Jalie 2805 and McCall's 6500

The girl that I've been tutoring, who I have nicknamed Rumplestiltskin's daughter because her dad is an evil troll that kept her trapped in a hovel and didn't give her any care or even take her to school, has been working really hard at catching up with her schooling.  I've created a learning plan and schedule for what we need to cover each day to catch her up for school when it starts.  After she finishes her day's plan, she is more than willing to do a craft with my girls and their cousin or to work on learning to sew.  This past week she sewed her first skirt and t-shirt.

The skirt is a simple tube made to her measurements.  She cut and sewed it with my guidance.  It's part of a costume that she's making.  I've been posting updates about it as she finishes pieces on Facebook and then I was telling my mom about what a great job she was doing and I got in trouble.  Apparently it is a secret so don't tell her that I'm bragging about her progress in studying and sewing every chance I get.

I think the only reason that I get pictures is because she doesn't realize that she can tell me no yet.  She didn't take off her denim capris before trying them on so it looks tighter than it is.  The picture is blurry because I forget sometimes to turn back on autofocus for things like this and I didn't want to ask her to change into it again.

Then she made the Jalie 2805 t-shirt in size T.  She traced it and pinned and cut it.  She sewed all but the hems for the bottom and the sleeves, which I did on the coverstitch machine.  I helped some with the collar, too.

She is so lovely and the shirt fits her well, but she is really self conscious in it that we may make the next one in a larger size.  It's actually really close fitting with little ease so I'll definitely take that into account when I make this pattern for me or my girls.

The other thing I was going to show is MIL UFO #6, which is McCall's 6500.  I actually bought this pattern and a couple like it to compare the different companies peasant style dresses, and I may or may not have even paid for the fabric, so I'm not really sure that this is really an MIL UFO so much as a dress I was going to make that I ended up making after all.

The dress was made for the bear cub, but the nerdlet is modeling it to earn enough Mommy faction to stay up late today.  There were a couple of changes.  I used 1/8 inch elastic instead of 1/4 inch elastic.  The trim was cut in half because when I received the pieces only half the ruffle was cut and I didn't have any extra fabric so I simply sliced the ruffle in two and used that.  I also removed the two folds.  After those changes, this is what it looked like.

I didn't really care for how gigantic it looked so I took 10 inches out of the elastic for the neckline.  This was the final dress.

It's definitely too short for the nerdlet to wear out without leggings, but it should be a fine length for either the bear cub or Darth baby.

MIL UFO #5

This isn't really MIL UFO #5, but I'm not counting the ones that don't get shown.

My SIL posted the following on facebook about the Drama Princess:
"My daughter has just informed me the reason why she has so many stuffed animal is because grandma will buy her anything..."

We actually already knew this.  The reason that I'm mentioning it is because while my daughters don't get anywhere near as many stuffed animals, my nerdlet likes to ask for fabric.  When we go to the fabric stores, my MIL often comes home with fabric to make one or more of the girls clothing, especially the nerdlet who likes to handpick her fabric.  This is one of the fabrics that I would have tried to talk her out of, but my MIL just said okay and picked up a yard.  It actually has grown on me a lot since making the dress.  You can't see it but it sparkles from some sort of glitter in the fabric, which is quilting cotton.

I learned something making this dress.  When making piping, either make the trip to the store that has piping cord or order it online and wait for it to show up.  I decided to improvise by braiding 1/16" nylon crochet thread and while it works, it really is not worth the time and hassle.  I only braided about 100 inches and it took forever and I kept having to untangle knots.  I really felt the fabric needed something more to really look like a dress for a little girl.

Here the nerdlet is in action in her new dress.  The bear cub is wearing another finished MIL UFO that was made for the nerdlet, but was handy this morning so on the bear cub it went.

The girls were dancing around to this guy, who was one of the entertainers hired by Six Flags.  He was quite good and played a song just for the nerdlet upon request.

And here is a glimpse of the back.  There was no matching of design because that would a)take more fabric and b) wasn't cut out by me anyway.

I really like how much the piping adds to the dress and I'll likely pick up some cord the next time I hit Jo-Anns, or I might just try using the 1/16" crochet thread in a single piece and see how that goes.  I probably won't do it though until I make my way through the current UFO pile.

Jazz Musician

I was feeling the need to play with paint yesterday and decided that I needed to make my first palette knife painting.  I used acrylic paints and watched this video and went to work.

The first picture is with flash and the second without.  I finished them up this morning and they still need to dry.

I know it isn't great, but it is my first try and they look better in person.  I'm actually pretty pleased with the attempt.

Other than that I've been spending time teaching math and working on quick pieces in my MIL UFO pile - mostly shorts.  This isn't all of the ones I've done, but a quick pic from yesterday.

My pile grew once more and I think I'm not going to allow anymore to be added until I take care of the pile that I have.  It isn't like I don't have a ton of my own unfinished objects to take care of.

Ottobre 3-2012-18 Little Roses Version 2

This dress is Ottobre 3-2012-18 Little Roses Version 2 and also MIL UFO #4.  You can see version 1 here.  It's such a nice little dress.

The bear cub was more than happy to change into the new outfit, but she wasn't anywhere near as willing to stand still and model it, so I just snapped pictures as best I could as she ran back and forth laughing.

The first version of this dress has really grown on me and I already really like this second version.  For this version I extended the tucks from 3 1/2 inches to 5 inches, though I'm really not sure that one length is any better than the other.  The fabric is a really light weight cotton and perfect for this summer heat.

Ottobre 04-2013-14 Princess Castle

I have been camping my mailbox for this issue of the Ottobre magazine because I really wanted to make the nerdlet a mini-Tiramisu dress, and here it is.

I made a size 92 and lengthened it to 110.  I wish I could wake her up to try it on now.  It looks a little big for her, but I'm confident that it will drape well since my Tira's do.

I did make a few changes to increase the similarity.  I lengthened the waistband 1/2 inch and I turned the skirt into a full circle skirt (though Cake's Tiramisu is only 1/2 circle skirt).

I also bound it with bright red FOE from a new source, Elastic By the Yard.  They have a regular web store and also an etsy site and I bought it off their etsy site.  I love that they have so many more shades of colors than I've been able to find to date.  It's the same quality as I got from Sew Sassy Fabrics, which I have been happy with so far, but I was looking for a few more colors.

Edit:  Here is the nerdlet in the dress.

MIL UFO #3

This is another unidentified pattern, but at least it's a different one.  You won't see it in the previous picture of the UFO pile because it wasn't there.  When I went to my MIL's to get zippers for the first pile, there were a number of items that were added to the pile, this being the one one top.

The outside fabric is really nice.  It's one of those fabrics that looks different depending on what color fabric you place underneath it, but this feature isn't really showing in this dress because it is lined in white.  I'm actually not that happy with this one.  There are a number of unfinished seams and the invisible zipper isn't put in the way I like because in order to finish the seams and put the zipper in the way I would like would have required for me to take a significant amount of the dress apart.  My suspicion is that my MIL was using this as a sample for fit and lining and it wasn't really meant to be finished, but I went ahead and finished it anyway.  It's a functional dress and most of the unfinished seams are between the layers so aren't too big a deal.  The weakest part of the dress is the sleeves as they have only about 1/8 of an inch seam so I'm not sure how it will hold up under the large number of washes that all the girls' clothing undergoes.

I actually finished this on Tuesday, but I didn't have time to post it.  I've also finished the second draft of my skirt block, but haven't an opportunity to turn it into a skirt yet, though I will try to do that soon.  I also finally got my new Ottobre magazine and have already traced a few patterns off.

My life has taken an extreme turn to being so much more busy than before.  I have acquired another child to care for during the weekdays and together we are working very hard to cover over three years of material before she enters 7th grade in six weeks, so I'm not sure that I'll get much sewing done before September, though we are getting into a good study rhythm so I'm hopeful.

Wordless Wednesday