Okay, it's me again. Sorry! Wood's job has been keeping her really, really busy. She has her first trial today and I just haven't been able to get her to write any blog posts about the projects she has been able to complete over the past few months. She has made some really cool clothes, including this dress she made last week:

That's the back of the dress. Aren't the buttons cool? She used the now out-of-print Puppet Show Dress pattern from Oliver & S. I found the pattern at Haberman's and picked out the red chambray fabric. Yes, my transformation to total housewife is almost complete. Thank God I don't know how to work the sewing machine. I have spent all week canning jams, though, so I don't know if I can say my masculinity is still intact. Here are some photos of the dress on the kid:

That photo shows a bit of the hem, which is the part of the dress she struggled with the most. At least, that's the part of the dress I heard her swearing at the most.

This shows the little button detail on the sleeve:

I'm going to keep posting her projects for her if she doesn't get around to doing it herself. Don't get me wrong, she's busy, but she does find enough time to make all these cool things. Plus, she's become the world's biggest fan of Law & Order: SVU over the past few months, which is really what's dug into her blogging time. "You know," I'll say, "You could write up a quick post about that sleeping bag you made the girl while you're watching Ice T and Mariska Hargitay. . ."

"Quiet," she barks. "I'm doing research."

Previous Project: Build a Dirt-Cheap Dog Cart

Jim has been asking me to make Juniper a chambray dress for months. I'd forgotten about that, though, when I set out on a Saturday afternoon with Juniper to go fabric shopping for her Easter dress. I knew I wanted to make her an oliver + s jump rope dress, and I was imagining it in a muted solid or gentle stripe. Of course, when we got to the fabric store, she was captivated by the bold Easter prints: giant rabbits, pastel eggs, and bright yellow chicks. The half an hour that we spent looking at fabric was more intense and stressful than any day I've spent in the office. My first argument against the Easter-themed-prints was that I wanted her dress to be something she could wear all summer. I thought this logic was totally sound, but she saw through it, and started  dramatically accusing me of hating everything she loved. We went around and around every bolt of fabric in the store and I thought we'd never agree. I wanted her to be happy with the dress, but there was no way I was going to spend hours making a dress out of a fabric featuring poorly drawn bunnies carrying Easter baskets in their paws.

And then I remembered: this child loves to please her father, even if she could give a hoot about my snobbish tastes. I told her that Jim (who has been wearing a lot of chambray work shirts these days) wanted her to have a dress to match his shirts (which he did). She was sold. I told her she could pick out any fabric in the entire store for the pockets of the dress, and she carefully selected a great Liberty of London print. In fact, I'm not sure that I could have picked out a better coordinating fabric if I'd done it myself.

The best part about the chambray is that was also perfect for the overalls I wanted to make Gram. You'd think I would have figured this all out before we set foot in the store, but that's just not how things work around here. And in the end, Juniper felt like she had a role in designing her dress, so I suppose the agonizing thirty-minutes in-store were worth it in the end.

Of course, it helped that I ended up buying a yard of the baby chick fabric. I'm a sucker. I made it into a bag for her to put her eggs in at the Georgia Street Community Garden's Easter Egg Hunt.

About Gram's outfit: I didn't use a pattern, and just made him a pair of pants the way I usually do, and added a bib and suspenders. I eyeballed the whole thing, and it all came together in one night. Pretty easy, and goes well with his favorite hat.

It was nice to sew some clothes again; I've been so into knitting I've been neglecting the sewing machine, and it was good to get back behind it before I sew the kids' Dutch costumes for Tulip Time this year (!). 

Previous Project: Felted Slippers

Two weeks ago in this space I noted that crafting isn't any cheaper than shopping, and that sometimes your materials add up to more than you would spend to buy a similar garment already made. I didn't get into any of the global economic realities or the emotional satisfaction of you get from creating things, but comments to that post---and the similar discussion started by the pattern-maker on her own blog---made me think more about what I'm spending on supplies and allowed me to evaluate why I enjoy making things.

Without consciously setting out to make a project that was cost-effective, I did it this week. I made pants for Gram from a pattern and fabric that I already had. The fabric was from an old suit coat from Jim's thrift store lawyer days. It was taking up space and it was completely useless. Here it is on him the other day before I took scissors to it:

He wants me to point out that yes, he's growing a beard again, and also that jackets like this are always very cheap at thrift stores, sometimes as little as a dollar each, and that often the really huge ones are the cheapest and they provide the most fabric. That doesn't really matter to me, because for a decade he's been buying up suit jackets in crazy prints that he will never wear. I have enough suit jackets to keep Gram in pants until he starts kindergarten.

Gram grows out of clothes pretty quickly, and his pants seem to be the first things to get too tight or too short. I loved the way that his oliver + s pajama pants came out, and I thought that with a non-pajama fabric, the pattern could be used to make regular pants. I was right! Here they are:

Starting with the oliver + s pajama pattern, I omitted the trim at the bottom of the pants. Rookie Moms has a free pant pattern, which I haven't tried, but I bet you could make similar pants with their instructions.

Placing the pattern on the coat and cutting it out was the hardest part. Suit coats have lining and various layers inside, so I had to mess around with the coat to take out the layers I didn't want (I left some of the lining). I cut the coat so that the original side pocket would be a pocket on Gram's leg, and I used the bottom hem of the coat for the bottom of his pants so that hem was already finished.

I could have easily made two pant legs with pockets from the jacket, but let's just say a critical cutting error meant they ended up with a cool asymmetrical look.

Sewing the pants together was pretty easy. Just as I was just finishing them up, I got a visit from my personal Tim Gunn, who brushed the hair from his eyes and fastidiously looked over my garment. I should now note that my stay-at-home father husband wasn't too excited about having kids back in the day and it was only after I promised him he could dress his children like Edwardian street urchins and teach them to speak like Dickens characters that he really softened to the idea. Well, apparently it was time to pay the piper.

Jim pleaded with me to put patches on the pants. Hobo couture, he said (he went through a hobo phase back in 2002-2003). I was reluctant and ready to go to bed, but relented (not unlike what happened on a certain fateful night back in May 2004) and got out my fusible interfacing and appliqued some patches on the pants.

I just learned how to applique using fusible web last week (for an upcoming project) and wow, it is incredible and I am adding wonder under to the list of things I love.

I sewed a zig-zag stitch around each patch, which would have been much easier if I'd done it before sewing the pants together, but it worked out fine. I only sewed the legs together five times. Thank god for seam rippers.

It was exciting to make little boy clothes. It wasn't until I sat down to cut that I realized how sick I am of pink. And I have to hand it to Jim -- the patches make the pants. And the best part about hobo couture is that when someone notices loose threads or lopsided stitching, you get to say, "Of course, that's intentional."

Previous Project

For years I sewed infrequently, occasionally making a purse for a friend or a little something for Juniper once in a blue moon. And what I made was pretty awful. I never used patterns. My finished projects were best viewed from at least 10 feet away, and that's just not a great feeling to have about something you spent so many hours creating.

I admit I was intimidated by patterns, and never even bothered looking through the hundreds of patterns available at the fabric store. I was sure I'd buy a pattern, spend a ton of time figuring it out and following it, and end up with a finished product that was ugly anyway.

Then, a few months ago I downloaded the free skirt pattern from Oliver + S, and the skirt I made ended up looking nice, but even better, Juniper actually loved wearing it. The instructions were really simple, and I never would have figured out how to do it on my own.

So then I took the plunge: I purchased a pajama pattern from Oliver + S. I let Juniper pick out her fabric, and bought the same fabric for Gram in a different color. [Note: my husband just reminded me that in the future, I should take pictures of my projects as I'm working so that readers can get a sense of the process and not just the finished project. I've read enough craft blogs to realize he's right, and after this project I will do so.]

I'm pretty proud of the finished result:


In fact, I like the design of the pajamas so much that I kind of want a pair of them myself, and I normally can't stand pajamas. Jim thinks they make the kids look like samurai in training, which of course is awesome (to him).

Oliver + S gave the pajama pattern a difficulty rating of beginner, which "assumes familiarity with a sewing machine; understanding of how to sew a seam, thread the machine, etc." The pattern was not easy to complete, but I didn't spend a lot of time swearing and I didn't shed a single tear. It was a well-written pattern, and worth the $16 price tag. I'll probably make several more sets of these pajamas.

About the price -- I've decided that if I'm going to sew something, I want to make something prettier or nicer or better designed than what I can buy at the store. I'm not sewing for thrift, because I am sure I could buy all of the things I make for less than the materials and my labor time. Instead, I want to enjoy the process of creating and I want to be completely satisfied with the result.

Previous Project