More New Fabric!!

I scored a super sale at Fabric.com. They were having a Westminster (producer of some of fabrics by some of my favorite designers) closeout. I mostly bought heavily from two past lines of Tina Givens fabrics. The lines are Treetop Fancy and Fairy Tip Toes. Right now her latest line is Opal Owl (can't wait to find some of that on sale!).

Grace's First Birthday Dress and Bloomers

Made in my new favorite style of knot dress...
the knot happens in the back where both straps are passed through a vertical button hole and then tied in a knot. I prefer not to tie a bow.

The skirt is super full (over a full circle) made from 4 panels of 2 fabrics. Gives the dress major twirl! The hem and bodice are both fully lined in the same fabric. The straps are extra wide for style and comfort. My 3 year old even loves to wear her "dancing" dresses. When ordinarily it's a challenge to convince her to wear a dress (she prefers shorts with pockets). But a one-year-old will wear anything!


Here are the matching bloomers. Simple extra tall waist band with full elastic. Smaller bands of hem material at the leg openings plus more elastic...


Fabrics:
Amy Butler, Love collection, sandlewood in turquoise (green and blue in skirt and straps)
Moda, Botany by Lauren and Jessi Jung, pollen flora (yellow in skirt) and ripple glories (bodice and hem)

On my birthday girl!!!

Finally Made Myself an Apron

There has been such a craze lately for hot little retro apron numbers. There was even a scene in SATC2 (if you don't know what that stands for, you aren't missing anything) where Charlotte is making cupcakes with her girls in a cute apron. So here is my cute apron. I decided to use decor weight fabric (so it really will stand up to real cooking). I had a stacked book print from Anna Maria Horner's Drawing Room that was just waiting to be something special (oh how I love books).

I borrowed the pattern idea from a free handout in JoAnn's. Like always with first tries (especially when I go patternless), I got a few things wrong during construction. The seam through the middle of the bust, while accomplishing my desire to cut the book stack down into a shorter pile, is not very attractive. I also figured out a few things that would make the flow of the straps more consistent up the sides of the bodice and around the neck. I like that I could custom fit the neck strap to myself so that it only requires a clip and not an adjustable set of D rings with a strap tail hanging down.

This was pretty easy and fun. I suppose I'll make a few more, but how many aprons does one mom need? Anybody out there want an apron? :)

Friendly URL on Facebook

Mommy Said Sew's fan page on Facebook now has a friendly URL:
www.facebook.com/mommysaidsew

One More Summer Dress

I've been laying out my fall fabrics, but I still had one more summer dress for Lauren. Oh and I do have Grace's 1st Birthday outfit in the works. But here Lauren in this BRIGHT! summer dress (a classic front knot dress with apron). Fabrics are: Russian Rose and Alexander Henry's Aviary (apron). We were visiting a petting farm in Door County, WI - what a great place for photo ops!

Andersonville PhotoShoot

We have a lovely neighborhood next to ours called Andersonville. There is a stretch of green space that runs along the Metra line. The neighbors have built a lovely garden walk there. The perfect place for a photoshoot of some Mommy Said Sew creations...




Thanks as always to my wonderful husband/photographer! Fabrics from Patty Young, Michael Miller, Amy Butler.