SewBaby News

This post is by Emily from Illinois. I was inspired to make the SewBaby Reversible Sundress for my daughter after finding the quirky Ivy League Bees print by Jay McCarroll (of Project Runway fame) for Free Spirit. For the contrasting side we found some gorgeous Kaffe Fassett fabric in a bright garden print. This is a medium weight woven, not quite a home dec weave, but pretty sturdy. I was a little nervous that it would make the dress too heavy, but I think it gives the finished product some nice body and helps with skirt swing out.     Technique wise, I used a walking foot for sewing the front and back together. This made it easier for me to keep the pieces lined up perfectly, but a walking foot definitely is not required for this project. Before cutting the fabric I traced the 18 month size of pattern using Swedish tracing paper , so I can reuse the pattern for making gifts or larger sizes. I used 2 buttons back to back on both sides of the dress so it is truly reversible. Just

I bought this lovely Prada silk cotton voile and hunted for a loose fitting tunic top pattern to make it into.  I found Burda 7486 and thought it looked like it had interesting lines.  Although I'm a Burda magazine subscriber, I hadn't bought one of their envelope patterns in a while, and was surprised at how confusing I found it to be. First of all, the printing was terrible- very, very faint, and nearly unreadable.  The type face is extremely small-  maybe like an 8 point.   There are three columns of instructions- a column each for French, English and Spanish, and then one column of illustrations.  Second, the illustrations were severely lacking, and weren't lined up with the instructions that they correspond to (although they are numbered, so you can figure that out).  There is an option to put this on the bias, as in the striped view, but no layout diagram to guide someone who would not know how to do that.  And when I saw both grainlines on the pattern pieces, I re

Timeless Treasures has several new fabric lines out.  They are so pretty in person.  The colors are rich and saturated, and the hand so soft, that we couldn't resist playing around with them. Shirley, my assistant, loves to make bags, and she chose the Purple Berkeley line to make a sample of our Double Duty Bag above. Shirley's mother-in-law, Ruth, made several samples from the Momo line :   The green booties are from our Snap Happy Bootie pattern ,  the yellow backpack is from our Totpacks pattern , and the black bib is from the Hug-Me-Bibs pattern . I chose the Berkeley Blues collection to make this Easy Pieces Jumper and Easy Pieces Pants sample outfit.  It's a size 4T. The great folks at Timeless Treasures displayed these samples at the Spring Quilt Market, but now they are back in our hands, and we are ready to give them away ! (Just the samples, not the fabrics!) Give-Away Guidelines: To register for the giveaway, just leave a comment on my blog, and