a new pattern...

Do you know that? You have so many things in your mind you want to sew that you just end up doing no sewing at all because you just can't decide what to do first?
I'm in that state since last week....

And while I was waiting for some passion to come over me, I found a sewing pattern, that I wanted to buy for a long time, for a reduced price on DAWANDA.

And so instead of making some of the things I wanted to do for weeks (and while waiting for a fabric delivery for an make to order project), I just started to sew a little skirt for my little daughter yesterday.
Amazing: In small sizes, one basically doesn't need more fabric than 3 fat quaters.
Just add some  a lot of trim, and you are done.

(1.30 am)

My husband said, as it was i little tight for him, he would give it to my daughter *g*

My daughter loved the skirt at once because of the big pockets. She just loves to carry stuff around. And I am sure there will be a lot of more skirts coming!

(notice to my self: do not ask the daughter to be my model before she had breakfast)

Fabric: findings at my local fabric store
Trim: waistband: Riley Blake, on the skirt: Farbenmix
pattern: http://de.dawanda.com/product/22690593-Sachenfinder-Ebook-Privatgebrauch (in German only)

behind the scenes: I LOVE to clean up my kitchen at 2.00 am. Really. Wish I had a sewing room with a door I could just close behind me after midnight....

Trying to find the perfect T-Shirt sewing pattern for my daughter.

Yes, i could easily go and buy a bunch of T-Shirts for her.
But I don't want to :-)
Now that I can sew the perfect neckband (Thank you again, Rae!), I want to make them myself.
I already have a pile of 10 different knit fabrics ready pre-washed on my dryer,
and they are soooo easy, fast and thrifty to sew, you only need such a small amount of fabric....

This pattern - found in an Ottobre magazine - isn't the one:

The shoulders are much to wide,
the arms are way to long.

The fabric is from Germany, it is an organic interlock knit fabric.

I seriously have to search for my Xater-Sewingpattern, I want to give it a try. It is said to have very narrow shoulders.

Graduation

I wanted to try a new dress pattern for girls, and as it was my son's elementary school graduation today, I made a new dress for my little daughter.
The name of the dress is "Lieblingskleidchen" (most favorite little dress) and I think, that is a good name for this dress, because:

it is really easy and quick to sew (it took me about one hour),
no buttons, no zippers, just bias tape (the only difficulty)
you can use fabric scraps or left overs - really small pieces,
it looks nicely and the pattern offers a lot of opportunities to mix and match fabrics

As for my daughter,
she loves that it is easy to put on and that is has a big pocket.
For example, you can put candies in there so that you have easy access to them:

(Yes, there was a lot of temptation to add some piping between joke and skirt, but I resisted. This was just a quick trial dress. This time I decided to go with woven ribbon.)

pattern: Lieblingskleidchen by Erbsenprinzessin
fabric: pink with tiny white dots: mode basics (?), black with birds: Stoff und Stil

sewing for boys

isn't as easy as for girls, right?

You have all these great possibilities for girls, dresses, skirts, colorful and sparkling fabrics, dress them up, everything - but for boys? Another T-Shirt in teal?

I was really happy when I saw on Facebook that Rae from made by Rae was searching for pattern testers for her uber-cool Flashback-Skinny-T, in sizes for bigger kids. I applied, and I was chosen. Lucky me!

My oldest son was the first to receive a T-Shirt. Pretty concerned about his "street credit" (don't ask me, I don't know!) he wanted to have a plain black Shirt. How exciting, really....

Unfortunatly, I forgot to assemble the last piece of the sleeve pattern, so his Shirt turned out to be one with 3/4 sleeves - what he likes, actually. He plans to wear it under bis A's Baseball Jersey. Thank you so much, son. It was a pleasure to me.

Because it was so much fun to sew this shirt, and it didn't took long time either, I decided to make one for my younger son, too. thank god, he doesn't know anything about street credit!

Yes, these are sausage dogs on the fabric!

Then I thought it would be nice to have a picture with both boys and the shirts.

not possible to take one.

Rae made some adjustments to the pattern, and I made another one. I chose to make one for my younger son again. Not sure why *g*

This is my favorite shirt ever!

I really love this pattern very much, and I can't thank Rae again she gave it to me for testing. The pattern is ideal for slender boys, it fits great, and after printing the pattern and sewing it once, it literally takes you a mere hour to make one.

I had to buy the black knit fabric at JoAnns, but it is not so bad (it actually is so stretchy that I managed to squeeze myself into it!), but last week I saw at Stonemountain & daughter that you can choose between about 10 different black knit fabrics there - isn't that awesome?

The knit fabrics with the dachshunds and the cars is from Europe, I bought it at Stoff & Stil last year (it is pretty lightweight).

The double rip fabric for the neckbands and the sleeves is from JoAnns too, I really like this quality, it works perfect for me!

If you give the pattern (and sewing with knits) a try, trust Rae when it comes to the neckband. Just follow her directions, it worked perfect for me (and I apply this method of calculating the neckband now to all my sewing with knits).

Have a perfect week,

Tina

Pattern testing - Josipa bag by Gretelies

No, I wasn't asked if I would do some pattern tasting, I asked if it would be able to get a new pattern of a well beloved German designer - Gretelies - to do pattern testing. And Anne was so kind to choose me.

As soon as I saw the pattern, I thought of some retro-style fabric for the bag. And sewmamasew came just along with an announcement, that Flea Market Fancy is on sale. Wohou!

This is the finished bag - do you see the nice shape of the flap?

Recently, I love to do piping. It just gives such a finished look

the back of the bag

Insinde:

(Yes, flea market fancy even on the inside)

This is the inside under construction

I didn't made the straps following the instructions, because I wanted the one fabric to overlap at the outside

On the flap I added some embroidery - yes, I sew euro *g*
(embroidery file: schwedische Tischdecke

The pattern includes two versions for the flap (this one an a rectangular one), directions for a exchangeable flap and a kids version of the bag.
The pattern is not available in english right now, but if you are interested in an english version, please let me know, I think we will be able to persuade Anne to make one.

I really love the flea market fancy fabric, and I think it is a great fit for this bag.
The next days, you will find a version of this bag in my etsy shop - but with the fabric of the body for the flap, and the flap fabric for the body - please come again to check it out!