SewBaby News

Wow- it's July already!  I haven't posted much this year, but I was sewing or thinking about sewing quite a bit.  If you follow my blog, you know that my daughter had a very serious surgery in May, and most of my Spring sewing was devoted to making her some loungewear for her to wear while she recuperated.  My daughter's big surgery went very well, and she is recovering amazingly fast.  She'll be returning to work in just 10 days (the surgery was in mid-May).  After we knew she was going to be fine, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted, and I immediately went out and cut off all my hair!  I don't know if that's a normal reaction or not, but it just seemed like the thing to do- to just lighten up!  I hadn't had such a drastic cut in many years, but it really feels good. I did make her a couple of new dresses while I was staying with her during her recuperation, and, unfortunately, the pretty robe that I made for her got lost in the hospita...

Follow my blog with Bloglovin Please indulge me as I digress from sewing.  Today is my daughter's 23rd birthday, and she is in the Peace Corps in Madagascar- so far from home!  She and I share a love of gardening, so I took a walk around the yard to show her how beautiful the flowers are this year.  Hopefully she will be able to get to a computer soon and enjoy these from 10,000 miles away. Gardening is another passion of mine, and when we built our house in 2001, we started from scratch with a blank slate. We are on the very edge of town, so our yard backs up to a grain field.  Here is the Illinois sky. There were years when we didn't think anything would ever grow, as the topsoil had been removed from the site by the developers, and all that was left was hard clay.  It was so hard, it actually broke the tines on a tiller when we tried to till a vegetable garden!  But with lots of composting and mulch over the last 15 years, it is now ...

Have you ever tried wrap pants?  I've tried wrap dresses and even a wrap culotte jumper from the 70's. But never wrap pants, so I had to try Vogue 9191 , a five piece wardrobe with two ponchos, wrap pants, shorts and a crop top. Not knowing whether this was a style that I wanted to wear, I didn't want to invest too much money in it, so I hopped down to our local WalMart (or the evil empire as it is known in our house), and found some amazing fabrics for $1.50/yard!  The white is a loosely woven cotton dobby, which I thought could fringe well for the poncho, and the blue is a polyester challis.  So, for all three pieces, my fabric cost was only $9. The pants are so much fun.   In motion, they are really pretty.  I had a couple of concerns- how to go to the bathroom and what happens in the wind.  Neither of those things turned out to be a big deal.  Going to the bathroom was surprisingly easy- just untie the back and flip it over your sh...

Options are good to have, especially in Illinois, when the weather can turn from freezing to blistering hot in a few days.  So, I made another pair of pajamas for my daughter to wear while she recuperates from surgery.  These will also coordinate with the robe that I made here.  This time I used the short sleeved version of Kwik Sew 2811 and the shorts and top from Kwik Sew 3882.  I used Caravan Dreams Climbing Vines in Orange for the body and Field Day Cherries for the contrast. I had just enough piping left from the robe to accent the pocket with yellow piping.  And I used pink buttons for the front. The collar is from the cherry print: The for the shorts and tank, I used a grey rayon knit for the tank, and the same fabrics for the shorts. I serged the tank with peach and yellow thread, and then turned that to the right side of the neckline and armholes. The shorts have a paperbag waist with elastic, and a drawstring.  ...

Did you know that "separate" is the most commonly misspelled word in the English language? At least according to The Telegraph .  I am not surprised, as I had to look it up to write this post about separates!   I could have just written "Linen Jacket, Pants, and Top", but then I wouldn't have found out that interesting bit of trivia. I bought McCalls 7368 specifically for the jacket, but then decided that the whole pattern was pretty darn nice, and decided to try some of the other pieces as well.  This is a Khaliah Ali pattern which are designed to be flattering on larger sizes, so I usually feel confident that they will be a good bet for my figure.   I love seeing her as the model too.  I think she is so pretty, and how nice it is to see a real curvy woman on the cover!   I had three pieces of the new designer linen from Fabric Mart , and my vision for them was something Eileen Fisher-esque.  I admire  Eileen Fisher styles for t...