T-shirts and the Tinny pattern winner!!

**The winner of the Tinny pattern is Nicole!  Congratulations!  I'll pass your e-mail address onto An.

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I'm guessing your kids wear a lot of t-shirts.  Mine do, anyway.  And while I buy many of them I am finding that making them gives me warm fuzzy feelings! :)  You see I've figured out that I sew mainly as an expression of love.  I love my kids and seeing them in handmade clothes makes my heart happy.  Also t-shirts are a quick sew and that is also a big plus.  I use Rae's skinny tee as the base for most of my tee's.  My only big change is that I always make the neck binding bigger, because for me when cut as per the pattern the neck opening is too tight (at least for my kids heads), but otherwise it is perfect.

 I recently tried another pattern for tees and was really happy with the result!  I bought the book Growing Up Sew Liberated mainly for the envelope tee pattern mainly which I wrote about here.  And actually that t-shirt fits this summer, so when questioning sizing in that book, make the smaller one! :)

 The Crossover tee is another great pattern from the book!  I omitted the bottom band to make it more daytime wear and less pajama like.  The fabric is from Girl Charlee and part of their exclusive Vintage Revival collection, and it's just lovely!  Girl Charlee is a great place to hunt for knit fabric and at great prices too! This bird print just looks like summer to me!

The crossover tee only goes to size 5 but it is a generous pattern.  Peyton doesn't wear a 5 in commercial clothing anymore but I just added a little over an inch in length and it fits great. Here is a little action shot, badminton, her newly discovered sport! :)

Carter also got a new tee recently.  My Grandma has turned over some of her kids fabric stash to me and this cute print matched perfectly with a pair of green pants that needed a top! I used the Skinny tee pattern for the shirt and it fits my skinny boy perfectly.  He's really into vehicles and likes to points out the red trucks on the tee, so he's a fan!

Sewing for my kids is really such a joy and seeing them play in handmade clothes is the best feeling!  Have a happy Tuesday!

Birthday fun (my first giveaway!)

I've got a treat today!  My birthday is Sunday and I'm hoping for at least a couple of fun surprises.  Fortunately I have one for you too!  An from Straight Grain has a new pattern; which I'm guessing you already know! :) And she's generously offered a copy for each of her testers to giveaway!  Yeah!!  After seeing all the fun dresses other testers made I can't wait to make another, I think an asymmetrical collar is calling my name!

       

I actually gifted myself this year and bought a new camera lens.  I think it is going to be a fun new tool to have!  Here is a glimpse of my next post using my new lens. What is it about little boys that is just overwhelmingly adorable?!

To enter to win a copy of the wonderful new Tinny pattern please leave me a comment about what your ideal birthday gift would be!  And for an extra entry please tell me how you are following me!  The giveaway will be open through Monday June 10th and I'll announce the winner on Tuesday!  

A Tinny Dress (a new Straight Grain pattern) and a healthy dose of honesty!

You may not have noticed but I've been absent around here!  I knew May would be a crazy month and I was totally right!  If you throw graduations, dance recitals, and weddings (at least we didn't have one of those this year) into any month in gets busy but then you add our wedding anniversary (we celebrated 9 years!) and the garage sale I had to have; things gets really nuts!
But in all that crazy I still found time to sew because sewing keeps me happy!  I was fortunate to be a tester again for An of Straight Grain for her newly released pattern Tinny!  I'd seen this dress on her blog and was thrilled to get a chance to try it out.  It is a bit different than what I am normally drawn to but looked like something I'd learn from and I'm always eager to try something new!

I'm very glad I did!  An is so right when she says a circle skirt makes any girl happy.  Mine loves to twirl in her new dress!

I tested the largest size of the pattern the 6y. The patterns sizes are 1-6 years.  There are so many style options to choose from.  You could make this dress so many ways and that is a big selling point to me in a pattern!  For this dress I choose the peter pan collar, the notched sleeves and the circle skirt.  The fabric is Pearl Bracelets by Lizzy House.

Another appealing element to me was the blind zipper.  Peyton's hair is long and button closures don't make her very happy since they seem to get her hair wrapped in them.  I've been wanted to learn more about zippers so I could go that route instead of buttons.  I've got a bit more to learn with a blind zipper but I'm learning! :)

Testing this dress was adding one more thing to my hectic May but I'm really glad I did!  I'm looking forward to making another one soon!  To enter for a chance to win a copy of the Tinny pattern click here.  GOOD LUCK!  :)

And now a little honesty!  Did anyone know I've been at this a year?!  My first post was on May 30th, 2012.  I've learned SO much about blogging this past year! Some of my favorite have been:
     1) Taking more photos and spending the money on a nice camera!
     2) Having a virtual diary of my sewing is very fun on a personal level.
     3) Feeling more a part of the sewing community that has taught me LOTS!
There are some things that I've been less happy with.
    1) I've got a limited time to sew/blog and the more I blog the less I sew! : (
    2) Also blogging seems to be more competitive than I realized, maybe that's just me. (I seem to have really checked out of my competitive nature when I started staying home!)
So what I'm saying is I'm not going anywhere, however, I I think my past notion of becoming a BIG/frequent blogger is not what I want either.  I'm a Mom to two wonderful kids and I want to hang with them, they're getting big way to fast for my liking!

I also think I'll be expanding what I write about.  Another FYI, I'm a Horticulturist (currently retired as my husband jokes).  I spent much of May planting my garden and containers.  I'm thinking some "Green" posts are in my future.

 I am so thankful to my readers and have enjoyed blogging this past year.  Blogging is like any other piece of my life; change is a constant!