Two Birthday Cake quilt tops

The aunt I see most often is welcoming a granddaughter in December.  I've had little contact with my cousin just because of distance, and apparently his wife likes things that are pink.  Attempting to clear out some of the fabric that is in my house rather than acquire even more, I pulled out Acacia by Tula Pink.  I did need to supplement the pink colorway with four 1/4 yards as I primarily bought the blue/purple one.  I decided on Elizabeth Hartman's Birthday Cake pattern just because I wanted to try something quick without vast negative space.  

 I chose to make two versions because I had half yards of most of the prints and the pattern calls for fat quarters.  I plan to donate the second one.  Neither quilt really screams "baby" to me so I may change my mind and do something completely different for my cousin.

The pink one is growing on me a little bit.  Or perhaps I just make a third quilt top and see which one I like best.  I think I miss the negative space.

Corduroy and the Bee Fairy

My two decided to be Corduroy and a Bee Fairy for Halloween this year.

Corduroy's costume is made with a whole bunch of Oliver and S patterns.  The bear is hood is made with brown fleece from Little Things to Sew.  His shirt is a School Bus long sleeve t-shirt with brown Laguna Jersey and the chambray overalls use the base Sandbox pants with a basted overall part on top.  I hope that he will use the pants after I remove the overall part but we'll see.

The Bee Fairy has a Hula Hoop skirt from Oliver and S as well.  Yes, I am predictable as to my pattern company choices.  (And yes, I prefer to crop my kids' faces out of pictures I post.)

Pacific Crest for the shore

Our family back east has a new house at the shore.  Lucky for us, it significantly reduces the cost of going to visit that side of the family because we no longer have to contribute to a rental.  Not wanting to get something in exchange for nothing on our end (and because I like them and I know it would make her happy), I asked my sister in law if she would welcome the idea of a package arriving with a quilt for the new house. I do feel especially grateful that she appreciates the quilts I have made for her family and expresses her excitement and appreciation.  That makes me so much more willing to make more things for her.

And so she sent the decor for two of the rooms.  I chose the room with the above decor and went searching for fabric to coordinate.  I found a lovely clearance sale of Parson Gray fabric and bought mostly Seven Wonders with a little Curious Nature and World Tour fabrics mixed in.  

At this point, I can't remember my original plan for a pattern, but my sister in law's style is more traditional than modern.  Originally I chose a design with a lot of HST, but then Beyond Neutral by John Q. Adams (Quilt Dad) came out and I really liked the Pacific Crest quilt on the cover.  It was a nice balance of the number of HST and squares so the trimming process no longer seemed daunting.

The three year old helped me bring squares to the machine while I put together the top so one set in the upper corner is not quite the same as the normal pattern.  It did not affect the overall appearance so I chose to run with it rather than unpick.  Most likely you can't tell the difference.  

By the time I got to basting it, about a month ago, I was ready to be done so it is quilted with the normal meandering stitch in a cream thread.  

The weather did not cooperate today for outside pictures and I wanted to mail it off this weekend.  

Finished size: 72" x 84"

Pattern:  Pacific Crest by Quilt Dad in Beyond Neutral

Fabrics for top:  Seven Wonders by Parson Gray and Free Spirit Solids in Chamois

Binding:  Curious Nature Universe Academy

Quilted by me in a meandering stitch

Backing: Simple Marks by Malka Dubrawsky

Thoughts on fabric for the next color combination?  I think I might need a picture of the actual room all put together for this one.  

School Bus for the boys

 Not wanting to be left out, 2nd child wanted mom made clothes.  Unfortunately for him, he has myriad hand me downs from his cousins from both sides of the family.  If there is any shortage, it is in short sleeve t-shirts or long sleeve shirts without collars.  I think collared shirts must have been part of the dress code for his cousins based on the sheer number of them.

I debated whether or not I wanted to buy the smaller version of the School Bus pattern as he is on the upper end.  Good thing I did because it works for his larger cousin and for him.  He could probably get by with a 3T, but I made a 4.  His cousin happened to be here on the day I was making his two shirts and helped try them on in progress.  Turns out that the size 4 fits the cousin very well and leaves lots of room to grow for my own.   His cousin seemed to want to keep one of the shirts.

If I could change one thing about the animal shirt, I would use a contrasting neckband in brown.  But, I don't have a fantastic apparel store within an easy distance to go color match in person and a matching neckband works just fine.

O got 2 shirts from Monaluna knits.  His favorite one is the animal one because of all the different animals he can find on it.  Seems to me that I need to start buying some Euro knits for him that are quite busy because he'd like them.  And since I'm supplementing an ample wardrobe, I can try quality rather than quantity.   Even without substituting the ample wardrobe, I'm working on quality rather than quantity.

There was enough fabric leftover from the 3/4 yard cuts to get one more shirt.  The cousin shirt has the animals on the front and sleeves and the geo dots on the neckband and the back.  Although mine was quick to point out that it wasn't really a twin shirt because of the differences, I think he was happy that his cousin and him could sort of dress the same.  

Pink zig zag

Perhaps a logical way of catching up on the backlog of projects is to post the first few in terms of fabric use. Shortly after I started tackling my fears of knits in January, I bought 1.5 yards of pink zig zag from Patty Young's knit line.  The pictures online had a more purple look to them but it ended up being pink when it showed up.  

This week I finally got around to using the fabric.  Using her favorite Hopscotch pattern from Oliver and S, she now has a short sleeved version.  Like the Wonderland dress, this dress is hemmed a bit shorter after the picture.  It didn't quite pass the running test.  But look, I managed to sort of pattern match on the right side of the picture.  The light pinks are pretty good I think and it was an accident.  Wait, it was totally intentional....

Since this is quite a memorable print, I figured that I couldn't really get away with saving the leftovers and using it for another size t-shirt for my own child.  Lucky niece I hope.  Using the School Bus pattern from Oliver and S, her cousin now has a "twin" outfit.  Assembly line sewing did make it possible to get two shirts and the dress sewn before 1pm that day.

I made the mistake of attaching the neckline seam to the front and not noticing until I was hemming the bottom of the shirt.  No way was I unpicking my topstitched neckline with seam finishing and everything.  Instead we picked a lovely ribbon out of my mother's ribbon collection and sewed a bow on the center front of the neckline just like a shirt I had when I was growing up.  Hopefully it works.

I'm dreaming of acquiring a coverstitch machine.  Hems of knits are not my favorite.  Other than speed, I can mostly manage my normal machine for the parts that would be easier/faster with a serger.  

So, continuing the cost analysis.... $12.75 for the 1.5 yards and about $2 for Hopscotch and $3 for School Bus (which I've just recently acquired and have only used that sizing three times so far).   About $18 for the shirt and dress.  And I'm not counting shipping charges or sales tax.  That's not so easy to keep track of.

Wonderland dress

Sewing is still happening around here but a lot of it is revolving around clothing.  Today I sewed a Wonderland dress from Make it Perfect patterns (link below).  The fabric was purchased more than a year ago with the intention of making something for myself.  Alas that did not happen.  It was more than enough fabric to make a dress for the seven year old.  

 I experimented with using Wonder Tape to help make the pleats around the top of the skirt but it did not work as I envisioned.  Not recommended.  Exposed Wonder Tape and the presser foot are not friends.  I've never added the ribbon detail that the pattern has.  This time I considered it as I had yellow ribbon for the purpose but it didn't quite match.

 I found clear sparkly buttons for the bodice but I think it may be helpful to get some blue ones to break up the pattern.  The auto buttonhole feature worked for 1.5 of the 3 buttonholes.  The last one does not look so good .  Luckily it is the bottom button and won't be used often if at all.  Since taking the picture, the dress has been shortened by 1 more inch.  I made a size 8 because the size 7 is getting too short and a little snug.  The bodice is pretty loose and the dress seems to have quite a lot of room to grow.  Looking back this one is not far off the previous one in terms of fit.  And that one lasted for 2 years.

I do love the style of dress, but it is not my favorite dress to make.  The sleeves require a lot of slow sewing and sometimes some unpicking and trying again.  I manage to fold over little bits of the sleeve and have to redo it.  The pleats are a nice detail but also not my favorite part to sew.  Overall I do love the dress, and next time it should be one of the first items I make in the middle of the summer so I can take multiple days.

I've been attempting to calculate and inventory the stash because I've sewn quilts for charities more this past year and need to know the value of the donations.  (Labor is not factored in as part of that calculation so I only calculate materials).  It does make tracking the approximate cost of sewing clothes a bit easier.  I did not measure exactly how much fabric was left as I didn't have a starting yardage amount (and I used the amount required on the pattern envelope for this calculation).  I also had to estimate what I paid for the fabric by using the receipt from another fabric of the same line.  This is about a $25 dress when I add in the cost of the pattern and adjust it for the number or times the pattern is used (5 times so far).   Not a perfect calculation but it gives me a sense of how much it took to make the dress.

fabric Alegria by geninne  Blooms by Cloud 9 Fabrics
Wonderland dress by Make it Perfect

I'll slowly start to work through blogging my finished projects.  I wish I took before pictures of my other summer project.  Lots of blackberry, brush and ivy removal at my parents' house this summer.

And who is shooting off fireworks this evening?  It's the end of August.

Sunbeams finished and gifted

     Some time ago, I finished the Sunbeams quilt being made for the mother of my husband's best friend.  

Fabrics: Perfect Pairings by Kim Diehl
Pattern:  Sunbeams by It's Sew Emma
Size:  48 x 60 (ish....I didn't measure after washing. )
Quilted by me with loops

And if I don't manage to post about this now, it will sit as a partially written blog post with pictures only for weeks more.  It's gifted and appreciated with the intention of being appreciated more when it isn't 90 degrees outside.