Vintage May: Part Two

The past couple of days have been nuts. I have had this crazy, non stop manic energy- I keep going going going until I crash. It's exhausting, and I'm not sure how productive it actually is, but it's helping out my sewing/blogging a bit! SO, originally I had only planned on doing one Vintage May post, but when researching ideas (on Pinterest of course, you can check out my board here) I pinned tons of darling dresses and my sister encouraged me to recreate one! and since I work best under a deadline, I figured I would give it a shot. I adore a good peter pan collar, so I modeled the dress I made off of this one. 

The dress is made from all things I had on hand! I am trying to use up some of my stash because I am running out of room- and If I run out of room I don't think my hubby will let me keep going to the fabric store! The fabric is calico print cotton from Joanne, the white is also quilters cotton but I have no idea where it came from, and the pink rick rack was purchased not to long ago because I have a rick rack problem (vintage, new, it doesn't matter I can't have enough of it). The pink buttons are also from Joann's. 

A funny story to go with the dress. Our nap time is disappearing- and so is bed time, which isn't funny but the conversations we have when she is supposed to be sleeping are often funny, which keeps me from going crazy. Cordelia has always been a great sleeper, and it's spoiled us because I have no idea how to handle this nonsense. I give props to parents that have problems with sleeping children. Anyways, the other night I am cutting this dress out and picking trims out and Cordelia comes out of her room and starts talking to me about what I'm making. Then she says "mommy, I want to watch you make sombthin, I just sit here and watch". So I explain no you can't sweetie and take her back to her room. She comes back 10 minutes later as I'm picking trim, she examines what I'm doing and after discovering the stash of ball fringe insists that the dress MUST have yellow ball fringe. Instead I tell her that my next project will be a skirt with lots of ball fringe. I finally get her to bed and in the morning she is soooo disappointed that she didn't have a ball fringe skirt ready for her.  Then the next day when she sees this dress she was totally disappointed that it lacked ball fringe. Being three must be hard, so many disappointments. However, my next project is a ball fringe adorned skirt.  

We took these photos at Brookside Gardens, again because I hoped for a backdrop of roses (they have a great rose garden) but we are just slightly too early for all the roses to be out. We did see a bunny, and that makes for a successful outing in my opinion. 

The pocket made up for the lack of ball fringe I think- Cordelia loves anything with a pocket- because without a pocket where would she put her rocks and moss? I also made her pink head scarf, and when I put it on her she said "ooooh just like mommy wear".

At the end of the day I love dresses. I am always most proud of the dresses I make- they are my heart when it comes to sewing. They are also my personal favorite thing to wear. 

And one last photo with a slightly silly face. And a big thank you to my sister Shauna for editing these photos- you are the best.  

Kid's Clothing Week: Outfit Two, Cowabunga Guys!

I couldn't help but add another photo from between the pillars- Cordelia loved looking through them. The location that we took these photos at is actually right up the street from our hose- right next to one of the parks we go to all the time. This little pavilion is in the not so maintained area next to our city's official buildings and Miss C thinks it's her own little stage, she has a lot of fun singing and dancing and being crazy inside of it. 

I was really happy to find this fabric at my local Joann's- I had been stalking it on the internet and I was able to pick it up as soon as it hit our store- and with a coupon (the main reason I hadn't ordered it online from someplace else). It's cotton- my favorite fiber to work with and it features one of Cordelia's main obsessions - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

These days I don't know which she likes more- Ninja Turtles or Princesses! She was totally stoked when she saw this fabric- and when I asked her about piping color she insisted I used blue- because that's her favorite turtle. I love being able to sew because it gives me the ability to make her things that are unique just like she is- she is such a girly girl, but she loves Ninja Turtles, and it's so hard to find her things that aren't super boyish looking.

The dress is self drafted, with tulip sleeves, two large pockets in the skirt, and a zipper in the back. This is the first time I have done pockets like this and she got a big kick over how much stuff she could keep in them. I made them a little low- but it will be ok once she grows a bit. I made the dress a size big and plenty long because she is growing like mad these days!

 

A Very Special Dress for a Very Special First Birthday

I love that Cordelia has friends, she is however very short on girl friends. Most of her friends are boys- which is totally ok, but I am very grateful for Baby Echo because she gives me yet another excuse to make more cute little dresses! Baby Echo (we started calling her baby because it helped Cordelia part with toys and clothing we would hand down to her- and it stuck, so now Miss C only calls her "Baby Echo") just turned one, and this is the dress I made her for her birthday.

One of the things I struggle with when dressing my kid, is that so much of the little girl clothing out there is light pink- or pastel, which is hard to wash stains out of and not really to my personal taste. I know this is a similar frustration for Echo's mom and from the start I knew I wanted Echo's dress to be a darker color. This deep red fabric jumped out at me in the Joann's and pretty much demanded to be used for this project. I couldn't help adding the little pink piping for contrast- and I love the little sparkle the etched buttons add.

I wanted the dress to remain in Echo's closet for as long as possible, so the back has a wide band of elastic in it- with the tie to help cinch it tight and the straps button at three different lengths. I also figured keeping it sleeveless would mean that it could be worn over a long sleeve shirt during the colder months, and by itself during the scorching hot summers- this mentality might explain why I have very little clothing I think of as seasonal!

Working towards a Happy St. Patrick's day

SO this picture sums this project up a lot. I shared on instagram about how St. Patrick's was never much fun as a kid because I always wore green when no one else did- or I didn't the years that it was cool to wear green. Keeping in mind that I was home-schooled for middle and high school my only dealings with not feeling "in" are from elementary school- so they are especially not fun but it also represents a very short time of my life- thank goodness because now I wear green on St. Patrick's day, and costumes on Halloween, and hearts on Valentine's day because I don't care if I'm cool and most of the time I don't care if I fit in!

Anyways, back to the dress. So I liked this fabric from the beginning but the Hubby liked another one better (which was equally as nice) so I bought that one. Well when I showed it to Cordelia she was in a crazy demon child mood, and threw it and cried- and cried- and cried! I was a little traumatized by the whole thing and took that fabric back and switched it for this one. By the way this is a nice novelty/holiday cotton fabric from Joanne's- and it has shiny gold details which I adore. 

So then I sewed the dress up, and showed it to her and she HATED it. I'm not sure what it was- I kind of think that it's because she didn't pick out the fabric and it's not bright/colorful/pink- she has been very big on picking fabric out for herself, and she did like it better after we added the gold belt...and after I stuffed her pockets with Jelly Beans for the photos. . .and after I told her it made me sad she didn't like it and I may never sew for her again. 

I am however happy with how the dress turned out- I wanted to test this pattern I had drafted and it was a perfect opportunity to do so. It has an elastic back and lots of room in the hem so I hope that A) eventually she comes to love it and not just like it and wears it all the time, and B) she can wear it for st patties day for 4 more years.  Happy St. Patrick's day! Did you all make any holiday things? Please Link or tell me about it below- I'd love to hear about them! 

P is for Pirate

 

SO, I've become kinda attached to No Big Dill's sew all 26, so I think you will be seeing a least a few more of these posts! Maybe I'll make it to the end with everyone else and then I'll go back and catch the letters I missed. (I'm working on letter N, but it's for me so it doesn't have top priory right now LOL) This week is P week over on the blog so I bring you "P is for Pirate".

 

This dress is actually for my Etsy store , which I finally have launched and I am now working quickly to stock it and fine tune. However, don't feel bad for Cordelia because she already has a pirate dress (you can see it here) and I have to start sewing things so I can continue to be a mostly stay at home mom AND keep Cordelia in her gymnastics classes!

 

I'm really happy with this dress (and it's hard to let it go). I kept the colors on the neutral side so it could be mixed and matched with other colors, but I couldn't resist adding cute little red buttons on the back. 

The weather has been pretty wacky- we will have one day in the high 40s and the next day it will be snowing. We caught a warm day and so Missy was only too happy to get outside and "play movie star" and get her picture taken, and as always it was way too fun to photograph her. 

Hello 2014, M is for Mushroom

So, I've been a little absent- winter is hard for me, and the last two months of 2013 kicked my butt. So now it's time to realign my focus- that's what January is for, right? I feel like I spent all of 2013 "finding myself" but you know what- really I always knew who I was-I'm just bad at making it work. I stink at goals and resolutions, I normally set too many- or I make them so huge I give up and loose hope in myself. This year I have one goal- I want to be more purposeful, more intentional. I want to teach myself to put the dirty plate in the dishwasher instead of in the sink- I want to teach myself to be aware of myself, be aware of my actions. I want to be more intentional about doing things that make me smile. 

I have great hope and great determination that I can, in fact, do this.

So to start the year off I decided I needed to make something fun! A blogger I just started following (and whom I'm obsessed with on Instagram) No Big Dill is doing a project called sew all 26- sewing for each letter of the alphabet. It's been a LOT of fun to watch, she picks super creative things, her style is amazing, and her pattern matching is a thing of  true beauty. This week was M and for some reason that just clicked in my brain and it became my mission to do an "M week project. 

I had the perfect mushroom fabric laying around, which I trimmed out with a bit of brown cotton and vintage lace. I'm going to have to tack the lace bow at the neck a little better because it's just not stiff enough to hold up to her jumping around! 

She enjoyed jumping around a lot during our little "Photo-shoot"

I let her pick the buttons and she decided that they had to be pink- and I think that it works because they match the light pink in some of the mushrooms. I would have preferred using the little pearl buttons I picked out-BUT I try to make it a point that if I give her an option, I actually listen to her and use what she picks! 

I'm pretty happy with it, and Cordelia giggled with happiness when she put it on (then she gave me a big hug and said "oh thank you mommy!" which made my heart melt). So here is to 2014 being an awesome year- with much more sewing!

A very special announcement!

I have some very exciting news to share!!! I have been moving forward with Robutton, and I just delivered my first batch of dresses to the cutest boutique in Kensington Maryland called Re*Enchanted! The shop owner is such a nice woman and the vibe she has created is just soo magical and I think a perfect fit for my designs. 

Be sure to check the boutique out- she has the greatest collection of items- many of which would be perfect to start to you rholiday shopping! 

A Rainbow at the Aquatic Gardens

This is part adventure post, part "look what I made!" post. The other day Cordelia and I went to the fabric store, and as we were walking through the cotton section (my favorite place in the store) she went running over to grab this bolt of fabric while saying "rainbow! rainbow!". I didn't even know that she knew the word rainbow until that moment. I asked her if she wanted me to make her a dress out of the fabric and she very happily said yes. She was such a bubbling ball of excitement I couldn't say no. 

The funny thing is that the next morning Miss C woke up and the first thing she said was "rainbow dress?" she was just soo sad that I wasn't magic and I didn't make the dress overnight. In fact it kept getting pushed back on my to do list so it took longer than I had hoped, but she kept asking for it! Which is pretty cool because she has never been so excited for me to make her something. 

I drafted the pattern myself, and I made this dress a little shorter than the other dresses I have sewn recently because she has such cute knees. However, I have a feeling I'll have to add a ruffle soon. I thought it would be fun to keep the dress simple in design and play with the stripes- running them horizontally on the bodice and pocket, and then vertically on the skirt and sleeves. I added the blue ribbon belt to break up the pattern. She was soo excited when she woke up to this dress. However, after I got the pictures she ripped the bow off. 

I figured an adventure was on our agenda so we took a trip out to the Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. I had heard about it on our community list serv and after looking at the photos on the website I knew we had to check it out. We went early in the morning because the website says a lot of the flowers don't stay open once it gets over 85- and I have no desire to be outside when it's over 85 anyways.

We only saw a small fraction of the park, it seemed to go on forever- but Cordelia had soo much fun running around, playing in the dirt, and checking out the bugs. And it worked great to exhust her, we went home and she went right down for her nap.