Oldie, but goodie: RePurpose

As I am still with out a computer, I figured I'd do a few "oldies but goodies" reposts of previous projects. Enjoy!

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Have you heard of Project Run and Play? It's a competition a la Project Runway, with various bloggers who sew children's clothes competing for something. Honestly, I have no idea what the prize is for winning, but I like following the blog and getting inspiration from the weekly challenges.  Week before last's challenge was vintage or retro inspired clothing, so I decided that I should merge two shirts I had that were just waiting to be refashioned into a dress for the Bean. Taking inspiration from the sweet 50s/60s (of course I didn't save the picture when I found it on google search and now I can't find it again) and with a little help from Simplcity, I created this:

{jeggings - only adorable on pint sizes}

from these:

This fucshia shirt is a H&M smock that I bought while nursing - it looked really good then, but after we I moved on from that and I lost a bit of weight, it just looks frumpy dumpy.

This navy shirt is a Gap shirt my Mom bought me in my nursing days, as well. The top part always looked good, but the bottom was too billowy for my frame so I always looked preggo. No beuno.

Both shirts were made out of lovely fabric (hello navy blue eyelet! fuchsia and navy blue floral!) and I think together they look smashing.  To make the toddler jumper, I just cut up the bottom of the navy shirt into bias strips (for the ruffle and the edging of the yoke), used the eyelet for the top of the jumper, and then cut down the middle of the fuchsia, keeping the pockets intact, but reducing the amount of fabric. I wish I had been able to get a clear shot of the pockets - Bean is really into pockets these days and is thrilled that this dress has them for all her rocks.

Thanks, Project Run & Play for giving me the inspiration I needed to finally turn these duds into an adorable jumper!

Signature Style

As an artist, I've always been a people pleaser. Like those sane artists who want to eat by way of their art, I cater to what my client wants or desires in an art work, but make it my own. I don't feel guilty about this at all. In fact, if my amazing Uncle Grout "sells out", then I can, too.

When it comes to my signature style as a seamstress, the same idea prevails. I aim to please. With my sewing students, we work on what they want to learn to do. Perhaps I'm comfortable enough with my self expression that I don't feel the need to impose it on other people. In any case, as most of the clothing I create is for my daughter, her tastes definitely shape the designs.

Project Run and Play's last at home challenge is to create a signature look. As the whole competition is based around children's clothing, I designed a dress for Miss Emmaline to wear on Easter. I know, months a head of the game, but I can rest easy knowing is finished long before the holiday arrives.

Creating this dress was no easy feat, merging my own aspirations for the dress with Emmaline's and being constrained by the fabric I had on hand. This, like all the other projects, is made completely of stash fabric. I love a good challenge and this proved to be just that.

the inspiration, a 1950s Givenchy pattern,
can you believe how tiny her waist is??

Inspired (as I often am), by a vintage Givenchy pattern from the 60s, I wanted to design a more mature look for Emmaline, but still retain the innocence and play of childhood. She's growing up so quickly and becoming such a little girl that I wanted to showcase that stage in the dress.


Here's the original sketch:

Originally, I wanted the dress to have a petticoat that was covered in ruffles. This is where the 4 yr old and I butted heads. She just wanted a dress, no skirt. So we compromised, I added a ruffle to the bottom of the dress, to make it modest and I turned the fancy petticoat into a utiliatian one, meant to keep the dress poofy.

I had also wanted the dress to curve from the the scalloped edge, but it just didn't work out construction wise. So, I cut it off level like the inspirational Givenchy pattern.

Otherwise, the dress remained true to my sketch.

The finished project:

After hours of drafting (seriously, doing a child's sloper pattern seems easy, but for some reason, pint size patterns always take me longer than adult ones), I came up with a flat pattern I was happy with. 

The lined bodice has capped sleeves, removing the bulk of a set in sleeve, to let the two rows of ruffles sit flat on the boat neckline. Each ruffle was done the old fashioned way, with lots of basting stitches, gathers, and rolled hems. The waist is slightly above the natural waist line, cinched in with a belt made from an old belt I had lying around. I deconstructed it, recovered the plastic and hardware, then cut down to Emmaline size.  

The skirt is full, with a scalloped edge faux wrap front, with fabric covered buttons, and a giant ruffle on the bottom, finished with a rolled hem. 

The petticoat is made of heavy lining and oodles of tulle, edge with a tulle ruffle, all made from left overs of last year's Easter dress. 

The back has a hook and eye closure and an invisible zipper.

For accessories, I use a few handmade items I had lying around : a ruffly flower headband and a heart bracelet Emmaline helped me make a while ago.

Phew.

I still can't believe it's done in time for the 8 pm MST deadline tonight. I've never made any of the PR&P deadlines before and I'm a little nervous that my creation won't make the cut. The judges are picking the top five designs from the Flickr stream and revealing them tomorrow. Then the voting opens up to everyone, with the winner revealed on Monday. Eek! I'm sure everyone is nervous!

Stash Project #3

A few weeks back, the theme of the week for Project Run & Play was sewing through the ages. I hunted on the web for inspiration and found this 1940s McCalls jumper pattern:

I rose the yoke up a few inches, lowered the hem about a foot, added an applique heart with running stitches (so very 40s - they had so much patience for the hand done details back then), and put in an invisible zipper in the side.

My flat pattern worked out well for the most part, but the zipper posed a few problems. I hadn't planned on putting a side zipper in, so the seams don't match up at the top. Just nit picky things like that. Oh and the button holes. This time I mean it when I say I'm done with button holes. I am.

Other than those two things, I'm really pleased with how this sweet 40s Valentines jumper turned out.

Stash Project #2

For my second stash project, I made another Junebug dress inspired frock.

This time, I took an old house dress/coat I bought at a thrift store in college and cut it up. I completely forgot to snap a before picture, but just imagine a 60s house dress, knee length, sleeveless, with giant buttons down the front. Ah, the days when I loved all things crazy and vintage.  The cotton, albeit retina burning in print, is a really nice heavy cotton that I thought would make an excellent play dress for Miss Emmaline.

My changes to the Junebug dress for this dress are quite different from the Birthday dress. Since I already had the bodice and skirt drafted up, this frock was super easy to change up and crank out.

I added an invisible zipper to the back (my first - I'll never go back to lapped zippers again!), put a button and loop fastener to the top of the zipper, sewed shut the button placket in the front bodice, added two of the giant buttons to the front, and left the deep pockets on the front. Emmaline loves that the dress is "all my favorite colors!" and that she's allowed to play in the mud while wearing it.

Problem is, now that I've made it a play dress, I rather like the fabric pattern on a pint sized person... It may kill me when it gets a stain that won't budge. Ah well, she's got to have at least one dress she can wear while tromping through weeds.

Just wait, I have yet another stash project to share! I'm not quite done with it (it needs button holes and buttons), but it's another failed attempt to enter into the Project Run and Play sew at home competition.

Stash Project #1

My first stash project was making a birthday dress for Emmaline.*  Her birthday was a few weeks ago, but I just got around to taking pictures of it today.  I put a 2 in hem in the dress originally, only to find out that Miss Emma has grown in the last few months and 2 in was too short for her. So I had to rip out the old hem and put in a new one. Hence the lag.

Are you following Project Run and Play? You should. As the name implies, it's Project Runway for kids. They have a "sew along at home" section to the competition, which has the same theme each week as the main competition.  I keep meaning to participate in it, but my designs are never ready by Friday at 8am. The first week's challenge was to design a dress inspired by the Junebug dress designed by Jess. As fate would have it, I've known Jess since we were young. Her mom cut my hair growing up and we attended the same church. Pretty cool, huh? She's a cool cat, for sure.

After reading through the  Junebug  tutorial, I grabbed a lovely red cotton I've had for a long time and set to work. I used a Simplicity pattern to draft up the bodice size, sleeves and skirt, as I have yet to make a sloper for Miss Emmaline. Then I went to work redrafting those pieces to fit with the Junebug bodice. I wanted to have a longer sleeve, since it's winter (albeit a very mild one), and a knife pleated skirt, not a gathered one. 

And because I didn't have enough large buttons, I opted to do ten small ones. I spent forever making those button holes! I'm swearing off button holes for a long while.  For the sleeve, instead of a casing with 1/4" elastic, I used elastic thread and slightly ruched the sleeves. While Emmaline might complain that the sleeves don't go to her wrists, I think the 3/4 puffy sleeve is adorable.

I think the whole dress turned out pretty adorable, too. Yay for sticking to my goal and using stash fabric!

Stay tuned, I have two more dresses to post that I made using stash fabric, one of which is another take on the Junebug dress!

*Don't worry if you are confused, my daughter's name really isn't Emmaline. For the sake of anonymity, I've changed it to a name I love, but will never be able to use, because the Hubs vetoed it.