Monday, April 30, 2012

Me Made May 2012


I, Brittany Cole of Crafty Woman Creations, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '12. I endeavor to have Billy or myself wear one piece of Me-made clothing at least 3 days a week for the duration of May 2012.

I don't have enough clothes that I have made for myself, but with the ones I made for Billy, I think we can wear them 3 days a week. I am not going to post every day or week. I will post a collection at the end of the month. Hopefully I will be able to make more clothes for myself over the next few weeks and I can wear me made more frequently than my current goal.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Kids Clothes Week Challenge - Days 6 & 7

I was able to finish Billy's new version of Washday Blues from "Making Baby's Clothes" I am really happy with how it came out. I will definitely be making more versions. Sorry I don't have a good picture. Snickerdoodle was a bit uncooperative.

I took about 50 pictures and most of them were like the second one.

Friday, April 27, 2012

Kids Clothes Week Challenge - Day 5

Today I was able to get a lot of work done on Billy's new outfit from "Making Baby's Clothes." I am working on the Washday Blues design agan since the first version I made was far to large for him.

I still have to finish the hems on the sleeves and the bottom. Then a good press. After that, the pants!


Thursday, April 26, 2012

Kids Clothes Week Challenge - Day 4

Today I am feeling much better. I was able to finish all 3 pairs of baby pants for Abel.


I am going to go start cutting the fabric for Noodle's outfit now!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Kids Clothes Week Challenge - Day 3

Yesterday afternoon I got "emergency wisdom tooth extraction" so I am not feeling incredibly crafty at the moment. However, I did want to work on the challenge at least a bit. Since I did not feel like sitting at the machine and sewing, I traced the pattern pieces for Billy's new version of Washday Blues from "Making Baby's Clothes."

I will try to get a bit more done tonight but I am not going to stress myself out trying to get at least an hour in today. Such is life.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Kids Clothes Week Challenge Day 2



Today, for the Kids Clothes Week Challenge, I worked on the pants for baby Abel. I continued with my assembly line approach and they have been coming together rather quickly.

Step 1: Sew all crotch seams.


Step 2: Trim to 1/4"


Step 3: Overcast edges.


Step 4: Press seams to the side. I usually press the front and back seams in opposite directions so there isn't a big bulky spot in the crotch.


Step 5: Repeat steps 1 - 4 for leg seams.

Step 6: Press up hems for the legs and waist bands.

Tomorrow I should be able to finish these up and start on some adorable pieces for the Noodle! I think I am going to make another version of Washday Blues from Making Baby's Clothes. This time I will make the 3-6 month size and hopefully it will fit. For the top, I am going to use the rest of the red gingham print fabric left from making these baby pants. I am going to use white twill left over from Billy's Halloween costume for the bottoms.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Kids Clothes Week Challenge - Day 1


For day 1 of the Kids Clothes Week Challenge I decided to make some little pants for my cousin Megan and her new baby Abel. He is not even 2 weeks old. I wanted to make a few different pairs to send her so I set up an assembly line.

Step 1: Choose fabric and pattern. My fabrics are all 100% cotton. I used my go to baby pant pattern from Made By RaeRaes Basic Newborn Pants.

red gingham print

my favorite green with white polka dots

white and black stripe seersucker


Step 2: Press

Step 3: Cut

Snickerdoodle started to fuss when I was finishing the cutting so it was my cue to clean up and cuddle. I did get in just a bit over an hour of work done so I met my goal. More tomorrow!

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Kids Clothes Week Challenge

I found the Kids Clothes Week Challenge at Elsie Marley. The goal is to work on kids clothes for at least 1 hour every day for one week. Check back each day this week to see my projects.


Thursday, April 19, 2012

More Home Made Baby Clothes

Handsome Man!
Last week I made these pants for Billy using Simplicity 3711. I used some "Specialty Cotton" from Joann's. I think it is seersucker?

Steve made the vest using Simplicity 2523. The outer fabric is corduroy and the lining is black cotton broadcloth. It has nonfunctional buttons on the front. The vest actually closes with sewn in velcro.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Stars


I made this outfit using patterns from Making Baby's Clothes. I made the outfit called Washday Blues in size 6-9 months. Sadly this outfit is huge on my little 9 month old Snickerdoodle. The pants are about 4 inches to long and he is swimming in the shirt. I don't think that he will even fit in it by the end of the summer but we will see. If he doesn't, I am sure I can find someone who will use it next summer.



I hand sewed on my home made bias tape on the bottom edge of the top and pants. The patterns add so much more pizzazz than single colored bias tape.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Baby Shower

We had a baby shower for one of our friends this weekend and so many ladies contributed their talents to make a wonderful party. I just figured I would share some of their amazing work.

Alicia made the cake.


Mary Kay made some wonderful decorations.


 Mary Kay's personalized water bottles.

Fancy flower pens for playing shower games.

The whole sign said "It's A Girl" but somehow I didn't 
manage to get the whole thing in a single picture. Adorable!

Krisztina made the white chocolate and coconut truffles 
for favors and the gifts for winning the shower games.



Little Miss Lauren made the M&M and pretzel tasties!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

The Easter Outfit

It is a bit hard to see in the pictures but I chose my palette based on the colors on the shirt. The flowers are navy blue with pale yellow centers and medium green leaves.


I made the skirt out of 2 pillowcases. I opened the side seams of each case an the sewed them together then gathered them at the top. I chopped a few inches off the closed end of each one and used it to create the waist band. I used 100% cottone twill tape to give it strength. I just used the premade seams on the pillowcases for the bottom hem.


The hat is from JC Penney. I found it the day before Easter and had to have it. The shoes are from clearance last fall at Pay Less.

Friday, April 13, 2012

My Own 13 by 2013




I have quite a few different crafty goals and I just never seem to get around to doing any of it. Then I saw the 13 By Twenty Thirteen post on Forgotten Fancies and decided it was time I made a list of everything and started checking things off. So here goes, in no particular order:
  1. Learn to work with knits. I have exactly zero experience with sewing knit fabric.
  2. Sew the Crepe wrap dress from Colette Patterns. Everyone raves about this line of patterns and I have never used them before. I suppose this is a general goal to sew items using patterns from companies other than the big 4.
  3. Sew a pair of shorts, pants or a pencil skirt. Anything that will force me to work on fitting on my lower half.  
  4. Sew a dress with sleeves. (I always sew dresses with straps because I have really large arms and wide/broad shoulders and I am afraid to do the alterations on a sleeved dress.)
  5. Learn to use new sewing machine feet. Brian got me 2 fancy sets of sewing machine feet as my "baby bauble" and I have only used the concealed zipper foot. Normal women ask for jewelry =)
  6. Craft for a charitable organization.
  7. Learn to grade patterns to different sizes.
  8. Increase my knowledge of couture finishing techniques. I hate to have unfinished edges so I need to learn new ways of cleaning up the insides of my projects. At present, I usually just line everything and use flat felled seams.
  9. Acquire and learn to use a serger.
  10. Buy less fabric, notions, etc. I have a bias tape maker so I can make all my bias tape. I have 100's of yards of fabric stashed around the house. Tons of thread. Totally stocked. Use up the stash.
  11. Finish up at least one crafty UFO a month. Now to just dig them out...
  12. Actually use my Craftsy classes in which I enrolled. I want to do The Couture Dress and then the Sew Retro Perfect Bombshell Dress
  13. Learn to make a pattern from a piece of clothing that fits me really well without dismantling it.
These probably won't all happen this year. It will be nice to check items off this list as I finish them. I actually have a few more things I want to work on as well but they can wait til next year. What are your crafting goals for this year?

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Seamless Pledge


The Seamless Pledge

About the beginning of the year I took the Seamless Pledge. I decided to follow it until the end of March and see how it went. I stuck to it and I am going to continue for the rest of the year. You should join to. It is far easier than you think and it gives you extra motivation to do all those projects you have been wanting to complete.

Baby Pants