Finished Item: Lekala 4011 (Plus a whole bunch of other stuff!)

One day, my daughter and I were looking at sweatshirt patterns - she likes the McCall's 6614 sweatshirt she got but it's a unisex pattern so it's pretty boxy. We found a few that she liked, but when she saw this Lekala pattern, she wanted it!

She loves bright colors and isn't big on prints. I found this insanely bright neon sweatshirt fleece at Hancock for 50% off plus I had an additional 10% off coupon - score!

Now, issue #1 with Lekala patterns; there is no recommendation on amount of fabric. So you'd have to be pretty confident or just over purchase. But you don't want a bunch of extra neon green sweatshirt fleece hanging around, right? So I bought 2 yards.

A positive or negative depending on how you sew, there are narrow seam allowances, for this one it was 1 cm which is close to 0.39". I used a 3/8" seam allowance (0.375").

The pattern printed and taped together well. It was 28 pages total (with 3 or 4 blank pages) and the markings all lined up really well.

(my cute 25 cent basket that holds my pattern weights -aka- giant washers)

The grainline is labeled "beam", the pieces each have the pattern number and the measurements. I don't know why it says 'linen type top'; but it does. And then it has the pattern piece. Sleeve? Great. Center Part Left Front? Uhmm. Ok. Little bit of finagling there...

So to ensure the pattern would fit on my fabric, I traced and cut everything out and then laid it on my fabric

 NO problem! Well alright...so I headed to the sewing room and LUCKILY caught my error. And then realized I was going to have to be REALLY creative to get the pieces to fit onto 2 yards of fabric.

Mistakes:

• Cut the left front piece backwards...oops. Recut it but didn't have enough fabric so it was slightly off grain and ended up growing on me.
• I told myself I'd cut the "pocket lining" piece out of lining fabric. Uhmm, no. It shows from the outside. Err. Had to find random scraps big enough to cut the pockets from.
• I serged the left front and the left princess seam piece but that's the seam where the zipper goes.
• Then I sewed the shoulder seam while top stitching the pocket

Break time.

Then I read the zipper instructions 317,413,897 times. And still didn't understand what they were telling me. So I had to start pinning pieces together and doing what made sense. Once I figured it out, THEN the instructions made sense! Oy!

There is a LOT of top stitching on this jacket and it isn't my strong suit. My machine doesn't produce the "beautiful stitch" I read sewers swooning about. And anything under 1/4" is tough for me. I am low on patience.

Then I realized how crappy my top stitching around the pocket was (yes, the pattern suggested binding the pocket but I had no fabric for bias tape!!) so I wanted to add double fold but didn't know if it worked. My young adult nieces confirmed, yes, add the trim.

More Mistakes:

• I made something weird happen on the left piece (right facing here) and so the seam doesn't   line up across the front.
• I didn't interface around the zipper. Oops.
• The zipper should start at the top, pointed part of the right side and I guess more of the band (or placket as they refer to it) would fold up. Darn it 
• Because I decided to do the bias tape after sewing the side seams...the raw edge shows. I used some fraycheck and went about my business

Again, after completing this step, I realized what the instructions were saying with sandwich the placket and blah, blah, blah. Fine.

Ahhhh!!!!

After that, it was mostly smooth sailing. I had no problem setting the sleeves, however I did notice it needed to be eased more on the front than the back. I don't know if this is normal or not. And the bands weren't overly different from the circumference of the sleeve opening. 

The pattern suggested adding bias tape across the collar seam which I really like. I wish I would've read that before I under stitched the collar, I could have gotten a slightly cleaner result. But, I like the green contrast on the black bias tape. I took double fold and opened it once, ironing out the crease. this made it 1/2" wide and nice and flat.

FINALLY, after working hard Friday and Saturday, it was done! Wooohoo!!! She not only loved it, it fit very well. The *only* issue is the sleeves are slightly too short. I could've added 1/2-1" BUT this is pretty good, imo because I normally have to add 2 to 2 1/2" to her sleeve length. So I don't know if the sleeves are drafted longer or if they lengthened them based on her height. Either way, I was pretty impressed overall with the fit. She wore it all morning and said it was comfortable, warm and cozy. 

I don't know why she's standing so stiffly.

Success! I sewed my first separating zipper AND my first Lekala pattern and most importantly, the giftee loves it :-)

I will definitely try a Lekala pattern for myself now. Maybe a simple one!

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Also: 

His blanket is bigger than his body

2.5 yards of checkered and black serged together

New PJs in cotton flannel for my husband using McCall's 4244 which I graded up (yay me!) to an XL after discovering my pattern only had S,M,L.

This time I used the dual casing method and loved it! Well, I didn't love threading 42" of elastic twice plus the drawstrings but I love the finished look. 

I didn't know if they would fit well but I compared them to an existing pj pair and...pretty close. The blue ones are knit so it works that the flannel are larger

I was all set to make pjs for my daughter and I using this I heart Bacon fabric but uhmm...it's super popular and they had just over a yard. I still bought it. I can't make pants from 1 yard! :) Some crazy people are selling it on Etsy for $7-11 per yard. I paid $2.79. Uh yeah, I'll just wait to see if they get more in stock.

Then I was minding my business and Kyle at Vacumming the Lawn posted that she made herself an apron for Christmas. Hey! I want an apron!! So...about 2 hours later I had this:

Chevron main, dots pockets and ties, scroll for the neckband. I accidentally cut the children's size ties. Haste makes waste and all that jazz...

No cat shots, but a mommy/daughter shot!

And an awesome Christmas gift!!!!

Jerk is a physics term and it is:

the derivative of acceleration with respect to time

the 2nd derivative of velocity with respect to time squared

the 3rd derivative of position (sometimes called r) with respect to time cubed

It's funny and it's science! Yay!!!!!!!!!!

Hope your Christmas was amazingly awesome!


***Edited to add: Lekala patterns are $1.49, $1.99 if they add seam allowances. Also, I am up to 97 items, FYI :-D ***

Finished Items McCall's 5720 and WINNER!

I have finished 3 more gifts but can only show 2 of them today. I'll show the others after they're received by the recipients :)

Both of these aprons are made from McCall's 5720

When I saw Lisa's version HERE, I had to have one! 

From Lisa's site

Well, my mom had to have one :) I couldn't wrap my head around connecting the bodice to the tiered skirt and in the end I totally fudged it all and it came out okay. Not perfect but okay. I lined the bodice but the skirt was pretty heavy with the 3 tiers so I didn't need to line it.

I absolutely LOVE the wide ties. There is a pleat in the tie at the waistband an it is super cute.

My mom has  tendency not to use the things I make because they're "too pretty. Hopefully she uses this! It took me forever to make this darn apron.

From the same pattern, I decided to make a simple apron for my coworker who is really sweet and takes good care of me at work. She buys me Emergen-C by the box(!!), she made an arrangement to go outside on our porch, she brings me farm-fresh eggs (she picks them the morning she brings them!)...so I wanted to do something nice for her.

Fully lined to make it more awesome. If I had thought ahead, I would have gotten the creamy off-white color but I had 5 yards of white broadcloth on hand so it's white. :) The pockets are lined with red broadcloth.

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Also, I posted a comment on the PR "12 days of thanks" post and I WON!! Woot!!

Yay!!

Gift Sewing in Progress, Finished Item B5020

More (Saturday?) when finished...I modded the pattern to add a "bodice" and didn't account for how the waist seam would be handled. I think I have a plan now but it halted progress.

It is not this bright in real life!! :)

I'm assuming the red was hard to capture against the red of Lily. There are 4 fabrics here (again, details to follow!). 

Oh yes. The seam ripper made an appearance! :) I ended up doing a bit of basting because I wasn't sure about things and had to pull some things apart. I'm loving it though and definitely want one of my own!

I finished these little leggings for Baby K using Butterick 5020.

Sooooo I searched for a free tute for toddler leggings and every one I found said to buy a pair and copy them. Pfft. I had this pattern on hand and decided I could lengthen them to full pants. So I traced them in a size 3 and lengthened the leg based on another pattern that had full length pants. It is just one pattern piece (no side seams) and took a hot second to cut out. I made them in black so I took them straight over to the serger and serged up that inseam. Then I went to put the "right leg in the wrong leg" to do the crotch seam and...Hmmm. Interesting. ::flips them around:: Hmmm. VERY interesting.

Dang it!

I sewed one right side together and one wrong side together! DOH! 

So then I cut another pattern piece. Serged it. Went to sew the crotch seam.

#&(#*@(*&#&*(&@!!!*

I did it again.

I couldn't. I cut the serged edge off very carefully and fixed it. Then I made a goof with the waistband. But I fixed it. Goodness gracious! Tiny things are hard!!! I like the double row of stitching since I haven't figured out how to fix tunneling with my twin needle.

(Sorry for the bad pics!)

Now, those of you that follow the blog know that I have an addiction to all things sewing. Yet, I continue to claim that I'm going to "fabric fast" on Pattern Review. Yeah. Sure. But I try!

Wendy is a PR member who is hilariously funny. Today she pointed out that she convinces herself that remnants aren't adding to stash, well, DUH. Of course that isn't stash!  :)

I was in JoAnn and got these two...

Vogue 1366 for the pants. I essentially paid $5 for a pants pattern, I know.

Vogue 8865 for the jacket. I want to sort of copy this jacket that I saw on Myrna's blog

(I forgot where I was going with that...)

and rummaged through the remnant bin. When I was there on fleece-a-palooza Saturday, I saw someone getting this fabric cut and really liked it. I was excited to see a 1/2 yard remnant of it for a mere $2 or so. I wasn't sure what to do with it and once I got home and realized it was 44" fabric, I knew my options were limited. I always drape new fabrics around Lily and then bam...realized it should become a new, warm, flannel cowl!

LOVE it.

**Also, I need resources for hand sewing openings (after turning something out) closed. I just fudge it and I know I'm not doing it right.

This was made by sewing long ends together (1/4" seam), turning it and then sewing the short ends together around the circle, leaving a small opening to turn it out. 

More to come! But for now...Scandal!