2014 Teacher Gift Tote Bags

The end of the school year is nigh, so its time for teacher gifts.  I've made bags for three years in a row.  Tote bags are practical, seem to be appreciated, and are easy to personalize so I think I'll stick with the tradition for a while.

Our kindergarten teacher is a young, stylish, trendy gal so I thought a chevron bag might be fun.  Grace was dismayed at the color grey - she wanted pink of course, but I stuck to my guns and went with steely grey.  The fabric is heavy canvas from Hobby Lobby and I was happy with how it worked up.   Its two layers of canvas - plain grey for the lining and the top accent strip and grey chevrons for the outside and straps.

Pretty standard tote bag shape with boxed bottom corners, a bit large because I usually see teachers carrying big bags.  :)

The front has a personalized panel with the teacher's first name (stamped in permanent ink):

The back is plain:  

The straps were fun with the chevron print: 

So there's bag number one:  

Our second grade teacher loves all things pink and sparkly - seriously, her entire desk is a sea of pink sparkles and sequins.  I let Leah choose her fabric and we ended up with pink faux-alligator skin with black sequined trim.  Yikes.  

This bag is the same, front and back.  I was a little skeptical of the fabric, but it ended up sewing like a dream.  No skipped stitches, the straps were beautiful, and it certainly is fun and funky.   Not everyone would carry a bag like this, but this particular teacher can pull it off.  :)  

She also got a little zip pouch to go with it because I had a tad bit of extra fabric.  

So, teacher gifts all done and ready to go with about two weeks to spare.  My part is done, anyway.  The girls will still write their thank you notes to go with the bags.  

Now I have a bit of 'housekeeping sewing' to do before I can start any big projects.  The mending pile has grown, summer playdresses are calling my name, one daughter doesn't have a summer weight blanket for her bed, a few little things like that.  Once those are completed I think it'll be time to make myself another dress!  

Costume Shop Spring 2014

The following post will show you a few of the cooler projects I tackled as a member of a theatre costume shop this spring.  It was an AMAZING experience and I cannot even begin to tell you how much I learned as a result of volunteering/working part-time there.  Nothing like making a 19th century period costume to get you over your fear of sleeves/fitting issues/name your fear!  I now feel very comfortable doing things that used to intimidate me, and I also learned things I hadn't planned on (like draping - see the last costume).

To keep this post a reasonable length, I'll just say a little about each one.  As it turns out, the progression of costumes also shows a progression of skills learned.

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 For this first one I don't have a photo of the one I actually made, but I see the dress all over online so here is a stock photo.  I made one of these:

It fit the actress well - a very fun 50's look.  The top bodice portion and the straps were a satiny blue and the rest of the dress was a blue and white large flowery print.  I made this from the commercial pattern with minimal help - fitting the pleated bust cups to the actress took a few tries but the rest was great.

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Next up is a dressing gown for the Queen of England.  I guess queens are too fancy to have bathrobes - they need to call them 'dressing gowns'.  :)  The colors are a little off in the photos - its a princessy pink fabric with diamonds stitched on (kind of like a pintuck that makes a pattern) and the contrasting cuffs and shawl collar are purple.  This pattern was drafted by someone else in the shop and has nice princess seam lines for a fitted top and fuller bottom half.  As far as instructions, I relied on pretty much step by step instructions from the shop manager who had drafted the pattern.  It wasn't too difficult and didn't have that many pieces.  Sewing the shawl collar was new to me, but not difficult.  I like the piping around the collar edge and the glittery, glassy three buttons down the front.  I wish I had a dressing gown as pretty as this!

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The third project I'll show is an 1890's (I think) period ladies day dress.  It was a vintage commercial pattern with about 80 pattern pieces and I started out thinking I was in way over my head.  However, one piece at a time, it came together beautifully and when it was completed I could hardly believe I'd actually made the darn thing!  How is it possible that I procrastinated making simple church clothes for myself but then find I am capable of this crazy multi-layered thing?!  Completing this costume was a huge confidence booster for me.  It had decent instructions, thankfully, and took about two weeks of part-time working to get it done.  It was worn by an actress in a corset so it looks a bit ill-fitting on a regular dress form.   The actress also had on a petticoat with lace along the bottom, so picture lace sticking out from under the skirt and sweeping the floor as she walked.  

Pieces:  

1.  Underskirt (darker salmon color, pretty simple skirt pattern)

2.  Overskirt (lighter peach skirt portion - pleated semicircular front portion, pleated rectangular back portion, all connected with a snap opening in the back).  I just realized now that I forgot to pull up the bustle strings when I took the photo so the back of the skirt is supposed to be even more fluffy than it is here.  

3.  Bum pillow (can't see in photos, its basically a pillow on a belt that sits right over the actress's bum so as to poof out her butt like a bustle)

4.  Jacket (princess seams, pleated peplum in back to poof out over the bustle, skinny period sleeves, peachy and lace overlay on center front panel with pearly buttons, lots of satin pleated ruffle and piping and a bit of lace).  The jacket actually closes underneath the ruffle along the princess line with hooks and eyes - you can see the rumples a bit over the dress form's left bust due to the lack of a corset.

I'm super proud of this one.  :) 

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The next costume is a bit strange and looks even stranger on the dress form.  Its Victorian underthings for a 'lady of the night'.  You just never know whats going to come your way in a costume shop!  The reason I'm including it here is because it was the first project where a costume designer came to me with  just a drawing and said, "I need you to make this."  Unfortunately, I don't have the photo/rendering to show you her vision on paper, but this is the result.  It's a pair of bloomers/culottes trimmed in lace that are then hitched up on the sides of each hip.  The top is basically a floaty piece of white silky fabric held up with two straps of lace.  I didn't see this show, but apparently the actress danced around on stage in the smoky haze of an opium den.  Nice, huh?  This was an interesting project because it was a lot of me trying something, asking the show's costume designer what she thought, she'd tweak it a little, I'd tweak it a little, and we went back and forth changing the shape of the bloomers, adding lace here and there, until we had the look she wanted for the character.  Can't say I need to make underclothes all that often.  Thankfully all the pieces were pretty simple shapes - circles, rectangles, straps, and lots of lace and trim.  

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The last one I'll show is the last one I made and encompassed a totally new skill.  As a side benefit of being in the costume shop I got to eavesdrop on a draping class.  If you have no idea what draping is, think of those Ralph Lauren commercials where someone is pinning gorgeous fabric to a dress form and then standing back and looking thoughtfully at it - that person is draping.  Rather than starting from a paper pattern and making something out of fabric, you start with fabric on a dress form, then make a paper pattern from that draped fabric, then make a test run of your pattern back into muslin fabric, correct any errors, and then make your final costume from the corrected pattern you developed from scratch.  Follow all that?  Its okay if you didn't.  :)

So, again, I started with a drawing from a costume designer.  I also was given a pile of fabric she had purchased and the measurements of the actress who would eventually wear the costume.  Here is the inspiration photo I was given.  The designer said (in a thick Russian accent, no less), "I want this dress on the right, but give it sleeves with fluff like the dress on the left."  This is apparently called a 'tea dress'.  

Here is what I made, from that photo and pile of fabric.  

Pattern (and instructions too... minor detail!) all from scratch.  

Sorry about the costume shop clutter in the background. 

We (meaning the designer and myself) had a little trouble part way through because there was not enough fabric to pleat the top as we had planned (and I had draped) and there was not time/money/opportunity to go and buy more, but we made it work.  This dress looked awesome onstage, I do have to say.  I was happy with the way it came together in the shop (meaning it did actually come together, stayed together, and looked mildly like the goal), but when I saw it onstage it looked amazing!  Stage lighting, actress movement, etc - that all makes the costume look much different than it does hanging on a dress form in the shop.  

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Wow - what a semester, huh?  I learned so much and can't wait to go back next fall!  

Circle capes - school donation and for home

I've made capes before, see here and here.  I guess they must be cool because they surfaced again, albeit in a slightly different form this time.

These are circle capes - a big 360 degree circle of fabric with a shaped slit for a front opening, a collar, and some bias tape ties at the neck.  I pieced the large circle because I wanted the capes to be nice and long. Better for twirling and sneaking around like a detective if they are long.   :)  

The first one is double sided/reversible purple and black.  It was donated to a school fundraiser to contribute to a 'wizardry' themed basket.  It was a hit - everyone who saw it loved it.

That included Leah and Grace, of course, who subsequently begged for their own.  Big surprise there.  :)

Great for twirling and playing 'Frozen'...

The second two capes are a single layer to save on fabric.  (It takes 5 yards of 45'' wide fabric for a one layer cape - so the first one took 5 yards of purple plus five yards of black).  I used inexpensive broadcloth from Hancock for all of them.  The circles, roughly peter pan style collars, and bias tape ties are all self drafted shapes.  The single layer capes have edges finished with bias tape or a double-fold-over hem.  The reversible cape was sewn RST and turned right side out so the outer edge was fully enclosed.

Zip pouches

Here are two zipper pouches I made in April.  I used them as end-of-year gifts for bible study friends and also as a chance to try out a new-to-me method of inserting the zipper.

Zipper pouches are such great 'instant gratification' projects - quick, easy, and useful.  You can never have too many of these floating around!

This one you may recognize is made from scraps of my grey and pink dress.  One bible study friend and I had talked about how much we both liked the grey/pink color combo so this one was designed for her. 

Stitching it up reminded me, though, of my biggest pet peeve with zipper pouches - when the zipper opening is smaller than the width of the bag.  It makes it difficult to get things into and out of the bag, as well as hard to look in and see what you're digging for.  

I had been meaning to try this technique for a while and I gave it a whirl on the next bag. 

I love the nice snug finish to the front zipper end...

... and then the back zipper end extends beyond the bag edge with a little pull tab...

... so it can open all the way.  Slick.

(The lining is a bit too big on this one - I fixed that before I gifted it.) 

The outside of this one is scraps from a previous quilt project with a little bit of lace thrown in for fun.  

There are more bags in the works but they're not quite ready yet.  

Reusable snack bags - school donation

I whipped up these reusable snack bags in order to donate them to a school fundraiser.  The theme was supposed to be 'candy' but I thought I'd donate these instead of adding to the heap of sugar already in the raffle basket.

I made eight total, four for school and four for home to replace some decrepit ones we're using now.  The four for school got cute sayings stamped on them.  I rubber stamped the letters onto pre-made bias tape with permanent ink and then heat set it before stitching it onto the bag.

(Get it?  Owl fabric - whooooo's hungry?) 

They are 100% cotton, high quality quilt shop stuff.  I would have preferred to line them in oilcloth or something water resistant but I didn't have any and the date of the fundraiser was fast approaching.  I'll make another batch for home with oilcloth innards when I get around to it.  I have a previous batch we've been using for years - they really are quite handy.

Grey and Pink Dress for Me

This dress.   Love it, love it, love it.

Looking at it one way, this dress was made in approximately one month.  In another way, I've been at this dress for over a year.   I started learning to draft clothing patterns over a year ago because I wanted to be able to make myself church clothes that actually fit.

I can finally say I've accomplished that goal because this dress:

1) is made entirely from scratch, pattern and all

2) it fits well (and is, therefore, very comfortable to wear)

3) its church clothes - even a full dress (not a cop-out skirt and top combo) and

4) its properly constructed (meaning all the proper parts are there and are sewn together in the right order with proper technique - not the case for my Beginner Dress of summer 2013).

My inspiration was two dresses on Pinterest - I took parts of these two dresses that I liked and mashed them together into one dress.

There were a few mistakes or wrong turns along the way.   Most of them I was able to fix on my own - the only remaining weird thing is this totally unnecessary seam all the way down the center back.  I changed my mind on the center back zipper halfway through the process, but couldn't recut all the pieces.  Only someone who sews would notice that its a nonfunctional seam (and not all that decorative) so it could have been removed.  

I put an invisible zipper in the side seam instead (from under my left arm in the photo below to just below my hip).  That lead to an interesting conversation with Grace - she was baffled because she couldn't see the zipper when it was finished.  

"Mom, I can't see the zipper." 

"I know.  That's why its called an invisible zipper, Grace."  

"Yeah, Mom, but it wasn't invisible when you were sewing it in there. I saw it then." :)

I guess Moms-who-sew can do some pretty cool magic and make things invisible.  :)  

Final analysis: 

Some things I'd change about the dress: 

1.  The fabric is just a tad stiff/bulky.  I got it at Mill End years ago because I liked the classy grey color/weave.  I have no idea what the content is - my guess is a polyester mix.

2. I flat-lined the bodice in muslin and that turned out to be unnecessary and contributed to bulk. 

3.  I'd get rid of that center back seam. 

Things I love about it: 

1.  Color

2.  Fit in general, but I love the color-blocked waist especially.  Its drafted from scratch and came together like a dream.  It actually sit at my true waist, which no ready-to-wear dress has ever done.  

3. Pretty proud of the armscyes and sleeves from scratch.  A few years ago I was terrified of sleeves on commercial patterns and never would have thought I could draft my own.  They can still use a little tweaking...

4.  Love the bias cut skirt.

5.  Love the fact that I understood what I was doing as I was making it!  

The best part is I now have a master pattern for myself so I can now go to town making church dresses by just tweaking little things here and there.  Subsequent dresses should come together smoothly and fit great!