Another Dress in the Wild

 This knot dress made it into the wild for a few snap shots in the leaves. I added a third picture below so you can see that big sister has ruffle pants made from the matching Amy Butler fabric. You can now see that we were playing in leaves right by the street in front of our house. That's life in Chicago.

Dresses in the Wild

 It's fun when dresses actually get photographed on their little owners. These were taken at a favorite Chicagoland pumpkin farm. Both dresses are reverse knot dresses. The blue and green one features an apron and bodice trimmed with chiffon. Fabrics include Anna Maria Horner and Tina Givens.

First Dress in the New Digs

 See previous post for pics of my new basement sewing room. I got right to work and made a birthday present for a sweet girl turning one! And then I forgot to take a picture of it. So the second dress I made in my new sewing room is pictured here. I've been wanting to use this Midwest Modern fabric by Amy Butler for a fall dress and just hadn't picked the style yet.

I paired it up with one of my other fall favorites from Anna Maria Horner's Loulouthi (bodice). And I used some toile that was kicking around for straps. I pulled the olive green out of the toile and the orange came together with the ribbon from Patty Young.

 The back gets a Plum Sparrow label (my personal garment label).

I trimmed out the hem with the olive green color again, this time in a skinny velvet ribbon. Little girl number 2 is going to be a darling in this one maybe plunked down on a big pile of fall leaves!

New Sewing Room

Holy smokes. I can't believe it's real. What a blessed life I live. My husband (lover of home remodeling projects) took on a redesign of our basement to add an office for himself (ok he's not totally altruistic) and a sewing room for me. Thank you honey. We have some guys who do our work for us and they didn't disappoint yet again.Thank you Ted.

 

There is room for my large (2 buffet tables butted up together) cutting table. Room for my chaise lounge (cause I might sew so hard I need to rest). Room for at least three machine stations. If I reconfigure once I get the tables I want, I'll have room for 4 or 5. So far I have my fabric on some inexpensive Home Depot plastic shelving, but I hope to upgrade to some Ikea Expedit soon. That wood box was left behind in our attic. I've been dumping all my ribbon in there. I keep all my other notions in hat boxes. You can't see the pictures but the basement also has my laundry room and I have overflow fabric shelving in there (yep, I have an... umm... passion for fabric).Can't wait to host Sewing Socials and Handmade for Africa events!

Pumpkin Patch Outing 2011

The shockingly hot weather this past Saturday drove the crowds out to our favorite Chicagoland pumpkin patch. It was stinkin hot. I tried to wear a cute crochet skinny scarf I had made recently, just wrapped loosely around my neck, but I got all sweaty and hat to take it off and even tuck all my hair up under my hat. And the hot weather even messed with my plans for photographing some of the girls new fall dresses.


 
It was absolutely short sleeve weather but I had packed most of them away when I made the fall transition. So Lauren's t-shirt doesn't match with her dress (which she took off later anyway) and Grace is wearing a short-sleeve dress, so at least she wasn't too hot.


 
Although both girls were dripping with sweat after their 4 allotted minutes of jumping on the giant bouncy pillow - that cost $5 a person. At least you don't have to pay to get in and take lovely pictures nestled amongst the orange orbs.

Fall Twirl Skirts

Today during one afternoon nap time I made two twirly girl skirts. I picked some fall colors. 4 of the prints are from Anna Maria Horner's Innocent Crush collection. The mustard waist band on the pink and brown skirt is Patty Young. After they woke up from their naps, both girls wanted to put their skirts on right away...and then they wanted to have their special treats on the couch. I figured it would be a good time for pictures.

 The pink and brown skirt has a 4 panel skirt gathered and sewn to a waist panel with full elastic. I decided to hem the skirt with a skinny pink bias tape. It pulls together the differences in the panel fabrics.

This skirt is my usual twirl skirt design, a large piece of fabric for the body of the skirt and a hem fabric (folded in half so that it creates it's own hem as both cut ends are serged to the bottom of the body fabric). I added a argyle ribbon down the front (offset to the left) for more visual interest. It too has a full elastic waist.

Inspired By Matilda Jane

A Matilda Jane knot dress is the first thing that inspired me to sew clothing for my children. I routinely browse the Matilda Jane website to get ideas and inspiration for fabric color combinations and construction ideas. I've made quite a few knot dresses over the years. This one has the new "detachable apron" concept. There are three orange buttons sewn onto the bodice and the apron can be removed and worn over jeans, etc and the dress can go it alone w/o the apron. I LOVE the Anna Maria Horner Loulouthi fabric that makes up the skirt of this dress.


And I am indebted to MJ for the concept of ruffle pants. This past summer I made the girls at least 6 pairs of ruffle shorts. I loved being able to make them shorts from comfortable jersey material, in colors they like and with a cute little ruffle and best of all, I could custom fit the length. I don't want my daughters running around in short shorts at such a young age. Hopefully they will let me make them long shorts through their teenage years ;) 

 This skirt is a copy of the Jesse skirt by Matilda Jane. I made mine using quilting cotton as the trim on the ruffles, which are made from nylon chiffon (same material used in petti-skirts). Each section of trim is 14 feet long. Yes, you read that correctly, 14 feet long. And I sewed a rolled edge on both the top and the bottom to prevent unraveling. That, plus the gathering took some time. But this skirt is a show stopper. It is the twirly-est thing I have ever made in my life and my oldest can spin in this thing until she falls over. It reminds me of playing dress up with my great aunt's square dancing skirts.