Climbing the old apple tree

I finished the pants above for Frida yesterday – apparently they work well for climbing trees!

I have had the star fabric for a while – I think I got it at Stof & Stil. The pattern is from Ottobre 4/2012, #19 called “Forest Path”. I chose this pattern because I wanted a bit more of a jeans look than with the average pattern for children’s pants, but I still wanted an elastic waist, which works well with Frida.

Starry pants - front     Starry pants - back

As always with Ottobre, I followed Frida’s measurements instead of her usual size, so I made a 104 even though she is usually a 110. The pants came together easily, and I really like the fit. However, if you do want to make them with elastics for the bottom hems, you should probably cut the legs a bit longer than the pattern says. I didn’t want elastics casings, and when I hemmed the pants, the length was just right – meaning, if I had made the casings, they would have been a bit short.

Starry pants

I will probably make another version of these pants – the fit is great for Frida, and in my opinion they are darn cute with the low back poskets and all the contrast topstitching.

I actually made Frida a summer dress today as well, but by the time I finished it, it was too dark for pictures, so I’ll show you soon.

Speaking of Frida, Thursday we went to the speech therapist for a follow-up on surgery, and it went so SO well! At home we haven’t noticed that much change in her speech, but when the speech therapist played us a recording from our last visit there before her surgery in January, it was quite clear that there is a remarkable difference, especially when it comes to nasalness. The speech therapist said that Frida made her day – that’s how positive the results of the surgery were. She even said we can expect improvement up to one full year after surgery. Next, check-up is in a year, and it is very unlikely that Frida will need another operation. So hopefully, this is it.

Which is great, because since the beginning of April, Frida has been going to after-school care full-time, which in Denmark is a much used way of letting children adjust to school before actually starting school in August. The next big step for Frida (school) is already happening, the surgery is over with and the results are better than we could have expected. Things are looking good for this little lady.


I have a few things, that I made primarily last year, and never showed you here. I’m going to make up for that, because quite frankly, I want to, and also I count on being able to rediscover the things I made earlier in here, on the blog.

This messenger bag was something that I made previously in a different combination of fabrics – the messenger bag from mmmcrafts - and yay to her for putting the tutorial out there for all of us to benefit from!

Leafy messenger bag mosaic

This one was made for my mother’s birthday, and I love this fabric combination. The main fabric is babycord with small flowers and the lining is Nicey Jane Lindy Leaf in the blue colourway. The trim is Michael Miller bias tape. As you can see I made a small lined pouch to go with it.

A year ago, I made a quilt for Frida. With two girls in the house, making one quilt isn’t going to get me a long way, so of course, there had to be a second one.

A quilt for Ronja

For this one as well, I used a charm pack from Moda, and I cannot remember the name of it. I do like this one, but I personally like Frida’s quilt a little better than this one – it has more warmth to it. All the sources that taught me the techniques, are found in the previous quilt post.

Next up was my bridal purse.

Easy Peasy Purse / Bridal purse

It’s made from the same silk that I used to make the corsage of my bridal dress, and I used the same pale blue fine silk lining as well. I used a frame and pattern from U-handbag – The Easy Peasy Purse - you’ll find it about one third down the page. And I used a tutorial of her’s as well – “Purse frames demystified” as well as a YouTube tutorial that shows a woman attaching the frame to a purse – see it here. It’s always a matter of checking out the different sources of information and finding my own way of doing it, but I didn’t find it too difficult. Also, it was just right for our big day.

Now, another thing I made for the wedding was the dresses for the three little bridesmaids – Ronja, Frida, and my niece Marlinde. At the time of the wedding they were 3, 4, and 7 years old, and I wanted the dresses to have different colours but the same style. I decided to go with an Ottobre pattern, #25 from 3/2010, the Chopin Dress. I used thai silk from this Danish online shop, where I received great service. I sent her an e-mail, asking if I could have samples, and I received an envelope with samples of the different silks I was looking at and a kind response. So anyway, the lining fabric is the same as what I used for the wedding dress and the purse – the softest silk from a fabric shop in New York, brought home by my good friend Karen for the wedding dress project specifically. I changed a few things in the pattern – I wasn’t crazy about the roses on the belt, so I put miniature fabric roses instead to add a detail. Also, I added dusty, greyish tulle on the inside of the skirt, to give it more fullness. I did this by making a tulle skirt that was just a few centimeters longer than the main skirt with lots of ruffled tulle at the bottom, and then sewing it into the dress at the waist line, between the main fabric and the lining.

Bridesmaids dresses mosaic

The girls loved the dresses, fortunately, and though this is not a dress a girl wears many times (if more than one at all…), it was worth the effort. I believe actually, that Frida will be wearing her’s in a few days for the end of season dance at the dance school – for that purpose, the dress should do just fine. (Check out pictures from last year’s end of season dance here.)

Next project was actually something that came out of a bloggers meetup. I haven’t done much hand sewing - ever, and it has been a choice not to. At the meetups however, everyone is always doing something with their hands – knitting, crocheting, sewing, or something else. So I thought, I’d give it a try, just to see what happened.

Patchwork pillow

A pillow for Frida’s room is what happened – and actually one that she seems to appreciate immensely for some reason. The front, of course is patchwork, and the back an overlap closing to make it possible to wash the cover – see below.

Patchwork pillow

Quite a nice project, that I just might try my hands on again, when I have the time to spare.

Finally, two minor projects, that I have made recently. A small purse for make up for myself (same pattern as the bridal purse), and pencil cases for the girls.

Purse       Pencil cases for the girls

The pencil cases are based on the Perfect Box Pouch tutorial on Make It Modern. Other tutorials I have used, and some that I haven’t yet – are found here.

That’s it for the no-shows – now I think most of what I’ve made is on the blog, for me or anyone else to (re-)discover.

 


We have weather for summer dresses here in late April. I can hardly believe it – 20 degrees (Celsius) during Easter holidays, isn’t it amazing?

It definitely makes me want to sew summer clothing, so yesterday I made another dress from the latest Ottobre – this time for Frida. I picked out 5 or 6 fabrics that I would be happy to sew it up in, and Frida made the final decision, which is a beautiful design from Heather Bailey’s Nicey Jane collection.

Frida wearing her tropical blend dress

The dress is #18 (design B) from Ottobre 3/2011, and in spite of the simplicity of the design, it has the piping at the neckline and the bias tape at the hem to add a few nice details. I traced a 98 length and a 92 width, and it’s a perfect fit. The bias tape I used for the hem is Michael Miller gingham, and I used it for the piping as well, cut in halves. I even managed to find som matching daisy buttons for the dress – it could not be any more summery, and Frida loves it.

Tropical blend sleeveless dress - button

Tropical blend sleeveless dress - detail

I haven’t made piping before, and it’s not perfect, but it’s not bad either – I found it a little hard to work around the strap roundings, I probably should have stretched it a little more through the curve. Anyway, this is the perfect summer dress!

Meanwhile, it’s always hard to predict what will happen to the stuff you sew, isn’t it. Take the tulip dress – I almost had to bribe Ronja into modeling the tulip dress… Why? Apparently, it’s scratchy. If any of you guys have a quick fix for scratchy linen, let me know, because I’m afraid otherwise there is no rescue for the dress. But here she is wearing it – at least she looks content. :)

Ronja wearing her Tulip dress

Ronja wearing her Tulip dress


Just before the weekend I received the latest Ottobre, and some of the designs in there show a simplicity almost like the one that you usually see in Japanese patterns – I love it. Sunday I went ahead and traced one of the patterns (#28 from 3/2011) – I originally wanted to make it for Frida, but it didn’t come as small as that, so I went with one for Ronja instead.

Ronja hasn’t been measured for a while, so I did just before I started tracing, and it turns out she’s a size 116 according to her height, but only a 98 width – phew! I decided to add room for growth, and traced a 116 height and 104 width for her – still I had to concentrate while tracing to make everything match up. I always highly recommend measuring before you sew up Ottobre garments, because they tend to be quite wide in the sizes, but they fit perfectly if you go by measurement.

Tulip dress (Sunny sailor dress)

I used linen for the dress and spiced it up a little with Amy Butler’s “Daisy Bouquet” for the sleeves. I added two appliqued tulips in order to create a link from the sleeves to the main fabric, and I think it works fine, even if the edge stitching of the tulips isn’t the best I’ve ever made – for some reason the fabric didn’t quite move properly while I was sewing. Other than that everything came together just fine, and it’s a perfect fit for Ronja.

Tulip dress (Sunny sailor dress) - pleats and appliqué

I haven’t made this kind of pleats before, but I find them such a neat alternative to gathering – a beautiful design detail (yet slightly more time consuming). This is a wonderful summer dress – and it’s original name “Sunshine Sailor Dress” goes so well with the fact that we will be spending this year’s summer vacation on our boat! :)


I did some sewing this weekend. It was weird really, because Saturday morning I stooped to lift up Frida, and as soon as Frida was off the ground, there was a crack in my back, and it hurt like … you don’t wanna know. It went on all Saturday through the night and Sunday as well, but when I started my sewing project it slowly went away. That must be some sort of sign, right? Seeew mooooooore….

As I was saying, I did some sewing. :) I bought the pattern for the Schoolhouse Tunic from Sew Liberated a few months ago, and I just love the design in its simplicity and elegance. I really don’t find much sewing time recently, so it’s been waiting for a spare afternoon, but now I have made my first version of this.

Schoolhouse Tunic

I used linen and a striped linen-cotton blend for the tunic, and I think the combo works well. The reason for using two different fabrics was actually that I thought I wouldn’t have enough linen, but I would have had afterall – I used nowhere near the amount that the pattern calls for. I made a size 10/12 (I’m usually a Scandinavian size 38-40), and I was worried it would be too small, but it could have been just slightly smaller. However, I didn’t prewash the fabric (never quite get around to doing that), so maybe it’ll shrink to a perfect fit – fingers crossed – when I wash it.

I can recommend the pattern – it includes easy-to-follow line drawings, and the tunic came together quickly. It is simple yet with details that give it a wonderfully finished look, so if you have sewn before and are wondering whether or not to give this a go, I would say jump right in – you can do it!

Schoolhouse Tunic - modeled

This is me wearing the tunic with jeans, but it is worth noting that the tunic/dress is quite versatile and can be worn with jeans, leggings, bare legs – and you can add a belt if you wish.

Now that I have you, I can also show you the dress I made for Frida a month ago. To Frida, the only scale that counts at the moment is the twirlyness-scale. I have made her a number of dresses, that she liked initially, but just don’t want to wear right now due to a low score on the twirlyness-scale – therefore my object with this dress was to get my creations well up there on her scale again. This is the result:

Twirly patchwork dress

I used different designs baby corduroy for the outer dress, and quilting cotton for the inside of the bodice. I made up the pattern for the skirt myself, but I was quite inspired by this dress purchased for Ronja from H&M 4 years ago – and loved to pieces by Frida! For the bodice I used an Ottobre-pattern from 3/2008 #15 – the tie-back tunic – I took out a little more than a centimeter from the middle, because it is very wide, and I added an invisible zipper instead of the ties. So back to the scale – does it twirl?

Twirly Dress for Frida

Twirly Dress for Frida

OH yes! :)


Sledging

I could tell you long stories about my pneumonia that went on all through Christmas and New Years, or how I can’t seem to quite get rid of my cold and get back on top – but I won’t. (Just did, didn’t I – that’s because I’m still just slightly bitter about it…)

Instead I’ll show you what I’ve been sewing since we finished my new sewing room. Which I entirely love, by the way. Every time I’m in there, one of the girls comes along and wants to sit next to me at the wonderfully long table, doing something creative. Sort buttons, draw drawings, or play with boxes of sewing equipment. I have no doubt I will be spending many hours in there with the girls, enjoying some nice times and cups of tea.

The first one is a fleece sweater that I made once before – #11 from Ottobre Design 04/2007. Ronja outgrew it and passed it on to Frida, so I wanted to make a new one for her. This below is the first one I made almost 3 years ago – don’t think I ever posted it on the blog, so here it is:

Hooded sweater with kangaroo pocket - mosaic

And this is the new one that I finished this past weekend. I used polar fleece from Stof & Stil, which is really thick and soft – more so than the ordinary fleece which I used for the first one.

Hooded sweater with kangaroo pocket

Kangaroo pocket

Back of hooded sweater

I chose the green colour, and then I appliqued a tree on the back to just give it a bit of a girly twist. Ronja seems to love it, and it is heavenly soft and warm, so I think it’ll be just as loved as the first one. :)

Then I made a couple of night gowns for Frida. The first one was made in a desperate attempt to make use of my Christmas vacation even if I was sick all the time. I wouldn’t recommend that kind of sewing, though – I had to undo quite a few seams, after joining the pieces wrong. Anyway – it turned out ok.

Frida with morning hair and nightgown

And this is the other one – much less troublesome. The pattern for both night gowns is Onion 20021.

Hedgehog nightgown

My new woven label from MinaNamnBand.se is attached on the back:

Hedgehog nightgown - my new woven label