Stashin’

Made a little headway on organizing my fabric today. Didn’t actually organize any of the fabric, but got a step closer. When we decorated the office/sewing room this year, we chose the Expedit bookshelves from Ikea for my main storage units. I put my books, projects and fabrics in the available 24 spaces. The problem is that fabric shouldn’t be exposed to light because that has a tendency to fade it. I’ve looked for drawers or doors or anything that I could install on the shelves that would help with hiding the stash, but nothing seemed to fit.

Finally, though, I found the Itso fabric drawers from Target. They are the perfect size—exactly the dimensions I needed. The colors matched the room decor we set up and look really nice. For Christmas, I told Robert that I wanted eight drawers—enough to hold my entire fabric stash and box up some projects. He got them and now I’m in the process of putting my fabric in them.

I spent today working on the sample cards that I intend to keep in a box or perhaps on a flip ring. I made a template in Word that has space for width, length, prewashed status, fabric content, care instructions, where and when purchased and price paid, after discounts if any. Most importantly, I included a spot for box number. I intend to number all eight boxes and as I fill them, I’ll make a card out for each fabric. I will cut out a 3”x3” swatch to glue to the back so I can see what I have at hand easily. At this point, it won’t matter if a fabric is for me, the kids or Robert (my current system—we all have shelves, more or less) because I can just look in the specific box and find what I’m looking for. I also intend to try to keep the stash to just these eight boxes, so I won’t be getting the itch to go out and buy stuff when I don’t have any place for it.

In all, I’m pretty excited about it. I need to get to work measuring and describing the stash I have, but as soon as I’ve got it all labeled and boxed, it will all be smooth sailing. When I get new fabric after I get it organized, it will be a matter of minutes to get them into the system and put away neatly.

Bring on the Snow!

Or, in my case (as I live in East Texas), the slush!

Finally finished Laura’s jacket. I cut it out probably a month or so ago, along with the stuff to make a jacket for Harrison as well. As so often happens, the projects got set aside for life and I have only in the past few weeks or so gotten enough time to get to them. I finished Laura’s completely today, although all I had left was the snaps and the hole through which I bagged the lining. The sleeves threw me for a loop—the directions seemed totally non-intuitive, but I trusted Ottobre to have worked out the details as they so often do and it came out perfectly.

I used a short napped fake fur from Hancock’s and lined it with a nice, cushy baby pink knit. For the bears, I embroidered the facial features instead of using buttons. I figured since she’s still under a year that there was no reason to be tempting fate with chokey things.

I think the only thing I would have changed is to add some bear ears to the hood. At the time I was making that part, the fabric was being kind of fiddley and I just didn’t want to make the effort to add them. As it is, it looks really cute, but ears always make things better. Maybe next year.

I’ll get pictures of the girl in it soon. She wore it out Christmas shopping today and was oooohed and aaaaahed all over the store. More importantly, she kept rubbing it and smiling, so I think it was pretty successful.

Now, on to the boy’s jacket!

Grrrrr…I mean, Brrrrrr!

Working on the girl’s jacket since it’s finally winter here in East TX. It’s going together pretty quickly, considering that I’m working with fake fur. It’s got a really short nap, so it’s not too bad, but I’m definitely going to think twice about using this fabric again. If I didn’t know how adorable she’s going to be in it, I’d have given up hours ago. Nice thing is that it’s entirely lined (bagged!), so I don’t have to worry about finishing the seams. I’m finger pressing them open and running over them at the junctures with seams to keep them open and that’s pretty much doing the trick. I might tack them down in a few places, but overall I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. I’ve got to redo the hood (again), but I think I’m going to work on that tomorrow since it’s nearing midnight and I do actually work for a living. :)

Will hopefully get to the boy’s jacket by the weekend, although I’m not as worried about his just because he’s already got one really good jacket. I am making him a reversible hoodie so it will be warm without being too hot or bulky. It’s cut out, I just need to get it finished up. One project at a time!

Wonder Baby

So, the promised costume details.

I literally whipped this all up in one day, so it’s really a no brainer. I did the tiara first. Wonder Woman’s tiara curves up on top and slightly so on the bottom. (I’m referencing the real Wonder Woman here, not the TV Wonder Woman.)

First step, obviously, is to measure your kid’s head. Laura’s was about 19-1/2 inches, but I figured the wig would take up some room so I went ahead and made my circumference 21 inches. I then drew a rectangle that was 2 inches by 10-1/2 inches. (A quick note here—I’m math-tarded, so if I could figure this out, really—you can too!)

I then measured up from the center one inch and made a mark. I did the same half an inch down. Out came the trusty French curves and I made a nice gradual curve on top and bottom.

I folded my gold lame on the grain, lined up the pattern on the fold and cut out two pieces. Stitch around the edge (I used a 3/8 inch seam, but float your own boat—more or less to taste), leave a hole for turning, and then turn it.

I want to note here that I did not interface this. Actually, let me restate that: I did not interface the final iteration of this. I tried interfacing it with a really stiff interfacing I had hanging around, but had trouble turning the danged thing and ended up throwing that one away. Lame shreds, y’all! I decided against interfacing on the second go-around because it didn’t seem necessary and, quite frankly, I just didn’t want to do it. If I were making this to stand alone, I would definitely stiffen it up, but as it was going to be tacked onto a baby’s wig, I figured no one would care. Turns out, they didn’t. Score one for me. :)

So, anyway. If you’re industrious, slip stitch the hole closed. I’m lazy and knew that this was the only time she would likely be wearing it, so I got some Wonder Tape (appropriate, I think…) and tacked it closed. Seam finished.

Next, I played measured the height of the tiara and figured that I would need about a 1-1/2 to 2 inch star. Okey-dokey. You could totally free hand this. You could also just find some big red star stickers. I, being the anal retentive freak I am (and the broker than broke chicka I am, since I spent so much money on tights and fabric markers) went to my old friend, Photoshop, and used the alignment bars to set up the size I wanted, embiggened the star to the right size (yeah, I know it’s a made up word…whatever…), and printed it out. Tacked it to the scrap of red sweatshirt material I happened to have laying out for another project. Snipped it out. Wonder Taped it in place. Zig zagged it on with a narrow stitch. Poof, done. Fabu.

The wig took about the same amount of time, but only because I had to do the tiara twice. So I guess, real world estimates, it took twice the time of the tiara. Whatever. Artist—not math teacher.

I have lost my pattern, but basically, I took her head measurement (bumping it up, again, to 21 inches), divided by four (since I was going to be making a skull cap type of hat with four pieces) and drew another rectangle, this time five inches (the height I was making the had from crown to edge) by 4-1/4 inches (head circumference divided by four). At the top of the rectangle, I marked out the center (2-1/8 inches) and drew a gentle curve from there down to each side, about an inch or so down. It ended up looking like an upside pointy-ish letter ‘U.’ Stitch two of the pieces together along the crown, and then stitch the other two together. Line up the two stitched together pieces with seams matching and stitch around the now-very-large-curve. This should make you a nice little skull cap.

I sewed mine out of black fleece. It was pretty stretchy, so along the two sides that I had designated the sides of the head, I got a little bit of clear elastic and gathered it a bit. I didn’t want it smooshed up too much, but I did want it to grab a bit.

Then came the fun part: I laid out my black fleece and started cutting out some long swoopy shapes. They were kind of like long, pointy 8s. I kind of just used my rotary cutter and let it do its thing. No one is going to be inspecting this thing up close and personal (and if they do—good grief—it’s cartoon hair! Get over it!), so they don’t have to be perfectly symmetrical or anything. Just long and swooshy.

Once I had about 20 or so hair pieces, I started sewing them to the cap. I started doing this on the machine, but really, it was much easier to just tack in them in place by hand, which I started doing about half way through. The key here in hair placement is that you want to stitch it upside down from where it’s going to be so that the point of the ‘8’ will fold under the hair. I didn’t do that on my first layer of hair and so I had all these little triangles sticking up. I ended up covering them pretty well in the end with subsequent layers, but it was kind of frustrating at first. Whatever. Live and learn.

Which leads me to the other important thing about the wig—start at the bottom of the head and work your way up. I started with the back and sides, got a layer or two in and then went in and tacked the tiara into place. I machine stitched it in center back and hand tacked it (with red) on the star. Then I added more hair, going all the way up to the edge of the tiara to make the waves.

I think, overall, the effect was pretty darned nice, if I do say so.

My last step was to sew a clear elastic chin strap to keep it in place. I totally expected my little fireball to be ripping at the wig, trying desperately to get it off, but she was surprisingly cool about it. She fooled with it at first, but once I showed it to her in the mirror, she laughed and stopped messing with it. I put it on her a few times while sitting around the house so I could take pictures and would take it off when she got frustrated with it. Then, when we went out trick-or-treating, I put it on her and she didn’t mess with it at all.

The tights were super easy, as well. I got some plain white baby tights (do you have any idea how hard it is to find baby tights sans ruffles? That was the hard part!) and put them on her to figure measurements. I used a pencil to mark her knees front and back, as well as the soles of her feet. I pulled them off her, put some cardboard in to give shape and to block paint seepage and started coloring them with a red fabric marker. I left a white stripe down the front and after I colored in the sides and backs, I went around the top about half an inch up from the top with just a thin line, to indicate the white stripe at the top of Wonder Woman’s boots. Super cute, super easy and Laura loved looking at them and playing with them. (Amazingly, she didn’t try to eat them.)

So that’s it. Wonder Baby on the cheap and easy!

Hope you all had a great Halloween!

BTW, if any of this doesn’t make sense and you’re desperate for clearer instructions, leave some comments or email me or something and I’ll be happy to try to work this all out in Photoshop or Paint or something. I’m lazy, though, so I figured I’d go the minimal route tonight… :)

Jacket Progress

Slowly inching along on the kids’ jackets. I’ve got both completely cut out, although I think I’m going to add ears to Laura’s hood. I mean, you can’t very well have a faux fur teddy bear jacket without ears, can you? I’ve got the teddy pockets cut out and the pinks of the pocket ear tape-basted in place. Now I just need to get some time to get the sewing machine and serger cleaned up and threaded so I can get some sample sewing done to figure my zig-zag size for appliquéing the pinks on. No problem, right? Aside from the ear quandary, I think instead of sewing buttons on for eyes, I’m going to satin stitch the them, as well as the mouth. No need to give my little girl who is just getting to the ‘every thing that is in my hands obviously belongs in my mouth’ stage something on which to choke. She’ll provide that kind of fodder for herself.

Harrison keeps telling me he doesn’t want a hood on his jacket, but I know that if I don’t put one, he’ll just turn around and ask why I didn’t put one. So on it shall go. I think, since the jacket is reversible, that I’m going to flip the solid and the print on the hood so that when he’s got the print on the outside of the jacket, it will be on the inside of his hood and vice versa. I think that’s the kind of detail he’ll enjoy. I also think that instead of putting binding on the hood (one of my least favorite things to do, despite my awesome binding attachment), I’m going to make a casing and then just put some elastic in at the edge. I don’t know—I’ll look at it and see what I think.

I’m really excited about these jackets. It’s getting really cool around here lately, so I think the kids will enjoy wearing them. I know I’ll enjoy seeing them in them. :)

Pattern Work

Sat down to my sewing machine tonight for the first time in months. I hate the beginning of the school year because I always end up getting bogged down with tons of crap and I don’t get to sew or do much of anything not work related at all. Very depressing.

So anyway, I’m getting some patterns cut out using Pam Erny’s technique. I’ve got a reversible hoodie for the boy (Ottobre 04/09 #14) in the works made from a Wall*E fleece print we picked up at Hancock's. The girl is also getting a jacket—I’m making her the Teddy Bear jacket from Ottobre 06/08 (#10). I’ve got a short nap fake fur and a pink knit—I think she’ll look adorable (but then, when don’t I think that?). I’m also getting the girl’s Halloween costume rounded out. It’s a surprise, but let’s just suffice it to say it’s got gold lame and is going to be awesome. :)

Maybe I can get some time to actually sew this weekend instead of pretending to do so.

Steppin’ Out With My Baby

Got to wear my new top tonight. Hubby had a business dinner thing we were supposed to go to, so I figured that would be a good time to try it out. I was really happy with it—it fits very comfortably and was neither too hot nor too drafty. I wore the sweater I made from Ottobre 02/06 (#18) with it and it looked, I think, rather nice. I’ve got several skirts with which I can pair them, as well as some slacks, so for now this is one of the most versatile pieces in my wardrobe. :)

I didn’t get around to taking in the under arm of the band, but because the jacket covered it, I didn’t worry about it. I’ll probably try to get it taken care of this weekend, but I think that even if I don’t, it will still be very wearable. I can’t wear sleeveless shirts at work, so I’m always going to be wearing something over it. I think I want to fix it for my own peace of mind, though, so Onward! and Upward! :)