Bra making

 This is a bra I made for my nerdlet last year.  It's actually the smallest size of a Jalie shelf bra lining pattern.  It is Kate's favorite and she wears it pretty much non stop so I am overdue for making her another one.

 

 

I started her two more yesterday while Q took the girls to his mom's for a visit, but she said they were too tight so I had to start over.  As long as I was tracing another size, I changed the pattern completely.  Here is the original.

And here are the changes I made.  I actually have them folded in half here as I find it is much easier on projects like this to not cut on the fold, but as a single flat piece.

And here is her finished bra.  Q took the girls to the movies so I don't actually know for sure that it will fit her, but if it doesn't, I will try it out on the bear cub and the engineer.  I made it from the leftover double brushed knit fabric from where I made pants in this post, so it is super soft.  If it does fit I'll be using the other left over fabric from the other pair of pants in that post.

Simplicity 3503

 So my favorite dress is a version of Simplicity 3503.  It was a pattern that was very popular when it was released in 2009.  I don't know when I made my first one.  I looked through my blog here and my pictures on facebook and I could only find a few pictures of me in it from one of my daughter's birthday parties, and they don't exactly show off the whole dress.

 
Here is a picture of the whole dress that I took last night.

Ever since I have made the first one, I have intended to make more, but somehow I have always put it off for other projects.  For Mother's Day, my husband has been trying to give me as much time this weekend to sew as possible for a semi sewcation.  So I made another one.  I actually lost the instruction sheets for the pattern so this was likely made slightly differently.  I'm actually super happy about this one.  

I am rather fond of polka dots though I very rarely wear them or make anything with them, but these I think are very nice.

I have 3 more cut out.  Here are the waistbands for them so you can see the fabrics.  I'll probably make the middle next simply because I have black thread in the sewing machine and serger.

Remaking school shirts

 What to do when the school sends an adult large t-shirt for your 70 pound 5 ft 14 year old...

Well, if you are me, you turn it into a dress for her.  I used a ready to wear dress as a pattern, but the fabric on the original dress has more stretch and so while this dress fits her, it is definitely more snug than I had intended, and I should have made her straighten the right sleeve before I took the picture but I cut them the same.vvShe loves it though.

This is the dress that I used as a template.  It is a size 12 kids from Zulilly.

Ottobre 2-2020-2

 These were made in size 40. Darth Monkey asked me to make cactus pants for her teacher. I decided to try the pattern out on my daughter first and she chose this pink and purple tie dye double brushed knit fabric (from califabric.com) which is super soft and similar to the cactus fabric (from fabric.com). I changed the drawstring waist band to an elastic band on my daughter's pants and a simple yoga band on the cactus pants.

Darth Monkey in her pants

Holding her teacher's pants

This is the first time where I have made something for someone else without taking any measurements and I made them in my daughter's pants size 40 and I hope they fit well. I do like the pattern and am considering making them in my size (much larger than 40).

Mola Masks

In Panama and Columbia, there is a indigenous tribe of people called the Kuna (apparently now called Guna).  They make a fabric art called molas, which are pictures sewn using reverse applique.  When I lived in Panama, I felt in love with them and I regularly wore clothing that had molas sewn into/on them.  

The last time I was browsing on Spoonflower, I found that there were some fabrics that depicted molas and I decided that I needed some.  I bought this one.  

I decided to make masks.  I used the mask pattern that I used in my last post.  The rectangle in the fabric are much smaller than my mask pattern so even with fussy cutting, I had to improvise quite a bit.  I'm still rather pleased with how they came out.  

  I also decided to try to make one without the seams across to see  how it would affect the look and feel.  That is the bottom one in these two pictures.

It really doesn't feel that much different, but it make the folding a little weird. The pictures don't really do them justice, and they don't really do justice to real molas.  I actually really like how they turned out and for me, they are really nostalgic from when I lived in Panama.  

New style of mask

 I know an awful lot of  people aren't wearing masks anymore, but we still are.  I found a new mask pattern that I really like.  It is by far the most comfortable mask to wear that I've tried so far, especially for a long period of time.   After wearing it for a couple of hours, I immediately went looking for the pattern.

The pattern that I found which seems identical even down to the sizing is from this youtube.  The actually printed pattern is here from a dropbox.  I have traced all four sizes and made the small, medium, and x-large so far.  

The small fits my three year old perfectly.  I would say it is meant for children 2-8 ish.  You can actually cut out 3 small masks from a fat quarter if you are very conservative with the fabric.  For all other sizes, you will only get 2 masks from a fat quarter.

Here is the grandbaby wearing hers.  This size mask also barely fits the bear cub, who is 12, but she is much more comfortable in the medium.

The medium size is probably meant for ages 9 to small adult.  It fits my (almost)14 year old fine, but my 10 year old feels it is too confining.  She will be more comfortable in a large, which is probably sized for most women.

The X-large is very comfortable for me and my husband.  I considered making an extra pattern for XXL, but I am not going to unless I find someone that needs a bigger size than this XL.  This was my first attempt, which came out fine and my husband has claimed, but I am using a different technique to insert the elastic for the ears.  I am now putting the elastic immediately after turning the mask inside out.

I will be making a bunch of these because they fit so well, maintain their shape, and are so comfortable.  I bought the nose wire and elastics on Amazon.  The Minnie fat quarter is one the grandbaby chose at Walmart (it was supposed to be for a hair bow).  The other fabrics were from fabric.com.  

Simplicity 6895 version 4 and more of 6

Here is version 4 made for Darth Monkey when she was this size, but now worn by the grandbaby, who is very tall for 3 1/2.  This was the bear cub's favorite version of this dress, but for once it didn't seem to phase her that I put it on the grandbaby.  So I guess the bear cub likes her new version.

 

I couldn't get the bear cub to pose for me.  She was too interested in A Bug's Life.  

These girls love each other so much.

Next up are two more versions, but I don't know how long that will take for me to get to.  I can't just sit and sew as much as I used to and I wear out much sooner.  I am enjoying blogging my sewing again though and I do wish I had a sewing record of what I have done while I wasn't blogging.