the Hungry Caterpillar ....through a window DRESS

It is Flip this Pattern February over at Frances Suzanne and I love these Ladies style so much that I try to sew along each month. This month was the Josephine dress pattern by Violette Field threads. I bought The very hungry caterpillar fabric by Eric Carle from one of my favorite online stores Pink Chalk fabrics a while ago knowing I wanted to make a dress for Bella with it and so came the ..........

this month pattern lend itself to nice spring dress for Bella . And what better fabric to celebrate spring - fabric that tells the story of a caterpillar that turns into a beautiful fabric. I have to say there was a few times I wanted to give up just because certain things didn't work out but I am glad I pushed through.

I wanted to do something different on the front panel instead of the pin tucks and when I saw the below issue of Quilt-it with the beautiful cathedral window pillow I thought it would be a great idea for the front panel. I am not a quilter so I just hoped that I would manage to pull it off.

Instead of the ruffle under the button placket I did it on the under skirt on the edge.

The process:

• I cut the front in back panel at the middle, folded the front in on the middle to take care of the pintucks. Curved the side seams so the dress is more fitted and also curved the armholes. I kept the collar as is. Added a lining so the whole dress is fully lined. Before anything I made the cathedral windows. You can find instructions here - I chose to sew it with the machine just to be more sturdy and it was pretty easy that way. 

Each window I added either blue or a piece of fruit inside. I first sewed with red around the fruit windows. Then I decided I didnt like it and had to pull ALL of out and sewed it with white. This was my first time sewing cathedral windows and I would like to do it again with a pillow. Ive learned a lot and hopefully next time smoother.

I loved the effect of the little caterpillar crawling out in the middle of the window....

And we are ready for spring......

Isabella in a pose.....

We had to have a teaparty......

I love the back.....

 and we can even stretch out....

Till next time........

The Mara Dress.....

I just had to sew the The Mara blouse/dress

As I am browsing fabrics in JoAnns for a diaper bag that I am going to sew I see this beautiful aubergine/eggplant/purple......whatever your preference and I am thinking it might be nice for a dress for Bella .....  4 bolts of orange and purple fabric later and I decide I am going to sew the Mara for Bella as a dress and embroidery on the yoke( when I browsed through the Compagnie M Patterns for the Contest I had my eye on the Mara for embroidery but I ended up sewing the Louisa first here.) Sucker that I am for a good contest I bought the fabric and the pattern. The embroidery I did Thursday while sitting at the Allergist after my immunotherapy shot and the dress I was able to sew yesterday with the kids sitting next to me making crafts.) I am cutting it close because the contest closes tomorrow but I am glad I made it. It turned out very much to my liking - I just love the colors together. I love bold. The weather has been very yucky with the rain -which I am thankful for because we really need it - but not very favorable for pictures outside so we ended up cleaning the playroom for some pictures.

Details:

I drew some flowers on the yoke and hand embroidered them before assembly. I added an orange frill that was randomly folded and sewed onto the yoke. The buttons is fabric that I got for the diaper bag and was perfect to cover the buttons with. I made two wide pleats instead of 6 and it was folded inwards and top stitched with orange thread. I made the butterfly sleeve(without the butterfly:)) so it looks like a cap sleeve. The dress is big enough that Bella can wear it with a long sleeve shirt now and without when its SuMMERTiME!

Oh man and did we have fun. We READ......

We LAUGHED.....

We Made Button Soup......

We SANG......

We PONDERED......

We played with BLOCKS....

We KISSED the blocks......

We drove to the MOON and BACK.....

and then we found Arthur's chalk rainbow.........

and then we had to go take a bath.........

                                                                                         

                                                                                                     Till Next Time .......

Bye Bye Love Bag by ARTBella........

Many of you who know me knows that when I picked up sewing again after more than a couple of years in hiatus I started by sewing bags. It is really what got me back to what I love ...... sewing and creating. I've been drooling over bags, patterns and hardware over at Janelle from Emmaline bags and have ordered a couple of things from her. I managed to make The necessary clutch wallet   HERE and when I saw they are starting the Bag of the Month Club I jumped at the opportunity to join. There is 1 new pattern every month for 6 months and everybody shares on Flickr HERE  - Go check it out , lots of beautiful bags. 

January was the Bye Bye Love Bag by Sarah from Sew Sweetness. 

I used SweSwe fabric for the bag. It really is a nice choice because it is just stiff enough to give a great form for the bag.

It is a great pattern. Sara explains very well how it should be made. It was my first time that I used

Annie's Soft and Stable  - I am glad I did. Even though it is expensive it is definetely the best to have bags look very professional. I am not gonna lie. I was struggling a bit with the pockets and the soft and stable but I managed and the second time will be better. Sara has great tips on how to work with the soft and stable when you baste it to the fabric.

For the tabs that hold the handles I used the wrong side of the sweswe for its traditional mark.

I am very pleased with the outcome and I will definitely use it for upcoming bags. I have a custom diaper bag order and am thinking of using this pattern with just an adjustment in size to accomodate all the baby stuff.

I like the curved sides and the zipper comes out beautiful. It is fully lined with 4 pockets on the inside ( the blue made it too dark to take a picture of the inside. I should've done that before I assembled it)

The  cute "handmade" zipper pull is from Emmaline Bags!

I am looking forward to trying the Butterfly Sling bag for February.....

Till next time......

The Hydrangea-inspired Louisa dress

The first time I saw this beauty of a pattern was when CompagnieM called for pattern testers for the Louisa dress! since then I 've seen quite a few around the web. this ONE made me really fall in love with it. Then Marte announced a contest on any of her patterns and I had to get the Louisa for Isabella. All of her patterns are very kid-friendly! The Louisa has this huge pocket in the front and what child wouldn't love a pocket?

I wanted to experiment with two colors for the dress and then started to think maybe a  zipper will work. I looked at zipit  to see what they have available in 6/7inch open ended zippers so I can mix the two colors. They had pink and green and I went ahead and ordered the zippers knowing that I will probably find some pink and green fabric that will work. The fabric I found made me think of my favorite flower the hydrangea and suddenly it all came together. 

I used one of my handmade zipper pulls I purchased at the amazing Janelle over at Emmaline bags

I got a artificial hydrangea to keep Isabella busy while trying to take some pictures.

for the pocket I used some big eyelets to add so the green of the inner pocket shows. ( I extended the pocket lining)

I used some brass colored buttons at the back to support the brass colored eyelets on the front pocket.

I made Bella a pink felt headband with hydrangea flowers and knitted green legwarmers to compliment the dress.

 I added some elastic around the sleeves just because Isabella likes it that way.

The Louisa Dress pattern did not disappoint - I can see myself sew up a few more especially for school. Great roomy fit with clean lines. It is a flexible pattern with different options that will work right through the year. I sewed the 4t so it is a little bit big for Bella but will be perfect for spring.

Hop on over to the CompagnieM contest blog and look at all the adorable pieces. Remember to like the ones you love!

Till next time......

week 4: Signature Style

  Phew - time sure does fly when you are having fun. Last week of Project Run and Play..... and even though this is my second time sewing along - this season is my first time I was able to sew all 4 weeks. 

This week is signature week and I tried to incorporate all that is important and fun for me in an outfit.

Things I consider to be my signature style.....

• I always try to sew comfort even for myself I love comfort yet stylish! 
• FLIP - I rarely sew a pattern just as is. I love to keep the basics of a pattern so I don't lose the designers hard work but like to add my own spin.
• Mixing textures ( different types of fabrics) and matching different colors.
• Using art forms of the sewing craft- embroidery,knitting, applique etc.
• pin tucks, ruffles and shirring are favorites in Isabella's outfits
• And finally ACCESSORISE - hats,headbands,hairpins and in this case Legwarmers.

So for this season this is what I came up with......

I have a  short shirt-dress, a long-sleeve shirt, go-to leggings, legwarmers and a felt flower headband.

The felt flower I made with a poinsettia  tutorial I saw over Christmas ( sorry I cant give credit to whom it is due I just cant find that tutorial) but Isabella fell in love with the bigness of it so I made a mustard colored one in felt and made a headband to add it to. Surprisingly it stayed on her head through both Picture sessions and some ......

both shirts I used one of my favorite simplicity paper patterns NR C2019. It is a tiered ruffle dress but what I really like about the top part is the gathered neck line and recess sleeves. 

For the long sleeve shirt I extended the body, added shirring around the neck and middle, lengthened and narrowed the sleeves. The fabric is Feathers on White cotton jersey knit blend by Girl Charlee. I bought it a while ago and it went perfect with my color scheme for this outfit.

 One of my challenges with this outfit were getting the right needles for the legwarmers. I saw a little girl with leg warmers the other day and started googling legwarmer patterns for toddlers. It seemed that what I was going to need is a circular needle. my knitting abilities are limited to the basics , I've never used circular needles before and  two trips and 3 pairs of needles later I ended up with these little circular needles . As I was looking at  it I had no idea how I was  going to manage such tiny needles - but I succeeded .

 Cast on was 36 stitches followed by 8 rows of 2k2p and then 4 rows of knit with the teal followed by 4 rows  knit of purple (52 rows all together repeating colors beginning and ending with the teal) and finally the ribbing again which was 8 rows of 2k2p. 

The dress/shirt I used the same pattern for the top. I added pin tucks to the front and a functioning button placket. The sleeves I widened and lengthened. I used traditional sweswe for the top piece from my stash that my mom always bring from South Africa when visiting....

The purple buttons I found went perfectly with the purple of the sweswe

the skirt part was a self drafted skirt. I made bubble ruffles with a mint green knit fabric and added a high-lo skirt made with  Koi VOILE by Rashida Coleman-Hale for Cloud 9 .

the weather  was kinda yucky today so we had to hurry for a few shots before the rain came but we really need it here in California so we are thankful for Rainy day Pictures!

I cut the headband wide on top so it keeps a lot of hair away from the eyes but narrower  around the ears and back for comfort. It works very well and I will be making more like this.

The headband has elastic in the back to make it fit easily around the head.

as I said COMFORT is key...

the leggings are the Go-to-Leggings from Go to Patterns.

And so the season has come to an end and I had so much fun sewing along, and admiring all the contestants and sew-along entries. I've learned a few things and stretched my imagination and boundaries. Here are my entries. I loved them all but my favorite this season was the Movie week. I had fun, the kids had fun and that made for a very special week for me......

and as always I have to end the post with one of many funny faces and seeing that Valentine's day is around the corner let's do it with love....

Till next time......