Here’s today’s completed dress:

Actually, I made it on Saturday, so I’m counting that as my “Day 1”. Today I worked on a similar dress for my youngest, and should have it done by tomorrow. My goal is to have a new dress, new skirt, and new pajamas for each girl by the end of the week. It feels so good to be sewing again.  The last time I was behind my machine was when I was finishing up a quilt. I never had a chance to update on it, but I will say that I’ll be remaking it in the coming weeks. More on that another time.

For the dress pictured, I followed a pattern from this Japanese sewing book. There was a hefty learning curve with this first one, which probably could have been alleviated if I could read Japanese, but the second dress is going much more smoothly.

If you’d like to follow along with everyone’s creations, just check out the Elsie Marley flickr pool.

I believe the title translates to, “Cotton Clothes for Girls.” As usual, all of the patterns are traceable from a fold-out insert in the back of the book. There aren’t as many patterns in this book as my other pattern book, but I believe I will end up sewing more of the outfits from this one.  Take a look…these clothes are adorable!  

  These are some of my favorites, including the headband that I’ve already made: I will be putting a few more pics up on my flickr pool, and the book is still available from purchase from this seller (along with several others on Etsy).

In another effort to try to perk-up the place with some festive Easter decor, the girls and I did some simple paper-cuttings. Charlotte (2) cut out the cross, Annabelle (3 did the flower, with a bit of help) and I took on the bunnies.  I just used some green cardstock that I had on hand and placed them in the frames that were previously housing some of the girls’ other artwork.

Templates for the flower and bunnies came from this Japanese kirigami book. I really love this book. It is organized by season and has some very simple and much more intricate paper-cutting templates. So many possibilities!

I absolutely LOVE this book. All of the styles are absolutely lovely and simple…just right for a little girl. I could easily see myself making all of the patterns in this book over the next couple of years (until my girls won’t wear what I make for them.) Here’s a photo that shows all of the patterns that are included:

Lots of cute skirts, dresses, and tops. A jacket. And of course a hat and some bags to accessorize!  But, a girl has to start somewhere, so I decided to give little skirt a go….

with this top…..

Here are the instructions…all in Japanese. I’ve looked over the diagrams and I’m pretty sure it’s basic enough for me to do without alot of instructions. Let’s hope. ;)

The skirt and top are for my 2-year-old, and then for my 3-year-old I plan on making this dress. I love it when their clothes coordinate in some way.

So cute! I really hope I can manage these patterns. I’ll try to pop in and keep you up as I go along.

See ya soon!

Chrissy

This past week or so has had me so busy sewing! I’m not usually nearly this productive, but something special has me cranking out handmade goods like crazy: babies! Two of my friends are having babies in March and I’m on a mission to complete some little goodies for each of them. One baby will definitely be a girl, the other is yet to be known. Love surprises!

But, since I know that there will be at least one girl, I happily made a couple Itty Bitty dresses from Rae’s pattern. What a wonderful pattern she has created. Even with a couple of hiccups, I was able to make two dresses in almost as many nights (it would have been two days if I hadn’t had to make a trip to the store to buy matching thread for the blue ribbon…but I digress). The key to getting these dresses to look great is getting a nice gather around the side seams to help the skirt poof out more. And, I made the mistake of connecting the piping on the side. Not a good idea. The bend there makes the piping want to flip open and it’s rather annoying. Next time I’ll remember to join the piping in the back. But…they’re still so dang cute! Now on to a nice warm blanket for said baby and a doll quilt for her 2-year-old sister.

As for the doll quilt, I’m going to use it as an opportunity to try a few things. The first is the flower hexagons that I worked on a week or so ago. In addition, I’m diving into stamping with the help of Lena Corwin’s book (which I absolutely love and cannot recommend enough) . I did a test run yesterday:

I’m using acrylic blocks with hand-cut adhesive foamies. They’re sooo easy to make and use and I was positively giddy by the end of my first stamping session. For real. It’s awesome and so totally empowering to feel like I’m making my own fabric.

In between all this baby stuff I’m also hoping to make a couple outfits for my own little girlies. I recently purchased several Japanese craft books, one of which was a girls clothing book. I want to make everything in it…it’s that good. Snapped a pic of the fabrics I plan to use to make coordinating, not matching, outfits for my kids.  I’m so pumped. I’ve looked over the diagrams and I actually think I can do this. I’ll be sure to post some photos of the book and some of my favorite garments.

Well, I think that about brings us up to speed! Happy crafting everyone and I’ll be back soon!

]]> http://www.hicketypicketyhandmade.com/2010/02/15/sewing/feed/ 0 http://www.hicketypicketyhandmade.com/2010/01/27/paper-hearts/ http://www.hicketypicketyhandmade.com/2010/01/27/paper-hearts/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:29:41 +0000 Chrissy http://www.hicketypicketyhandmade.com/?p=15

Finished with all but the blocking of the scarf…major rolling going on. Then it’ll be sent off to a neck in need. :)  Next up on the agenda is a pair of ankle socks for my niece’s 12th birthday. I seriously can’t believe she’s already 12, but I am totally thrilled that she requested a knitted gift from her aunt! Before casting on, however, I needed a bit of a break and these little 3-D origami hearts are quick, fun, and cute! They are definitely satisfying me while I take a break from my needles.  How-to here.  And, if you couldn’t tell, I’m still on my pink and yellow kick. I hope you like it too, because I think you’ll be seeing even more of it in the coming weeks.