little dresses for africa

this year a lady at my work discovered a charity called little dresses for Africa. they send , mostly simple pillowcase dresses to Africa. so my co-worker asked any of who wanted to participate to make a few dresses to send to the charity for Christmas.
the dresses were super simple to make, and don‘t take up much fabric, (about a yard ) so I was able to use fabric I already had. they have a tutorial on how to make the dresses on their website. I ended up making 5 dresses, and in all we made 20. and yes we did get the dresses to them before December 1st, I'm just slow at posting things.
mine of course all had to have pockets because how can a child collect treasures with them? and well I just love pockets.

here are the five I made

and here are all 20 getting ready to be packed up to send them.


www.littledressesforafrica.org
http://www.littledressesforafrica.org/blog/patterns/

reorganized

I've been in a major sewing slump for months now, I just don’t feel like sewing anything for myself, I really need to find that love of sewing again. I know its there its just hiding. but for something fun about sewing I did finish reorganizing my fabric. it was a total disaster, any time I touched anything on the fabric shelf everything would fall off. so began the looking around at blogs for ideas of how to corral this mess I had created. and I found the cutest idea of using mini bolts. they seemed so perfect except the price. so I thought on it for a while and came up with how to make my own. I ended up with sixty three of them and I really like the way it turned it out.
here is the before and afters:






see now isn't that just so much nicer.

I put anything over half a yard on the mini bolts and anything less had to fit in two fabric boxes. I also had to be able to fit all my fabric on one bookcase. so I ended up getting rid of some, including some beautiful wool that I loved but was just way to allergic to. so now I am only allowing myself to have what fits on the bolts and the shelf(I do still have two empty bolts.). if I want more it has to be for a specific project or, if all my bolts are full, but I just need this way cute thing for my stash I have to get rid of something. my space is so limited with most of my bedroom being my sewing area, I just needed it to neaten up. I also went through my patterns and got rid of twenty of them, I had some that I had made and hated, a few of them were repeats in the same sizes, and some were just so close to another pattern it seemed silly to keep both. I have had my notions and threads organized forever so that wasn’t anything I had to mess with. I am happy with the way everything turned out and how everything now has a place. maybe now that it is more organized I will get back that want to sew.

the black bow dress

yes I actually finished it!
I know I said back in February I would finish it, but I ran into some issues with it.... again. got upset and threw it to the curb. (well actually I folded it away neatly in a drawer to come back to later.)
the first issue was when I put it on my dress form it got a little bit stretched out, and that just made me mad. more at myself then they dress form though. because I should have known better then to leave the dress on it. were just not quite the same size and our shapes are different. she is a little bigger then me more broad in the shoulders, and just doesn’t squish quite the way I do. all of which I was already aware of. I have tried to find one in my size but they don’t make them in the mass produced easy to get adjustable type. and yes I have thought about making a custom one out of duck tape, or trying to custom order one, but the idea of being wrapped in duck tape petrifies me( I don’t do tight and restrictive very well), and custom dress forms are not only out of my price range, I figure my body isn’t going to stay the same forever so I hate to put that kind of money into something that won’t last . plus I figure maybe one day I will grow into the dress form I have. and I can still use my dress form I just have to be careful, and not leave things on it unless I leave them open.



now back to the dress. I made this in a modern short style from the eighteenth century. I kind of franken-patterned using simplicity #6787 from 1974, and my own randomness. the simplicity is totted as “costumes from the bicentennial“. I didn’t need it to be a skirt and top though which is what this pattern is for. the front of the top though was what I had in mind, so I used it and made only a few small changes. one was to make it dress length, and the other which I decided right at the end was to make it short sleeves as opposed to the three quarter or whatever they have in the pattern. I get so hot in long sleeves, and can not stand it! I could barely take it in the length of sleeves I put on the dress.




for the back of the dress I had to make up completely on my own. I had decided I wanted to do it in kind of a robe à la française style, and I guess I did have some help with this since I looked around at peoples blogs and read how they did theirs. however I wasn’t going nearly as complex as they were so I simplified it a great deal. it took me several tries to get the draping in the back the way I wanted and originally I wanted the front to have a curve in it. I tried really hard to figure that one out and failed, which was another set to the side moment, and finally just giving in that it wouldn’t be exactly what I wanted because what I wanted was impossible with what I had to work with. I do like the way it turned out though. it looks good being straight down. I also wasn’t going to do a ruffle on the neck, because I felt like being lazy, but when it got stretched out the neck was too wide, so that is when I decided to add it. but I am glad I took the time to do it. even though it was quite exasperating and could not be done the way the pattern called for since it was an after thought. so I just winged it and worked.


then I had to tackle the skirt which was crazy easy, and I wrote about in my last post. I was really excited that this time using the ruffle foot I remembered how, and didn't have to look it up. because for some reason I always forget how to make it work.
and the best part of all when it was all said and done I had done my math correctly so the skirt and the over dress were the same length.


and lastly while we were doing photos a falcon flew by and into a tree! but it hid from the camera, I was really impressed though and that is what I am looking at.

black skirt

this is the skirt I made to go under the black bow dress. its still waiting for a bit of a press and to be de-threaded, and de-fuzzed. what is it about black cotton that attracts so much lint? the skirt itself was a simple gathered skirt, no pattern. I did make use of my ruffle foot to make the double ruffles on the bottom. I also used the rolled hem function on my overlock machine, for the hemming of the ruffles. I love that function, its so much easier then making a tiny topstitch hem. and it looks really cute too.
I am actually nearing completion on the black bow dress. a few more days and I should have it finished. got the hem in today. but am still trying to decide whether or not I want to put black bows down the front. I could make them removable. if I do it will be the very last thing I do. I am on target for my goal of completion by next week.

Ka-Pow!!!!

If you read my last post and guessed from the scraps I was making a Robin from Batman Hoodie you were right!!!!!



I based this off the Robin played by Burt Ward. in the 1960’s television Batman. I love that batman. its the bestest.


I have know for a while that I wanted to make this but I had to come up with the design. which meant of course research and TV watching. I didn’t want it to be exactly like Robin’s shirt in the show for several reasons. one its a Hoodie so it needed to be long sleeve two the shirt in the show has rounded ends which won’t work on a hoodie. three the shirt has no zipper and hoodies need them. and the main thing is this is not a costume its a Hoodie!!!



I wear Hoodies a lot as it tends to be cool in the mornings and get hot during the day so I like something that can slipped on and off. without making my hair a static mess. hence the need for a zipper. I made this out of regular T-shirt fabric so its not too hot to wear in the spring/ summer months.



I used McCall's pattern #M6614 for the Hoodie since I had it already. and for fabric I actually bought two extra large T-shirts because they had enough fabric and were on sale. I did have to completely disassemble them before I cut them but it saved me quite a bit of money to do it this way. I did have to buy the Green in yardage though because of sleeves taking up a lot of fabric. the black is scrap from a hemmed skirt.
I did the hood in Yellow because I actually very rarely wear the hood . this way it hangs down like a cape, and Robin’s cape is yellow. though I do think it still looks good when it is up.



putting it together was pretty simple but very time consuming. I had to keep trading thread colors every ten minutes because of the order of putting it together. nothing could be okay all red, now all green, now all yellow, nope it was sew a it in red, okay now green, okay back to red. it was very much back and forth, back and forth. I did enjoy though being able to use a real cover lock on this. it made putting the black on so much easier plus kept the stretch and just looks so nice because it doesn‘t wop thing out of shape. I will say I wish I had one of these, but alas I will have to settle for borrowing a friends. I also used it to make the belt loops. four for the belt and eighteen to look like the looping on the front. those were fun to line up! actually I was surprised at how easily they did line up when I installed the zipper. I was very careful with my measuring when I put them on but still I was worried about them stretching this way and that as I sewed in the zipper. but they didn’t so that was a happy dance in my head!



Making the R patch turned out not to be as easy as I thought it would be. I thought for sure I could go to a craft store and find a yellow R in the letter appliqué section. Wrong! I mean I could if I wanted the R to be only an inch tall. but I needed it to be bigger. I even looked to order something online. and found lots of letters in lots of different sizes and colors, but not big and Yellow. in the end I thought well I will just try to make my own, if it doesn’t work I can see if I can get someone to make me an Embroidered one. but the one I made turned out, I was so happy! all I did was make a pattern of an R, cut it out sewed it onto stiff interfacing, I think I did two layers of it so it would be thick enough. then made me a black circle the same way and just zig zaged around everything to make a nice patch. which I then sewed on to the hoodie.



I do have to say that the most challenging part of this whole project was lining up the belt. because it goes into the pocket yet stays on top of the pocket as well. it took some careful figuring to get that just right, not lose any of the pocket, nor have the yellow loops be on top of it. I had chalk marks all over the place. man I love Tailors chalk its one of the best things out there. I am so happy with the way this turned out, and can not wait to wear it all the time!!!!

projects

at the moment I am working on three different projects, though two have been somewhat put on hold for the time being.
one is of course the black bow dress, which I have nearly finished the overlay part, I guess its really an overlay dress with a skirt underneath. all I need on the overlay is the ruffles on the sleeves and I may put a ruffle on the neck as it is a bit wider then I had hoped for. its not outrageous though so I haven't decided if I will do the neck ruffle or not.

the second one is a hoodie.



can you guess by the scraps what is based on? I can’t wait till I finish this one. I will wear it all the time.
I’m making it out of t-shirt fabric so its nice and light. I like hoodies because they are easy on easy off, but I don't have any light weight ones so I decided to make one. all I have left is the zipper, however because of my third project I can not get to my sewing machine! its piled high with stuff. I will unearth it, but it may take me a while.

the third project is a complete reorganization of my sewing room, which is also my bedroom. I will post more about that when I finish it, but I am loving the way my stash is turning out. its just taking longer to organize then I anticipated. I keep trying to remind myself this is a really busy time of year for me, things take longer then normal. but still I want it done.

headdress

head dress I made my sister for Christmas. yeah I know I am slow at posting this stuff.
she kept posting pictures of headdresses she liked and I used those for inspiration. I really liked the way it turned out.

back to the drawing board.

I decided I really need to get back to working on some of these unfinished projects I have going. most of them I either got bored of working on, ran out of something, and keep forgetting to purchase it while I’m at the store. or could not get a crucial piece that I really thought would be an easy thing to acquire but was/is not. and last of all I get frustrated or lost in putting something together, put it aside to work out later and never get back to it. or it might be a combination of a few of those things.
my black bow dress is a case in point. I became very frustrated at it because I was having trouble figuring out how to get the sleeves and lining to do what I wanted. plus even though I am using a pattern for the basic shape I’m not really using the pattern exactly. I completely changed the back of this dress from what the pattern called for. it calls for a back zipper, but because of the back needing to be one piece I have to put the zipper in the side. and that is where the problem with the lining and sleeves and everything came into play, so the dress was set aside.
I pulled it out last week and realized my issue wasn’t all that much of an issue. and I have seen this exact thing on formal wear dresses. I basically just need to make a clip in the lining. something so simple but I could not see because I was mad at the dress.
after getting the dress pulled back out I also realized I had used the fabric I had for lining the skirt to make a blouse with. it was white cotton, and that is never safe if it sits too long. I was going to try to figure this dress out a few months ago as well, but when I saw I didn’t have the fabric I just put it back. this time though I went out and purchased what I needed, and so far the dress looks as if maybe I might actually finish it this year.

I also want to point out that I only have that black trim pinned to the dress to see how it would look. its not going to hang down like that. and the skirt under it is a petticoat, not the actual skirt I still have to make that too. so this is my first sewing project for the year, my goal is to finish it this month..... we will see.