Little chef

A few days ago, I found a bit of time to sew something quick. Rather than making half a dress, I went for making a full apron. When I drew my adult apron pattern on my computer, I also drew a kiddie version, but I hadn’t given it a test drive yet.

I picked a pretty Cotton + Steel fat quarter which the lovely Frances sent me some time ago. Norah loved that fabric the minute it arrived, so I knew that it was going to be a success.

But then it happened. I looked in my stash for a matching solid for the strap, and hit upon an old Melody Miller fabric. And I just couldn’t resist. I was sure Norah would love a vintage looking apron even more (that coffee pot!). And I could finally use the fat quarter I bought from Miss Matatabi 18 months ago (after seeing Vanessa’s stunning pot holders).

Then I had to pick a matching fabric for the straps. I found a beautiful Cotton + Steel fabric which I had ordered from Bellelien a while ago for an urgent project (Kathleen’s delivery times are unbeatable!). It’s funny: Cotton + Steel prides itself on the fact that fabrics of their different collections combine perfectly, but it turns out that C+S’s fabrics even match with the fabrics which their founding designer Melody Miller designed for Kokka years ago! Not only is the color perfect; both fabrics even have the same stars. Awesomeness.

The apron was ready in no time, and the pattern turned out to be as good as ready. It has the same design as the adult version: one large strap which runs through tunnels in the arm scye s, so that it is super easy to put on and adjust. The patterns and instructions will be available early next year.

Unfortunately, Norah was not as enthusiastic about the fabric as I had hoped. She said that she ‘liked it, and didn’t like it’. Which is Norese for: ‘I don’t like it, but I don’t want to hurt your feelings”. Well, whatever. She only has to wear the apron – I’m the one who has to look at it. Ha!

Main fabric: Ruby Star Sparkle – More Happy Dishes Ring A Ling from Miss Matatabi
Straps fabric: Cotton + Steel Star in Mustard from Bellelien

Sew + Show #9 (with a prize!)

Thank you so much for linking up to Sew + Show last week!

The most clicked item this week was Sara‘s beautiful dress with box pleats. I love the little bow!

The second most clicked item was Inspi(n)ration‘s very cute Christmas dress, and in third place was a Francoise dress by Ksenia from Owl Laughing. This dress completely blew me away – it’s the type of project which makes me want to sew for myself again.

On to the next link party! And yaaay, we have a prize this week.  My friend Anneliese from Wee Muses has just launched a super versatile new pattern: the Unisex Gameday Jersey Tee and Dress. She is generously giving away a free pdf copy to the seamstress who uploads the most clicked item. Thank you, Anneliese!

Here is how it works again:

– A new party opens each Wednesday. Add a link to whatever you have sewn in the past 7 days.

– The link party closes on Friday (around midnight CET).

– The next Wednesday, I will feature the most clicked creations, and open a new party.
– On an irregular basis, I will also throw in a little prize for the most clicked creation.
– If you link up to your blog, include the Sew+Show button in either your post or your sidebar to help spread the word on this link party. This is a condition for being featured.
– You cannot link up to a shop. Links to items for sale will be deleted.
– Have fun!

To the link party!

Ready for Spring!

When Lieselot from the Belgian webshop Bambiblauw asked me if she could send me some fabric from Bambiblauw’s first self-designed fabric line, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. Even if I didn’t know, at that point, what the fabrics would look like. I just knew they were going to be good.

And I was right! The line consists of 6 panels (each 70 x 140 cm) with a photoprint – the type of prints which have been so popular in Belgium in the past years. It was difficult to pick a favorite, but eventually I went for the Bambi print.

After I chose the fabric came an even harder task: deciding what to make with it. Normally, this would have been an easy job: this fabric is perfect for a ridiculously cute Lua sleep sack! But the kind people of Bambiblauw already made a Lua themselves to promote this fabric, so I had to come up with something different.

Because of the light colors of the fabric, I decided to go for a dress for next Spring. A simple high waist model, so that on the skirt, there would be enough room for Bambi. For the pattern, I started from a size 5 from my Hanami pattern (Norah turns 5 in a month) but I’m afraid that it will still be too big by next Spring. As you can see in the pictures, the bodice wrinkles up in the front because it is too wide.

For the back, I used the top half of the panel, which features dozens of little Bambis.

The back closes with one of my favorite wooden buttons. I bought 30 of these on Etsy a few months ago, and I use them whenever I can. Wood really combines with everything.

Do I need to tell you that Norah loves this dress? I hardly ever use pink fabrics, so she feels like a princess in this dress. While I call this dress her Bambi Dress, she refers to it as her Princess Dress, “because deer don’t wear dresses, but princesses do”. Can’t argue with that.

I couldn’t resist also buying another panel of the line: the corn flowers. I love the colors, and have a soft spot for border prints.

Make sure to check out the creations of other bloggers who used Bambiblauw’s photo print fabrics! Esther made a stunning Bambi crib sheet, Eva some cool Lion cushions, Griet a fun Giraffe sweater, Deborah a a sweet Cornflowers dress, and Mlle Belle too many things to list 😉

Most of the fabrics are currently sold out, but you can pre-order them. A new shipment is arriving this week, and another one in January.

Sew + Show #8

Thank you so much for linking up to Sew + Show last week!

The most clicked item this week was As It Seams‘ stunning dress in Nani Iro double gauze. And what a beautiful model Victoria is!

Also very popular were Deux Souriceaux‘ stunning party dress and SweetKM‘s gorgeous button-up dress (those contrasting cuffs!).

 

On to the next link party!  

Here is how it works again:

– A new party opens each Wednesday. Add a link to whatever you have sewn in the past 7 days.

– The link party closes on Friday (around midnight CET).

– The next Wednesday, I will feature the most clicked creations, and open a new party.
– On an irregular basis, I will also throw in a little prize for the most clicked creation.
– If you link up to your blog, include the Sew+Show button in either your post or your sidebar. This is a condition for being featured.
– You cannot link up to a shop. Links to items for sale will be deleted.
– Have fun!

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A double give-away (finished sleep sack + fabrics)

Remember that Lua sleepsack I made a while ago? This week, you can win it. No, not the pattern, but the actual finished sleep sack. Ava has been refusing to wear a sleep sacks for months, so this sleep sack has not been used, and likely will never be if I don’t give it away.

The sleep sack is a size 1Y, made from my Lua pattern. It is batted with 100% wool (Quilters’ Dream), and closes with a blind zipper in the side. The main fabric is from Cloud 9’s Shape of Spring line, designed by Eloise Renouf, and 100% certified organic cotton.

Sew Mama Sew’s Give-away Day looks like the perfect occasion to give it away. If you would like to win, all you need to do is leave a comment, saying why you would like to win it. The winner will be chosen purely randomly.

As I am in a give-away mood, I would also like to do a little more de-stashing. Let’s call it early New Year’s resolutions (though I should probably vow to less fabric buying, rather than more de-stashing).

One winner will receive the following fabric pack:
– 1 yard of Playing Koi in Cream, from Birch’s Eiko line
– 1 yard of Of A Feather in Indigo, designed by Rashida Coleman-Hale for Cloud 9
– 1 yard of Nest, designed by Valori Wells for Westminster fabrics

(Nope, the basket and scissors are not included in the prize package.)

You can take your chance by using the Rafflecopter below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bling in the kitchen (Miss Matatabi Makers)

For my December Miss Matatabi Makers post, I picked some Cotton + Steel fabrics to make a kitchen apron with adjustable straps. You can read more about it here.

Sew + Show #7

Thank you so much for linking up to Sew + Show last week!

The most clicked item this week was a really cool tutorial by Beth from Beth Being Crafty. Seriously, if I made something as pretty as this doll kimono, my daughters would not be allowed to play with it, ha!

Also very popular where Noddy & Larabella‘s louisa dress in a new Soft Cactus fabric, and a gorgeous billy blouse by KaatjeNaaisels.

 

On to the next link party!  

Here is how it works again:

– A new party opens each Wednesday. Add a link to whatever you have sewn in the past 7 days.

– The link party closes on Friday (around midnight CET).
– The next Wednesday, I will feature the most clicked creations, and open a new party.
– On an irregular basis, I will also throw in a little prize for the most clicked creation.
– If you link up to your blog, include the Sew+Show button in either your post or your sidebar. This is a condition for being featured.
– You cannot link up to a shop. Links to items for sale will be deleted.
– Have fun!

To the link party!

Mission Uninspired Garment accomplished!

So as you might remember, my first attempt to just make a really quick dress to fill Norah’s Winter wardrobe failed miserably, as I ended up with an experiment and a tutorial on top of it.

My second attempt, however, was successful. The key was to pick a gorgeous fabric with a big print – the kind of fabric which just screams from a minimalist approach. I had this Anna Maria Horner linen in my stash for about a year. When I saw Olga’s beautiful Ghost Wing dress a few weeks ago, my desire to use it finally won from my fear of putting my scissors into this stunning cloth.

With Ava asleep exceptionally early (half past 8! Woohoow!) and Mr. StraightGrain off to play soccer a few nights ago, I had some hours of guilt-free sewing to spend. Before I knew it, the dress was finished (kudos to the inventor of the invisible zip!), and my mission to create a quick and uninspired garment finally accomplished.

So, there’s actually nothing interesting to say about this dress. The fabric is amazing. The End.

Pattern: Hanami Dress and Top

Of the fluffiest fluffiness

Even before I started cutting the mint green fabric of my flipped pea coat, I knew that the coat wouldn’t live long if I would have Norah go to school with it. The school’s playground is, for the most part, a giant sandbox, filled not with white bright private-beach-on-Aruba type of sand, but rather with brown is-this-a-sand-box-or-a-construction-site kind of sand. The yellow coat I made last year, never really got perfectly clean after being worn for a week.

To my own surprise, after spending many, many, many hours on the Mint & Mustangs coat, I still felt like making a second jacket. To save time, I decided to make the exact same coat again, just in a fabric which is easier to keep clean. I found this dark blue speckled, roughly woven fabric at a creative fair which was organized a few months ago in Hasselt. It came from a shop of which I had never heard, but which turned out to be not far from my door: Obade Naailabo in Antwerp.

I combined it with gold piping , and used the same buttons as I used for my mint version.

The batting I used is Quiters’ Dream Wool, a 100% wool batting which is softer than soft, and super light. For the lining, I went for Stamped Grove Knit, a gorgeous fabric designed by Katarina Roccella for Art Gallery Fabrics (bought here). It was a bit of a risk to join knits with non-knits, but it actually turned out not to be difficult at all. And I had half a yard left, just enough to make a matching infinity scarf. In the sleeves, I used Venezia lining fabric, so that the coat is easy to put on and off.

The combination of the wool and knit gives a super light yet really warm coat, fluffier than fluffy! Like I already said in my post about the Mint and Mustangs coat, using a natural batting rather the cheap synthetic ones I used in the previous years, makes SUCH a difference. It’s really worth the extra expense. And I might just use knits as coat lining all the time from now on – it gives such a soft and sweet touch to the jacket. Art Gallery’s tagline, ‘Feel the difference’ applies to their knits even more than to their wovens.

While I feared that Norah would insist on wearing her first coat all the time, she actually said she likes the blue one better. Say what? A four-year-old girl who likes blue and trees better than pink and horses? Should I consult a doctor?

I’m getting started on my next Miss Matatabi Makers project today. Hope you all have a great weekend! You can still vote for your favorite Flip This Pattern coat, here.

Flip That Pattern: Voting has opened

Remember the Winter coat I made for the Flip This Pattern contest? Well, voting had opened! I’m up against three incredibly strong co-contestants, so choosing will be tough…

You can vote for your favorite here, today (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday). Below is my full post again.

Let me start off with expressing my love for the Trendy Unisex Pea Coat pattern. The fit is perfect, the instructions very clear, and it’s a great project for beginning seamstresses. The simple design also makes it the perfect flip project: you can easily make changes or add details without things getting too complicated.

So how did I flip this pattern? I made changes to both the exterior and interior of the coat. Let’s start with the outside. The pattern is for a unisex coat, and so it is inevitably not very feminine. I decided to make a few changes to make it more suitable for my 5-year old daughter (and wannabe princess!) Norah.

I started by making the bottom of the coat more narrow for a more elegant silhouette. I also rounded off the collar piece and the cuff details, and I added mustard piping which I made from bias tape. I used that same bias tape to make a little loop.

I added princess seams in both the front and the back of the pattern. In the back, I added little belt detail which mimics the details on the cuffs.

I’ve developed a bit of an interest in doing interesting things with princess seams lately, resulting in a first experiment in this dress. I also wanted to try something original with the princess seams in the coat, so I redirected them towards the side seam, and integrated a pocket with piping in them.

Let’s discuss the changes to the inside then. The coat has no facings, which makes it such an easy and fast project. The downside is, of course, that the lining can be visible on the outside, which is not very pretty. I decided to add facings for a professional looking finish. I simply retraced the front and back pattern pieces on a new sheet of paper, and drew the lines for the facings. I cut out the pattern pieces, put them on fabrics, and added seam allowance as I was cutting. It takes a bit of extra time, but it is really worth it. For the sleeves, this was even easier: I extended the main with a centimeter (3/8″), while cutting off a centimeter from the lining. This simple step relocates the seam between main and lining deeper into the sleeve.

Let’s talk fabrics. The main fabric is a gorgeous herringbone wool which I bought from the excellent Belgian webshop Bellelien. The fabric comes in three colors (pink, blue, and green), and I went for the blue one (which actually looks more like mint). Then the lining. I made a lot of coats in the past years, and I usually pick something from my stash which I kind of regret buying (it’s just the inside, right?). But for this coat, I really wanted to do something special, something I knew Norah would LOVE.

So I bought a half meter of Cotton+Steel Mustang fabric at Miss Matatabi. I used it before in my Matryoshka bins, so I knew that it looked even prettier in real life than in pictures 🙂
I quilted the lining onto the batting with a few quick lines of stitches. I used to use very cheap synthetic batting for Norah’s coats, but through making baby blankets and sleep sacks for her baby sister Ava, I got to know Quilter’s Dream battings. The difference is gigantic! While I use 100% wool for baby products, I went for a synthetic batting here: Quilter’s Dream Puff. It is amazing: super soft, light, and breathable. I’ve decided that I will never buy cheap batting again.
I lined the sleeves with Venezia lining, so that the coat would be easy to put on and off.

The buttons are from the Belgian chain store Veritas. I just love wooden buttons because they combine well with anything. I really hate sewing on buttons, and I used 10 in this coat. I would really appreciate it if I could get some special award for that or something. Ashley? Emily? Anyone?

I really loved flipping this coat. If it wasn’t for this contest, I would have just bought Norah a coat for the first time in 4 years, because the past months and weeks have been so busy. But now, I am so glad I didn’t! In fact, I enjoyed making this coat so much that I immediately made a second one, using the same flipped pattern. I went for a fabric which would wash up more easily, so now Norah has a ‘good’ coat, and a ‘play’ coat. You can read more about it on my blog tomorrow.

Thank you so much, Ashley and Emily for inviting me to participate!