A Spring Coat in the Fall

I admit it, I'm behind in writing posts.  I have been sewing, sure not as much as I'd like, but I have been.  But everything with two kids is kinda sporadic.  So I think I just need to embrace it, and post when I can!  I have a backlog of a few projects, and this is one of them.

A coat for baby E.

This is Anna Maria Horner's Baby in the Hood pattern from her Handmade Beginnings Book.  You may remember I made for for M 2 years back.  I love the hood and contrast fabric panels, so I thought I'd make up one for E's first spring and fall.

I made his back in April, and Little E did get some wear out of this little coat though in the spring, but lots more this fall as it fit him better.  I made the 9-12 months size, so he some room to grow when I made it for him at 5 months, but sadly he's now to big for it and well, it's about winter anyways!

These pictures are from back in September, and gosh he looks adorable eh?

I did make some changes when sewing this one up though.  One is obvious, I put a zipper in instead of toggle buttons.  I found it almost impossible to get toggles done up on a squiggly baby, and much prefer a zipper.  I didn't change the pattern at all for the zipper really, so it's a bit awkward as it's just attached to the outside edge of one button placket, and sewn into the inside edge of the placket on the other side.  Problem is the way the seam lays on the inside edge means that the zipper teeth are facing the wrong way.  it's not really noticeable when warm, so I didn't care.  It made it way easier to get on!

I also lengthen the coat as I found my previous version a bit short.  I can't remember by how much, but I think about 1.5 inches on this one.

I love little coats on babies eh?  Especially with adorable hoods!

KCWC Days 1-2 - Robot Pants!

My KCWC plans are slowing actually becoming things for once!  First up is a lil pair of Quick Change Trousers from AMH's Handmade beginnings for the new bebe.

I had a bit of deja vu making these, as I seem to like to only make them in red and in crazy prints (as seen with last falls KCWC when I made little M these red pants!  Hey, what can I say, I really wanted to use some of this robot Kokka fabric I had, and well, there's red in them!

The other side is some soft cozy flannel fabric left over from this dress.  And the but panel is a bit from Sarah Jane's Children at Play collection.  I have a bunch more of this which I should make something else for my boys from soon!

Tiny pants are cute!  Although I suspect these will be huge on my little one for a good while as I seem to not make particularly huge babies, but that's why you roll up the bottoms right? :-)

So be sure to check out the Elsie Marley flickr group for inspiration, and I'm on to the next item! Here's hoping I make all 5 things by Sunday!

KCWC plans and some other bits

As usual, I have lots of plans for the Kids Clothing Week Challenge this fall.  Will I meet them? eh, who knows, but at least I'll try.

Here's a little photo to give you a very poorly lit (I do generally sew at night these days after all!) sneak peek.

Quick run down from top right.  Striped shirting will be an Easy Linen Shirt from Sewing for Boys (finally I make something from the book!)  The three fabrics under it, will make up a teeny pair of 0-3 months Quick Change Trousers from AMH's Handmade Beginnings (I seem to like to make these pants in red tones, as previously seen here).  Next up from the light blue is a Baby Sleep Sack from Growing Up Sew Liberated for the new baby.  On the right is a pile of fleece to make a dinosaur costume for M using Jessica of Running with Scissors Woodland Animal Costume (plus one of her dino tails).  And last is the car fabric which will be a pair of Easy Pocket Pants for M also from Growing up Sew Liberated.  And this just touches the surface of my list of things I want to sew for my boys!

For any of you who don't know about KCWC, check it out! link above or on my side bar.

In other news...

I think I never told you all that I'm having another BOY?  Maybe my colour choices above might have hinted, but well I am! And this time I have plans to sew all the things I never got around too with little M!  I always figured I'd be a mom to two boys (my husband is one of two boys) and so here we are!  And M loooves the idea of a little brother, kisses my stomach and asks to hug it all the time, while asking me if he's coming out next week (ha).  This was me last weekend (29 weeks), for those that are curious :)

And last, but not least, it looks like my city is FINALLY getting a fabric store with potential awesomeness.   It's called Fabrications, and it opens in November.  I'm already drafting them up a nice long e-mail full of suggestions of things I think they should carry, but from their description, I think it will be awesome regardless!

A Green Rie

I love green.  It's definitely my favourite colour.  My wedding dress was actually a very pale green even.  So not surprisingly, when shopping for knit fabric for this project I bought green.  Plain, simple, and awesome.  It's a pretty nice shade to I think. Some may think it kinda snotty in colour, but I just think it looks luscious!

And so my maternity sewing continues, not at the pace I would have liked, but seeing as 3 weeks ago we decided kinda last minute to throw our house up for sale in hopes of moving to another lovely house (don't worry it's old too!), my sewing plans have been side tracked.  It's hard to sew when half your supplies are in your sisters basement 20 minutes away so your sewing nook can look tidy.  It's hard to sew when most of your energy (the littler you have) is focused on keep the house tidy in case of a showing.  So it's been a bit stressful, which sewing actually helps, but I think my pregnancy tiredness is making it all harder.

So here's to hopefully selling very very soon (so we can move before I deliver!) and to hopefully more maternity and baby sewing being squeezed in somewhere!

But back to the dress.  It's the Rie Dress pattern by Megan Nielsen.  Another simple yet awesome one.  Definitely nothing too complicated here, and this time I even put on my double needles to sew the hems and neck line!  

I made up the XS like I normally do, but I forgot I have these behemoth shoulders in comparison to the rest of little me.  So at first the bodice was pulling across the front like crazy.  Ack.  So I thought of cutting the next size up in bodice as I have tons of this fabric, but I didn't feel like taking everything out.  SO I thought I'd try resewing the arms with the tiniest seam possible (it's cut with 5/8ths)  So I sewed them in with about a 1/4 seam and undid the original seams, and voila! no serious pulling and it fits just fine!

I also cut the longest length as I usually need it, but I probably didn't as I intended it to be worn like a tunic, but at this length I probably could wear it without tights (or jeggings in the photos, that's right everyone, I bought maternity jeggings, and they are awesomely comfortable)  Don't worry though I'll only be wearing them with long shirts, unlikes all the young kids these days :)

Oh and I thought with such a simple dress, I should make me a fancy belt.  So I used up some scraps of the girliest fabric I could find and made the Empire Cinch from Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings book.  It makes me look rather like a present, but hey, I am kind carrying a very important package!

But for those simpler days, I can just belt it like this.  And the good thing with this dress is that post baby, I should be able to belt it at the waist and keep wearing it, yay!

Oh and in case you all don't know about it yet, in a few weeks is the Fall edition of Elsie Marley's KCWC (Kids Clothing Week Challenge).  I'm hoping to get a few things done for this new baby, and maybe something for little M!  Check it out!

Gifting a figure eight

Just a quick post today to show you the scarf I made my cool sister-in-law for her birthday.   Yes blog readers, this a post with adult clothing, shocking, I know...

I just gave it to her today (a few weeks late, sorry sis!) but I hadn't quite finished it last I saw her.  I blame the hand stitching required to finish it up and leave the fabric loop open and have it sit nicer :)

Either way, now I can finally blog it!

I first saw this scarf on Made by Rae, and though, oooo pretty.  She used Anna Maria Horner's blog tutorial found here to make her scarf, so I did the same!  AMH uses a lovely voile and velveteen combo, and I did something similar, using those pretty fabric I've been meaning to make something with for a while (which I think could be called a voile, or close to it anyway), and some plain purple (yes it is purple, despite what my crappy quick shot above makes it look like) velveteen from the local chain fabric store.

The velveteen definitely makes it cozy, with the light voile keeping it light.  But boy, that velveteen can stretch if you let it!

I love this scarf, and will definitely be making myself at least one, very, very soon!

KCWC Days 1-5 - Red Pants!

It's day five of Elsie Marley's Kids Clothing Week Challenge.  And I now have something to show for it.  Where did day's two to four go you might ask?  To a crapload of tracing and fabric cutting!

I've decided I generally dislike fabric cutting, and I'm also super slow at it.  It's kinda a downer, after the excitement of finding awesome fabric and a great pattern, you then have to risk life and limb but cutting into said fabric, hoping desperately that you'll do it right and the finish product will look great, and that you don't later realize you had some other different and potentially more awesome project to use that fabric with.   BUT when the project gets finished and it looks awesome, all is sunny happy times again! yay!

So speaking of sunny,  I cut into some of my super cute stash fabric (in this case some Kokka trains, and Sherbet pups by Aneela Hoey for Moda) and made Squiggles red pants!  That's right, red pants.  The red was my first experience with Kona cotton... soooo much nicer than the standard cotton available at my local chain fabric store!

Pattern seems to be a perennial favourite of many sewers, Anna Maria Horner's Quick Change Trousers from Handmade Beginnings.  My first attempt at them and they were pretty darn easy.

I made the Size 2, which I knew would be long of Squiggles, and boy was a right!  But hey, he'll grow into them eventually.

So That's all I have to show for KCWC so far, not much, but many more things are now cut out ready for the upper of sewing them together!!  If I'm lucky I'll finish one more thing before Sunday, but I'm not holding my breath!

A coat for fall

Last weekend's chills really signalled the start of fall.  And that meant I had to sew a new coat for Squiggles!

Ever since seeing the Baby in the Hood jacket pattern in Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings, I just had to make it.  I thought it might be a bit tricky, what with a button placket and all.  But I am happy to report it is not tricky, her instructions are awesome, and I am super proud of it!

It's a bit stripey, but I love the blue and greens!  I lined it with a a cotton flannel for some coziness like she suggests in the book.  The main fabric and lining is some stuff I found in the local big fabric store, and the accent hood and placket fabric is from the Liesl Gibson (Oliver + S) Modern Workshop line.  It reminds me that I really should try an Oliver + S pattern one of these days!

And isn't Squiggles cute in it?

I only wish I had made the hood elastic a bit shorter so it could snug up around his face more.
He's also wearing it with a pair of Rae's Big Butt Baby Pants that I whipped up with added side pockets.

The photo makes them look weird, but they are just made out of a dark blue corduroy.  And um, well it appears my pockets are uneven.  Heh, oh well.  I do love corduroy for fall though... must get more in other colours for future pants!

I'm also currently planning my projects for the Kids Clothing Week Challenge (aka KCWC).  I plan to give you a preview on the weekend.  Happily it is a long weekend here in Canada (Thanksgiving) Hooray!