Project Project Project

So, way back when, for my birthday party, I decided (with barely a fortnight to go if I recall correctly), that a really fun idea would be to dress all the pseudo-nieces in the same dress and take a group photo of them.  And then I decided I should also have a matching dress.  Because apparently I don't like sleep...

Anyway, I got all the dresses sewn and we had a great time trying to convince the four of them to pose for photos!

And here we all are!  The children were very bemused as to why they were made to sit on the sofa and stare at all the adults on the other side of the room encouraging them to sit still and smile!

As you can see, the girls fit a range of sizes, from Small Bean here (who's growing so fast!)  all the way down to Starbug below

So I picked this pattern, which has a great range of sizes! And even better, is a nice easy sew.

I customized the girls dresses with different buttons and trim.  My dress trim matches Starbug's, purely because I have loads of blue ricrac....

 The dresses also each have a different colour lining.  If I remember correctly, Small Beans is green, Tiny Bean's is mint. Lizard's is blue and Starbug and I have cream (Starbug's dress took next to no fabric as she's so diddy!).

The girls enjoyed the veg sticks from the buffet a lot!  and Lizard is customizing her dress here in a gorgeous cardie that Ruthwhoisnotablogger made for her.

My dress is a mix and match of two simplicity patterns, largely because I couldn't get one bodice to work, so I switched it out for one that I knew fitted as I was running very short on time by that point!

The dresses all fitted, more or less, which is a huge relief  because I may not have measured anyone before I sewed them!  This may in part be because I slightly surprised the parents of my pseudo nieces by only telling them of the plan a couple of days before...

I'm also pleased to say the dresses did not seem to impede crawling, an important note for those wanting to sew for small people.
 

Starbug was unimpressed by the noise, meaning I had to give her extra cuddles to comfort her.  Such a hard life...

Lizard sat beautifully quietly in the corner so once we'd let the Beans head back to the important business of playing,  we snuggled up for a quick smallest pseudo-nieces cuddle.

It was a lovely experiment and I'm very glad to have friends so willing to allow my to use their children as tiny dress up dolls!  Also, many thanks to Lizard's Mama for taking all these wonderful photos for me!

Small Bean Birthday Frock

Small Bean, incredibly, has just had another birthday.  Where does the time go?  Anyway, as promised I made her a party dress and let her choose the colour.

After much changing of her mind she settled on orange and I set to work.

I couldn't quite bring myself to make an entirely orange dress (I'm sorry Small Bean!  Next year, I'll take you shopping and you can choose all the fabrics yourself, promise!), so I added a white lace overlay tot he skirt and a white satin sash and contrast band.

The buttons are clear plastic with a floral design on them, which I felt complemented the orange but weren't washed out by it.

Who doesn't need a froufrou party frock?  Happy Birthday Small Bean!

Faux Taxidermy

Xanthipe has a wall of faux taxidermy, so clearly I had to add to it!

This is another version of Simplicity 1218.  I used fleece for the head, antlers and nose, but velvet for the inner ear and neck.  The trickiest bit was turning the antlers right side out and stitching them on and it was a complete pain to wrap!

I love making these and have plans for another two at least, so keep your eyes peeled for the future blog posts!

PJ Trews!

I had a large amount of the floral fabric from my maxi dress left over, only due to how I'd cut out the maxi dress is was in a long fairly thin strip.  I'd wanted to make another dress, but I didn't want to piece it, so int he end I decided to run up a new pair of summer pj trews!

They are my usual lazy elasticated waist design!

They're very comfy and I'm looking forward to getting some use out of them before the weather turns too cold!

Maxi-Dress

I had a wedding to go to last week and apparently in Germany, they do long frocks for weddings.  So I needed a new dress, oh the hardship...

I used New Look 6280 and lengthened the bodice and the skirt.

 I'm really pleased with this dress!  It's comfy, pretty and can be dressed up or down as I need.

In case you're wondering these pictures were taken in a farmyard during the wedding celebrations, in fact just before my cousins all consumed a really quite amazing amount of alcohol!

Kindle Cover

Mr Kit has a habit of wanting gadgets and then after a few months getting bored of them, at which point I acquire them.  Case in point is the kindle, which he doesn't use any more so I've been using.  I didn't like the case he had though, so I made my own.

I embroidered the pictures using a transfer from a book I was given for my birthday a few years ago and then discovered it wasn't quite big enough to be the front of the cover, argh!  So I added it to a tartan cotton cover that was big enough and added a batting lining before a lining in the same tartan.

The top is bound in cotton bias binding and it just snugly fits the kindle so I haven't worried about a closure at the top.

Monster Kit

Goodness me, it has been vile at larp these last few weeks.  Rainy and warm, creating a muggy outside that's stupidly energy sapping.  Thing is, being in Britain my larp gear is mostly made to be warm, so I have felt like I was melting!  Something had to be done!

So I acquired some black t-shirting and set about working on something out with the aid of my beloved Alabama Chanin book (one day I'll get the other Alabama Chanin books...)

Tadaa!  Here is my new super simple t-shirt dress.  It's the shift dress skirt added to the t-shirt top.  I used the cap sleeves and made the neckhole slightly larger than usual.

 It doesn't have pockets, because I couldn't figure any out that didn't look really silly (which makes me very sad).  It was also originally longer, but I didn't like the length so I hacked it shorter and I'm really pleased I did!

 Please excuse my hair, these photos were taken as I was getting ready for larp and I hadn't quite realised how messy it looked!

Having worn this dress larping all day I'm thrilled with it!  lightweight and comfy it meant I didn't overheat (well not more than could be helped anyway)!