Simplicity 2373 Pattern Review

During my blog hiatus last month I did something it took me a long time to work up the courage to do.  I made a dress for myself.  Using a REAL pattern even!  During one of Joann's big pattern sales several months back I picked up Simplicity 2373. 

 

I loved the dress so much.  I even went to the trouble of ordering the same fabric online.  Then the pattern and fabric sat in a box for awhile, because I was too scared to attempt it.  After a month or so I finally decided to attempt a muslin mock-up.  It turned out horrible. So I tried again using some quilters cotton I had an abundance of.  It came out even worse.  It was too big and looked horrible. This was probably a combination of a couple things, such as the sizing I went by on the back of the pattern, and that the pattern on the fabric was HORRENDOUS. Neon rainbow stripes horrendous.That was enough to scare me into putting the pattern away for a couple more months.

But then the warmer weather started making its appearance here in Oregon, and I wanted some cute dresses to wear.  So I decided to toss caution to the wind, try again, and even use my nice fabric for it.  The gamble paid off, the dress turned out and I love it!

The dress on Monica.  Yes, I named my mannequin.

 I made several changes to it though.  To fix the size issue, I looked towards the bottom on the back and looked at the Finished measurements, then went with that size, rather than looking at the top tables and going by what those measurements said.  This gave me a much better fit. With the practice dresses I made I felt like the bodice came too high up on me, so rather than adjusting the pattern to make it lower, I just omitted the top band.  To sew the bodice this way, I sewed the main fabric bodice pieces together, then the lining bodice pieces together, and basted them WRONG sides together.  Then I attached black single fold bias tape on the vertical seams, and used black double fold bias tape at the top.

One of the problems I encountered on my practice dresses was the gathering on the skirt part.  A search of the world wide web for reviews turned up that I wasn't the only one who had the problem.  It made the dress look very maternal (and the woman wearing it look very pregnant).  Not so much the look I was going for.  Several of the reviewers suggested trying pleats or darts instead, so that is what I did.

There might be a better way to figure out pleats, but I don't know it.  I laid my bodice out flat (the front and back were sewn together at one side at this point, but not the other) and then laid out my two skirt pieces (that I had sewn together on one side and already hemmed) right below it, matching up the side seams.  Then I just pinched the fabric and formed/ironed the pleats until the front skirt was the same width as the bodice front, then same for the back.  From there I pinned the pleats and sewed them down a couple inches. 

When it comes to attaching the zipper, I have an easier time doing the zipper first, then sewing the rest of the side together, so thats what I did. 

The straps seemed too wide to me, so I trimmed them down, and then just used double fold bias tape on the edges so I didn't have to turn and top-stitch them. After trying it on I decided it still didn't look quite finished, so I added the black band right under the bodice. 

 

I love it!

In fact I loved it so much that I made another one the next day, in this super cute cherry fabric.



Overall, I think it is a great pattern and I really love the style.  The instructions were hard for me to follow, which very well might have just been my inability to read a pattern, so after the two practice dresses were FAILS, I ditched the instructions and used my knowledge of garment construction to figure it out myself.  The sewing techniques required for this dress aren't very hard at all. I used my serger for some things, but a serger definitely isn't required.  The only stitch I used on my sewing machine was a straight stitch.  I think this dress would be fairly easy for someone who has basic knowledge of garment construction (or can read a pattern and follow directions better than me!) and knows how to use bias tape (if you do it my way instead of theirs and using ribbon). 

Good luck!  I hope my review and breakdown of adjustments I made was helpful to you!

Crayon Roll tutorial

This tutorial has been moved over to my craft blog- Cautiously Crafty. Come on over!

Hi Blog

Just wanted to let you know I haven't forgotten you.  I've just been busy with the last weeks of school and finals.  The next couple of weeks won't any better, but maybe I'll be able to get a post in here or there. 

Organization: Mini Fabric Bolts

Lately my fabric has gotten kinda outta control.  It used to be neatly stored in those Rubbermaid 3 drawer carts (and a huge cardboard box next to them).  Then it exploded and was taking over the entire downstairs.  While browsing the web and my crafting forums I happened across several references to "mini-bolts" of fabric. What are mini-bolts exactly?  They are ridiculously adorable baby bolts of fabric.  Someone somewhere at some point in time had the genius idea to take comic book boards and use them to wrap their fabric around, making a mini-bolt of fabric.  These ones are 6.75 by 10.5 inches, some out there are 8.5 by 11 inches, and there are other sizes as well.

I hate ordering things online though, because then I have to WAIT for them to arrive.  I'm an instant gratification kinda girl. In my internet perusing I saw several people say they used regular old foam-core board (the kind you get by the poster board).  I decided that's the method I would take because then I could run out and get them and get started on my reorganization RIGHT THEN. So I did.  I picked up four boards, they were 20x30 inches.  I cut each board into 8 pieces, measuring 7.5 by 10 inches.

To wrap my fabric around the mini-bolt I laid it out and folded it selvedge to selvedge (the way it comes on the bolt at the store). Then I fold it into thirds so it is just a little bit shorter than the mini-bolt.  Place the piece of foam-core at one end and roll the fabric around it.  Use a pin to secure the end when you're finished.  VOILA adorable baby bolt. I've spent the past week or so (on and off) doing this to all my fabric.  Then yesterday I went and picked up one of those 9 cube storage things. Unfortunately it wouldn't fit downstairs with the rest of my sewing stuff, so I did some rearranging and now it happily resides in my bedroom closet where I can admire it before bed. 



ugh.  Isn't that just beautiful?  Looking at it just fills me with happy.  My fabric is all nice and displayed, I can see what I have and can easily pick and pair combos.  and its just so gorgeous! I'm in love.  Seriously.  My impatience definitely paid off though.  If I had been willing to wait and ordered comic book boards, they wouldn't have fit on the shelves.  These however fit PERFECTLY.  I have wanted one of these 9 cube storage shelves for an eternity but was never sure what I would do with them.  Now I have one and the perfect use for it, and have I mentioned how wonderful it looks?  I just love the sight of all my fabric displayed in such a neat and organized fashion.

 Mini-bolts of fabric=WIN.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with my fat quarters and scraps.

Crunchy FAILS

I'm a little heartbroken about this post.  I love sharing and promoting "green", "crunchy" choices.  But I feel its only fair to share when those choices don't necessarily work out. 

My first crunchy fail is my garden.
 
Isn't that heartbreaking?  Those sad wilted lettuce leaves.  The dried up and droopy tomato and cucumber sprouts.  And where is the strawberry plant you may ask?  It disappeared.  The plants were sitting on the deck getting some sun, and when I went to get them the strawberry plant was just gone.  I couldn't find it. Disappeared.  So we thought.  A few days after this picture my mom found it.  It had fallen off the deck and was hiding under something.  But its in pretty sorry shape too. 

I didn't manage to get them transplanted into bigger containers fast enough.  Their roots were stunted and died.  I'd think about doing it, but whenever I thought about doing it the weather would be all cloudy and rainy.  And then on sunshiny days I'd be too distracted playing with my kiddo until it was either too late to do it or it was time for me to go to class.  So they died. The lettuce actually has some new baby leafs so it might be salvageable.  I'm not so confident with the others.  Next Saturday Market though I'm going to pick up some new plants and they will be transplanted right away.  Maybe they'll actually live longer than a couple weeks.

My second crunchy fail would be the Oil Cleansing Method.  It is essentially No Poo, for your face.  Using oil to clean your face instead of commercial face washes that over-dry your skin and have all sorts of nasty chemicals in em.  Sounds great and I was excited to try it.  Read a bunch online about it, tons of rave reviews, some troubleshooting. So I started and it was great at first. I broke out at first but that was part of the expected detox.  Then the breakouts didn't go away, and more sprung up.  The worse part was I got tons of little bumps all over my forehead.  I figured I was doing something wrong so I read more online, thought I found the solutions and gave it another couple weeks for the previous breakouts to clear up.  Except that didn't happen.  Instead I started getting the little bumps on the sides of my face.  So I threw in the towel. I hope to try again in the future, maybe try different oils or be more consistent with it.  We'll see. 

This is a two level fail though.  When I went to buy some face wash to use I happened across this natural face wash at Safeway called In-Kind.  No parabens, sulfates, pesticides, or other gross stuff in it.  And it smells FANTASTIC.  So I grabbed that and the In-Kind moisturizer.  I only used it twice though, because my skin still felt greasy after I used it.  Its probably not really fair to label it a fail, seeing as I only used it twice though.  But, I don't really feel like dealing with a greasy feeling face, so we're putting it on a shelf until my skin has a chance to level out. 

Instead, I'm going to try doing just a baking soda wash.  I figured if the baking soda is good for taking care of the oils in my hair, it should take care of the oils on my face as well.  I looked some stuff up online and found that a bunch of other people use baking soda as a face wash and get great results.  So thats what I'm trying, here's hoping it works out better than OCM did!

Neglected.

I've got a confession to make. 

With all the sewing I do, my poor niece and nephew have been terribly neglected and suffered from a terrible lack of handmade auntie goods. 

Until recently that is.  I've been sewing little things here and there for them for months, and then finally at the end of April I got my butt in gear and had a week-long sew-a-thon. 

 
The products of that sewing.

I've been wanting to post this for awhile, but I had to wait til they got it, and then I just kept forgetting.  They got it the other week, and here are a couple action pics, just because I've got the cutest niece and nephew in the whole wide world.

 

Oh, and does this look familiar to anyone?
 
Let me refresh your memory.....

(from the post Cousins.)

Gardening

Yesterday in my Earth Day post, I posted that I was wanting to start a garden.  Silly me though, I forgot that we already did kinda start.

 
(Left to right- lettuce, strawberries, cucumber/tomato, basil)

For Christmas this past year I got my mom a little basil kit that you grow in side on a window sill. We finally got around to planting it and have got a nice little basil plant going.  Mercy loves helping to water it, so when I was out shopping the other week, I picked up another little kit.  This one was specifially aimed towards kids (Disney's Cars themed) and came with cucumber and tomato seeds, along with a little plastic lid to make a little green house.  Those things have been growing like their on steroids!  Then today at our local farmers market my sister and picked up some veggie starters from a local organic farm.  We got some strawberries and green leaf lettuce.  Now we just need to get some planters so I can transplant them and move them out onto our deck.  I'm also hoping to get green peppers, broccoli, onions, and maybe a few other things to grow to.   I'm excited!

Happy Earth Day!

Its Earth Day today!  This is probably the first year that I've actually really given any thought to Earth Day at all.  Largely in part because switching to cloth diapers made me much more aware of the impact my choices have on the earth.

So aside from cloth diapers, how else am I trying to be Green?  I'm using reusable water bottles instead of disposable ones.  The ones I use are still made of plastic, but I figure a reusable plastic one is still better than a throw-away one.  I try to reach for our actual dishes instead of paper plates.  I recycle. Use reusable bags (when I can remember to bring them...) and am working on switching over to cloth napkins and UnPaper towels.  I'm also wanting to start a small vegetable garden. I No' Poo, use Oil Cleansing Method, and mama cloth.  We lean towards wooden toys instead of plastic ones for Mercy.

There are more changes I'd really like to make, but figure going slowly is better.

I'm excited for everything that Earth Day represents, and with this as my first one of really "getting" it, I'm really looking forward to all the ones to come.

 
^^My girl in her special Earth Day dress that I made her!

No Poo update!

Here is a brief glimpse inside my head almost every night after my girl has gone to bed....
"blog or sew? blog or sew? sew or blog? blogorsew blogorsew blogorsew?"
Then I usually end up sitting on Facebook or Babycenter. 
*sigh*

But tonight I am actually going to update! 

I've been doing No Poo for about four weeks now and I absolutely LOVE it!  It is so easy, and my hair feels sooo clean and soft.  The detox period wasn't bad at all, I think mainly because I opted for the more drawn out detox.  For the most part I washed every two days, I think once or twice I went 3.  Tomorrow is a wash day and my hair right now feels barely greasy. 

I am still sticking with the standard 1 tbsp per 1 cup of water for both the vinegar and baking soda.  I did try to lessen the amount of baking soda once, but after my hair dried I found greasy patches.  Less baking soda just doesn't work well for my hair I guess.  For the vinegar rinse, I mix up 1 cup and put it in the squirt bottle, but only use about half each time, so 1 bottle lasts me two washes. 

I am so glad I made the switch.  If things keep going this well, maybe I'll never have to 'Poo again!

Overalls/Shortalls Tutorial

UPDATED at the bottom to include pics of some boyish ones I made!

 Let me preface this by saying that I don't really write tutorials, so I'm sorry if I things are as clear as they could be, or if do it "wrong".  Hopefully this will at least help you in some way while making overalls for your kiddo and not just confuse you more. I also apologize for the quality of the pictures.  It was night, and I was working on the living room floor.

I wanted to make my girl some overalls and was having a hard time finding a tutorial that fit what I wanted.  I certainly didn't want to buy a pattern, so I figured I would just wing it (couldn't be too complicated, right? HA!)  This is the product of several pairs of overalls with adjustments each time.  I don't know exactly how much fabric it takes, but 1 yard was more than enough for me to make a pair for my 2 year old.  As for sewing time, also can't really give a good estimate because my sewing takes place in between my child rearing. Start to finish, (including stopping to feed/wrangle/play with/putting a kiddo to bed) is about 4 hours. 

First, you need a pair of pants that fits your kiddo.  Fold em in half.  Fold your fabric over, and place the pants on the fabric like so.  Trace them adding your preferred seam allowance and cut.  (Decide how long you want the legs to be, plus a little for hemming.)


Thank your "helper" for her assistance.


Now take the piece you just cut out, and use it as a template to cut a 2nd piece so you have 2 identical pieces. These will be the shorts part of the overalls.


Now for the bodice.


This is also on the fold of the fabric.  It is about 6.5 inches tall, and 6.5 inches wide.  The top line is 2.75 inches, and that bottom one off to the side is 1.5. These measurements fit my smallish 2 year old with room to grow. Here is what it should look like all cut out.


 Next is the back bodice piece.  This is very similar to the front bodice piece, just a little skinnier.  The measurement at the top is 4 inches (so it would be two inches cut on the fold of the fabric) I thought I had a picture of it traced on the fabric, but I guess my kiddo deleted it while playing with my camera.


Heres a comparison of the front and back bodice pieces.


Now for the straps.  There might be an easier way of doing this, but this is how I do it.  I want my straps to be about 10 inches long, with a width of 2 inches tapering off to 1 inch.  So I cut out a rectangle that measured 4x10.5 inches, then folded it in half lengthwise. At the top I use the ruler and mark at the .5 point and the 1.5 point.  Then draw a diagonal from each point to the corner.

Then cut on those lines, leaving this.  Repeat, so you have a total of 4 of these pieces.


Now we're gonna cut out the lining for the bodice.  Take the front bodice piece and place it on your coordinating fabric.


Oblige the toddler saying "Take a picture of me mom, CHEESE!"
 

Then do the same thing with the back bodice piece, so you have 4 pieces.  Two front, and two back.

 

For the waistband, put your two bodice pieces together at one end, and measure to give you the length you need.  Mine was 26 inches.  The width depends on how think you want the waistband.  I like a skinnier one, so I made mine 3.5 inches.


This is what you should have so far....
 
4 bodice pieces, 4 strap pieces, 1 waistband piece, 2 short pieces. (ignore those two pink squares, they were going to be pockets, but then I went and forgot to add them.)

Now to start sewing.  Take your two front bodice pieces and put them wrong sides together.  Now we are going to sew around the top of it.  Start at the black pin on the left, go up the curve, across the top, then down that curve, stopping at the other black pin.


Put two of the strap pieces right sides together, and sew them together, leaving the wide bottom open for turning.  Repeat for the other two.

Turn the straps and the bodice right side out, and iron down.

Then take the waist strap and fold it in half width wise, so you have a long skinny strip.  Iron.

Here is what we've got so far. ( I decided it needed an applique.)
 

Now take the two back bodice pieces and put them right sides together.  Take the two straps, and put them between the two layers like this.
 

Make sure a little bit of the ends of the straps are sticking out to make sure they get caught in the stitching.


Now sew it like we did the front bodice, starting at the bottom of one curve, up the curve, across the top, and down the other curve.  Turn right side out and iron.


Now we have our two bodice pieces and our waist band.


Put the two bodice pieces right sides together.  Sew at one end. (I serged, you could zig zag, or whatever your preferred method is.)


Open it up, and put the waist strap (right sides together if your coordinating fabric is patterned) on top of the bottom of the bodice pieces, lining up the edges and sew them together. (Sorry, I apparently forgot to get a picture of this step.)  Open them up and iron the seam.  This is what you have so far. (Like my pretty Little Mermaid sheet? Its what I do my ironing on, because I detest ironing boards.)
 

Now for the pants part. Hem the bottom however you prefer.  Then fold it in half like it was when you cut it.  Now we are going to sew the seam that goes from the cuff of the leg up to the crotch.
 

Do the same to both leg pieces.



Now turn one leg right side out, and place it inside the other leg, lining up the seams.


Sew along that U shaped edge.


Turn them right side out and admire your handiwork.We're almost finished!
 

Back to the bodice, put them right sides together again, and sew up the other short edge, so its all connected.


Put the bodice over the shorts.  The shorts should be right side out, the bodice wrong side out.  You want the shorts inside the bodice. The shorts are sandwiched in the bodice. (So sorry if I'm not explaining this clearly, I'm trying!)  Line up the edges, and sew all the way around.


Flip the bodice up. Iron.  Topstitch if you so desire.  Add your preferred closure (I like plastic snaps).  Congrats, you're finished!  Put em on your kiddo, and bask in the cute!


I would love to know if you sew any overalls with these, and would love to see pictures!  If there are any questions I will try my best to answer them.  Please link back and credit me if you blog about these at all, and please only use this tutorial for personal use.  Have fun!


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Some boyish ones I sewed up!