School House Tunic

I finally made this top that everyone at the shop has already made.

(Corinnea, Katelyn, Jenny, Lizy, Kara, Kelly and who else...)

I got the ties-on-the-side idea from Kara. Thanks Kara!

The School House Tunic and fabric is Anna Maria Horner Voile. It's like butter. Truly. What made me finally make it was Jenny's new top here. Something about how hers was more fitted in the bust and I love it. I made the 10/12 without any modifications to fit except adding the side ties and sleeve ties.

I added some details to make it more fitted, less boxy. I'm already shaped like a box in the waist/hip area (a.k.a. Jenny Square Pants) I don't need my clothes making it worse!

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Photo of Emily taken after her birthday party.

This is Emily on the left and Ava on the right. Both at age 2.5 years and in the same bikini.

I'm on the 5th book of the Sword of Truth Series and listening to book 2 on audio while I sew. Can you tell I love these books?

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Yesterday we found out that the military is NOT covering our tickets home to visit. NOT GOING TO PAY FOR THEM (at least not till after we move). Long story but we think we've got a way to pay for our tickets now ($4000 thank you very much!). It involves pimping Jon out. Any takers?

Emily's 5th Birthday Party!

Emily's party was last Saturday and I'm just getting to uploading the pictures.

Mary made TWO cakes!! Two!! A donut and an Oreo shaped cake (both cake molds from Williams Sonoma in case you wanted to know). The donut had a cream layer and the Oreo of course had a peanut butter layer:)
Thank you Mary:)

Jon didn't take a lot of photos...and my usual picture person (kelly) wasn't at the party. So I don't have the usual 100 or so pictures to choose from:)

**click on photo to enlarge

That one above of Ava and Jamie makes me laugh! They are so alike except Jamie is outgoing:) I met Susi (Jamie's mom) on Flickr (through sewing and swapping pools) and invited her down for the day since she only lives about 2 hours from here.

**click on photo to enlarge

Thanks everyone for coming. I know Emily had a lot of fun! I can't believe my baby is 5! She'll be in Kindergarten in a couple of months. crazy!
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One of Emily's gifts below and I forgot to take a picture of the ribbon wands I made for the goody bags. They are soo cool!

Emily Happy Birthday song

From Butch to Sweet

I didn't even want to post the photo above because it's so unflattering. But you have to see the difference. I didn't do as good a job as i did on the 4th of July t-shirts but it's still better. I took photos while cutting and sewing this shirt back together but I'm not ready to post a tutorial.
Anyway, I've had this boxy man's-style t-shirt for years and never wore it. I couldn't get rid of it because it's an Emily shirt (Emily's namesake). I'm not sure why but the neck didn't turn out as good as the others. The sleeves are the same; I gathered them using a 1/4" wide clear elastic. I don't like how they sit on my arms though. They look as if they are folded...or something.

I'm learning what I can do and can't regarding these kind of alterations. So one day I will have the cutest refashioned men's shirt:)

A video of Ava trying to stay awake. I warn you, she looks a little creepy at times with her eyes rolling around. It's still pretty funny:0

Double Gauze Polka Dot

Another Ottobre Pintuck Shirt. The fabric is Japanese Double Gauze in black and beige. Not fun to work with as it frays easy and stretches.
I might have lowered the neckline too much. it's the same as the black one but it just looks lower and less flattering. In fact I'm not sure I want to wear it...I just washed it again and hopefully the parts that may have been stretched during construction went back together.

I have pictures to post from Emily's 5th birthday party and I took pictures for the t-shirt reconstruction but i now have to go through them and make a tutorial. Fun.

Ottobre Pintuck Top

Not the best photos but hopefully you can see how cute this top is! Hopefully no one will notice that it's not hemmed yet.

The pattern is from Ottobre the 5/2008 issue, style #3 .

It has a couple of things I love: pin tucks and little gathered sleeves. i want to try it in a voile but I'm afraid the prints I have will be too much. I'm also thinking of trying the black/white polka dot double gauze I got a while back. It was very expensive so I want to make sure it will look ok. Katelyn, you remember the one I'm talking about, right? What do you think?

I love the pockets too. The fabric is a black cotton. Not Kona but something else...Corinnea, help? It was $9 a yard and just looked better than the Kona. I actually made this in a rayon faille (which I started waaay back when but put aside) but I'm not liking it on me too much. I'll see if Kelly likes it and will wear it:) I need to photograph that too.

Here are the directions. I left off the zipper and the back yoke. There is absolutely no need for the zipper so I just cut the back on the fold after adding back in the yoke. On this one I cut the neck a little lower by about 1".

This was my 2nd Ottobre attempt. I was really intimidated at first (the reason I put the rayon one aside for so long) I think I just assumed it would be like trying to make something where the instructions are written in Latin but then i got it out and decided to just do it! You have to trace the pattern onto something else. That part sucks!! Just trying to find the piece you want is hard and took me a while. I should have taken a picture of the pattern. Also, there are no seam allowances except on some pieces like the neck facing so i had to include them after I traced them onto pattern ease. But I did remember to do it! I put seem allowances in places I shouldn't have though... like the fold. Some how it all worked out though. I just did two extra pin tucks to bring up the extra I had added. I would definitely make this again and I will try other Ottobre patterns. It was easy.

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This is how I found Ava the other day. passed out after eating tortellini alla panna.

And I forgot to show this one of Emily from the 4th festivities. Katelyn took her to get her face painted. It's a dinosaur...I couldn't have done better so I'm not judging:)

Happy Back Pack

Made By Rae Toddler Back Pack made from japanese import fabric.

I used peltex and interfacing just like the Sofia bag and the Weekender bag. it gave it better shape. I also lined it.

The pattern was very easy and would have been very very easy had I not used peltex and lined it.

The back, the top and the inside.

Emilee, Nicolas an Emily
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A video of Kaylee and Ava from 4th of july

T-shirt re-do

I am so proud of myself! I refashioned a mans boxy t-shirt. And I love it!

I did it to Mary and Katelyn's shirts too.

Tomorrow, me and some coworkers have to work the 4th of July event and where these t-shirts. I cannot wear a mans t-shirt anymore. Just can't do it. I fell yucky in them. i don't' care when others wear them it's just i can't wear them. It's a neck thing and a big boxy unflattering thing for me. I can't even do it at the gym. I think I just got used to boat neck or v-neck.

So back to the shirt! I will post a tutorial soon on how to do this. It was super easy and fast. It's based off one of the 30 or so shirts I already have in this style! I love me some puff sleeves:) I'm thinking of doing it to some plain t-shirts that I won't wear anymore for the reasons stated above.

The neck band is/was the sleeve bands. I used clear elastic on my sleeves but used plain white 1/4" elastic on Mary and Katelyn's

Random picture of Avy.

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Katelyn and I are thinking of starting a swap on Flickr. The swap would be things we've made but don't want but can't sell, don't want to just give it away. For instance, I have many bags/purses I made just to make. I don't use them but I don't want to just give them away since a lot of hard work went into it. I have made clothing for the girls mostly for a shop sample and now don't want it. I'm not allowed to sell Oliver + S stuff I make because I didn't buy the license so I cant sell it to get rid of it. So maybe if we can get others to post pictures of things they have made and want to swap...what do you think? good idea? Bad idea?

George and the Dragon

A good knights tale..

From this...

To this!

Isn't he adorable? It's kind of like a topsy-turvy doll. I had one when i was younger. Its was little red riding hood/wolf/grandma all in one. I wish I still had it.

Not the best photos but you get the idea. He was not hard to make but I did make a huge mistake. I cut all his pieces out before I read the instructions. I was supposed to ADD 1/4" seam to all his pieces. Why oh why weren't they already on the patterns pieces? Why add?? So he is smaller than he should be therefore making him a little funky. By this I mean you can't stuff the one up inside the other to far because the neck area is too small. So their heads are deflated. When George is stuffed with the dragon the dragon acts as stuffing but since I can't get the dragon up farther than the neck..

Just wanted to show the other end. He was not fun to turn right sides out (you pull the dragon through George's head for the initial turn then sew up the head). All I kept thinking was, "I'm gonna have to give him an episiotomy!". I could not get that dragon out of his head. So I had to cut his hole bigger. oops. Gross. Some advice: don't type in to google "episiotomy" to check spelling. The pictures that came up...oh man...brought back memories.

I love the ric rac down his back .

The pattern is from here. If I was to do it again and I actually have another almost done for a relative with a little boy, I would do it bigger!

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Whoever ordered/asked for/begged for/complained for this heat is not my friend. I'm MISERABLE. I'm dyeeeiiiinnng! And the worst part? It was only 79 or so yesterday. Whaaat? It truly felt like 90-100. I think (because it's been so long since I've been home) that my home town of San Diego averages about 75 and it's not hot like this!! When it gets to 90-100 then it's hot there.