Sunday, February 22, 2009

Car organizer

car organizer


We have an upcoming car trip. A reaaaaalllly long car trip. I'd been meaning to make a set of these car organizers for some time, and there's nothing like a long trip to kick me into gear.

I used the tutorial as a guide but did the construction a bit differently. For once thing, I used my serger to finish the raw edges and then folded over, pressed, and stitched instead of the double folding of the hems. This was so that I could cut down on the bulk significantly. Also, instead of hemming first and then adding the pockets, I added them first and then hemmed the whole thing with all the layers together.

What I don't like is that mine isn't hanging very well. One reason is the car has a sort of plastic bar thing across the back for the passenger to hold on to when I take those crazy corners. Another reason I think is that my daughter put a bulky stuffed animal in one of the pockets. I think another tie or something about midway down wouldn't be a bad idea. The only thing is, the front of the seat is concave and I wonder if a tie across there would be annoying on my back as I'm driving.

Another thing I might do differently is round the corners at the top. Rounding the corners would need a bias binding for the edges instead of hemming. I wonder what that would look like. Hmm.

Does that Snow White doll scare anyone else?

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Another play dress

February 2009 064

I cut this one out at the same time as the Valentine play dress, hence the reason they're pretty much exactly the same. Saves time and energy even if it ends up being kind of boring. I find I tend to sew more things that will get worn on a regular basis and that are comfortable because I want my kids to wear what I make and I also don't like to iron very much. It seems like everything "fancy" I've made ends up hanging in the closet with only one or two wears and that makes me sad.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Valentine's Day dress

I needed some motivation to sew and Valentine's Day was it. I decided that I had just enough Chez Ami hearts fabric left to make the girl a cute little dress for her school's Valentine's Day activities.

The pattern I used has become quite the standby in our house, as it's easy and fast to make and the girl loves the style because it's so comfortable. Well, actually we only use the knit dress part of the Farbenmix Olivia pattern, and I often alter it a little bit with this time being no exception.

Valentine's Day dress

I made it into a curved bodice style instead of all one front piece. I also left off the hood and the pocket. I shortened the short sleeve a bit and finished the edges with binding instead of hemming. I used a size 110/116 cm here.

She woke up and was thrilled with her new little dress!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

I have a son that can't seem to wear a pair of jeans more than 5 times without ripping holes in the knees. Everyone says that's just what little boys do. Well, long pants weather will be gone very soon. I really don't want to buy more jeans in his current size for him to only be able to wear them a few times before the colder weather is gone!

I wanted to find a way to patch his knees that was different. I came across this video tutorial on Etsy's handmade blog, The Storque, and I gave it a shot.

Here are my results.

knee "patch"

What I like about this technique is that it allowed me to avoid hand sewing the patch on. His pant leg was just big enough to fit over the free arm of one of my machines (whew).

He wore the fixed up jeans to school today and hopefully he doesn't come home with a new rip!