First Birthday

I based the party on the delightful Children at Play collection by Sarah Jane. As soon as I saw it in the summer, I knew it would be perfect. It took me quite some time to figure out how to best use the special parade print. I like the idea of the children marching along the bottom of a full skirted dress, but the scale is too big for a baby. A table runner would only show the children in one direction and patchwork would break up the print too much.

Finally, I settled on a mitered table topper that can be used again and again. It is also the perfect size cloth for a play table. I hope she'll use it for all her dolly tea parties.

I don't mind telling you that lining up the print on all sides and making sure that the mitered seams met in just the right places to show off the balloons gave me a headache. The print is large in scale and the repeat is large, so you need quite a bit of fabric to get this right. I'm glad to be back to simple dressmaking after this, but I do hope it will become an heirloom. It's a very special fabric.

Cupcakes,

pinwheel party favors and balloons matched perfectly.

Baby girl's Playdate dress is a floral from the same collection and was finished with tiny white rose buttons that match my necklace. I can't believe we didn't get a picture without the sweater, but it was unseasonably cold last Saturday. (Not to mention today - it's snowing outside!)

The kids were so busy playing inside Smith Playhouse and out that they only came together for singing and cupcakes. Here is the birthday girl with one big brother and a few friends. There was singing, laughing, running and playing. A great day!

Fall Palette Challenge #2 - Peony pattern review

This is my first full scale Colette Pattern.  After many months of ogling and trolling their website whilst pregnant, I finally felt slim enough to make it worthwhile. I found the pattern very well written and drafted. I had no difficulty at all with the instructions or the pattern pieces, though it might have been nice if the waist and hip lines were indicated. And who couldn’t love the beautiful booklets they come in?

The fabric is a very crisp tightly woven cotton from Art Gallery in a pink that coordinated nicely with the colors for my daughter's first birthday. It’s fully lined with Bemberg Rayon, since I found the cotton a tad see through and sticky. Also, a dress this closely fitted seemed to need a lining. It certainly hangs much better for it. This is essentially a wearable muslin, as it took quite a lot of fiddling to get it right. In fact, there are a few spots that still need tweaking, but couldn’t deal with this time around. After measuring the pattern pieces, I cut a straight size 10, even though my measurements indicated a 12-14 for waist and hips. There is room in the waist darts and the tiny gathers in the skirt to adjust the fit at the waist.  In fact, it seems to me that this pattern was thoughtfully designed to allow fit adjustments, rather than for a specific body type as some fashions are.  Each of those darts is a point for adjusting the fit. The more opportunities a pattern offers, the more chance you have to fit the dress nicely to you.

I absolutely love this pattern. The cut is elegant, feminine, timeless and flattering! By George, it’s flattering. Can you tell that I still have 15 lbs of baby weight to loose? I can’t. I would adore this with the ¾ sleeves in some kind of dark autumn-y fabric. And it would be divine in red dupioni as a holiday dress. And I think it would be cute for the spring in a cotton floral and cozy for winter in something warm and definitely chic for the office in suiting.  I could probably go on. Next time, I’d like a more subdued version.

My only quibble is classifying this as a beginner project. You simply can’t fudge the fit here because those darts are so prominent. I’ve had success with a simple FBA in the past, but two sets of darts to adjust make this more complicated to get right. Iterations of my Peony when the darts weren’t right looked sloppy, frumpy, or just plain weird. I tried shortening them so they didn’t get all pointy at my, ahem, apex. I tried making them wider to accommodate the excess loose fabric under the bust. I tired moving them, cursing at them and appealing to St. Anne before I was happy enough to call them finished. I sewed them 12 times in all and cut a second bodice piece. (That’s where my sleeve fabric went.) The pattern itself is good for an advanced beginner, but since grown-up women typically need adjustments, Peony is realistically for the confident, patient or experienced sewist. On the other hand, I learned to sew when I was young, skinny and flat-chested. I didn't need any fit adjustments and could probably have sewn this up much faster.

The only change I made was the obvious lack of sleeves. As I worked on the bodice fit, I came to like how it looked sleeveless.  (I only wish I had read this amazing trickfor lining a sleeveless dress earlier on.) It’s worth noting that there didn’t seem to be much room at the shoulders. I used only a scant ¼” seam allowance to attach the dress to the lining. Perhaps in the future I need to adjust for broad shoulders? Sigh. I’m off to read more of Fit for Real People. More pictures of the Children at Play themed birthday party coming soon. Thursday is the photo shoot of my Princess Royal, including the dress with poofy sleeves!

special thanks to George Aubrey Photography for these great shots!  necklace from Rustic Gem and shoes are Raomna II by Sofft.

birthday preview & a playdate tip

Though I'm still waiting to find the perfect buttons, I thought I'd post a quick preview of K's 1st birthday party dress, so I can share with you a clever (I think) way to finish the dress at the yoke. If you've made this one before, you know that you can't use the traditional seam finishes where the yoke joins the dress body. The yoke is completely finished and then topstitched to the dress. Cleverly, this makes it easier to get a nice round seam on the yoke, but it leaves the inside seam allowance raw. But here is the inside of my Playdate Dress: 

I cut a wide piece of contrast double fold bias - 2" to 2 1/2" would work - and bound the raw neck edge before attaching the yoke. I basted the bias to the right side, flipped it round and basted it again to hold it in place. I placed the yoke using lots of pins and a seam gauge to get an even 1/8" all the way around and topstitched it into place, being careful to catch the bias as well. Then, I went back and ripped out all the basting stitches.

The bias edge is loose and looks just like flat piping. I wish I had taken pictures as I went, but was running behind schedule with this one. If it's unclear, I'm happy to try and explain better. What do you think?

autumn leaves cardigan

My very favorite day of the year is that first day I can comfortably slip on jeans and a sweater. It feels so good after the long sticky uncomfortable summer to feel that promising chill to the air. It feels good to wear real clothes again. It feels good to be outside again. It feels good to again haunt the city’s parks and playgrounds and kick some leaves. I find this time of year relaxing, invigorating, and promising.  Warm and fuzzy thoughts fill my head of baking pies and roasting turkeys, apple picking and Sunday rides. And outside, in that crisp, sunny fresh air, I look forward to the cold winter at the end of the holidays when I can slow down, hole myself up inside with a pair of needles and begin the knitting cycle all over again.

Yesterday, baby girl and I both stepped out in hand knitted sweaters to celebrate the first sweater day. I began this one for her during our road trip to my parents’ house in Georgia. Ever since I discovered that I can in fact knit in the car without feeling sick, I have looked at road trips in a new light. Suddenly, I don’t care about two days with all five of us smushed into the Volvo. All I can see is 14 full hours of knitting. So I made sure I had knitting ready. I completed the leafy yoke of the sweater before we left and worked the ribbing on the way down. While down there, I started the hem of a second sweater so I could do the stockinette in the car on the way home. Presto – most of my fall knitting done. However, lots of things went haywire in the second half of the summer and I only put the finishing touches on this sweater last week when I felt the chill in the air approaching.

The pattern is from a Nashua Handknits booklet called Bloom, which I read about on the Purl Bee. I found the pattern was indeed reliable. I did have a hard time finding the right yarn, so it’s been on the back burner since last year. The sizing is awkward too. I imagine it’s due to the math involved in the cabled yoke stitch pattern, but they only offer sizes 3 months, 6 months and 24 months. Making some guesses based on the size of my sons at age 1, I made the 24 month size with a slightly smaller gauge. However, my largest child at birth, 9lbs 6oz to be exact, is turning into my smallest and is swimming in the sweater. Maybe I’ll try the dryer.

The yarn is Berreco Vintage. I don’t normally use acrylic, but this was a nice feeling blend and it is useful to have hard wearing yarn for children’s things. It was easy to work with and nice to handle. I suppose the only downside is that it’s slightly fuzzy after being worked and doesn’t have the crisp stitch definition other yarns might. Still, the color was spot on and while it isn’t the nicest yarn I ever worked with, I don’t regret it.

Happy Fall!