Robots!

It was high time Skoober got a new robot shirt. Of course I already own a couple different robot embroidery designs, but I've used them over and over, and, let's face it, I get bored easily. Time to waste endless hours scouring the internet for a new robot design!

I finally settled on a set from Emblibrary. I've grown so used to buying embroidery designs from the Euro sites that I'd forgotten how easy it is to place an order when I can actually understand the language used for the shopping cart.

I used my divine bamboo french terry from Bamblue Fabrics. I cannot get over my love affair with this stuff. It is soooo soft and sews up like a dream. It washes extremely well, and it has no trouble taking embroidery. I'm addicted.

Pattern: Farbenmix Hilde

Embroidery: Emblibrary

New Rayon Prints!

I just got in the most amazing rayon prints for Bamblue Fabrics! If you like peacock feathers, you will love this. I'll load some pictures later, but for a sneak peek, you can see them in the right hand nav bar.

That's all for now!

Lavendula

Another new pattern to love! Well, new to me, anyway. As usual, I started lusting after this pattern upon seeing endless amazing examples of it on Flickr. I finally realized that the pattern comes from Hexchen Marie, an incredibly talented lady whose beautiful work I've come to know over at Sewing Mamas. The pattern does come with an English translation, but honestly, it goes together so easily that you probably don't need it! I love it - very quick and easy, and the opportunities for embellishment are fantastic.

Here is my first attempt, made from some of Moda's Hello Betty fabric that I scored from a friend of mine who was destashing. At first, I rolled the hem of the ruffle in black - I don't know what I was thinking! It looked terrible! So, I quickly fixed that by adding the yellow velvet ric rac - much better. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough of the fabric to make another one for Cobblestone Park.

Pattern: Hexchen Marie Lavendula

Embroidery: Kunterbunt

Crocheted Flowers: AnnieDesign

That one came together so easily, that I decided to whip out another. This one took a little bit longer due to that embroidery. 27 color changes and about 30,000 stitches. Ugh! My heart kind of sank when I saw that, but I was determined to use it, as I already had chosen the matching sewing tape for this shirt and would not be talked out of it! Besides, it's freakin' adorable. This one is listed as a custom on Cobblestone Park.

 

Pattern: Lavendula

Embroidery and Sewing Tape:  Janea's World

In other news, my friend's adorable little girl turned 3 over the weekend, so I made her this dress:

Pattern: Portabello Pixies Claire

Embroidery: None. GASP!

Uljana

Continuing on in my current obsession with Farbenmix skirt patterns.....

I finally made the Uljana yesterday - another terrific pattern! This one is much simpler than the Zucka (less topstitching involved anyway), so it goes together pretty quickly. I used some of my fabric fabrics - Valori Wells Sole and some Euro fabric from Holland Fabric House, as well as some of my favorite trim.

Zucka

I kept seeing all these amazing skirts on Flickr. This one, for example, and this gorgeous one too. I decided to stop drooling and just make one already! Which is a little easier said than done. The pattern has twenty-odd pattern pieces to it. The instructions list (in German) the pieces needed for two different versions of the skirt. The illustration on the cover shows two versions: a miniskirt and a regular length skirt. Not being able to speak much German other than the basics, I foolishly assumed one pattern piece list was for the short version, and one for the long version. Wrong! I must have stared uncomprehendingly at all those pattern pieces for a good 40 minutes trying to figure out if I was tracing the right ones. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to make the long version. All the pattern pieces for the two different views seemed the same length!

Shaking my head at the futility of all this, I just added an inch to both the flounce and the underskirt and called it a day.

It was only much, much later that I finally found an English description of the pattern on the Farbenmix site that explained the two sets of pattern pieces were for the average size child and for children of more "stocky statures." If you want the skirt to be longer, you just need to make a bigger size. Ahhhh. I see.

Anyway, when all was said and done, I had this skirt, which turned out pretty well, I think!

Pattern: Farbenmix Zucka

Embroidery: Huups

The pattern is a little time consuming (all those pieces! All that topstitching!) but it goes together really easily. I will definitely be making more of these!

And in other news, I also made this:

Pattern: New Look 6936

This is such a great pattern. Totally brainless, a total of 3 pattern pieces, I think I only used about 1.5 yards of fabric, and start to finish it took about an hour. Love that!

Mama needs new clothes too!

Now that the temperature is starting to creep up, I've been itching to make some new dresses for me. I've heard fantastic things about the new Jalie dress pattern, so it was high on my "must sew" list. True to the hype, this is a fantastic pattern. The fit is perfect and it is so easy! I do not particularly like Jalie's method of doing visible binding, so I just did it my way. In the future, I will just use my coverstitch binder, because doing all the binding was rather a pain. Once the binding was done, the dress was a breeze! I can't wait to do the other two views of this dress.

I had to crop my head out of these pictures - I'm having a *really* bad hair day. And are my arms really that long? Goodness, I look like a gorilla.

I purchased this fabric on one of my San Francisco shopping excursions.

Pattern: Jalie 3024

And the next dress is something of a departure for me: I used a woven fabric! I have not made too many woven dresses for me, or woven anything for that matter. But this particular pattern doesn't need any zippers or anything like that, plus it only needs about 2 yards of fabric. I used a soft cotton lawn. At least I think it's a lawn. Voile, perhaps? I really don't know much about woven fabric!

Pattern: Simplicity 2642

In one other piece of sewing news, my baby girl turned six years old the other day. Six! She wanted a Tinkerbell themed party, and of course my first thought was, "Perfect! I finally have an excuse to use that red Tink fabric that I've been hoarding forever." It is a pretty thick fabric, almost like a terry, so I was somewhat limited in my choice of patterns (nothing that needed gathering, etc.). Onion 20026 was the perfect choice!

Pattern: Onion 20026

This pattern, like the nearly identical Mamu Katrin, runs really wide. I first tried removing the side seam allowances, but it was still too wide. I ended up taking it in about 3/4" on each side - still looks a little big! But she was quite happy with the dress (and her party!).

Fabric Happiness!

Last week, Fed Ex gave me a wonderful surprise - they delivered my new bamboo fabrics early.  Skoober was pretty excited too.

And unwrapped:



The colors! The quality! The softness! Oh my heavens. The four on the right are bamboo french terry, the rest are bamboo jersey. I don't know why I do all this sewing for kids when I've got these at my disposal. But I can tell you this: I am going to have one NICE summer wardrobe. I'll be making a heck of a lot of luscious, drapey, summery dresses. Um, I guess I need to sell some of it too, but honestly, it is hard to part with.

In other lovely fabric news, I went up to San Francisco yesterday with my daughter and bought another round of amazing knit prints. Those are also hard to part with, but I made sure I bought enough to save a few yards for me! Some of them, I must admit, will never make it to Bamblue Fabrics. They are MINE.

I've also had something of an epiphany regarding Cobblestone Park. Instead of making two of everything, which was killing me, I'm just going to go ahead and make whatever I would normally make for my kids. If it turns out particularly well, and if I have enough fabric to make another, I will list it as a custom on Cobblestone Park. It's a win-win: it will be much easier for me to list things more quickly if I don't have to make two of them, and it's better for the customer as they can choose the size they want. 

So, with that in mind, I've put a couple new listings up on Cobblestone Park:

Pattern: Farbenmix Lore

Embroidery: tinimi.eu

I had originally titled this listing as "Bunny Dreams," but I realized there may be a connotation there not entirely fitting for a little girl's top. Hence the new title, "Easter Dreams."

I've been in love with the summer cherry Huups set for a long time, and have used it over and over. I had originally cut out this Amelie, using my coveted bamboo french terry, for use with the bunny embroidery above. However, just before I started embroidering, I began to stare at my cut out pieces. I stared and I stared, and then I stared some more. My brain was telling me to hurry the hell up, as just standing there was a colossal waste of my precious time. But the bunny embroidery just didn't feel right to me, and that's when I thought of the cherries. Perfect.





Pattern: Farbenmix Amelie

Embroidery: Huups

Fabric: Bamboo French Terry

I must admit, I had a moment of extreme panic. I had the whole thing finished, and was holding it up, admiring it. I turned it around to look at the back, and the hood was hanging down low, covering up the stem and leaves of the cherries. The cherries, by themselves, looked like....er, not to put too fine a point on it, but, well, balls. Panic! As soon as my daughter woke up the next morning, I put it on her to see if I really did make a pornographic top, but thankfully the hood doesn't flop down that low when it is worn. Phew. I could just hear the snide comments coming out of my husband's mouth!