Umpteenth version of McCalls 6875

 I have made so many versions of McCalls 6875 in sizes 3, 4, and 5. My girls lived in versions of this dress when they were smaller.  They loved it and so did I.  I even made the doll version once.

My bear cub still wear a lot of dresses as does the grandbaby who is living with me.  There are a number of size 5 dresses that recently have been passed from the bear cub to the grandbaby.  My 12-year-old daughter was still wearing size 5 dresses but as tunics and she was/is not happy that I have passed them on to the very tall 3 year old.  So it was time to make new dresses for her.  

The nerdlet is very happy with this dress also and it also fits her.  In fact, I was afraid that the nerdlet was going to be upset about the bear cub having it because she seemed to be getting attached to it as I sewed it and tried it on at every stage of its development.  The nerdlet rarely wears dresses anymore, so it made me pretty happy that she liked this one.  The grandbaby is also really eager for this dress to fit her and tried to get me to put it on her instead of Chloe this morning.  I know this super bright orange batik isn't for everyone, but I'm glad that my girls like it.

I will be making more of this dress in this size and in the smaller size for the grandbaby, but first I have peasant style dresses that I have already cut out for the bear cub.

Previous Make of McCalls 6500

I made this dress for the bear cub July 2013 and it was worn by all three of my girls.  It's one of the few clothing pieces that I made for the girls that I still have.  I am now passing it on to my younger granddaughter. 

Here is the nerdlet at 5 1/2.

And my adopted granddaughter at almost 1 year.

It has lost a little vibrancy from being washed ~12 billion times, but it is still pretty bright and colorful.

She loves the 'Where's Grandma?" game and I was wondering how to capture that smile with the camera.  Apparently, the camera is big enough to play where's grandma.  I didn't get the full on belly giggles, but I still got smiles and chuckles.

The Edgar Allen Poe Shirt

Q has always liked Edgar Allen Poe, and so for Valentine's Day, I made him a shirt.  It is another version of McCall's 2149.

More of McCall's 2149

The next three shirts I made for Q.

I have quite a few more to come, but I won't be working on them for a while.

McCall's 2149 Version 12

There are going to be a few more men's shirts before I get to other clothing. 

I posted a while back about an awful experience that I had at Jo-Anns.  The shirt that I finished today was the fabric that I bought at that time.  I'm decent at improvising (and by decent, I mean that I start by panicking and throwing a small internal fit unable to think that I will be able to fix it and that it is completely ruined until I eventually get back on track) and so I pieced the back so that it look intentional.  I'm lucking that the pieced line looks about the same point that men's shirts often put the same line because in this case I didn't have much of a choice.

Q came home yesterday telling me that he got lots of compliments on his peacock shirt.  I think he's excited about this shirt and the upcoming ones because last night, he kept saying things like, "It's okay with me if you would rather sew tonight."

McCall's 2149 Version 11

Before I show you Q's newest shirt, I need to preface it with the story.  I had a number of fabrics picked out and in my online cart, some of them for Q's shirts and some of them for dresses for the girls.  I showed them to Q so that I could get the okay before I checked out so that I could be sure he would wear them before I purchased them and put all the work into the shirts.  This fabric was actually one that I had picked out for a dress for the nerdlet, but this was the one of the group that got the most approval from him, so I changed the fabric amount and purchased it.

I  actually thought that maybe I would still make a dress or two out of it, but after finishing the orange shirt I posted, this is the one that he wanted me to make next.  I'm posting it now although it still needs buttons because my sister asked to see it.  I had buttons picked out for it, but they have disappeared.  I should pick new ones later today.

I actually love it.  It is beautiful fabric and the size of the shirt is perfect to show the fabric off.  I also love that Q has the ego to pull off wearing a shirt like this, and really who else than my opinion matters, right?  Right?

Anyway, on to the shirt...

McCall's 2149 Version 10

Two weeks of the new year has passed and I've just finished my first project.  I actually did quite a bit of unblogged sewing in 2015, but I'm hoping to do better about posting my work this year.  I often use it for information on what changes I made to a pattern or thoughts about future changes, and sometimes re-reading a post about a pattern reminds me of something helpful when I make it again.

I'm making Q more shirts using McCall's 2149.  I had planned to use this as a shirt block to make a lot of different styles of shirts for him, but he expressed a desire to continue using this style and since I now have it down, it's fine with me.  I have a number of them with the fabric cut out, where I need to cut out the interfacing and make sure I have buttons and the like.

Here is the newest one.  Darth Monkey loves it. 

I actually bought a bunch of fabric and patterns during the MLK sale at Hancock's going on through Monday.  I probably shouldn't buy any for a while.  I am excited about some Scuba Knit that they had.  They only had ugly colors and patterns, but I bought some of every one that I found so I can play with it.  At $1.50 a yard I couldn't pass it up even if these were the very last colors I would choose.  I'm looking forward to playing with it, but I have quite a number of projects that are on my list first.

Here's hoping to a better year of blogging here.

McCall's 2149 Versions 6-9

McCall's 2149 Version 6

McCall's 2149 Version 7

McCall's 2149 Version 8

McCall's 2149 Version 9

Q loves these last two and wears them again as soon as they come out of the wash.  I've got 8 more of these shirts cut out on my counter waiting for me to sew them up so you may sew more versions in the near future.

A Step By Step Tutorial of the Collar McCall's 2149

I haven't really gone back and posted things that I missed posting about when I made something, but I am going to here since I took pictures of making McCall's 2149 step by step as a tutorial for beginners when making this mens shirt.  It is really a simple shirt esp. if you don't add pockets, which Q doesn't want anyway.  Pockets aren't that difficult to add, though, if you want to do so.

First is the collar.  I made this with 3 other shirts and in doing so I did two with the interfacing on the bottom piece and two with it on the upper piece.  I didn't really see a significant difference at the time.  I just ran upstairs to check on these shirts and now you cannot even tell which side is interfaced without pulling the collar apart.  So while I have read advice telling me both different ways, I wouldn't worry about it.  Pick the side you like.  Here I have the interfacing on the upper collar piece.  Sew around the sides and top of the collar and clip the corners off.

Then I use the rotary cutter to trim all around the sewn sides.

Then flip it around and press.

I use a pin to gently pull out the corners so they come to a point.

Then I pin the lower collar piece to the right side of the shirt, where the two front pieces have already been sewn to the back.  This is one of the few places that I actually use pins and I'm rather generous with them.

I pin the collar so that it meets right up to the edge of the collar.

Then I sew right to that edge.

 For the front facing pieces, I place the fusible side of the interfacing away from the right side of the facing piece.

Then I sew along the inside (the side that will be away from the button holes).

I then flip it around and press, fusing the interfacing to the facing.

I then sew this piece to the shirt front pieces.

I sew carefully when I get to the collar to capture the lower piece of the collar.

 I stop at the point of  meeting the collar so that I can enclose the facing in the collar.  Then like before I trim the facing and corner.

Then I flip it around and press, again using a pin to gently pull out the corner to a point.

 I iron the edge of the upper collar piece under to meet exactly with the lower piece.

I fold them back together and zigzag over the seam while meeting them up exactly.

The finished shirt.

Here you can see the topstitching of the shirt around the collar and also if you click on the picture to enlarge it, you will see the zigzag.  If I have chosen a contrasting thread for the topstitching, I will choose the best blending thread for the zigzag.

I'll follow this post with another post with pictures of the other 3 shirts I made in June.

McCall's 6875 Version 9, 10, and 11

I finished the other three versions.  I really liked how they came out and can hardly wait until the girls wear them, though I am going to wait until school starts back up.  

Now, I need to decide which of my stack of UFOs is next.

McCall's 6875 Version 8 and Teacher Bags

I thought before I revealed the first finished dress of the sewcation that I would share so more reversible bags that I'm giving to the teachers for Christmas.  They already know what they are getting and when.  I had ARD meetings for both the nerdlet and the bear cub the last week of school and I took a stack of fabrics for them to choose from for their own bags.  These are not all the bags that I made, but I have already given away a handful.  The five on the right are the ones for the teachers and speech language pathologist.

Here is the finished dress, McCall's 6875 version 8.  This was supposed to be the bear cub's first day of Kindergarten dress dress.  It is a size 4 dress and is the smallest of the four.  It makes me kind of sad that I'm probably not going to be making size 4s anymore.

The two fabrics that I bought are so gorgeous.  I bought them from the sale area at the local quilt store.  I always go through the sale fabrics, and while I often buy from them, I hardly ever find quality fabrics like these two.  I had a hard time even believing they were there.  Here is a close up because you can't really see the beauty in the large picture of the dress.

Anyway, I'm back to sewing now as I have three left to finish.

And if anyone cares, here are the links to the other bags I have made and the tutorial and the other versions of this dress.

Bag tutorial

Other bags 1, 2, 3

Versions 1 and 2

Versions 3 and 4

Versions 5 and 6

Version 7

Last Sewcation of the the Year

Q took the girls to visit my mom this morning so that I could get a sewcation.  Today I have been working on the girls first day of school dresses (yes, I may have missed it by a few days) which will now be first day of 2015 dresses or something.

The top two are the bodices for the first day of school dresses.  The bottom two are fabrics that Darth Monkey and the bear cub picked out recently.  The pattern is McCall's 6875, which is a favorite to see on the girls.  For these, I am leaving off the straps because both the nerdlet and the bear cub have taken to chewing on their straps constantly.

I should have them all finished tomorrow.  I'll try to remember to post pictures.

A few more sewn items for the girls

I spend a large portion of last weekend tracing off a bunch of Ottobre patterns for the girls (from the last two children's editions).  This week I have sewn a bit even though I haven't posted along with my finished items.

First version 8 of McCall's 6875.  This is a straight size 4.  When I asked who wanted to model it, the nerdlet gladly volunteered.  Her mood did an about face the moment I pulled out the camera to take pictures.

Next I did a couple of versions of Ottobre 1-2014-13 (Blue Orange) in a double-sided rayon and cotton knit from Jo-Ann's.  This fabric is so soft the girls were all willing to try it out and wear it for me.

 Like the bow?

It's a straight size 110 and as you can see it turned out way, way to big, but I did do a pretty good job of stripe matching.

Though it isn't going to last since when I sew it smaller the stripes are unlikely to still match and I don't plan on taking the whole thing apart, but just sew down the sides.

The second version of this is the same fabric but with the stripes on top and the diamonds on bottom.  For this one, I just serged off 1 1/2 inches off each side (so 6 inches total), and you can see that it fits a lot better and still has room.

The last piece that I just finished is a pair of ruched leggings.  This is Ottobre 1-2014-15 (Green Lines) and is in a size 110 in length and a size 86 in width.  I made them in a lavender crushed panne.  I love this stuff but I rarely use it because I have been told it is beyond the lines of taste.  That doesn't stop me from using it altogether.  The nerdlet loves her new leggings and has said that she would like them in every color.

This leggings are great for her.  She has never had a pair that has fit her so well.  I'm not sure I'll make a pair in every color, but she'll get at least a few more before I start looking for a non-ruched legging pattern for her.

I actually have a number of the other patterns I traced already cut out and still another pile that needs to have fabric picked for it.