So what? Sew buttons!

I am perhaps more pleased with the garment than any other I have made so far.  I bought the paisley fabric back in August with the idea that it would be used for some sort of fall item for Tabby.  Then, a couple months later, I bought the polka dot corduroy to coordinate with it.  I looked through the patterns I had and decided on a jumper that I could easily use two separate fabrics for.  Then I bought some lovely brown velvet ribbon, and then I finally got to work.

I love the way the fabrics look together, and am pleased that all my corduroy goes in the right direction and it is extremely soft when you pet it.  It looked nice before the ribbon, but I think the ribbon suddenly really made it look special.  I’m planning on having her wear this  on Thanksgiving with a brown turtleneck and tights, but here she is just trying it on over other clothes.

This pattern was very easy to follow and although I was all anxious about doing a zipper, it turned out not to be hard at all. I was a slacker on the photographs so I don’t have a good pic showing the zipper.  Further evidence that the pattern (Ottobre) I used for the my very first sewing project was a very difficult one for a beginner.  I wish I had used a brown bias tape for the armholes and hope when she wears it you won’t be seeing the peek of white.  Overall I think it adorable and it got the highest praise from Jen: “Looks boutique, not homemade”. Can’t ask for more than that!!

(Right off I’ll say that I have no good pictures of this project because I was very foolish. )So I had this great idea to make a tutu for Clark’s friend’s birthday–what 3 year old girl who loves ballerinas wouldn’t love having her own sparkly dress up tutu, I thought. And how hard could it be?

Well, harder than I thought. Here’s what I had to make this creation: many yards of pink and white tulle, bright pink satin ribbon, pale pink satin blanket binding, some bright pink flowers with an adhesive back, and a bunch of fake pink and white roses. I had in mind that I would cute apart the fake flowers to get petals and glue them on to the various layers, which I did do and the affect was just what I wanted. I was just completely unclear on how to do the top, though. I looked around online (I was not prepared to spend $30 for an e-pattern, especially when I thought it should be easy and saw many cute ones on Etsy that I figured someone not unlike me had made) and consulted with friends, my mom, and the lady at the Wal-Mart fabric counter and finally just decided i would sew the layers of tulle onto elastic. Then I would sew that into the binding or onto the ribbon. Have you ever tried to sew tulle? It’s like sewing air. Meringue-y air. I had six layers and just kept over and over trying to count them to see how many I had in my hand before approaching the needle of the machine and then I’d be counting all over again and one of the layers would have drifted off. I did finally got the layers sewed onto the elastic and though my mom had said “Just stretch the elastic as you sew and then when you’re done it all cinches up”, I found the not to the case and so I sort of bunched as I went along. This was really the first time I’d sewed onto elastic so I was unaware that it looks like total crap as far as stitchery goes. Then I sewed it onto the bright pink ribbon and again, sewing elastic to something made the stitching total crap. So then I sewed another layer of ribbon on top of it creating a sort of double edged look, which was nice and had nice stitching. I adhered the flower decorations evenly spaced along the waistband. By the way, it was just too much for me to figure out how to make it like a true skirt, so I was going for more like a cocktail apron. I hot glued on the flower petals and voila! a frothy creation.

The next morning I asked my son to try it on, having taken no measurements of any kind. Apparently I am a terrible estimator of size because it was enormous. But no matter because the birthday girl tried it on it was big enough to wrap the sash around and tie it in the front and she was very happy with it and looked adorable.

I’m going to make another one, having learned from the first one, and this one will be layers of blue and purple tulle with matching flower petals.