Guest Blogging over at Life on the (Clothes) Line

I'm over at Life on the (Clothes) Line today sharing about my very own clothesline.  Jeannie's blog "...is about the modern updates of the lessons learned 80 years ago in our own “Great Recession”."   She has a really neat series going where she's taking recipes from her Great-Grandmother's cookbook and trying them out.   Come on over and visit!

Family Reunion Dresses

My little girls wore their new Oliver + S Family Reunion dresses to church this morning.  After being washed, dried, and ironed the fit is pretty darn good.  I think MG would have fit better into a 4 since she's slighter of frame but the larger size range pattern starts with a 5 and that's all I had. 

Oliver + S Family Reunion Dresses, size 5

MG's dress is made from a polka dot quilting cotton that I picked up at Jo-Ann Fabrics.  I used a turquoise linen for the neck facing, button tab, sleeve binding, and hem facing.  There's also green ric-rac trim at the hem facing, sleeves, and button tab.  I didn't have any concrete plan in place when choosing trims, contrast fabric, buttons.  In fact my original choice for buttons was this:

As I worked on the dress, one thing led to another.  I happened to have linen (supposed to be for me!) that matched the blue.  I found green ric-rac and pink buttons in my notions stash.  It all came together to make MG's dress.

Back of MG's dress

As for BK's dress, it's simpler than her big sister's.  I used a blue floral print that she had picked out on one of our fabric store excursions. 

There's trim around the button tab and at the sleeve edges that I liberated years ago from my mom's stash.  The buttons on the front are also from there. 

Close up of sleeve detail

Close up of hem topstitching detail

Back of BK's dress

It's another great Oliver + S pattern.  I really enjoyed making these and participating in Above All Fabric's Sew-Along!  Now back to our summer fun...

Summertime

Summer is officially here!  That means I'm unofficially going to be around a bit less.  After all, there's  only 75 days until school begins again for my crew. 

We plan on taking advantage of every single nice day.  Whether it's the beach or the water park, we're going to be outside soaking up the sun (with sunscreen on, of course!).





I'm aiming to post about once a week to show what I've been sewing.  There's still plenty on my to-sew list!  Here's a little peek at what I've recently finished...

Oliver + S Family Reunion Dresses, size 5

I'll post the details when I get some pictures of the little girls in their new dresses. :)

School's Out for Summer

All morning Alice Cooper's rock anthem has been running through my mind.  We put MG on the bus a little while ago for her last day as a kindergartner.

This past year has been full of big changes for my middle daughter.  She's grown so much (metaphorically speaking since she's still one of the shorter kids in her grade!) as the school year progressed.  MG has become quite independent and she's lost 2 teeth!

After having 2 older kids make the transition from Kindergarten to first grade, I've discovered that time seems to pick up speed from this point on.  They need you less and less as they start to find their own way. 

Whoa, wait a minute! This post is starting to turn sad when I meant it to be a happy one, filled with joy that we have the entire summer ahead of us to play.

That's more like it!

Here's to a not-long-enough summer filled with lazy days, lots of beach/water park expeditions, family trips, picnics, camping, and most of all....

FUN!

And hopefully, very few moments like these...

She was standing there repeatedly saying, "I won't be naughty anymore, I won't." after getting in trouble for messing in a hole in our neighbor's yard :)

Vote!

I'm super excited!!  My Hopscotch Meet Up v.2 is one of the top ten finalists in the Pattern Remix Contest.  The voting starts today and closes Thursday night at midnight EST.   Head on over to Me Sew Crazy to check out all the finalists and vote for your favorite (which would be nice if it's mine, but if not that's fine too)!

Camping Trip in Our Backyard (Almost)

Friday night, we spent the night camping at a state park that's located 25 minutes from our house.  Upon checking in the weather looked like this:

Torrential downpour, hail, thunder, lightning...you get the picture

Luckily, the weather did eventually clear.  Right about the time the other 2 families who were camping with us showed up. 

BK in her nightgown at our campsite

We learned the 4 S's of campfires from two rangers (safety, singing, stories, and s'mores)...

BK in her top roasting marshmallows next to big brother

We all woke up early for a change...

P in his basketball pj shorts that I never got around to blogging about

Spent time swimming in the Bay and playing in the sand...

 K "army crawling" in the shallows

 BK's new swimsuit, details

MG's new swimsuit

Saw a lot of little critters...

hermit crab

 frog

caterpillar

And one critter that wasn't so little...

iguana

All in all, we had a great time and can't wait to do this again!

Sandbox Pants Remix, Part 2

I got the 2nd swimsuit finished so I was able to switch my machine over to the regular needle and brown thread to finish the little inset pocket tutorial.

Start off by stitching the pocket lining to the pants front panel along the curved edge.

Press your stitches and snip into the curve (but not your stitches!) so that the curve will lay flat.  I also trimmed my seam allowance down to about 1/4".   Press the seam allowance towards the lining and edgestitch the lining to the seam allowance.  This helps the pocket lining from rolling out.   Press flat.

Topstitch along the right side of your pocket's edge.

Take the pocket facing and place it right sides together along the pocket lining.  Make sure  the outer curves are lined up and that the top and side of the facings match up to the top and side of your pants front panel.  Stitch together.  Press.  Finish the seam allowance which I haven't done quite yet.

This is what your front panel should look like now.  I know it's a little hard to see with the polka dots.

Your next step will be to baste within your seam allowance along the top and side of where the pocket is.  This helps prevent shifting when you go to sew the waistband and side seams.

Voila!  An inset pocket!

My other change from the original pattern was to do a cuff hem.  For that, I finished the hem's raw edge and turned the hem to the right side twice, 1" each time.  Then I stitched in the ditch on the inseam and outseam so that the cuff won't come undone.  I can't do it with this pair as it's printed and the wrong side is white.  Wouldn't look quite as nice!

Sandbox Pants Remix, Part 1

On Tuesday, I played around with the Oliver + S Sandbox Pants pattern and came up with this...
I'm sad to say it but I don't have a very cooperative model these days so bear with me for the less than stellar photos

My inspiration for these shorts was a pair of Sandbox Shorts from Mel.  I love how she rounded the pockets.  I've had her pair 'favorited' since last November with the plan to copy the pockets when I made either shorts or pants for the little girls.   

The little girls started the warm weather season off with more shorts than short sleeved tops.  Somehow, the situation has reversed itself.  While folding laundry recently, I had 6 shirts left over!  Enter the Sandbox Pants Remix.

I initially planned on doing them like Mel's but when I got ready to cut the shorts out, I realized that I don't particularly care for the patch pockets. I'm more of an inset pocket kind of girl!

The modifications are pretty simple to do and I've made a little tutorial to show how I did it:

First, I shortened the pant pattern pieces to shorts' length.  I used the lower of the 2 notches located on the pattern's inseams as my guide.

Step 2 is to lay the pocket piece that comes with the pattern on the front panel.  Line it up on the top and side edges.  You can see that I already rounded the pocket pattern...I had done that when I was still planning on doing patch pockets.   Draw a line along the inner edge of the pocket.

Which leaves you with this...

Cut along your line.

And that's what the front panel looks like now.

You now need a template to be the pocket's facing.   Basically, it's the original pocket plus the piece you cut off of the front panel.  You could tape the piece you cut onto the the pocket or trace a new pocket and extend the left side up and the top towards the left until they meet.  Your new pattern piece looks like...

 You will need to cut 2 of the pocket facings.  Also, you'll need 2 pocket linings (use the original pocket pattern piece).  The pocket linings are a good way to use up scraps.  I'm using leftover fabric from my Jimmy Buffett cami.

pocket linings

I always like the surprise of putting a fun print in pockets.  For my original pair, I used leftovers from the men's butterfly print shirt that I used for an Ice cream Top.

Sewing inset pockets isn't hard at all.  I'd continue on with pictures/descriptions of how I do it but right now I have white thread and a stretch needle in my machine for swimsuit sewing.  I need to finish MG's suit that's mostly done before starting the shorts.  I'll post a little how-to for the rest of the shorts sometime in the next couple of days.  Thanks for reading!

Hopscotch Meet Up v.2

I'm running out of bribes models!  Neither one of the little girls wanted to be my model for the newest top I made.  What's the world coming to?

BK, after much cajoling, finally deigned to put the top on for a few quick pictures...

It's another Hopscotch Meet Up, this time with rolled hems for the sleeves and bottom edge.   The knit is City Weekend Cafe Dots-Turquoise and the front panel is a voile that I purchased from Joann's a couple of years ago.   The new top is also my entry to the Pattern Remix Flickr Contest over at Me Sew Crazy.

My model was much more enthusiastic climbing down the ladder to get away from me!