SewBaby News

One of my fondest memories of the holidays as a child was decorating the Christmas tree with silver icicle strands.  Does anyone remember these?  I was reminded of them when I saw this metallic silver slinky fabric at Hancock fabrics spot the bolt table last year.  It was $2.89 a yard and I got 3 yards of it.  Slinky is what knits that are made of acetate are sometimes called, and the name fits it well.  The fabric just likes to slither away from you when you try to press it.  Thank goodness it doesn't wrinkle much! I don't want to give you the wrong impression- it wasn't that hard to sew with, but the pressing was really impossible. I've seen this kind of knit a lot in travel catalogs because of it's wrinkle resisting qualities.  It used to be very expensive to buy by the yard, but I don't see much of it around in the fabric shops these days.  Probably because it is just so slithery to work with!  Emma One Sock has some great tips for ...

This is my daughter, Ariana.  How old would you guess her to be?  I know she looks young, but she is actually 27.   And she still loves pajamas with feet. She's been asking me to make her a new pair for a while.  I've been putting the project on the back burner, and was in no hurry to do it.  So she made me an offer that I couldn't refuse.  "Mom- if I made a flourless chocolate cake, would you make me the pajamas now?" Who could pass up that offer? She wanted them to be made of natural fibers, not polyester.  So, we found some french terry in the SewBaby fabrics that was perfect- thick enough to be warm, but breathable so she won't get too hot. Finding a current pattern with feet that was designed for knits proved to be impossible.  There are several jumpsuit type pajama patterns, but none of them have feet.  And there is a Kwik Sew women's pattern with feet, but it was designed for woven fabrics.  She is petite, so I went ba...

It's been glorious weather here in Illinois.   We're in harvest season, and the field behind our house, (which I posted photos back in June when the corn was growing here ), has now been combined and all that is left is little stalks.  It's a whole different kind of beauty, and I love watching the field in all of the seasons.   I also love making clothes that reflect the time of year, and this dress is meant to do just that.  The burgundy, the muted green, the burnt orange- all remind me of the changing foliage.   The pattern is Butterick 6166 .  It's a knit dress with a faux wrap overlay and a drape across the waist. I like that you feel like it is a wrap, but you don't need to worry about the wind.  The fabric that I used is 100% cotton jersey from Hancock fabrics.  It has a horizontal stripe which you can see from the back.  I wasn't sure I wanted the horizontal stripe going all the way around, so I turned the overlay to ...

Fabric Mart is having an incredible Home Dec sale r ight now, and I ordered two yards of fabric for recovering some throw pillows- 1 solid and 1 print.   The one thing that I have learned over the years in making pillow covers, is that the home dec fabric really is superior to using regular cotton fabric.  Pillows actually take quite a bit of stress, and regular cotton fabric will tear and wrinkle,  but home dec fabric doesn't. I use down pillow forms that I got from IKEA in various shapes and sizes.  I like down-filled pillows because they seem to last longer than regular polyester filled pillows, and I can just change the covers on them. And you cannot beat IKEA's price on them!  They are the same price that you would pay for polyester filled pillows at a regular fabric store. Again, you really need home dec fabric to use down pillows, as it is dense and won't let the pointy feathers through.   Those feathers will manage to get through on...

Meet my new best friend- McCall's 7249.   How is it that putting extra fabric around your midsection can actually help you to look like you've got a smaller waist?  I can't explain it, but this pattern does exactly that!  Here is my first version with what I call my EKG print.  I wasn't really sold on the print, but it was cheap, and now that I see it in a dress, I really love it! Here is my second version with a fun chevron knit print: I was feeling in the mood for some new dresses, and even went to JCPenney to try some on, but ended up  at Hancock fabrics instead, and picked up this pattern.  Here are all of the views included.  The dress takes about 2-1/2 yds.   My fabrics are both ITY knits that I also picked up at Hancock's on a different visit.  I had said that I was going to stay away from polyester, but these both feel so nice!  Of course it is the perfect weather for them also-not too hot, not too cold....

If you are a long time Ottobre Woman subscriber, you probably know the feeling of going through all of your old issues to find just the right style to suit you at a particular moment  It can be a little confusing, flipping back and forth, comparing one thing to another. Alice Hall from Abilene, TX  has come up with a solution!  She has taken the time to compile all of the Ottobre line drawings from 2006-2015 by specific garment type.  It's fantastic!  Now I can just thumb through this, instead of going through 10 years of magazines!  She's organized it by garment type, fabric type and even by sleeve type!  Alice has given me permission to share her work with you.  She would like for everyone who is interested to have access to the index so they can see how great Ottobre patterns are!  Here are a couple of pages from it for you to see, but there are many, many more! Alice created it in Powerpoint because it is easy to move photos around...

Have you heard of SABLE?  Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy?  Well, I've achieved it. If you'd like to take some beautiful fabrics off of my hands for a good price, please check out the fabrics below.  If you click on the links below the photos it should take you to my Google photo albums for each group.  For some reason, the links don't work from the Bloglovin reader, but they do if you are on the blog directly. Each group has at least 10 items in it, which the descriptions and prices included.  All are good quality apparel fabrics- many are just colors that I've decided aren't the best for me, or too similar to other fabrics that I also have in my stash. Price varies, but average of $10/yard.  Free shipping to US included for orders of 3 or more pieces.  Please send me your address for postage quotes for 1-2 pieces ,or if you are out of the US.  E-mail me at sewbaby at sewbaby dot com if you would like to order any of these fabrics. ...

Certain people think that I am like Samantha in "Bewitched", and can just wiggle my nose; and voila-  a garment appears!  Those certain people would be: my adult daughters. My youngest daughter left for 6 week work trip to Bangladesh this morning, and yesterday morning, she picked out her fabric and pattern for me to make her a work appropriate tunic for that part of the world.  So, I didn't get a photo of her in it, but I did manage to snap a few on the dress form.   She chose this lavender and green ikat print from SewBaby, and Butterick 4238. This is an out of print pattern, but with the asymmetrical hemlines, I think it still is very current.  I made View B, and the body pieces are cut on the bias, which I think looked pretty interesting with the ikat print.  It only took 2 yards which is pretty great for a long sleeve tunic cut on the bias!  I raised the neckline about 1 inch, per her request, and I also raised the spot on the patter...

   I got to wondering if I could tone down the neon pink in the dress from my last post if I dipped it in a black dye bath, so I gave it a try last night.  I knew that my fabric was synthetic, and probably wouldn't take a lot of dye, but if it had a hint of nylon in it, it would absorb something.  Here's what it looked like in the bath:  I used a standard RIT dye with vinegar and hot water.  Most of the dye washed out, and what I was left with was slightly more purple and less neon than the original.  It also changed the black and white houndstooth to black and grey.  My daughter saw it this morning, and absolutely loved it, so she's wearing it to work today.  It's hard to capture the neon-ness of the pink in the photos, but this is what it was before: I've used dye a few times now to make a garment more to my liking, and it's really fun.  It does take some time, as you've got to stir, stir, stir, and then rinse, rinse, ...

Some pattern companies identify their patterns by numbers, some give them names- often a female first name.  But Ottobre gives each design a a name that often describes the item, or the situation it will be worn in.   This design was called "An Ordinary Day".  This dress is anything but ordinary!  I would have called it "A Very Crazy Day".  Just what you need to wear when everything around you is chaotic.  Here's the line drawing from the issue- this is the Fall/Winter 2015 Ottobre Woman- available here .  In looking at this again, I didn't get it quite right!  My front center panel goes all of the way.  Darn it! Let's start from the beginning- the tracing.   This is basically the same design as another dress in this issue- #1- Twig.  I made Twig when I first got this issue here, and wanted to test the fit of it before I delved into the pieced version.  But while tracing Twig, I also traced the lines for the Ordi...