Panda tunic

Pattern: Panda-tunika by Novita (in Finnish)

Yarns: Novita Teddy (010) luonnonvalkoinen, Novita Kaiku (010) luonnonvalkoinen, Novita Nalle (044) grafiitti

Needles: circular knitting needles, sizes 6 and 7, crochet hook size 3.5

Tästä tuli täydellinen! Hiukan mietitytti nuo Novitan langat, kun olisin halunnut tehdä tämän jostain ihanasta, pehmoisesta villalangasta, mutta eipä nuo tekokuidut tässä haittaa. Malli on täydellinen Emmalle, mokoma kuumakalle kun ei todellakaan suostu talvella pitämään villapaitoja päällä, joten lyhyet hihat toimivat. Alle vaan ohut pitkähihainen sitten pakkasilla. Helmasta pidän erityisesti, se on kaunis ja käytännöllinen. Ihana, ihana, ihana! Ja Emmakin tykkäsi, mikä taitaa olla se pääasia.

.....

I love this tunic! I was planning to change the suggested yarns to something more luxurious but I am happy that I didn't. The yarns are just right for this project. The shape of this tunic is perfect for my girl, since she is always hot and refuses to wear anything too warm in the winter. Now she can just put a long sleeve tee underneath when it gets really cold. I especially like the hemline, it is pretty and practical at the same time. Did I already mention that I LOVE this tunic? I do, I do, I do! And so does Emma.

Snow White

Tein tämän prinsessakoltun Emmalle viime vuonna ja unohdin sen esitellä blogissa. Yläosa on tehty vanhasta kauluspaidasta ja alosaan ostimme Emman kanssa yhteistuumin varsin kiiltävää polyesterisatiinia. Kelpasi Emmalle, todellakin, ja oli hyvin hyvin halpaa. Harmin paikka, että mekko on jo jäänyt pieneksi... Mekon alla on tyllihame kohottamassa pitkää ja runsasta satiinihametta.

.....

I made this princess dress for Emma last year and just forgot to show it here in my blog. The bodice is made from an old shirt of mine and the yellow fabric is polyester satin, very cheap and VERY shiny. Emma loves it. Too bad the dress won't fit her anymore!

Flower girls' dresses

Elokuun alussa rakas ystäväni meni naimisiin ja pyysi morsiusneidoiksi Emman ja erään toisen rakkaan ystävänsä tyttären. Häiden teemana oli Suomi ja meri, joten väreinä oli lipunsininen ja valkoinen. Koska morsiusneitojen mekkojen yhteinen pähkäily oli varsin haasteellista, toinen neidoista kun asustaa New Yorkissa, lupauduin tekemään tytöille mekot juhliin. Ensimmäinen ehdotus meni läpi, mekot tehtiin sini-valkoisesta Marimekon Unikko-kankaasta, sillä sitä suomalaisempaa kuosia ei varmasti ole. Sattumalta tytöt olivat mitoiltaan melkein samankokoiset, joten ompeleminen oli nopeaa ja helppoa, kerrankin!

Mekon kaava on mukaelma vanhasta mekosta ja yläosa on vuorattu. Alla on tyllialushame ja taakse kietaistu iso rusetti. Tyttöjen unelmamekko siis!

....

My dear friend got married at the beginning of August and asked my daughter and another friend's girls to be her flower girls. The theme of the wedding was Finland and the sea, so the colours were bright blue and white. It was a bit difficult to coordinate the flower girl dresses, since the other girl lives in New York, so I offered to make the dresses. I suggested the fabric for the dresses and the bride loved it - there is nothing that epitomizes Fnland more than Marimekko's Unikko fabric. Luckily the girls were almoist identical in sizes, so cutting the fabric and sewing was a breeze.

The pattern of the dress is taken from an old dress of Emma's and the bodice is lined. There is a tulle skirt underneath and a big bow in the back. Every little girl's dream dress, isn't it!

Juhlat pidettiin Sirpalesaaressa Helsingin edustalla. Paikka on upea, suosittelen ehdottomasti hääpaikan etsijöille! Kauniit maisemat, erinomainen ruoka ja taitava ja ystävällinen henkilökunta, mitään huonoa sanottavaa ei paikasta ole. Eräs tarjoilijoista jopa viihdytti lapsia piirtämällä heidän kanssaan illallisen aikana, niin me aikuiset saimme syödä rauhassa. Lapset viihtyivät kallioilla, tosin siellä oli pakko vähän vahtia touhuja, meri kun oli pulahtamisetäisyydellä.

.....

The party was held in Sirpalesaari, an island in frontside of Helsinki. Beautiful place, breathtaking views, delicious food and very special staff, I have nothing but praise for the place. One of the waiters actually spent some time drawing with the kids so that we could eat our dinner in peace - priceless! Kids loved the cliffs, although someone had to be watching them all the time, the sea was a bit too close :)

Bonuksena häävalokuviin ilmestyi joutsenpari poikasineen! Uskomattoman hieno yllätys :)

.....

As if the place itself wasn't beautiful enough, a pair of white swans came to greet the wedding couple just when their pictures were being taken! How awesome is that!

Kuvia tuli otettua miljoona, suurin osa huonoja näillä kuvaustaidoilla. Onneksi ystäväni otti meistä muutaman perhepotretin muistoksi. Tilannekuviltakaan ei vältytty, tässä tiiraillaan upeaa vanhaa purjelaivaa, joka ei kyllä kuvassa näy :) 

Ei muuten värikoodattu asujamme ollenkaan. Itse asiassa tein itselleni tummansinisen pellavamekon näitä häitä varten, mutta jotenkin kummassa onnistuin laihtumaan ennen häitä sen verran, että mekko roikkui päällä ja tuli kiire mekkokauppaan. Hyvä juttuhan se kai on, mutta hieman harmitti!

.....

I took a gazillion pictures but most of them were really bad. Luckily a friend of ours took a family portrait of us and also a few actions shots. Here we are looking at an old ship, which isn't shown on a photo. And no, we were not colour coordinated and I did not make my own dress. Actually I made one dress (navy linen, very chic) a month before the wedding and managed to loose some weight so that the dress was too big on the wedding day. Oh well...

Marigold dress

I've been wanting to make this dress for Emma for ages now but I haven't found any fabrics that would inspire me. Then yesterday I was going through my favourite blogs and found this. Amazing. Perfect. Actually all the dresses from that blog are amazing, I'll might just try to copy them all. Too bad the blog is not being updated anymore. 

I had fabrics for that dress in my stash so I started cutting and sewing immediately. Result: Amazing, perfect. Oh, and Emma approves as well, LOL. The pattern is from Good Girls Cute Clothes (ISBN 978-4-579-11194-7), the pattern book where I also took the leggings pattern.

White fabric is some polyester blend from the 80s (mom gave it to me) which I thought to be nice, light-weight 100% cotton but found out otherwise when I tried to iron it with hot steam. It melted. Luckily the melted bit is not shown, it is in the lining. The yellow fabric is just some basic cotton from my stash, I had barely enough to make this dress.

 

Oh, in case you are wondering why I named it the Marigold dress: I shamelessly copied the name from Katie Did. Could not help it, it describes the dress perfectly!

New dress for Emma

Emma needed a new dress for her cousin's birthday party. This time I let her choose the fabric (from my stash) and she chose pink. After choosing the fabric I let her choose the pattern as well from my Japanese books and she likes this one the best. The pattern is from Happy Homemade Wardrobe, vol. 2 and so simple and nice. I used the same pattern for a dress last year. This time I omitted the sleeve ruffles and applique, I was in a hurry and both my serger and sewing machine were refusing to cooperate. My machines clearly need some loving care, I just have not had any time to get those fixed. Anyway, I think I am going to add pockets to this dress, it is a bit too plain for my taste.

I also made the ruffled leggings for her but those cannot be seen so clearly from these photos. They were a bit tight so the ruffles are not showing so well anyway. Next time I need to remember to make a bit looser leggings!

As you can see, the backside is a bit funny. As said, I was in a hurry and interpreted the instructions a bit wrong. However, it was a cold day and she was wearing a cardigan the whole day, so no one noticed, LOL.

Dress alterations

I liked this dress plain, but just to please Emma, I added a petticoat and red satin belt. Neither has been attached to the dress, so she can wear whatever combination of the three as she wishes. Although I do hope she wears the dress itself anyway! The petticoat is made from an old bedsheet, some white tulle and vintage lace. I still need to adjust the petticoat since it is too loose, as you can see from the last photo. It is already a bit too low...

 

Linking again to TeaRoseHome. Go and check it out!

Christmas dress

I am not quite sure what Emma is doing in this picture, but it has something to do with princesses. Perhaps a royal wave? And an itchy arm pit? Haha, she got mad at me when I asked her about that. Anyway, I made this dress one night, when Emma announced that she would not be going to her kindergarten's Christmas party in a skirt, she wanted a dress. Ok. I made her one. The fabric is from Ikea and I only wish I would have had more of it, since I wanted to cut the skirt part in bias. It would have looked much better! Anyway, Emma loves it and that is what really counts.

The dress is from this book:

At first I was a bit disappointed in this book, since it only contained a few variations of some basic patterns. However, the basic patterns in the book are very versatile and I have learnt a lot by just glancing through it.The instructions were very clear and patterns easily traceable. By the way, my book sections is still missing a lot of my books, but I am just trying to think a better way to showcase them. Hopefully sometime soon :)

Not very good photos, but you can probably tell why Emma likes the dress :)

A dress remake

 

This dress used to be another dress. It was a lovely dress with puffy sleeves and shirred bodice but unfortunately Emma grew and the dress became too small. At first I thought about making a skirt but since Emma prefers dresses, I got the idea of just cutting the top part off the dress, attaching shoulder straps (made from the puffy sleeves), and adding some of the shirred fabric to the back of the dress (the skirt part was a bit too narrow to fit as it was). Easy and cute. Very comfortable now when the weather is really hot!

Edit. I forgot to add a picture of the backside of the dress. Here it is, although a bit grainy. But I think it shows the shirred panel quite well anyway!

Dresses for sisters

I made this set for Emma's cousins. The older girl is three years old and the younger one is a newborn. The baby outfit was a gift for the baby's Christening party and I wanted to make the big sister her own dress as well. I used patterns from Ottobre design magazine (summer 3/2010) for the baby outfit and a pattern from the Japanese book Happy Homemade Wardrobe, vol. 2 for the toddler dress. I have made a nightgown for Emma from the same book earlier and I really recommend it. Lots of great, simple patterns. I wanted the dresses to match, so even though I used different patterns, I chose the same fabrics and also add a little butterfly applique to both dresses.

Sorry for the crappy images, we were almost late for the christening party and I still had to gift wrap the dresses. I am never on time...

The baby outfit has pants and a tunic. I modified the pattern a bit, since it would have required a zipper which I did not have. I left the back completely open and used snaps for closure, it is easier to put on that way.  The butterfly is smaller in the baby tunic than in the toddler dress even though it does not show well in the pictures.

Party dress

Last weekend we went to Emma's cousin's christening party and even though I had a terrible cold, I just had to make Emma a new dress for the party. I have sewn her lots of skirts and pants and whatnot but she really wanted a dress, so I made her one. A very easy one, I should say. In that condition I could not have made anything complicated anyway...

The dress is made from a curtain, I just added some satin ribbon to make it a bit more interesting at the top. The pattern is again from one of my Japanese sewing books.

Let's Go Out Girls Clothes

Paperback: 88 pages

Publisher: Nihon Vogue Sha (March 2010)

Language: Japanese

25 patterns for girls' clothes, sizes from 90 to 130cm

As you can probably tell, my model was not very enthusiastic about having her picture taken. The dress is already a mess in these pictures, since she had been hopping in a trampoline and running a round with the other kids. I made one mistake in making this dress: I think I cannot wash it. The satin ribbon was not prewashed so I guess the colour will leak if I try to wash it and sending this dress to dry cleaners would be a bit too expensive. I think I'll just have to try washing it, we'll see what happens.

Ikea dress

Ikea has a very nice selection of fabrics. Unfortunately most of them are upholstery or curtain fabrics, but from the curtain fabrics you can find 100% cotton fabrics that would make awesome clothes. I decided to make a dress. Since the fabric was very cheap, I thought it did not really matter if the end result was not going to be so nice, or wearable, but at least I could test a dress pattern. 

I chose a dress pattern from an 80's Burda magazine and since this was an experiment, my choice was a bias-cut dress without a zipper (I did not have a zipper and I wanted to finish the dress fast). I did not cut the dress pieces on bias, but opted to try whether it would work with a normal cut. It kind of did, but I had to add a few darts and folds to make it really fit and it is still a bit too big on the backside. However, I was planning to use it together with an obi belt, so the fit does not have to be perfect. The lining is made from white bedsheet that I sacrificed (we are running out of those soon...).

Anyway, here is the dress. Nevermind the smirk on my face, I was just giving my husband some instructions on how to take a photo of the dress, not me :)  - and he is standing on the couch, since I thought it would make me look slimmer but it kind of looks weird!

The fabric is Ikea's Cecilia, 2.95 euros per meter, so it really is cheap! It comes in the following prints and I can see myself using them all (pictures from Ikea) ... Maybe a skirt? Or a tunic dress?

Lots of dots and a pair of too tight denim leggings

I finally found courage to tackle jersey fabric and made this dress for Emma. I don't like jersey, because I always have issues with the trimmings, but this time the result was ok. Don't look too closely, though ;)

The pattern is from Burda magazine (April 2010 issue) and very simple. The pattern had three ruffles to the hem, but I only made two. I liked it better this way. Here is an image from the magazine to compare.

I also made the denim leggings (or should I say jeggings...) Emma is wearing. I used an old denim skirt of mine that was very soft and stretchy, but still I managed to make them a bit too tight from the waist. They are very comfortable to wear, but getting them on (and off) is a pain.I think I will have to adjust them a bit , maybe add an elastic waist band or something. 

The pattern for leggings came from one of my Japanese sewing books. I'll let you know which one, when I find it again. I put it somewhere and now I cannot find it at all. Anyway, the pattern for the leggings is very good  and clear,  I am definitely using it again!

Waiting for summer!

Now when we have had one day of warm weather, it is time to think about summer clothes. I got a few old clothes from a relative and when I saw this skirt, I knew it had some potential. I love the colours! The fabric is very thin but you can tell it is of good quality and it is very soft. I think Emma will love wearing this when (or if?) the real summer kicks in. I used Emma's old dress as the pattern for this dress.

I have some of this fabric left and I think I will make another dress from it. Or a skirt. Remains to be seen :)