A little dress

A week ago my youngest granddaughter turned one in San Francisco. I sent her a doll from my mom, a pair of moose hide Mukluks (she will be here over Christmas) and I decided to go old school and send her a plaid dress too.

I have a terrible time imagining weather in places outside my window (which is why I am the world's worst packer) but I had enough sense not to send velveteen or wool to California.

Fortunately I found some plaid in a very nice rayon and hopefully that counts as winter wear on the west coast.

For a pattern I pulled out this out of print Jalie that I got on a sale of their old stock a while ago. I really really enjoyed sewing it and seeing practical but traditional baby clothing details. There is a double folded hem with the potential to add nearly another 4" in length and a back that opens full length for easy dressing.

The pattern also came with some cool bloomers, big enough to cover the biggest diaper, and I made those too. We'll see about the fit but one of the reasons Jalie is my go-to for kids clothes is that there are so many sizes in one pattern - this one has 10 baby/toddler sizes.

I am sewing a lot for family these days (this has had an impact on the blog I am trying to figure out - I might block family members!) because I want to show things that are also surprises.

Right now most of the time I am sewing requests. I realized that rather than having family handle the fact that my kids probably don't want to wear what I would wear, everyone is happier, including me, if I make to order. This also expands my own repertoire and experience by introducing new territory to me.

That said every once in a while I enjoy sewing something that is just a sewing indulgence for me, like this traditional little dress.

It reminded me of the smocked dresses my friend's mother made for my daughter years ago. Who does that these days? Who has the time? Beautiful party dresses with smocking patterns that must have been decades old, giant hems like this one.

Even babies have history.

Baby clothes

Here are a few things I have made for the new baby with some links to easy patterns.

Now I do know of course that this baby undoubtedly is fully outfitted. My daughter-in-law in no slouch, but making this tiny garments is good for me to do. Sort of an act of synchrony across the continent.

There are numerous things that have been made and sent but here is a sample, more pictures as I go along.

The first is a little Christmas sweat pant set for hanging around the house during the holidays. I just had a small amount of this very soft fleece but got the two pieces out of it, even with the top with the lapped collar.

Both of the patterns for the top and for the "leggings" are free from Patterns 4 Pirates.

P4P really have so many nice free patterns, so many of them perfect for quick Christmas, gifts and all so easy to sew with great instructions.

The same can be said of the Peekaboo patterns I have used.

It is kind of nice for an long time sewer to use some of these excellent indie pattern companies. These folks gear their patterns to fairly new sewers so the instructions are so clear and the sewing so relaxed. It is also worth noting that the pattern testing process, which I participated in when I test sewed Love Notions Duet pants, seems very rigorous. In that experience multiple sewers made 4-7 versions of the pattern, all in different sizes, and the designer was very responsive to feedback and fine tuning.

It does seem to me that the indie companies that follow a process like this really do produce some very nice patterns. I feel really strongly that it is unfair to group all indie patterns together, which some of us often do, -  there is just so much variance in design process, designer skill, and quality of the product.

It has also occurred to me how different the Big Four patterns would be if they pattern tested like this with ordinary sewers. Can you imagine how much they would learn if their patterns and instructions were test driven like this before they were put out into the market? Probably not feasible of course for the mass production pattern companies but still, it would be interesting if they did this even occasionally. Would do them good IMO.

Back on topic Babs.

I have made several Peekaboo patterns and enjoyed sewing them. Pretty simple sews and in the kids lines in particular the styles and fit are really comparable to RTW.

Here is a sleep sack I made this week. 

My daughter and I have been debating on how warm to make these clothes for this California baby. My impulse as a Canadian mother is to focus on the staying warm part and I realize that this may be overdoing it for California. So my compromise is that I am going to make three sleep sacs in three different weights. This one is the lightest, in a substantial cotton interlock from the l'osieau fabrics - you will probably recognize the fabric from a top I made myself:

The pattern for the sleeper is of course multi-sized and includes a footed version for older kids.

A few comments about constructing clothes for newborns.

Both patterns called for the entire garments to be serged, and the instructions illustrate that, but after the first garment a while back, I decided that in many cases all that serging, particularly when there are layered seams at the necklines, were just too bulky for new skin.

As a result I moved back to my sewing machine and a tiny zig zag for the top and pants, and although I serged the seams on the sleep sack, I actually sewed the neck binding on single layer and turned and hand stitched it around the neckline rather than having a raw serged edge.

I just think it is smoother and as a grandmother I can get fussy like this.

More of these mini outfits coming, but just a sample of what's going on down the sewing room at present.