... Infinite Dress

OK, so it's been a while, but things are basically getting back to normal. I had the baby (whaaat? I know!) and we're getting used to being parents and everything, and I 'm slowing getting back to making non-baby things again (albiet with a baby slung around my torso, which adds a delightfully challenging level of difficulty to pretty much everything). So, what kind of things? Well, lately I've been working on a custom project: bridesmaids dresses for a good friend of mine.

My friend is getting married in November and was interested "infinite" or convertible dresses for her attendants. Have you seen these? They're basically knit dresses with circle skirts and really (really) long straps that you can wrap around yourself in a theoretically infinite number of ways to create different styles: halter, strapless, one-shoulder, cap sleeve, etc. For a wedding party, the upside to this is that everyone is in the same color and fabric, but can wrap the dress in the style that is particularly flattering to each person. I told my friend I'd give it a whirl and see what I could come up with.

Test Dress - fabric was too heavy!

One back option

For the basics of making this dress, I am hugely indebted to a tutorial on the Sew Like My Mom blog, which gives guidance on what measurements to take and how to put the dress together. What I found was that the dress was pretty simple - four pieces in all, sewn together on one seam. The edges are all raw (meaning that you have to use a nice heavy knit fabric that won't roll up on the cut edge, unless you want to have to finish the edges, which would be a huge pain in the behind). It really couldn't be easier.

Winning fabric!

By far the most complicated and time-consuming parts of this dress are a) finding suitable fabric, and b) cutting out the pieces. Since there aren't a ton of fabric stores near me, I ended up ordering lots and lots of swatches online. I made a test dress for my friend out of a "slinky" fabric which was 90% lycra and 10% acetate, but found that that fabric was way too heavy and stretchy, which resulted in the dress being way too big (did I mention my friend lives in NJ? This meant a lot of sending measurements and test dresses back and forth until we got the fit right). For her actual bridesmaids dresses, we went with a lycra/spandex blend in a deep merlot color that had a nice weight to it and a little bit of shine. Needing a specific kind of fabric definitely limited our color choices, which is tough for someone planning a wedding, but we luckily found something that my friend really liked.



Cutting out the straps requires a very clean floor

So the other difficult part of this project was cutting out the pieces, particularly the straps. Since all the edges are raw, you want to be really careful about making nice, straight cuts. The straps are so long (about 100") - longer than my usual cutting surface - so I had to lay the fabric out on the kitchen floor (after swiffering the heck out of it). I still wasn't happy with the straightness of the cuts, so I ended up doing a rough cut with shears, then going back with a rotary cutter and straight edge to make sure the width of the straps was uniform and the edges really clean. Time-consuming, but worth it!

Trying out different styles

I dig this cap-sleeve option

So after making a bunch of these dresses, what tips would I give? When you take your measurements, measure your waist at its narrowest point, because the waistband of the dress will pretty much migrate to that spot anyway. Be really aware of the stretchiness of your fabric: if it's really stretchy, you'll want to take and inch or two off your waist measurement. I would definitely make sure you have a really sharp pair of shears (or rotary cutter) before you cut out your pieces. Baste everything together before you sew the seams - it's really easy to catch in the different layers when you're stitching.

Hopefully after the big day my friend will let me use some of the pics of her wedding party so you can see the full effect!

... Random Round-Up: Baby Edition (Pom-Pom Curtains, Crib Sheets, Baby Clothes)

So here's my reason for being so lazy lately: I have been gestating a baby! It's true. Not that this actively takes a lot of time, but it has made me fairly tired at different points and has certainly taken up a lot of mental energy as we try to get everything ready for our new tiny roommate. All this preparation has involved making things, of course. So what follows are a few baby-related projects I've been working on in the last few months. I have to warn you, the word "cute" figures heavily into this post.

Pom-Pom Curtains

Several of the projects have been for the nursery, which is still in-progress but happily getting closer to completion. One of the first things I made for the nursery was a set of pom-pom curtains for the room's lone window. I started with a pair of fairly sheer white voile tab-top panels that I picked up at IKEA for about $10. The window looks directly at the building next to ours, about five feet away - not the most attractive thing to look at - so I wanted something that would let in light while still screening the view. I decided I didn't like the look of the tab-tops (they were weirdly long, so the curtains hung low and exposed the top of the roller shade) so I cut them off and sewed in rod pockets instead (the curtains came unhemmed, so I had a lot of extra length to work with) and then hemmed the bottom.

Attaching the pom-pom trim was really easy - just a matter of pinning it down to the inside and bottom edges of each panel and stitching down the center of the trim.

I got the trim on Etsy for about $2.50/yd. I think I used about 8 yards (with some left over), so the curtains cost me about $26 all told. I think that's a pretty good price for something this cute!! 

(Oh yes, as you might have guessed from the pom-pom color, we're having a girl. Not that boys can't do pink - and the nursery has lots of bright colors, of which pink is just one. But I couldn't resist just a little pink. Moving on...)

Fitted Crib Sheets

We're planning on having the baby in our bedroom for the first few months, so we have a tiny little crib for that purpose. This tiny little crib has a tiny little mattress which is too small for most crib sheets, so I made some of my own. Each sheet took about a yard of 44" cotton, with some muslin strips sew to the short ends to make it long enough to wrap under the mattress.

Making the corners is very easy - I folded the two edges of a corner to make a triangle, then used a pencil and a straight edge to mark my sewing line perpendicular to the folded edges. This makes a nice square corner. After sewing each corner, I just had to sew a casing for the elastic and thread it through. Super easy!

I made a few sheets in different prints, just for fun. And also because I expect them to be peed on and then need to be changed.

Baby Clothes

OK, I held off on making baby clothes for a while, because I had other things going, I didn't know how big the baby would be, etc. etc. But now that I've started, I can't stop. I've said it before: making baby clothes is instant-gratification sewing - you can make a ton in just an afternoon. Plus, they take so little fabric - I'm using up loads of my scrap collection. It's awesome!

Because of my complete lack of personal knowledge about infants, I'm really clueless about sizing. So I started by sniffing around the internet for free infant dress patterns, of which there are quite a few. Behold, my growing obsession:

I made this dress from a tutorial on Sew Much Ado - a little peasant dress with a rick-rack hem. Come on, that's adorable.

This was based on a tutorial at Craftiness is not Optional, which has a ton of ideas for terminally cute kids' clothes. I'm not sure how old things have to be to be considered "vintage", but I'm going to go ahead and say that this fabric and button are vintage (they are at least from the early 80's - they come from my mum's stash. She thinks she probably got them while making baby clothes for me). 

This dress is so cute, I can barely stand it. I made it with a tutorial at Made by Rae. And then once I made the dress, I felt like it needed a little hat...

And then all the dresses obviously all needed matching diaper covers, which I made with a pattern from MADE... I know. It's becoming a problem. I'm trying to hold off for now, because I know that babies grow wicked fast, and they poop all over everything, and all that. But it's hard.

So that's what I've been up to lately, besides sitting around being as big as a killer whale, debating middle names, and being unable to pick up things from the ground (problematic when you drop things as much as I do). I'm still working on some projects for the baby's room - I just finished up a skirt for the crib - which I'm hoping to show when it's finished. I'm starting to think that the baby might beat the nursery into completion, though. Just a few weeks left! 

... filia dress preview - Flea-for-All, May 19

This Flea-for-All dress preview is a bit of a cop-out because, as you unusually astute readers will not doubt notice, there are no new dresses in the following post. But! This doesn't mean I don't have anything new for the Flea this week. I do, in fact, have some skirts in new colorful prints and also, something I don't usually do a whole lot of, new summer-weight tops!

These tops (blouses? tanks? I'm not entirely sure what the best descriptor is) are really lightweight, perfect for summer with shorts, jeans or skirts. They're a little bit shaped, but loose-fitting for a relaxed look. Pleats around the scoop neckline and button closure at the back of the neck. I've got one in the great brown-and-ivory print seen above and a few in a fantastic pink/teal/purple/navy print that I call "Yellow Submarine Print" in my head because I think it looks pretty psychedelic-fabulous.

(The shorts in these pictures look a little funny on Estelle because they're just pinned onto the front of her. I couldn't actually put them on her because Estelle, unlike most of us, has a metal rod sticking out the bottom of her torso which effectively prevents her from wearing pants. Don't feel too bad for her though - she can also lose like five inches off her hips with a couple clicks of a dial and about twenty seconds. That I wouldn't mind).

In addition to the new tops, I also have some of my classic elastic waist skirts in bright new prints, including a preppy kelly green geometric print and a fantastic print that's like a cross between fireworks and Spriograph drawings on a royal blue background. How perfect would that be for Memorial Day or the Fourth of July?? I'll have a few sizes with me this weekend, with enough fabric to make more if I don't have your size on Saturday.

So come visit me at the Flea, 125 Kennebec Street, Portland, Maine from 10AM-5PM this Saturday, May 19! (It's also my parents' 33rd anniversary - Happy Anniversary, Mum and Dad!!)

In non-filia news, god that chair that we've been working on forever - still not done! I am totally creating the hold-up because I just. can't. decide. on what fabric to use. I don't think I've ever been so indecisive about a fabric choice before. Our living room already has a lot of prints going on, so I think I'm leaning toward a solid (even though I'm always drawn to prints) just to even things out a bit. So maybe a grey or dark blue velveteen, something like that. Maybe. I just need to decide so we can finish it! Here it is looking all forlorn and halfway done:

Somebody decide for me!! Gah!

... filia dress preview - Flea-for-All, April 28

The last two weeks flew by and my second Flea-for-All appearance is this coming Saturday, April 28! Thanks to everyone who stopped by to visit and shop on Opening Weekend - it was a blast. Hope to see even more on Saturday! And here's the newest dress I'll have with me:

If the last dress was a little modern, this one's a little bit country at heart, I think. I thought of the shape as soon as I found the fabric - a super-soft cotton voile in a tiny floral print (mostly reds, pinks and blues on a ivory background). Because voile is almost sheer, the dress is fully lined in cotton muslin. It also features pockets on the side seams, a red button closure at the back of the neck, and a drawstring waist. I had a very limited amount of this fabric, so I was only able to make a few of these dresses (I'll probably make more in another fabric if I find some I like). Find me at the Flea this Saturday if you're interested!

And that Flea is once again located at 125 Kennebec Street in Portland, Maine, open from 10AM-5PM. See you there!!

... Spring show schedule

I'm taking a quick break from making things to bust out some info about some really fun and exciting retail events I'm going to be participating in as a vendor this Spring. I've got a lot in the works so I needed to take a time out to organize everything!

First off, I hope everyone's heard about the Flea-for-All, Portland's new indoor flea market located at 125 Kennebec Street. I'm so psyched about this, as a vendor and as a shopper! It opens this weekend, April 14 & 15 and will feature tons of amazing vendors selling vintage, antique and handcrafted items. Check out their adorable website here for more info. I'll be there with my filia wares for the Opening Weekend on Sunday, April 15 and also on the following dates:

Saturday, April 28
Saturday, May 19
Saturday, May 26
Saturday, June 10
Saturday, June 30

I have a ton of new styles in the works for the spring and summer, so at every appearance I make at the Flea-for-All, I'll be debuting a new design.  Stayed tuned this week for the first new dress!

On May 12, I'll also be at The Big Thaw, a very cool local arts, crafts and vintage fair held at the Mayo Street Arts Center in Portland, ME. It's the day before Mother's Day, so it's perfect for last minute shopping! I'll have some of my clothes there as well as lots of giftie items. filia was also recently spotlighted on the event website, which you can check out here and wherein I talk a lot about my mum.

So with all the filia stuff going on, I haven't been able to focus on making much else lately. I still have a deconstructed chair sitting in my dining room that needs to be reupholstered, but I just can't seem to pull the trigger on a fabric choice. But I'm hoping to squeeze that project in soon!

... Random Round-Up: iPod Sleeve, Floor Pillow & Plush Toy

I’m working on a reupholstering project that’s more complicated than the chair seat covers I did recently, so it’s going to be a little while before I can share it. In the meantime, I’ve made a few little things that, in and of themselves, didn’t really seem to merit their own post. That happens pretty often, actually – so I decided that maybe I’d start grouping these little projects together in a kind of odds & ends Random Round-Up. And for this inaugural RR post, I’ve got a couple of really rando items: an iPod sleeve, a floor pillow cover, and a stuffed dragon.

So up first: the iPod sleeve, made at the request of my sister Erin. For this little project I got to use fabric scraps that I had lying around, which I LOVE to do because I am neurotic about letting anything go to waste. The owl pinwale corduroy Erin chose was leftover from a baby outfit I made for a friend and the sleeve is lined with matching green corduroy. The sleeve is open at the top and I used some silk cord I had lying around to make a loop that would fasten over a button sewn to the front. This was a super-fast project – instant gratification sewing!

This is a sleeve for an iPod Classic, by the way. I probably should have taken a picture with the iPod half out of the sleeve so you could get an idea of the size, but as exceptionally clever readers I think you can picture how it works. I was happy with how it came out though - what do you think, maybe a new product line?

Moving on to the floor pillow cover! Right now we have kind of a seating issue in our living room, which is that there isn’t enough of it, and half of what there is, is in the process of being reupholstered. So my temporary,  budget-friendly solution is to make some floor pillows to sit or lean on, and very fortuitously, Joann’s happened to have a sale on pillow forms last week and I got a few 27”x27” pillow inserts for half price. The design for the cover is as basic as it gets: Just a big square with an invisible zipper. I love using invisible zippers for pillow covers – they are really easy to put in when you use the special little invisible zipper foot and I think they give you a really finished, professional look.

Like, I said, super-basic and not terribly noteworthy (and, obviously, already covered in cat hair. I should probably just say it's the new cat bed and call it a day). The fabric is Ikea – I previously made throw pillow covers out of the same fabric for the couch. It’s a ridiculous deal, something like $8 a yard for a nice, thick cotton that’s almost a canvas. The only downside is that you actually have to go to Ikea to get it, and now that we live in Maine, that is a way more onerous trip than it used to be from Boston!

So last thing for today – a stuffed dragon! This was my first attempt at a making a plush toy and was made as a late Christmas/Chinese New Year gift for a friend’s daughter (it’s the Year of the Dragon!). I ordered the pattern from DIY Fluffies on Etsy and had it via e-mail the same day – how cool is that? The .pdf included the pattern pieces and really good instructions to put the whole thing together. It’s made of fleece and stuffed with poly batting and is pretty dang cute if I do say so myself.

Again, I probably should have taken a picture of the dragon next to something else so you can get a sense of scale – it’s about 10” tall. Hey look, here he (she?) is on the half-reupholstered ottoman!

So there’s a little sneak peek at that project, which hopefully won’t take too too much longer to finish. In the meantime, Happy Valentines Day to you all! I hope someone buys you one of those heart-shaped doughnuts from Dunks. Those things look wicked good.

... appearance on another blog

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Laura from Fore Front Fashion, a very hip blog that chronicles the innate fashion sense of us Mainers - Bean boots and all. She ended up stopping by the apartment to chat about my little clothing venture Filia and take a few pictures of my sewing room and inventory. You can check out the results here, here and here (as usual, I think my cat steals the show). I was super flattered that Laura wanted to feature Filia on her blog and am still blushing at all the kind things she said in her write-up!

If you’re not already a regular reader of Fore Front Fashion, I would totally recommend that you add it to your list. It does a fantastic job of spotlighting modern Maine fashion without veering too far into what a friend calls “lumberjack hipster”. It also has great info on local fashion-related events, local shops and vendors. Flag your favorites and patronize them this weekend on Small Business Saturday!!

In other making-things news, my sister Erin and her friend September helped me rephotograph a lot of my Filia items for my Etsy shop. Thanks to them, it looks a whole lot brighter and attractive! There are a few new pieces, too, so check it out here if you’d like to see the fruits of that labor.

*Noted* fashion photographer Erin.

I’m also in the middle of a chair-refinishing project that has unexpectedly turned into a bit of an odyssey. I’m hoping to finish that up and have something to show for it this weekend. After, of course, eating myself stupid. Hope everyone has a very happy Thanksgiving!! 

... baby gift and a characteristic mistake

Lots of my friends have been having babies lately, so I find myself making my fair share of baby clothes as gifts. I mostly enjoy it, because baby clothes are so small that they work up quickly - it’s like instant gratification sewing. Plus I think it’s generally accepted that things that are smaller versions of regular-sized things are magically cuter, like kittens and Smart Cars.

My friend recently had an adorable baby girl, so I was excited to make something ruffly and pink. I decided to work off of a pattern (Simplicity 2572), which I find relaxing every once in a while. Making my own designs usually involves a lot of agonizing over the measurements and details, whereas working off a pattern is just following the directions. It’s like playing with Legos - clearly the best part of Legos was throwing all your sets together and making whatever you wanted, but sometimes you just want to follow the directions and end up with a giant pirate ship, you know?

For this project, I found this adorable printed pinwale corduroy at Joann’s that matched some solid pinwale corduroy I had leftover from another project. I wanted to make the jumper and matching hoodie, so I got right down to it. I had my fabric, my pattern - so far, so good.

Here’s the jumper:

Cute, right? Kind of a pain to have to put in a zipper - I usually try to avoid them on baby clothes - but otherwise straightforward. And here’s the hoodie:

Have you spotted the problem? That’s right, I cut out the entire hoodie UPSIDE DOWN. All the owls and the trees and the hearts are wrong side up. Such a silly, easily avoidable mistake!! I didn’t notice until I had already cut all the pieces, and then I didn’t have enough fabric left to start over. Plus it would have seemed an awful waste to toss the upside-down pieces and I really didn’t think my friend would mind all that much. But it was a good, albeit aggravating reminder to slow down and double-check all my fabric and pieces before I cut - basically to measure twice, cut once. Classic advice for sewers and carpenters everywhere!