a velvet short sleeved hoodie.

this is my newest creation. someone at sometime posted a hoodie from the 1930’s on their blog, and I loved it so of course I saved the pics and decided one day I will have a hoddie like that!
my obsession with hoodies dates back to being a small child. I had this striped hoddie that I absolutely adored. it was the hood I loved about it, always the hood. and as a child I would wear the hoodie backwards so I could see the hood I held such an adoration for. I was three, and my mom let me wear it that way. she tried to tell me the proper way to wear it, but I would have nothing to do with that so she relented and I wore it like that till I out grew it.

now that I am grown up, I no longer wear my hoddies backwards. I enjoy them properly worn with the hood in the back. actually I’m not really sure why I like hoddies so much as I very rarely put the hood up. I guess I just like the way a hood looks hanging down.

now on to the construction

here is the hoddie from 1939 that I fell in love with. one night I was looking at my stash and I thought oh my god I totally have velvet, and that silky matryoshka doll fabric would look so cute as the collar.
I dug out patterns choosing three of them to get me started. obviously I wasn’t going to have anything quite like the original. I have looked around online for collared hoddies both to buy and patterns to make. but they seem to be a fashion from the 1930’s that has gotten lost over the years.

I chose McCalls 6614 obviously for the hood. which is the only piece I used from the pattern. McCalls 5093 for the front top bust. and newlook 6675 for the sleeves and the back, which I extended . in length by I think 10”.
the bottom front I drafted on my own. and then there was the making of the collar. I had no idea how to do this. somehow I had to attach the hood to a collar but only on the lining. I realized from the pics of my inspiration that velvet part of the hood is separate from the collar, but the lining piece it was not.
getting this right was not easy. and took two tries. I thought I had it the first time. it looked like it would work but then when I had the whole thing put together I realized I was shy by like 2” in width, so the collar didn’t fold right. and that is when I just kind of threw the whole thing in the corner and left it there for days.

here's the one I had to tear apart, see how the lining is too short and the wrong side of the green fabric is showing.
after a week or so though I went ahead and tore the lining out. once I did that I made a new pattern piece this one extended by four inches just to make sure. I had thought about just piecing the missing 2” but then there would have been a weird seam that I just couldn’t wrap my brain around. I had plenty of fabric so I went ahead and cut an entirely new lining part of the hood. it then went fairly quickly. but it was turning out a bit shorter then I wanted so I added the cuff at the bottom which I drafted myself, and yea! it was finally done.

green velvet yeah!

I am working on a project that is taking me entirely too long considering the size of it, but oh well. its a single garment, made from a dark green velvet type fabric and a silky poly lining with matryoshka dolls printed on it. so far I have only had to tear the whole thing apart one time, and considering I am Frankenpatterning from three different patterns that don’t go together at all I don’t think that is too bad. I am not actually sure Frankenpatterning is quite the right word, I mean I am using the three patterns as a guide, but I had had to completely refigure and redraw most of the pieces. I love wrapping tissue, its what I use to redraw/ trace and fit everything, sort of ,kind of together in a slightly odd looking pattern that in the end with only minor alterations is actually turning out cute.

anyway here's the patterns I am using. when I finish what I making I will take some pics and talk about what pieces I used from which pattern. so until then....

baby gifts

one of my friends recently had twin boys so I made her a few gifts.

two floor quilts. because you can always use something clean to throw on floors for tummy time.
both quilts were made from thirty-six, eight inch square blocks, consisting of jungle animal prints, and black and white patterns. and bound with the backing fabric. I quilted them using the same technique I used in my quilt. I am still no better at it then I was before though.

I also made them a set of four burp cloths since some babies are really drooly. they may or may not come in handy, depending on the kids. but the pattern was cute and I loved the whale fabric. which I only had a small piece of since I got it out of a remnant bin and that was all there was. the other three fabrics I used were from the same fabric I used in the quilts.

strawberry fields

I realized when I posted about my quilt that I had never posted about when my sister, my niece and I all of wore our strawberry dresses. we did a photo shoot and everything of all of wearing them together. so here it is a few years late, but here’s our strawberry dresses!

my niece’s dress no longer fits her she grew a lot in the past few years. my sisters skirt and my dress however do still fit so we can still twin if ever we decide too.
my dress I never bloged about because I made it before I had this blog. I made up the design, no pattern. after trying out a pattern for the bodice I found in a magazine that was sooooo bad. the skirt part of the dress I had already made up, but I didn’t think I would be able to make the bodice on my own. in the end the bodice from the magazine pattern was weird, nothing went together right and it didn’t fit so I scraped it and decided to totally redesign what I wanted. I did something completely different then I had originally planed but I love the way it turned out. I really like it better then what I had originally thought I wanted.

Great Grandmother's quilt done!

the quilt is done! actually I finished it a few weeks ago but I don’t have place big enough to take pictures inside and get the whole quilt. I mean its not any bigger then a normal quilt its just the rooms are too small to get far enough back to get the whole quilt, and it has rained everyday since I finished the quilt. so its been sitting waiting for pictures. today it was finally dry enough to get some! as long as I hurried up and got the pictures before it starts raining again. I’m really excited about the way it turned out. I love the way it looks with the yellow binding. I did some fancy math to figure out if there was enough to do the binding before I cut the bias so if there wasn’t enough I wouldn’t waste the fabric.
actually it wasn’t that fancy of math. I just folded the fabric in quarters and marked that quarter with chalk then measured what I would have and times that by four.

now that the quilt is done I want to highlight some of the squares.
the center of course is what my great grandmother sewed. my favorite fabrics of what she sewed were the pussy willow fabric, and the small floral pattern.


the strip that goes around is something that both my great grandmother and I both sewed. she had started sewing together squares, most of the pieces were two or four pieces sewn together. I attached then all and added some random squares that came out of my grandmothers house, till I had strips long enough to go all the way around the quilt. the kitties, the foxes and the chickens are my favorites in the strip.



the four square squares I made, using some of the squares that came out of my grandmothers house, some squares that I just had and have no idea where I got them. some scrap pieces I had saved because I liked the fabric and some scraps that are from former sewing projects. do you recognize any of them?
the strawberry fabric is from the strawberry series I did. I made my sister a skirt, my niece a dress and myself a dress out of this fabric.
the red and black polka dots are also from a series I did for my sister, my niece and myself. we all got polka dot dresses! my nice and I got red and my sister black. I actually won the red fabric from a contest on a blog I read. the black was given to me about a week before I won that contest and I was going to make myself a dress out of the black, but since I won the red I made my sister a dress instead. we had so much fun all dressing alike. I really need to figure out another dress alike dress to do before my niece gets too old and doesn’t find it fun anymore.


the duckies are from a dress I made my niece for her second birthday. and the gingham is from a dress I made for last birthday. the polka dots were something I was going to use on the dress I made to wear her parents wedding after I realized I was short on the butterfly fabric I had bought, and the store was out of. the polka dots matched the butterflies and I was going to use it as the ruffle at the bottom. I ended up not using it though, and just made the ruffle smaller then what the pattern called for.


the pink with silver stars. this is the only square I had and it was so random to come across when I was going through the squares. this is from a dress my sister made when she was just getting into sewing (she sews too!). I’m not sure if she used a pattern as a guide or not, since at the time we just sort of made things up. the dress turned out really cute though and she wore it all the time.

the gray with red flowers is from a nightgown I made my mother and the green dog bones is from a pillow I made my niece.


there are a few other special fabrics on the quilt but these were my favorites. I love that I was able to put something in that represented my mom, sisters, niece and me. I wish I had something from my dad and brothers too but I haven’t really sewn much for them since girls are just so much easier to sew for.

Great Grandmothers quilt

what better thing to do with a long weekend then to sew!

I finished quilting my quilt. and from far away it looks pretty good.
all I have left is the binding. I was going to bind it in a slightly darker blue then what is the main blue but when I laid it out I am not all that impressed. I mean it will work but its doesn’t pop, I really think a yellow would be amazing. I have some yellow but I am not sure I have enough to make the binding. its time to do some math, blah....
I only ended up with a few Krinkles on the back, but not too bad. the quilt is for me so I am just going to leave them. I figure for the first time I have done free hand quilting on a machine it turned out pretty good. it got a little bit easier as I went along. if I ever do this again one thing I am definitely going to do is use a basting spray. I ended borrowing some after I had really bad Krinkles on the back side, and I got no new Krinkles! the bad ones I did take out. I left the tiny ones cause yeah...
but anyway I’m getting excited about finishing this.
if I don't have the yellow though I may have to go to the fabric store, and that is an hour away so it will take a while before I can do that.

Great grandmothers quilt swirlly gigs.

I finished the quilt top. I love the way it turned out. now I am taking in the daunting task of trying to quilt it.

I know someone who makes a lot of quilts and she told me how to do the quilting with a darning foot and free handing the stitching, when she does it its perfect, when I do it...... well its okay. I have never done anything like this though, so I think for my first attempt its turning out fine. and like I have said before I am no quilter. I decided to do the quilting stitch in the center part that my great-grandmother did first. I know that treating that part as a separate section isn’t necessarily the proper way to do it. but because the fabric is so old, and grain lines are so all over the place I needed to do it that way. hopefully it will cause the least amount of crinkling.

I finished the center part and at some point I am going to go for the rest. it was kind of fun swirling around the stitching like that. you can see on the green backing better the stitching I did and how its only in the center. do you see all the swirlly gigs! now I just have to swirl around thr rest of quilt not just the center.

after I took these pictures I laid the quilt as flat as I could get it and pinned the rest so its ready to go when I get the time to finish it.

Black cotton dress

this dress makes me sad. nothing on it turned out right for me. the dress itself I think turned out beautiful, but for some reason when I put it on with the hoop its too short. I tried to make it the same length as my pink 1860’s skirt, but since I apparently I can’t do math, it turned out 1/2” shorter. which shouldn’t really make that big of a difference but for some reason on this skirt it did. its just way short! the length is okay if I’m barefooted and the shoes I generally wear have a 1 1/2” heal on them. and the waist on the skirt turned out to big, but that can be remedied by simply moving the buttons over.

I made this dress to wear in a memorial day parade. a friend invited me to walk with her re-enacting group, since most of the group lives hours away from here not many like to come for a short walk and no battle. so when they do something here my friend will ask me to join in.
so this year I wanted to surprise her and make a new dress! I didn’t say anything to her about it, in case I didn’t finish the dress. I worked hard all month and finally four days before the parade I was done! I have no idea why I wanted a new dress to wear for thirty minutes but I did, I thought it would be fun.
the day before the parade though I was talking to my friend, who I still had not told I had made the dress I was just going to show up wearing it. I was so excited and had decided even though it was a bit short,if I wore my flatest shoes it should be okay, even if the shoes are not period, I didn’t care. but as we were talking she started telling me about what dress she was going to wear. of which we had talked about when she invited me, at that time she was going to wear her black dress, which is one reason I made a black dress. but then as we were talking the day before the parade she told me, she was going to wear something different. reasoning because the man who is in charge of getting the re-enactors in this parade asked her not to wear black. he said that we are not mourning the soldiers but rather celebrating them and remembering them fondly.
so did I say anything about the black dress I made? Not a chance! I didn’t want her telling me it was okay to wear it when obviously it wasn’t. and I didn’t want to start anything between ...well anybody, so I just kept my mouth shut. and wore my pink dress, the one I wear to everything I have ever been too.





and in the end it turns out it was probably better to wear because, even though I rolled the dress and used a entire roller on it, not just one little paper, the whole entire thing. the dress was still covered in cat heir. in the house it was hardly visible, but when I took the dress outside it was glaring at me! stupid black fabric picks up every last piece of dust, thread and cat hair in the universe! but I should have known that. black is notorious for that type of thing. especially black cotton, and the dress is a 100% cotton after all.


the skirt was all my design, it has three tucks near the bottom, with a layer of cluny lace at the bottom tuck. the hem is a 3” wide band of black fabric.
the waist band closes with two black buttons. and all seams are sewn in french seams



the bodice is kind of sort of made from the pattern i used to make my pink 1860’s dress, since I was planning to make the bodice to be tucked in I didn’t make the fancy tail at the back but rather just made it a lot more simple. I did all the seams in french seams in the bodice as well. the sleeves obviously didn’t come from that pattern I can not tell you where they came from. I had a sleeve from another dress, not one I made. I used that sleeve to make a pattern, which yes I had to put the sleeves in three times to get it right, since I had no idea what the placement should be I just eyeballed it the first time then adjusted it from there till I got it right. and I made up the the collar with the offset button, no pattern for that.







Will I ever wear this dress ? probably not. so really it was a waste of time to make.
I don’t even really like the dress. it doesn’t fit right and the cat hair is never going to go away.

here's how it looks with no hoop.