Scientific Seamstressing

A friend of ours, who has a daughter A's age, has had a really rough year. The company she loved working for went under, and she had an application to PA school rejected not because she wasn't qualified, but for administrative reasons that can't be fixed until next year. Ugh.

I can't fix what truly ails her: a "gap year" for a person whose type A personality abhors uncertainty and loose ends. But I *can* send her a vote of confidence for her (eventual) chosen new profession. Last year her daughter *lived* in a science-themed dress from Princess Awesome, and it doesn't take a rocket-scientist seamstress to reverse-engineer *that* sewing pattern. Especially not if that seamstress has already made two OTHER Islas from Simple Life Pattern Co.

I'd looked for a nice, science-y print for a while last year, scouring all the custom knit sites. But when I went to the Quilter's Festival in Houston with my Mom (you can see her recap of our trip here), this print called "Geek Chik" by Studio E caught my eye. I wasn't *Opposed* to wovens (they're what Princess Awesome uses after all), I think it just hadn't been on my radar at all. So, I picked it up.  

I paired it with a nice, solid royal blue from Sweet N Charmed, and I was just going to leave the front plain until I saw the corresponding panel. I couldn't resist! It is woven, so I'm hoping it won't limit the stretch of the garment as it goes over the head *too* much, but I love the way it looks. Apparently the molecule on the front is Caffeine - not a substance that I think mixes with 5-year-olds overly well - but hey, the organic structure and the magnifying glass are still cool.

Also, there was one other detail I couldn't resist. The Isla has directions for a heart cutout on back, and a files section with pattern pieces for other cutouts. None of those cutouts was a scientific tool, but it did give me the idea. So, bonus beaker on back!

I think my friend is waiting until it warms up a little bit before she lets her daughter wear it, thanks to the cutout on the back (in January! Oops...) but I know she was happy to receive it!

Rampaging Raglans!

Normally, Sewing projects take me a while. A couple minutes of cutting out here, a few quick seams there... I'm a working mom with two small kiddos, so I take what I can get. But in early December, I really lucked out; My husband (who often has to work weekends in the fall) had off, we didn't have anything major planned, and the kids were in a surprisingly independent mood.

So, I busted out the sewing machine, and made not one, not two, but THREE Raglans for my kids. Be still my heart!

First up was a Ninjago Raglan for my son, who loves that show with a passion. He has waited with WAY more patience than my daughter has between garments (probably because he is littler and less opinionated), but when I showed him his choice of three fabrics, this is the one he was quick to pick.

I got it from a Destash group and so I don't know who ran it, but I am also in quite a bit of love with it, because of the slightly-watercolor feel and vibrant colors. Initially I auditioned a LOT of different colored solids with the print, but ultimately my husband talked me into using black, and I'm glad he did. It makes the characters stand out, rather than the sleeves.

My son actually loves the shirt, but every time I put it on him, he revolts at the idea of taking pictures. I made this in a size 4 but shortened it by 1.5" since last time the size 3 I made was ridiculously long. There's extra length in the hems should I elect to use it: we'll see if my son's love for the shirt eclipses my hatred of ripping out knit stitches.

Next up was my daughter, who developed a sudden obsession with the Nightmare Before Christmas. The weekend I did this, it had been all she could talk about for a month. Even my 2-year old son can now say "Jack Skellington" - although at Custom Destash Prices (and on the heels of his new Ninjago wear), he did NOT get his own version of the shirt. But I DID get to satisfy my urge for color sleeves!

The print is a parody called "Merry Nightmare," by Mk*Designs and my husband gamely kept our daughter out of the kitchen the entire time I was cutting it, and through about 80% of the sewing process;  she caught on eventually, though, and escaped him just as I was hemming the sleeves. Secrecy is not big at our house. Ironically, I her shirt was ALSO a 4T (in width anyway; in height I went with 5T and didn't need to), because she is taller but not that much bigger around, apparently. She loves the shirt and was more than happy to model it. I've also caught her climbing up her closet shelves so she can reach it. It's one of the first things to disappear from her closet after laundry day.

And finally, in what can only be described as a state of disbelief akin to winning the lottery, I realized that I had finished this shirt on a Sunday afternoon with no plans for the evening (other than cleaning, but Mr. RLQ indulged me), so I started in on a THIRD raglan.

This one uses a print called Color Wars, which seemed custom made for my son who immediately yells "Saber! Light Saber! Light Saber!" whenever he sees an image of the iconic Jedi weapon, He's also a huge fan of light saber battles at home, and can name at least half of the characters represented on the fabric (for which his father, also a star wars nut gets credit). The 4T Ninjago shirt for my son turned out a LITTLE big, so I went back to 3T on this one, figuring it was more 'of the moment" and did not need to last so long.

It's definitely not a favorite the way the Ninjago shirt is, but you can't win everything all the time. And really, the idea of finishing 3 projects in, well, basically a weekend (technically Monday to Monday, but the bulk of the work was done over the weekend)? HUGE win. I am assisted by the fact that raglans are basically composed of straight line seams + some hemming and a neckband, but hey: a finish is a finish. Here are my little achievements side by side,

And here they are on their respective owners:

So glad they are loved!

Bears that Care for an Expecting Mom

Late last year we received some exciting news from my brother; he and his wife were expecting their third child, and our first nephew on that side of the family! C has already been pregnant twice (with my nieces V and L), and was a consummate trooper with her last pregnancy. So, since by pregnancy #3 it's easy to start thinking of pregnancies as "routine" and "the status quo," I wanted to do something special to commemorate the event. 

Like a handmade maternity top. 

My own experience is that Maternity wear is perfectly calibrated to last *exactly* 1.5 pregnancies. So C, who is usually pragmatic about not spending too much on limited-use things like maternity clothing, could probably use an infusion of nice, new maternity stuff by pregnancy #3. Also, I thought it might be fun to make something in an undeniably boy-ish color since previous maternity wear has, for the most part been used to gestate girls. Enter the perfect fabric.

C is an 80s child like me, and her nickname growing up was "Care Bear." So when I saw this "Bears that Care" print I thought of her, although it wasn't until my brother called that I had an actual justification to BUY some of it. I picked it up from Firefliez Fabrics in Cotton Lycra.

For the pattern I used the Layer Me Up Shirt and the Layer Me Up Maternity Add-on from Patterns 4 Pirates. This was my first P4P project, and I was pretty pleased with the instructions and how simple they were, although putting together the cutting guide/pattern itself was kind of nervewracking. The Layer Me Up Top uses one pattern piece for the torso front and torso back, and then a couple of interchengeable pattern pieces for the armscyes up top, and the Maternity option uses the same back but a different front (obviously), so it was a lot of different pieces to keep track of. It's the same basic concept as a flipbook:

But if you get the pages wrong, you ruin the fabric. Given that my fabric was practically irreplaceable, I spent a fair amount of time asking "do have the correct combo, right?" at every step. That said, the top went together *reasonably* quickly, and I loved the final result.

I paired the main bear print with a delightful yellow solid from Purple Seamstress, which I think gave it just the right amount of POP. From the back it looks like a normal shirt, but in the front there is plenty of room for a baby bump. 

And, speaking of baby bump... here's C with hers! This photo was taken at 22 weeks, just after my creation arrived. C looks amazing, and I'm really flattered that she was excited enough to try it on first thing. 

Looks like in P4P patterns, "tunic length" gets dangerously close to looking like a dress (at least on C, who is 5'3"), but even if this particular tunic/dress combo just gets worn around the house, I'm still glad to see my SIL (and my Nephew!) sporting a little Auntie RLQ love.

2017 Completions

2017 was the year of the Custom Knit. And of the garment! Here's what I got done...

Kalidescope dresses (link)

Completed: Jan 2017

Fabric: Lumina By Rober Kaufman

Pattern: Easy Peasant Dress by Tie-Dye Diva

Gifted to a My nieces in honor of 1st and 3rd birthdays

Dress for a Darryl Fan (link)

Completed: Feb 2017

Fabric: Knitorious Print

Pattern: Isla by Simple Life Pattern Co.

For a newborn nice with a Zombie-loving Dad

Resurrected Zombie Dress (link)

Completed: April 2017

Fabric: Walking Dead By Alexander Henry

Pattern: Easy Peasant by Foo Foo Threads

A replacement for an outgrown zombie dress, using scraps from the original

Even MORE Mingoes (link)

Completed: May 2017

Fabric: Flamingo Print off eQuilter

Pattern: Easy Peasant by Tye Dye Diva

"More Mingoes" owner got a new little sister... who got a matching dress from scraps!

A Simple Shark Dress (link)

Completed: May 2017

Fabric: Knit solid & Jason Yenter Shark Print

Pattern: Isla by Simple Life Co.

For my own Shark-loving Daughter

A Magical Gift (link)

Completed: July 2017

Fabric: Knitorious

Pattern: McCall's 2149

For my own dad, a Harry Potter Fan

A Selfish Sew (link)

Completed: August 2017

Fabric: Fabricmail

Pattern: Raglan by Hey June

My first selfish sew since I traded quilting for garments

A Super Bros. Dress (link)

Completed: September 2017

Fabric: Fabricmail

Pattern: Paisley by Simple Life Co

Modeled by my daughter, but ultimately given to a friend w/ daughter the same age

A Superhero Shirt (link)

Completed:  September 2017

Fabric: Fabricmail

Pattern: Explorer Raglan by Made for Jack's Mum

A fun interlude for my hulk-loving son

A Dress for a Rebel Princess (link)

Completed: October 2017

Fabric: Fabricmail

Pattern: Isla by Simple Life Pattern Co.

A dress my daughter loves & refers to as her "comic con dress" after its debut there

Alice in Cotton (link)

Completed: October 2017

Fabric: BerryPosh Custom Designs

Pattern: Easy Peasant by Tye Dye Diva

Made for my 6-month old Niece

Care Bears for C (link)

Completed: November 2017

Fabric: Firefliez Fabrics

Pattern: Layer Me Up with Maternity Add On by Patterns 4 Pirates

Made for my SIL in honor of her third pregnancy, and first boy!

Rampaging Raglans (link)

Completed: December 2017

Fabric: MK*Designs, Backstitch, and Custom Knit Destash

Pattern: Explorer Raglan by Made for Jack's Mum

Three shirts in one week! One for my daughter and 2 for my son.

Stats:

Garments: 16

Woven vs knit: 5 vs 10 (1 is both)
Dresses vs. Shirts: 8 vs 8
Kids vs Adults: 13 vs 3

WiPs without any progress in 2017: Star Wars II, Christmas Traditions . Quilting is shelved while the kids are little, I think.

Alice in Cotton

Thank goodness for babies that grow! Apparently my newest Niece, V, is quite the grower. At 5 months old, she had already blown through all her 6-month-sized clothing, including her Dress for a Darryl Fan. Not optimal, but also not a bad excuse to go buy more fabric either. Like a good auntie, I headed straight for Custom Knit Destash on Facebook.

V's Dad loves horror movies, and V is her Mom's third daughter, so I've been given the green light to indulge Dad's taste. Which I did. This Dark Alice print was originally from BerryPosh Custom Designs, and I was in a hurry, so Tie Dye Diva Baby Peasant it was.

I think the most important thing I learned with this dress is, don't do a folded ruffle with 12oz Jersey spandex. Even with topstitching, the resulting ruffle had a life of its own, and it took me several minutes with the iron to tame it for pictures. Not the optimal gift for a couple with 5 children.

But on the bright side, if my BIL loves this dress as much as I think he will, I'm betting he will ALSO learn to love the iron: at least when it comes to ironing the ruffles on his little girl's dress, anyway. And someone else to do the ironing is a gift V's mom can get behind, I'm sure!

A Dress for a Rebel Princess

My daughter had such a blast trying on her friend's dress that I knew I had to repeat the experience, ASAP. I know I sound like a broken record touting Sweet N Charmed fabric, but they really had my number earlier this year. Hilariously, I was actually going to skip this fabric until my daughter saw it, and SHE was the one who asked me to preorder it, back in July.

 

Also in the "Gee, where have I heard of THAT before" category is Simple Life Pattern Co; Originally I wanted to do a Paisley with this fabric (like the dress I made for my friend's kid), but the Rebel Princess in this panel was just too tall to make it work in my daughter's size. I had to go back to the Isla with the dropped waist option if I wanted to keep both the death star and the princess' feet, which I did.

The Isla also doesn't have a pattern for a contrasting neck band per se (it's intended to be lined), but someone in the facebook group was kind enough to share her method for making a neck band. It basically consisted of cutting a strip that was 1.75" wide by 85% of the total neckline length + Seam allowance, sewing it closed and then attaching it to the shirt as you would a regular neckband. Which I did, and I ended up very happy with the result.

So was my daughter! She's a size 5 on a good day and I made it a size 6 to give her room to grow. I am really happy with how the fabric placement worked out, and I forgot to take a picture but as with every dress I make for her, this too has pockets.

Little A has charmed me by treating this as a special occasion dress, wearing it to parties at daycare and declaring it her "Comic Con Dress" because the first time she wore it was, in fact, when I took the kids to Wizard World Comic Con earlier this year. As it happens (and yes, it was totally unplanned), all our best nerd outfits were handmade by me. A was especially excited to meet not just Rey, but also the inspiration for the fabric of her dress.

I'm not sure I quite met the initial goal of this project - I don't think it ended up with the same whirling, twirling, swingy-skirt factor as the Power Up Dress, probably because of the dropped waist - but that's the kind of problem that can always be solved with more sewing later. In the meantime, it's fun to see this dress be loved.

A Superhero Shirt

Sewing for boys is hard. Not hard to do, but hard to decide. It sometimes feels like "girlie" fabrics outnumber the boyish ones, 3:1, and most of the good fun sewing pattern shops I find online are geared towards girls. There's a lot you can do by adding frills and ruffles to a girl's top or dress, but typically all the boys' patterns I find are for basics: the kind of stuff it's cheaper to buy in the store unless you manage to find Just the Right Fabric(tm).

Fortunately, thanks again to Sweet N Charmed, I got a hold of this lovely comic-book character print in a Cotton Jersey stretch knit.

When I pulled it out of the box, my son grabbed it and started dragging it around with it like a blanket. Well, OK: I can take a hint. I haven't made him anything since his Chompers Hoodie over a year ago, and my daughter has scored a Shark Dress and a Shark Shirt (which she never wears, sigh) during that time. Plus, I'd already put together a raglan for myself: how hard could a raglan for a toddler be?

I had a gift certificate from Etsy, so while I drooled a bit over the boys' raglan from New Horizon Designs, I ultimately went with the Explorer Raglan Pattern from Made by Jack's Mum. I had to contact MBJM to ask about imperial/metric (she's from the UK) and she responded quickly to assure me the pattern contained English units, so I bought the pattern. But when I printed it out, the proportions of the pattern were... well, they weren't very toddler-like.

My son wears an 18-24m on top, and so I thought I'd make a 2T. But when I went to double-check the measurements, I found that his waist measurement went with a 3T which, OK, that's reasonably close. But then the length measurement indicated by the pattern was FOUR INCHES longer than the top he was wearing. That's a long shirt on a kid who's under 36"!

I ended up making the shirt in a 3T as indicated, and hemming it under by about an inch and a half, rather than the recommended 1/4". It's still a long shirt, but not SO long that it looks out of touch with the style. I'm just lucky he's long & lean for his age, or I'd be hemming it a LOT more.

Also, I've gotta say - not a big fan of 1/4" seams with knits... It's a little nervewracking to manipulate a stretchy fabric with so little room for error - although I guess it does make for efficient cutting!

That said, I am very pleased with the end result. The shirt turned out super cute, and it was incredibly, amazingly fast to make. Like, I cut it out one evening after dinner and sewed it entirely the next, which NEVER happens with my busy schedule. Plus, it looks good on: and little I is thrilled to have a "Hulk" shirt made by his mother. I think my only mistake was making short sleeves in September, but that's easily corrected, as I will certainly be making this raglan again.

Linking up to Let's Bee Sewcial for fun.