Dapper Little Gentleman

After making my Purple Flowered Maternity Dress, I decided I had plenty of the dark purple I used for the belt to make a matching vest for my little gentleman.

I found the perfect piece of purple satin for a lining and bow tie...  a scrap from a Regency dress made for a friend, used to mock-up the top of my 1930's Evening Gown... Being so tiny, I managed to fit the vest and tie pieces on the stored away mock-up. Hurray for being a bit of a sewing project/mock-up pack-rat! 😜

The buttons, as often is the case, were from the pile my Dad found at an estate sale years ago. 

Next up, I made him a pair of tan pants out of a small scrap of twill passed on to me and stored to use later.

The shirt was a thrift store find that looked like it would work with the purple, and finished off the suit nicely. 

 
It was fun to make him something that "matched" Mommy, and such a breeze to put together kiddo clothes! It was refreshing to take a pattern and sew it with very few modifications!

1930's Cream Maternity Dress

As I sit soaking up sweet baby snuggles, I've found a few moments to share one final Sunday-best maternity dress made in the last trimester with baby #2.

At 38 weeks, I asked my mother-in-law to snap a few photos on my phone before baby's nearly imminent arrival. I think she did a fabulous job for her first dress photography, don't you? 😃

You'll have to excuse my lack of shoes... we grabbed the photos quickly, and I didn't want to take the time to get my shoes and put them on, so here you see my natural bare-foot state when I'm at home, or anywhere that shoes aren't pretty much required. 😉 😛

This dress was pretty quick to make actually. I used the same pattern I drafted for the purple flowered dress, with just a couple adjustments. First, I cut off the kimono sleeves where the under-arm seam met the princess seams. With the sleeve off, I altered the pattern for the shoulder gather detail. I slashed the shoulder perpendicular to the shoulder seam, and slit it parallel to the shoulder seam from there to the neck and arm-hole seam allowances to add fullness for the gathers, without changing the neck or arm-hole measurements.

 

I originally planned to do a flutter sleeve, but after one mock-up decided the material was going to be too heavy and stiff for the light and flowy sleeve style. Instead, I put in sleeve B from Simplicity Pattern 8248. They fit perfectly without any modification, much to my delight!

Next I drew new lines to make a narrower skirt flowing from the bodice for a more 30's look, and to conserve fabric. I really like how the narrower skirt turned out, especially the smooth look of having the center back of the dress on a fold!

The material was purchased years ago with a different 1930's dress planned, but I never got to the project. I had 3 yards... in two pieces... a 1 yard piece, and a 2 yard piece. I'm very glad it was 60" wide, instead of the narrow 45" of the previous 2 cotton dresses! With careful placing, I found I could fit the side front and side back pieces on the 1 yard piece since they were shorter, and the center front, center back, and sleeve pieces fit on the 2 yard piece with enough scraps between pieces to cut a half-lining for the top. I met near disaster when I put on the larger view A sleeves I'd originally cut, realized they were just too puffy in the heavier-weight fabric, and had to re-cut the smaller sleeves. I was SO glad I had cut to conserve as much fabric as possible. The new sleeves just BARELY fit on the remaining larger scraps. WHEW! Crisis averted!

 
After some consideration, I elected to keep the dress very simple, letting the accessories dictate the look. Hooks and eyes close the neck slit at the center-front, making it nursing friendly, but very subtle. I had the perfect belt to do a coordinating earth-tone look, with a matching cream colored braid, and contrasting brown leather buckle. But, with the basic cream color, I can switch to any color belt, jewelry, etc. to change up the look.

After a couple wears, I've decided the poly/wool blend is not my favorite material for practicality. Every time it's washed the entire thing has to be pressed, and it already looks like fraying will be a concern. I plan to go through and serge all the seams to alleviate the fraying, and re-tack the lining in place to hopefully help with the difficulty of pressing the seams through the lining. I'm also keeping it for nice Sunday Church wear (after all, cream isn't a friend of potential muddy or ketchupy toddler hands... or clumsy mammas for that matter), washing as little as possible, and hanging as soon as I'm done wearing to ward off wrinkles.

I really love how this one turned out though, and how easy it was to make the adjustments to the base pattern for a totally different look! The material has a slight stretch in both directions as well, so range of motion and comfort are actually surprisingly high!

I've moved on to more fitted clothes for now, but I'm very satisfied with my first adventure into maternity clothes, and I couldn't be happier with the results!

Purple Flowered Maternity Dress

My second design for a maternity dress was more challenging to alter than the first. I started with Butterick 5605 and made a LOT of adjustments. I liked the way the shoulders in the original pattern fit on a previous project, and the unique design of the half kimono, half armscye sleeves provides significant mobility, so I wanted to keep those aspects to create a comfy daily-wear kind of maternity dress.

The next lengthy paragraph is going to be all about drafting gobbledy-gook, so if you want to skip all the geeky sewers details, you've been forewarned. 😉 

First I slit and split open the front and side-front pieces from the bust to the waist to add fullness only at the front waist in the princess seams, leaving the side and side-back seams fitted. This made the curves look really odd, but double checking with a flexible ruler, the lengths were the same as the original at the seam allowance. Next, since this pattern was more fitted through the bust than the one I used to draft off for my Ladybug Maternity Dress, I did a full-bust adjustment, since I knew I'd need the extra space, especially once I was nursing. After doing a mock-up, I found I still wanted a little more room in the bust, but only in the center front pieces, not in the side-front. I marked how much to add after splitting the mock-up and pinning out the seam allowances to make sure I knew how much was needed. After marking the pattern, changing the curve, and double checking again to make sure the length of the curve matched the original, the curve looked so much more natural and like I expected! Hurray! Next, I again extrapolated all the seams to be a princess-cut dress flowing into the skirt, rather than a bodice with an attached circle skirt. 

I really need to remember to take more progress and patterning photos of my projects. I get so wrapped up in the excitement of doing the next step and finishing the project before the first novelty wears off that I rarely remember to stop and document the progress as I go! 😛 😆

My husband helped me so much in understanding and thinking through the drafting process better, and providing the flexible ruler. He's done rather a bit of sewing and tailoring himself... which is how we met over 10 years ago, working on Beyond the Mask, sewing together. 😃

 

 

I had 4 yards of this pretty purple-flowered cotton from my Mother-in-law. She gave me this along with several other materials the first year after my husband and I got married, hoping I'd find use for them since they'd sat for years in her trunk. I love purple, but I've rarely actually made anything with purple fabric! Placing the pattern carefully, I had just enough to do the very full skirt I had traced off. The extra fullness in the skirt will be super fun to wear with a puffy petticoat after baby is here. 😀

After much deliberation I opted to go for piping to trim the neck and sleeves. Since the floral print is so tiny, the more delicate look of the piping finished off the look perfectly. I've only done piping trim once before, but I've loved it both times, and I really want to incorporate the vintage trimming style into more projects in future!

I was delighted to find that the dark purple twill I had in my stash was the perfect color, and that the long-saved black buttons finished the look as well as the function! I had plenty of the purple since I had bought a yard or more for a short jacket I intended to make, but later abandoned as impractical. There was plenty for two different belts and the trim, with enough left for a couple small projects I hope to share soon. 

With two maternity dresses under my belt, I am SO excited about how well both drafting projects went, and that I met my goal of multi-functional clothes that are simultaneously comfortable, practical, and pretty. 😌

I'm not a fan of how this one looks without the belt, but if I wanted a cooler, lighter feel, it can be worn that way, and looks very much like a lot of the 50's maternity dresses did back then.

 

Photos were once again taken by my brother on our last trip to visit family. 😌

Drafting, Maternity, and Ladybugs

 

With baby #2 on the way, and being tired of ill-fitting, boring maternity clothes, I began a rather ambitious project to make myself at least a few vintage style maternity clothes to add to my wardrobe.

First, I scoured the internet for vintage maternity ideas that didn't just look like a drab tent. :P

I had two goals... maternity dresses that were decently flattering, but would also function for regular clothes and work well for nursing later! A monumental task, I found.

After much searching, I sketched my ideas, and narrowed them down to two favorites. Then came the lengthy and arduous task of drafting changes based on two patterns I had that I knew fit me well.

For this dress, I started by using Butterick 5556, which I had already altered the neckline and sleeves on for my favorite blue 1950's dress. I drafted a new front piece from the pattern base to have lots of room at the waist, while keeping the back piece as it was to avoid the full "tent" look. Next up, I extrapolated the lines from the bodice to flow into a skirt so the dress would be 1 piece top to bottom, rather than a bodice attached to a separate skirt.

It was actually fairly simple as drafting goes, and with another adjustment to the neckline for it's unique detail, drafting a new collar to fit, and shortening the sleeves a bit more the patterning process was finished.

 

I did end up having to make two adjustments to my original draft after the dress was cut and put together... Unfortunately I made some mistake when drafting the neck-gather detail, and had to cut down the neckline to eliminate them on the finished dress, which though disappointing, worked out just fine in the end. :) After completing and wearing the dress a few times, I added in a gusset under the arms, finding I'd tightened the sleeves more than I liked for comfort and range of motion.

Upon going through my fabric stash, I found this mottled blue cotton my mom had given me, leftover from making her mother-of-the bride dress for one of my sister's weddings... There were just 3 yards, and with a bit of finagling I managed to fit the pattern on the piece of fabric.

Originally the plan was to go for matchy-matchy dark blue trimmings with a hook and eye closure in front, but alas!, there was no such coordinating material in the store... What to do now? 

My husbands parents gave me the idea when they saw the dress in progress with a red sash hastily tied to show what it would look like belted in at the waist, and commented how nice the red looked contrasting with the blue. 

While searching for buttons for my second maternity dress, I stumbled across the lady-bug buttons that clinched the contrasting red choice, and the perfect red fabric to match the buttons was easy to find from there.

 

It was so fun to put together the lady-bug inspiration, and my husband obligingly spray painted my buckle black to finish off the lady-bug look.

A trip to visit my family provided the perfect opportunity to have my brother snap some photos in the beautiful woods, and of course, the cat once again got in on the action. Not to be outdone, my little gentleman added the sweetest photo-bomb to a dress shoot I've had yet. ;) :) 

 

The dress can be worn without the belt, as most likely ladies would have done back in the 30's-50's, but I rarely wear it that way myself. As you can see, even without the belt, the back stays more fitted. Hooray! Success! Though it looks definitively 50's belted in, the looser look gives a much stronger 30's vibe in my opinion.

 

 

It was definitely worth designing and drafting my own maternity dress, and I am very excited to see how it works out after baby is here and I can belt it in at the natural waist. :)

Little Projects: Sweater Re-fashion

 A couple years ago, I bought a really nice, unique, merino wool sweater at the thrift store. Or at least, I THOUGHT it was nice... After bringing it home I realized that a previous owner must have spilled something on the sleeves and used hot water to try to clean it out... Since I'm not a t-rex with super disproportionately short and tiny arms, it was vastly uncomfortable. 😬 I tried everything to un-shrink those sleeves,soaking it in conditioner and stretching it to dry with pins again and again, but to no avail. So it was tossed into the mending bag until such a time as I found some way to redeem it.

This fall I really wanted to make something special for my little boy's first birthday. I found that sweater in the mending pile, and decided that cutting it up into a little sweater for him was the perfect solution to the tiny arm situation.😀

Laying out one of his 18 month hoodies and tracing it off provided a basic pattern to work with. I left the sleeves extra long so they could have a folded cuff to start, and grow with him as he did. 😊

I was able to keep the selvages for the fronts and bottoms of the sweater, so all that was left raw after stitching it together was the neckline and sleeve hems. Yay! 😁 I used a few scraps from the felted sleeves to bind the neckline, since the felted pieces wouldn't ravel, and left the sleeve hems raw since they were felted as well.

After much deliberation and scouring of Pinterest for inspiration, I opted for the two button look so popular on toddler sweaters. It allows free movement and, most importantly, I only had two random leather buttons of the same size in my stash. 😜 The leather for the loops/frogs were scraps from two different projects I made ages ago.

I'm really excited about how it came out, and I'm very happy that the lovely wool sweater got a new beginning. 

He loves his sweater and it has been so useful through the thick of winter and the early spring. :)

Oh Darn!

My husband and I both love our wool sweaters an socks, and it was inevitable that at some point I must learn what felt like the very daunting skill of darning. But really it's not that bad. I first came across Swiss darning in an old needle-craft book. It's the coolest kind! It practically recreates the original knitting stitch with a blunt needle and some yarn.

Last year I acquired some quality wool yarns intending to set myself down and get-er-done... but I didn't. 😏 With baby on the way, priorities shifted and the projects and yarn sat in my giant mending bag awaiting the time I'd finally bite the bullet and learn the useful skill.

This summer I pulled the bag back out and looked up Swiss darning on pinterest. I chose my husband's "chunkier" sweaters in need of darning for my first projects, because, well... I already tried to learn on a super-fine weight merino sweater of mine, and BOY is it hard to learn when you can barely see the stitches! A whole year off brought me to my senses and I started with the larger yarn size... and the larger holes.😬

After I darned one sweater with a CLOSE colored yarn, I felt like I had the idea down well enough to make the contrasting yarn look decent on his cream colored sweater. (What are his elbows made out of, sandpaper?) The second side didn't have a hole, but it was getting very thread-bare, so I darned in a patch over-top to match the other-side. That was SO much easier, folks! I'm gonna be examining the laundry for threadbare spots BEFORE they become holes now... a stitch in time truly saves "nine", or at least a lot of aggravation.

The sweaters under my belt, I went on to socks, a bit smaller stitches, but not needing to be perfect. After-all, it's under your feet and in shoes most of the time. 😊 Once again, thread-bare spots and small holes went fairly quickly and smoothly, boosting my confidence, but the large holes in the heels had me a bit confused and nervous at times as I tried to make heads or tales of the small stitches and the heel "turn", (or whatever it's called).

I'm pretty happy with how the first projects went. They're not perfect, and I have a lot of work to do to hone the skill, but with 9 pairs of socks and several more sweaters to go I should get plenty of practice! 😉