Making some progress

Here is the pocket sewn into the lining. I stitched it on after I ironed the interfacing so it would be stronger.

Oliver + S Jump Rope Dress . the finale

I finished the Oliver + S Jump Rope Dress a while ago and wanted to wait to show pics of Z in the dress. With Winter, that's just not going to happen anytime soon. One brighter day, I shot this picture of the dress in its current location. It's been hanging there like a painting and will continue to do so until Spring.

If you want to know more, follow the links from this post.

The hoop

So I've finished the hoop and sent it off to its new owner. I took this photo before I did some more stitching to the dots. I kept it simple but wanted to add a little bit of whimsy to it.

I'll post a final shot after it's arrived to its new home.

Oliver + S Jump Rope Dress

It's been over a month but I finally finished the Jump Rope Dress from Oliver + S. I had followed along with the sew-along as long as I could but then got really busy and really exhausted. I haven't done much sewing at all lately.

Yesterday was almost like a holiday so I spent the day voting (of course) and working on a few things around the house. I started by stitching the little buttons on the sleeves (vintage), then moved on to the snaps. I wasn't in the mood for buttonholes so I went with these lovely snaps I found at a thrift store. I love the little splash they add.

The pockets are to the other style that comes in the pattern envelope but I like them better. That's the amazing thing about sewing your own clothes -- you can do whatever you want. I'll take some pictures of Zadie in the dress soon.

Oliver + S Jump Rope Dress Sew-Along

I have been busy working on the Jump Rope Dress by Oliver + S. I've made the patterns before and own several but this one seemed challenging so I was afraid to get started. Due to the success of the last sew-along, Sew, Mama, Sew decided to host another one. A couple of bloggers are writing up step-by-step tutorials with photographs. It's been really helpful. It's not that I couldn't do it, but it's nice to actually SEE it in full color. This is my finished placket. It's perfect (as far as I'm concerned) and how crazy that the dots of the fabric are lined up in the center like that. I would not have been able to do that so well if I had actually tried. This will help me when I go on to make the shirtwaist dress I've been gearing up for.

This is the collar in progress. The directions in the pattern are super easy to follow. It's almost like she is teaching you to sew instead of telling you how to make a garment.

This is my machine basting of the sleeve seam. I hate basting by hand and I hate basting by machine but it really does save you time in the long run. I need to get over that.

Here is the fabric. The polka dots are Amy Butler and the rest is Lizzy House from Castle Peeps. A little bit of solid in there too.

Amy Butler's Patchwork Crib / Playtime Quilt

I bought Little Stitches for Little Ones from Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago using a hoarded birthday gift card (my birthday is in October). It's an absolutely gorgeous book with amazing photos and lots of images of Amy Butler's fabric. The format of the book is nice because it has a sturdy hardcover with a spiral binding to lay flat. All the patterns are in a cute little pocket. Overall it's great for inspiration because it's just so beautiful. Because of that, I bought a previous book of hers called In Stitches.

I decided to start with the quilt project because we really needed something for Zadie to play on in our living room. This is a perfect size. I nabbed this photo during naptime.

The book is really lacking in diagrams (and often photos of the completed pieces -- if you're a visual person and not good at following written directions then this probably isn't the book for you).

So, as you can see, I made my own quilt map using photocopies of the 4 diagrams that were in the book. I then color-coded the blocks so I would have a better visual. I also made a little key of the fabrics so that I wouldn't make any mistakes when cutting or piecing.

The fabric is the Funky Monkey line by Erin Michaels for Moda. I bought it a couple of years ago. The pattern calls for 4 fabrics but since I had so many I decided to add two more. I wanted to use the green number print and the crowd print to add some more color. If I hadn't, this would have been too baby-ish with all the pink and aqua. The green gives it a nice punch. Since the pattern of the blocks repeats, it was easy to make the switch.

The back of the quilt is the fabric that has the monkeys in a crowd. Half is cream and half is red. I put all of the cream pieces facing up and all the red pieces facing down so there wouldn't be an orientation to the quilt. I also used regular quilt binding that you can buy from the store. I just didn't have time to do any more ironing and cutting.

I absolutely love this. It turned out really well and I'm sure we'll have it forever. The hardest part was the cutting and a technique for quilting called stitch-in-the-ditch. I hadn't done that before and found it kinda challenging. But now that the quilt is finished, you can't tell how bad of a job I did. I also used really thin quilt batting. It's good for a play quilt but for my next quilt (see this post), I'm going to get something thicker.