Welcome Back to the 100 Acre Wood! 🍯🐻💛🌳

"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."

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        Winnie the Pooh was undoubtedly one of the most memorable set of stories threaded throughout my early childhood, so when I embarked the on the making of the following set of children's clothing, it was a delight to reminisce on the happenings of the 100 Acre Wood. These were all commissioned by one particular woman for her grandchildren -- 1 john-john/romper, 1 vest, and 1 dress. The romper and vest both came from Fuddie Duddies, a PDF pattern shop on Etsy. The dress is made from Kana's Standard for Kids. Both were really a breeze in the end, but the elastic neckline on the dress did stump me for a hot second while I figured out the best way to put the facing/casing on the neckline and finish everything up in a tidy manner. The fabric came from Laceking on Etsy, but was made in Korea.

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    For the romper, I added snaps on the inner leg and elastic to the leg openings, which was a bigger challenge than expected. Found out the hard way that snap tape is in no way more convenient than just putting in individual snaps with snap pliers, which is what I chose in the end. Snap tape  just opened up more opportunities for messy sewing. Love the red buttons at the top.

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    The vest was super easy to make. I highly recommend the pattern! Nothing else to say except that if you have a little dude in your family, you should make one for him.😂

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    I made the dress first, for which I used the Kana's Standard for Kids A-4 pattern, but it was requested by the person I made it for because it reminded it of a dress she had when she was little. Now, her granddaughter has one, too! This is the piece that started the whole adventure.

        So glad to get the opportunity to make these and I can't wait to see the children in them! 💖

Kana's Standard for Kids: A-4 Girls' Dress

 Who doesn't love adorable little girls' dresses with Peter Pan collars? I've been suckered in by this dress pattern in Kana's Standard for Kids, a Japanese pattern book with a boatload of delightful childhood closet goodies, albeit only for girls (Kana's Standard for Kids II has a number of items for boys).

Rather than confess how much time I spent trying to figure out how to sew the neckline -- which has elastic in the back (cased in with bias tape) -- and sew in in-seam pockets WITH French seams, I'll just say that I learned lots of lessons. First, it's worth checking ALL the provided diagrams, even if the captions are in a foreign language. Plus, Google Translate can offer some help. Second, don't make things harder than they have to be and when trying sew French seams on curves do this  instead ➢➢ By Hand London Sewing French Seams on Curves AND when trying to sewing in-seam pockets with French seams follow this lovely piece of advice by In the Folds ➢➢ In-Seam Pockets with French Seams

Even though I ended up not putting pockets in, it turned out rather cute, and the Peter Pan collar is wonderfully even. The elasticated back neckline was also a nice touch -- no finicky closures. Now that I know more, I think the construction process should be pretty quick next time. 

I'll be putting this on my new Etsy shop, Heirloom Variety 🍅! 🎉🎉

Heirloom Variety Link

It's small, but growing!

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Happy Birthday, Stephen! 💖🎂 Gentleman's Travel Case

It's a hard thing to shop or make for a man who has everything, but there is just one thing he doesn't have: a toiletries travel bag, or as Present Perfect calls it, "A Gentleman's Travel Case."🎩 He just uses a Ziploc bag for ALL of his toiletries while travel (which I can definitely praise for practicality), but he deserves a little better! My grandmother gifted me the craft book I found this little luggage gem packed inside: Present Perfect  by Betz White (click on title for B&N link). The book is chock full of cute little projects, ranging from iPad cases to felt finger puppets. The instructions were very detailed in the text and only used pictures when it seemed necessary.

Due to the double-whammy zipper/velcro combo, I almost passed by it, thinking, "No way!" as I was looking for something to make for Steve. Even after I decided to go for it, I was dumb and didn't follow all the instructions, so construction didn't go quite as planned (there was an ungodly amount of seam-ripping), but still finished it. 😅 Below are the shots of the finished product.

Happy Sewing!

Wallet Mini-Post

    Just a little blurb from this sewing-corner of the world: Finished another wallet using the tutorial below (same as the last wallet), very1970s upholstery fabric, and some forest green cotton scraps. Now I just need to make enough money that I can use both wallets. 😂💸

 

A Little Liberty

     Isn't it the worst when your body changes just enough that it can't fit into a once favorite pair of jeans anymore?😭 That's what happened with these J. Crew Liberty *Toothpick* skinny jeans...You can guess which way I grew... My hips finally widened (very late bloomer, haha) , so I can't really wear low-rise pants and look attractive anymore. I hated seeing them in my drawer and not getting to wear them, so I thought I might as well use the fabric for something else useful, since that gorgeous ditsy floral print is what attracted me to them in the first place!

    I went for a bifold wallet since I really had problem with bunching up bills and fitting them in my little retro Japanese clasp wallet by folding them up...and ending up with a little wad of cash every time I looked for bills. I found this very clear tutorial by Yoan Sewing Studio. It has 4 card slots, one bill pocket, a zippered coin pocket, and two compartments for extra cards or little slips of paper. There's an optional snap closure.

    Before I share pictures, I'll share a few lessons I learned. First, denim, even stretch denim is too bulky to be both the lining and the outer fabric, which I suspected a little before I actually started. I wasn't able to stitch layers together or topstitch comfortably during the last few steps. Second, putting in snaps is easier than I thought it was! Third, interfacing is highly recommended with fabric of regular thickness. 

   

    All-in-all, not too disappointed with it, and definitely wanting to try and make things again, maybe using another one of her tutorials of a bifold wallet with a wrist strap. Just very glad that I got to put that great looking fabric to good use!😍💮🎕 Happy Sewing!

Happy Mother's Day! Sewing as Told Through Snapchat & IG

 Early this year, I got a very special request from my mother: a new custom-made robe for Mother's Day to replace her 20+ year old flannel VS robe from my Dad that was very dearly loved and appreciated. 

She had a few things in mind already: made from similar or the same kind of material (light, cotton/cotton blend, SOFT), tea length, cuffs, and tie closures. So, of course, we made a girls' day out of it when we went fabric shopping and a pattern just in case I lost my way in the making of it. However, I never actually needed it! Thankfully, I was able to figure everything out.  All of the following pictures are from social media because I did a terrible job of actually documenting the making process. 

It's a bit rumpled from the packaging, but it was a success. Happy Mother's Day to the best mom!💕💮 I was a little worried about putting the collar and trim together, but it actually came together quite easily considering there were no instructions to follow. 

I put a loop between the side seams, one on the inside, one on the outside. Ties were put on the facing-front panel seams on both sides. I was dumb and didn't buy enough of the braided/looped trim to also make it around the cuffs, so we settled on some cotton twill ribbon, which actually looked awesome and rather smart once sewn down. 

I had an excellent supervisor for the cutting process!

....He allowed me to put the pockets on after the appropriate amount of cat hair had been applied.😺

I also remembered my Pink Coat Club labels right in time to use them, so of course I put one in. 

This robe was definitely one of my favorite projects to make just because it looked so good from concept to creation. My mom has good taste, obviously. 🌟

Happy Sewing!🧵

Birds in the Snow: Kana's Standard Blouse D-b

 

Even little Mississippi couldn't escape the winter storms that have descended upon the country this week. We've had some snow, but especially more ice than we've had in a long time. And the snow only turns into more ice every time we turn around, including on the roads, so I'm not going anywhere I don't have to be.  A silver lining in these silver days is that more time to sew has landed in my lap! 

Stash busters are really the name of the game this season, so I pulled out leftover Bolt fabric that I used to make this dress...

For the remaining fabric, I found a blouse from Kana's Standard that I could squeeze out of the yardage I had left, if I left off the lining of the bottom half of the blouse.  It's pictures only if you can't read Japanese, but if you've ever made a shirt with lining, or even facing, it's fairly straight-forward. Despite the generally easy construction, I made a few mistakes by being experimental that I spent too much time undoing.

Other things that are getting done while on a little winter vortex break: yoga, projects for my part-time job, setting my sewing room up completely. Oh yeah, the last one is a feat! I've just been piling things in there haphazardly since I moved most of it in the week of the wedding. 🙄  However, trying to finish this blouse up in the mess was the last straw, so I finished it up as much as I could. 

Let's savor the irony of this situation -- just as I'm typing up these last words, the power, which I just thought about how grateful I was for it, has just gone out due to the freezing rain. C'est la vie. Well, at least now I have a moment to plant more projects, right? 😆

Happy Sewing!