Playtime Dress

 Next up on the Oliver + S fall pattern preview is the Playtime Dress, Tunic + Leggings (available in sizes 6M-12). After consulting with my client (aka my daughter), she chose the dress (View A) because she is more of a dress (with tights) kind of girl rather than a tunic with leggings kind of girl, at least for the time being. Which is totally fine by me, after all I do love making dresses (I'm pretty sure you have guessed that by now).

 This one is the easiest and quickest pattern to sew up from the 3 new fall patterns. Our favorite detail in this dress? The pockets! My girl insists on having pockets on the majority of her clothing items, so what a bonus that pockets are included in this design (now I don't have to figure out how to add them myself)! And how I love that they are topstitched and also sewn all the way through the layers of the pockets and the front of the skirt, so the pockets stay nice in place all the time (so much easier ironing the pockets with them that way, too). Another detail I like is the understitching at the neckline to keep the facing from showing when the dress is worn, a nice professional touch.

 After attaching the skirt to the bodice it says to finish the seam allowances using your preferred method. Lately I've been using bias binding to finish the bodice/skirt seam in a coordinating fabric. Just a little hidden detail that I'm loving at the moment.

 Playtime was a great pick for a name because it is very roomy and she can definitely run around and play in it. I think it has a bit of a super cute Japanese sewing book vibe going on, don't you think? I have a bunch of gray linen in my stash, maybe I'll make a Playtime tunic in that...

 I predict we will be seeing all different types of Playtime Dress/Tunic/Leggings all over blogland in the future as it is such a nice and simple silhouette. The Playtime pattern reminds me of the Rollerskate Dress/Tunic in that the design is like a blank canvas, ready for you to play with. With the options of woven or knit fabrics, the sky is the limit. You could really have fun with color blocking with this design. How about something in knits like the first one here? As of right now, I already have plans for a couple of future outfits using this sewing pattern. Church choir has a dress code of white top, black bottom, so I was thinking of doing color block dress with white sleeves and bodice with a black skirt, but on the white top maybe trying something black for the faux collar, like the heat-set pearls idea shown here.

 Project Details
Pattern: Oliver + S Playtime Dress, Tunic + Leggings (difficulty level: 2 out of 4 scissors)
Size: 5
Modifications: I sewed the dress which is View A, but with the topstitched collar from View B.
Fabrics:
Dress: Heather Ross, Briar Rose, Strawberry in pink (woven)
Bias binding (on the bodice/skirt seam): Heather Ross, Briar Rose, Calico in pink (woven)
Notions: Three 5/8 inch red buttons from my stash
Inspiration: The word 'playtime', I used the Briar Rose line because I find it to be very playful and cute for girl's and doll's clothing. Maybe we will see other variations of the Playtime pattern done in Heather Ross' Briar Rose fabric line especially since they are available in both woven and knit prints.

 I couldn't resist sharing a few photos of just the Popover Doll dresses I sewed up. I have sewn up some size 8 Popover Sundresses, but had never sewn up the doll version. They sure turn out teeny tiny and adorable, don't they?

 Doll dress pattern: Oliver + S Popover Doll Dress which is for an 18 inch doll. Our doll dresses look a little on the long side and that is due to the fact that our dolls are 15 inch baby dolls (she is saving up her money to buy her first 18 inch doll, though).
Fabrics: Heather Ross, Briar Rose, Strawberry in pink (woven) and Calico in pink (woven)

See you soon, up next is the Art Museum Vest + Trousers (girl's look).

Library Dress

 This past week Oliver + S introduced their newest fall patterns, have you had a chance to see them all yet? If not, you must go see the introductions for the Art Museum Vest + Trousers, Library Dress, and Playtime Dress, Tunic + Leggings.

 And I have some really good news for you, they are all now available for purchase starting TODAY, both in paper or digital format.  

 I had the pleasure of sewing up all three of the Oliver + S fall 2013 sewing patterns for their fall pattern preview. I'm super excited to share with you what I have made. First up is the Library Dress (available in sizes 6M-12), a faux wrap dress with a wide waistband with piping, pleated skirt, button closure all the way down the back. Options include short or 3-quarter length sleeves with notched cuffs and with or without a collar. I consulted my daughter to see what she wanted from the choices. She picked short sleeves without the collar.

 This was the first time that I ever sewed with flat piping which turned out great, I want to challenge myself by trying new things. I chose pink for the waistband and purple for the flat piping to match and bring out the pink and purple in the largest flower in the print fabric. I'm so pleased with how it turned out, a perfect tailored fit.

 This is my favorite sewing pattern from the fall 2013 Oliver + S patterns. It is a super cute shorter (above the knee) design with fun details like the wide waistband with piping, the collar, and sweet pleats on the skirt. Next time I would like to sew one with the collar. Looking for fabric ideas for this one? How about cherry blossom print fabric, brocade, or solid color fabrics for more of a color block look.

 Project Details
Pattern: Oliver + S Library Dress (difficulty level: 2 out or 4 scissors)
Size: 5
Modifications: Short sleeves from View A and collarless from View B
Fabrics:
Main fabric: Anna Maria Horner, Hand Drawn Garden, Centerpiece Sunlight
Waistband: Pink cotton (broadcloth)
Waistband (flat) piping: Purple cotton (Kona)
Notions: 9, .5 inch white buttons
Inspiration: My inspiration came from this faux wrap dress. I really liked the large floral print with white background and the pink at the waistline.

See you soon, up next is the Playtime Dress.

Fabric-Covered Headbands

 {Handmade hair accessories week}

Today it's fabric-covered headbands… For these I went to Sally Beauty and bought a set of 3 headbands called Style It Up Glitter Headbands. I removed the glitter fabric covering, so I would have just the plastic headband. For these particular headbands I suggest cutting 1.75 inches of fabric on the bias maybe about 15 inches long. With right sides together sew about a 3/8 or 1/2 inch seam allowance and cut off 1/4 inch of the seam allowance, turn it right side out and slip it over the plastic headband. Cut off any excess fabric, tuck in the ends and hand sew the ends shut.

 These could definitely be worn as is, but look how cute they look with the felt bows and the fabric bow hair ties! So many possible looks with just one headband!

 The first 3 will go with her striped dress.

 The last one will go with her Gabriella dress.

And it just so happened that I already had some bias strips cut out (or at least some fabric already cut on the bias) from scraps from these 2 dresses, making this a super duper quick and easy project. Keep that in mind when you are cutting out a pattern that requires bias strips, why not cut out enough extra bias strips to make a fabric-covered headband?

It was fun to make all these hair accessories this past week, they are definitely instant gratification projects (so much quicker than sewing a dress!)

Bow Hair Ties

{Handmade hair accessories week}

More hair accessories… the previous days I shared ones made with wool felt: the felt bow hair clips and the felt-covered barrettes… now moving on to fabric. Following the Oliver+S free bow hair tie pattern and tutorial, I went digging through my fabric scraps looking for leftovers from outfits I've already sewn for my girl, you know, so that her hair accessories could match or coordinate with her clothing. I sewed 7 so far, tied them to elastic ponytail holders and voilà!

PS She won't be wearing them all together like this, just for displaying them for the photo to share with you :o)

Felt-Covered Barrettes

{Handmade hair accessories week}

Well this is embarrassing.. I have been meaning to make some of these felt-covered barrettes for several years (they come from an Angry Chicken blog post from 2007)! These are cute little felt sleeping bags for plain metal barrettes. Most of them I hand sewed a button on, but for the light blue ones I sewed on 3 teeny tiny jingles bells. Fun and easy, try making some yourself if you haven't already.

PS She won't be wearing them all together like this, just for displaying them for the photo to share with you :o)

Felt Bow Hair Clips

{Handmade hair accessories week}

We're getting ready for back to school and my studio has become a busy little factory for making hair accessories. Did I ever mention that my now 6 year old daughter has never had a hair cut? With her extremely long hair, something needs to be done with her hair to keep it out of her face, every morning before heading off to school. So these felt bows on hair clips should do the trick. I dug through my stash of wool felt (most of the wool felt came from here) and whipped up 7 bows following the Oliver+S free felt bow pattern and tutorial. Unfortunately my girl looses a lot of her hair accessories at school, and although I'd be disappointed if she lost some of these, I would only be a little disappointed as they take just a small amount of felt (of which I have plenty more in my stash), they are super easy and take only a few minutes to make. Now I'm off to make different hair accessories…

PS She won't be wearing them like this, just for displaying them for the photo to share with you :o)
PPS Looking for hair ideas? I did this post a while back about summer hair and Babes in Hairland has a lot of great ideas.

Hanami Tester's Blog Tour

 I had the pleasure of being a pattern tester for the Hanami, a new mix and match pdf pattern offered by An of Straightgrain.

You can purchase the Hanami in An's shop.

 The Hanami offers many choices:

• top or dress
• without or with slim peter pan collar
• tulip or regular flutter sleeves
• crossed back or invisible zipper back

I let my daughter pick what combination she wanted and she chose:

• dress 
• collarless
• regular flutter sleeves
• zippered back

 The fabrics:

• Jay-Cyn Designs for Birch Fabrics, Mod Basics 2, Organic, Poppies Sun. I won 2 yards of this fabric and can you believe that this dress used only one yard of fabric? (so now I have 1 yard remaining for a future sewing project!)
• Bodice lining is 100% cotton voile in white, I decided to do the lining for the flutter sleeves in the main fabric, instead of the lining fabric

 The instructions include very thorough charts with everything you would need to know about the amount of fabrics needed, dimensions of the finished garment, is in both inches and centimeters.

I'm so pleased with how this dress turned out. I sewed a size 4Y and the fit is perfect. I only used 1 yard of fabric which is exactly what the chart said was needed.

 My favorite things about the pattern:

• Very nice attention to details like understitching so the lining will stay in place
• I learned a new sewing skill: how to stitch a bodice lining to the zipper tape ~ love that! And will definitely use that again in the future
• I like the way the bottom of the invisible zipper is sewn into the skirt/bodice seam

My modifications:

• I did the lining for the flutter sleeves in the main fabric (instead of lining fabric)
• I decided to do French seams for the skirt side seams
• Instead of serging the skirt and bodice seam, I did bias binding on it
• I added a hook and eye closure above the invisible zipper

Be sure to visit Straightgrain August 19-28 to see all the variations the pattern testers sewed.