Camisole

fabric: my sister's old skirt
pattern: Sweet Girl Clothes, view f
size: 140

There is nothing more satisfying than giving another life to a beautiful piece of clothing. This was my sister's skirt from her early teen years. I left the side seams and the bottom hem intact.

Cropped jacket for Asha

Last year I made a goal to challenge myself physically and see if I could get back in shape before I turn forty. I am not going to bore you with the details here, but let's just say it has been a journey. As it turns out, I am not good at managing two projects, and sewing had been put on hold... until this past week.

In August we took a trip to Banff and surrounding national parks as a family. On one of the harder hikes, I was trying to make conversations with Asha in a desparate attempt to distract myself from the huff and puff. The topic of Haloween costumes came up. Before I knew it, I had committed to sewing Asha a jacket. Who knew being in nature with people you love could make you do such things.

Fast forward to last week...

I turned to my new sewing book I got from Japan titled "Sweet Girls Clothes" and choose style V in size 140. Here are the measurements the book gives for size 140. Height 140cm, chest 68cm, waist 57cm, hip 73cm. I think it is a smaller size 10. This is what the cover of the book looks like.

I used denim from my stash.

To minimize bulk, and to keep the project interesting, I tried my hand at a Hong Kong seam. Changing the thread back and forth got tedious, but I love the end result.

A picture of the jacket complete with the rest of her Halloween costume is coming in the next post.

Birthday Dress

Book:  Sweet Girl Clothes

Size:  120 cm

Fabric:  Cotton calico and white cotton pique for the yoke

This dress was a gift for my daughter's 6th birthday.  Just this summer we moved to a farm so I've been a bit busy for sewing, but she had to have a dress dress for her birthday and I had to try out this new book.  

I don't have my sewing room set up yet so most of it was done on the living room floor with young children crawling and running around and a on top of the workings.  This does not make for very accurate sewing or tracing.  It turns out I made a large error in tracing the wrong neckline for the dress, I traced  style S not D.  I did correct the mistake but it did cost me some time.  Speaking of time, I thought this dress would be a quick sew-up but I was wrong.  I had it cut out the night before and was hoping to sew it up in just two hours in the morning, it actually took me about 4 1/2 hours and kind of wish I spent more time playing with my daughter on her birthday than sewing.  But she was happy with the product and wore it two days in a row.  

I had originally planned to use a brown and white cotton pin stripe but the barely 6 year old girl objected.  I've learned to sew to their liking otherwise I waste both time and resources, she picked out the yellow calico from my stash and we both were pleased with the result.

This dress is two pieces, a straight line dress with yoke and skirt apron on top.  We used fabric covered buttons for the yoke.  I can't say it was a joy to sew up with limited time, but it was a joy to see her celebrating in the finished product.  I'm sure this dress will see many days of wear!

Sweet Girl Clothes

Marie' went to Japan this summer and came back with this book.  Just the thing I needed to get back at sewing "sweet girl clothes".

Sizes: 100cm - 140cm (plus a few styles for an adult)

This is a great book with styles moving from summer into Fall.  Thanks Marie'!