific tailoring for his boxer briefs). I don't have pictures of those, but I do have one of a recent dress I made for my daughter:

Embroidery: Urban Threads

Pattern: Morphed from a couple different patterns

I don't know how I feel about this one. I kind of wish I had made it shorter, for one thing. Overall, I guess it's ok, and Jackie likes it, which is important. But whenever I make something understated like this (well, understated for ME), I always feel a little disatisfied, like there must be something else I could add to it!

Gnomes! and some upcycled shorts.

I saw this fabric at Holland Fabric House a few weeks ago and just fell in love with it. So stinkin' cute! I immediately bought some, even though I was a little worried my daughter wouldn't like it. She's a big six year old girl now, and starting to get very picky about things being too "babyish." Thankfully, she took one look at it and fell in love herself, but who wouldn't?

As I was pondering what to sew next, I decided to pull out the Roxy pattern. I was originally planning to do it in a knit, but upon perusing my knit stash, I just wasn't getting inspired. Naturally, I turned to Flickr for inspiration, and what I found was one stunning Roxy after the other - in wovens. I kind of forgot you could do the Roxy in a woven, as I usually use knits. I used this Roxy sewalong, as I often need a little handholding when it comes to sewing wovens! It really is not that bad, but for some reason, I get heart palpitations when doing button plackets.

Here is the end result:

Pattern: Farbenmix Roxy

Embroidery: Kunterbunt

The weather got really warm there for a few days - temperatures in the 90's! Right now, it's 54 degrees out there, which is just totally depressing, but during our heat wave I got inspired to make my oldest some more shorts. I am woefully short of appropriate fabric for older boy shorts, and I was about to shelve the whole idea, when I came across the perfect thing. A pair of my husband's Banana Republic khakis, no longer worn because the bottoms had frayed so much. Perfect! Very good quality fabric and also sooooo soft from all that washing.

I used an Ottobre pattern which I would share with you except that I can't remember off hand which one it was, and am too lazy to look it up. But it's the knee patch pattern, and I've been using the same size on my son for 3 years now. It's not that he's short - he's actually extremely tall and growing like a weed - but the pattern runs so big! The size 110 fits him perfectly, even though he's 8 years old and wears a 140 in tops.

My son took one look and was like, "Um....where's the embroidery? There's nothing on these." I had hoped he'd look past the lack of embroidery due to the novelty of wearing shorts that used to be a pair of dad's pants, but evidently not.

Rock Star Shirt

Sometimes, when I see a cool embroidery design, I fall in love instantly. I buy it and immediately make plans to use it right away. Except that I don't. I love it so much that I can't decide what to do with it. I figure that whatever I make has to do the design justice, and therefore I put a lot of pressure on myself to figure out just the right thing.

That's how it was with this Rock Star embroidery from Tinimi.eu. I've sat on this thing for about a year and a half. One of the reasons I love it so much is that it is one of the very, very few embroidery designs I can use for my older son. (Any embroidery artists out there reading this? I need more designs for the older boy! Pretty PLEASE!) My days of sewing for him are limited, as I'm running out of ideas.

Anyway, I'm very pleased with how this turned out.

Pattern: Ottobre 2/03

Embroidery: Tinimi.eu

Indulging my Euro fabric obession

Well, I suppose technically I was indulging my little "problem" a few weeks ago, when I opened up my paypal account to Holland Fabric House. Ever since my package arrived, I've been seriously drooling over these fabrics. I knew I had to sew them up - and soon -, but what to make? And which ones to use? Not having much luck in the decision making process, I just gave up and decided to use them all in one dress.

I needed a pattern that would accomodate such an undertaking, and while my beloved Vida is always good for that, I'm getting a little tired of making those, quite frankly. So, I decided to try out Onion 20023 for a change. Normally, I would not use my best fabrics on an untried pattern, but I trust Onion - they have never made me cry over wasted fabric like some other pattern companies who shall not be named. This time was no exception - the fit is perfect, the sewing couldn't be easier, and the end result is exactly what I wanted.

I added the pimpicuff embroidery (although not in cuff form, obviously) to the dress. I had made the cuff version a few months ago, so now she's got a matching accessory for her dress. Nice!

Pattern: Onion 20023
Embroidery: Huups (including the matching cuff)
Fabric: Holland Fabric House on Etsy

Penny & Puppy

Always on the lookout for an easy peasy knit dress pattern, I picked up ModKids Penny awhile back. I decided to do something really simple - just two solid colors and one embroidery. This kind of thing is usually not my style, and I have to admit that as I was sewing it, I couldn't help but try to find other ways to embellish it, but I restrained myself.

The end result is ok. I used some of my bamboo jersey, so it is incredibly soft and dreamy feeling. The fit is a little off, I think, which is why I'm not offering a custom of this on Cobblestone Park. But my daughter loves it, so that's good enough for me.

Pattern: Modkids Penny

Embroidery: Kunterbunt

Fabric bamboo jersey from Bamblue Fabrics

Having an older brother means that Skoober gets a lot of hand me down clothing. I pulled out some of those clothes the other day, and I sighed. It has been five years since those t-shirts have been worn, but I was tired of them then, and I'm tired of them now. Which means Skoober is getting some new shirts, whether he needs them or not!

This shirt, from an Ottobre pattern, came together so fast, as the embroidery is super simple. I had carefully ironed it in preparation for a photo shoot, but when I showed it to Skoober, he immediately crumpled it up in a ball and hugged it to his chest. "MY DOGGY SHIRT!!!" Well, at least he likes it!

Pattern: Ottobre 2/05

Embroidery: Tinimi

Now I have to figure out what to make next, and I'm just stumped. I went out into the garage this morning and stared at my fabric for 20 minutes trying to get some inspiration. None was forthcoming. I guess I'll flip through my patterns for the 100th time. I mean, there are so many things I'd love to sew, and, since it's the beginnning of the warm weather season, lord knows there are a million things we all need. I just can't decide!