Looking ahead ...

Well, I haven't done much sewing recently, but since we haven't yet moved out of long-sleeve T-shirts and most patterns I have are for spring and summer dresses, the three I have done haven't even made it off the hangers for more than the initial fitting/photos.  I haven't completely given up on this learning to sew thing yet, though.

I did start one more version of Lily Studio's Birthday Party Dress, this time in fabric Vivienne chose from my stash.

When in Asia ... buy Japanese cute!  Vivienne is a huge fan of these kitties.

Since the last one was mommy's choice of black and white sophisticated patterns, I figured it was her turn.  This is the first time I am remaking the same pattern.  The only major change I am making is lining it with a super cheap, lightweight cotton blend white fabric because lining it with itself would show colors through the white parts and I'm going to try to add a skirt to the lining.  (At least, I think it's some kind of cotton blend fabric.  My Chinese for fabrics doesn't go much beyond the words for cotton and wool, so I never really know what I'm buying.  So far, I lined her bunny dress with it and I really like it.  It's so light it doesn't weight the dress down, it will wrinkle less than pure cotton, it feels nice, and it doesn't double the price of the project.  We'll see how long it lasts before it falls apart!)  I'm going to have to do a bit of thinking it through when it comes to attaching the skirt lining since it's not in the instructions, but I think I can figure something or other out by looking at other patterns, etc.  If I learn anything earth-shattering, I'll let you know.  I also really want to pay attention to when I should topstitch what since that isn't in the original pattern, but I really like how the topstitching makes the dress look more professional and will help it hold its shape when it gets washed.  Anyway, if all goes well, I'll be posting pictures here pretty soon, as long as I can stop thinking of a thousand future projects long enough to actually figure out how to finish this one.  

Takes one, two, and three

I really should be able to sew much better than I do.  I come from a proud tradition of seamstresses on my mother's side, including, arguably, the most famous seamstress in American history, Betsey Ross herself.  Slightly closer to the present, my mother's mother was quite talented, and though she was slowing down by the time I came around, she did sew the flower girl dress I wore when I was six and an incredible little dress and pinafore for my beloved Cabbage Patch doll.  Even my mother, a busy doctor, managed to sew said doll a little flannel nightgown.  Between the two of them, they gave me scraps of cloth and taught me the basics of sewing by hand, which I am actually pretty good at, but they machine has always been a bit beyond me.  For a little while when I was young my parents had an incredibly talented woman at church give me sewing lessons.  I made two skirts on her old Singer at her house, but that was that.  I never did figure out threading my mother's more complicated machine at home.  In high school I mostly focused on music and drama and writing things no one will ever read, and then I moved out to go to schools and taught myself to knit and crochet, two crafts I love because they require minimal equipment.

After having a baby girl, however, and falling in love all over again with little girl clothes, I thought that maybe now was the time to demystify machine sewing, so when a friend at church mentioned she had an extra machine that I could borrow, I jumped at the chance to give it a try.  So, despite having a tiny baby two toddlers, plus no place to actually set up, I jumped on the internet and started looking for some ideas.  I managed to pull together exactly one skirt (with the ruffle sewn on inside out) and a crude peasant dress (with the selvedge left on the hem and sleeves instead of proper hems) and was just beginning to sew a proper dress from a purchased PDF pattern (the Birthday Party Dress from The Lily Bird Studio) when I managed to wreck the feeder that pushes the fabric through the machine.  Well, that was that, so back the machine went to my friend to be repaired and I only recently managed to get it back again.  So, after scouring just about every PDF little girl's dress available from about a hundred different websites, I decided to start with a simple free skirt tutorial found on the blog Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom.  Here in Taiwan, the smallest length of fabric you can buy is a "zhi" which, as far as I can tell, is about 1/3 of a meter or 13 inches.  I had bought two separate 13 inch lengths of a loosely woven purple cloth on sale at two separate times, and I found out this was actual perfect for a toddler skirt.  I was able to use one 13 inch piece (selvedge to selvedge) for the body of the skirt and divide the other into two 7 inch lengths to sew together for the ruffle piece.  I love this tutorial because they have you use a doubled over ruffle, which saves a hem and gives nice body to the ruffle.  So, here is the first entirely successful solo skirt attempt:

Next, I decided to get brave and give a dress a try, though I am still nervous about figuring out button holes and zippers.  This simple little Colorblock Dress from Heidi & Finn. I love a good ruffle and a nice, big sash, but sometimes you need something a bit more sophisticated to counter ruffle overload and they have some great options.  This particular pattern closes with just one simple loop and button, which I was brave enough to try.  It's fully lined, so it should be pretty easy to make it reversible should the fancy strike at a later date.  I have a few solids already lined up to do the three blocks of color mentioned in the title, but I thought for my first attempt I would combine the top two blocks so I only had one set of seems to line up.  It turned out really cute in this Japanese-esque rabbit print.

We'll see how it works as a stand-alone dress once the weather warms up.

I made it in 3T for my skinny 3-year-old, and it fit OK but it was definitely a slim fit, especially over the turtleneck sweater, so I've already cut the pattern out in 4 T for the next attempt (which will actually be done with blocks of color, I think).  We'll see which works out better.

For my third attempt, I had a small piece of this pretty rose cotton I wanted to try to do something with.  Now, they have a lot of loosely woven cottons here and I am not quite sure that they are suitable for kids' clothes, but I thought I would try them out anyway from time to time because the patterns are too nice to pass up entirely.  This dress might fall apart by the end of the year, but it wasn't too much work and will hopefully last for a few wears.  This is from a free pattern called Simple Elegance from one of my favorite kids' clothes sellers, Ellie Inspired.   Unfortunately, it's not available anymore, though other designers have similar ones floating around.  It was my first attempt at making and using bias tape which worked out great and I am definitely going to try to do again (though the pack of workspace might be a bit of a problem in making a lot of it.)  I chickened out with the closure, though.  She wanted you to cut down the back and make a placket for buttons, but the size I chose was a bit big and as I was putting it together I thought that if I added snaps to the straps, she should be able to get it on just fine.  The snaps are actually in the back since she's three and doesn't really dress herself much anyway.  Just look at the fun she had modeling it.

So, nothing fancy like buttons or zippers or any such thing, but there you have it.  I figure that sewing up way more dresses than Viviene could ever wear is a much more fun way of learning how to sew than sewing practice swatches or pillow covers.  The only thing that scares me is how much ironing all these cottons are going to require.  I really don't do ironing.  Oh well.

I think I'm in love ...

I live in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, right next to the Cultural Center.  On Saturday and Sunday nights, there's a craft fair with tables set up around the sidewalk on the side closest to our house, and it's a bit like strolling through real live Etsy shops.  A few years back, I noticed some amazingly cute animals made out of wool set up at one stand, though she wasn't selling them.  Then, while I was in England a few years ago, I noticed some books on needle felting.  (Google it.  I didn't know what it was either.  Or you can check out my Pinterest board.  I've gone a bit crazy on that one.)

At first I thought that this was something I would have to wait to discover when I finally made it back to the west, but it turns out, as with so many things in Taiwan, I just didn't know where to look.  Apparently, needle felting wool is a very popular craft in Japan, and since Taiwan's craft scene is heavily influenced by Japan, quite a few books have been translated into Chinese and are available in the bookstores here.  And then I happened to wander into a large building that looked like a jewelry supply store -- it turned out to be a three story Japanese craft supply shop with an entire back wall on one floor devoted to selling wool roving and the other things needed to needle felt.  The supplies are actually quite minimal.  At its most basic, you need one little barbed needle, a foam mat, and a bit of wool.  So last year, when David was still small enough that I could craft with him on the bed, I experimented with a few things.

Using a cookie cutter as a form, I came up with this little bear.  Some day I might get around to attaching a string so he can join the ranks of the Christmas decoration.  (He's pretty sturdy, which is a good thing in a house with three kids under 5!)

Snowmen are also a nice, easy place to start, so I tried one out.  This is what he looked like originally, with his nice, traditional top hat.

Well, I was pretty new at making these, and obviously I needed to work better at joining the pieces because this is what he looked like after two minutes with a two-year-old.

Apparently, decapitated snowmen still smile.  Notice the teddy bear survived just fine.

Fortunately, needle felting is repairable, though the top hat did get transformed into a beret.

Now he's ready again to wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Well, he's still a bit delicate, but now that David has moved into his own room at nights, I've pulled out the needle felting supplies again.  This time I am trying to come up with ways of building my core snowman much more stably so he is play-safe.  I've figured out at least two or three ways to do this.  The only problem is, I get part way through making the basic form and something other than a snowman suggests itself to me.  So far, I've started a snowman twice and ended up with a duck and a little Japanese kokeshi doll.  (Google it -- they're cute!)  Once I put the finishing touches on them, I'll post them, too.  Oh well.  One of these days I'll get back to my snowman.

But yes.  I think I'm in love with needle felting.  It's definitely going in my arsenal of crafts to keep working on.

Well, here we go

The older I get, the more I realize that at core, I am a creative person.  I am not particularly skilled in fine arts or music or the like, but I do seem to need a creative outlet to survive.  This has particularly come to light now that I have three small children and no time to actually make much.  The thing is, nursing two babies in a row and co-sleeping with them leaves little time and space for spreading out projects, but it does give hours and hours of dead time to troll the internet looking for inspiration.  Now that the youngest has moved into his own room, I have years worth of housework and immigration paperwork and reading and writing to catch up on, but I do have a bit of space to try to actually work out a creative endeavor or so.

Ever since I got my first digital camera, I've had an iPhoto folder called "Pictures of Projects."  I have been debating whether or not to post a few of my projects on my family blog or not, at least so I could occasionally see a sweater or two I've knitted up there on my Pinterest boards among all those other creative people's beautiful work.  (Ah, Pinterest.  If that little girl who used to pour over the one old doll making and single gift wrapping books in her town and school libraries had only known that one day, the creative world would be at her fingertips -- well, she might not have graduated high school, so I guess it worked out just as well this way.)  Well, I decided as easy as it is to start a new blog, I would try to go this route instead.  At the moment, with three kids between 1 and 4 I don't see this getting many posts or much traffic for a while, but you have to start somewhere.

And now, what to call it.  Currently, I am an American living overseas trying to get back to America. (That's easier said than done, though, with a family of five on three different country passports!)  But some day, when I am home and the babies are a bit less clingy, I have a dream of throwing my hat into the ring and opening up an Etsy shop to sell things that little girls and boys and their mother's could delight in.  I don't see this being my career or anything, but it would be nice to sell enough to pay for a few of my balls of yarn, at least.  Well, one day I was thinking about what I would name an Etsy shop were I to have one, and I thought it would be nice to name it after my daughter, as so often is the case.  Her name works well in French, so I was playing with French-i-fied versions of her first and middle names and stumbled across a painting by Renoir nicknamed "La Petite Irene."  Happily, it happens to be the picture of a beautiful little girl dressed up in her finery, lace, and bows, exactly the image I would choose if I could.  I spent my childhood fixated on the olden days and have always loved long hair and the color blue.

But the Etsy shop is for another day and another continent, most likely.  For now, I thought I would start a blog to keep track of my crafty endeavors attempted from time to time to help keep my sanity, if nothing else.  And so, here we go ...