sweet little dresses

Last week I made a sweet little dress for a sweet little girl who just turned one year old.

The pattern is from Leila & Ben and it really is a darling little dress. I had seen it around on other blogs and Flickr for a while and it seems to be a staple pattern in every KCWC. I had some of this hot pink chevron in my stash and I think the bold pattern works well with the simplicity of the dress. With only two pattern pieces, this dress was super quick to sew and the instructions were clear and offered some great tips on making this simple dress even easier to sew. Love that.

I also recently got my hands on some of Martha Negley's Farmington Feathers in pink (I LOVE this print and this colourway) so I thought I'd sew up a sweet little dress for lil C.

I made the size 3T to test out the sizing and I'm thinking these dresses are scaled a bit on the bigger side, or at least are designed to be nice and roomy. Lil C is generally wearing at least a size 4 now and this fits pretty well overall. I did add some length to the elastic around the neck and arms, but I think next time, I will add a wee bit more (maybe 2" total on the neck and 1" on the sleeve cuffs) so it's a little more relaxed.

 

Overall, I think this is a pretty darn awesome pattern and will definitely be making more. I'm already picturing all the different fabrics and combos I want to try making it in.

And lil C seems to like it. Bandaged knees and all :)

x melissa

wiksten tank #3

So about a month or so ago, I made myself another Wiksten Tank out of 'good fabric' (and not cheapo wearable muslin fabric). I used a beautiful Lecien Lawn (Memoire a Paris) fabric in a berry and cream colourway I picked up at Spool of Thread. Again I attempted to modify the body a bit (previous tanks here and here) so that it would be roomy enough in the chest but not too tenty around the waist. I lowered the armhole a bit and adjusted the side seams by measuring 1 1/2" in from the hem and drew a diagonal line to the edge of the armhole. Then I measured approx 1" from the armhole and drew another diagonal line to the edge of the hem as well. So when I followed/sewed the outer line, the side seam curved in a bit around the waistline but then out again at the hem. I don't even know if this makes sense to anyone but I'm writing it in here because the result actually worked for me and I'm hoping to recreate this again using these notes.

I took a few pictures of the tank when I finished it but didn't write up a post because I wanted to get a picture of me wearing it so I could show the difference in fit from my previous tanks. But alas and alack, it was not meant to be. Although I've been wearing the tank quite a bit lately, I didn't take any pictures and today, my washing machine decided to take a big-ass bite out of it :(

Ah well, I guess it's on to #4 then.

x melissa

vintage buster brown

I haven't shared much of my thrifting adventures on here in a while, but, goodness, I have been doing a fair bit of it lately. I'm usually on the lookout for vintage sheets, linens, doilies and such. But last month when we took a little family vacation to the island, I found this super sweet Buster Brown skort at a rather massive thrift shop there.

I absolutely love this skort (yup, shorts in the back) and it's the most perfect tomato-red colour. 

It's a size 3 which should be the perfect size for lil C, except for the fact that lil C isn't really very little at all. It just barely fits her, but it was only $2 and she likes it (and I LOVE it), so she'll just have to wear it as much as possible in the next month before she really outgrows it.

 

And here are a few other things I picked up while I was there :)

x melissa

specimens

Today we went for a walk in search of dinosaur bones.

Found some very interesting specimens.

And came home to sketch them. 

(Along with a picture of a man sleeping with a dog and, oops, forgot to take off his hat!)

And here's my Hazel dress so far. I just need to get an invisible zipper foot to finish it up. Kicking myself because I was at the sewing shop just on the weekend but didn't want to shell out $28 for an invisible zipper foot. Thought I would be able to sew in the zipper without it, but then remembered the last invisible zipper I tried to sew on with a regular foot turned out rather crappity-crap. So, I'm going to spend the $28 in the hopes that this time, my zipper installation will be beautiful which will make my dress beautiful and I'll wear it all the time and it'll all be worth it in the end. Fingers crossed..

x melissa

lazy summer days

The weather has been just beautiful this past week. Usually when it's this nice out, I feel like we should make the most of it and head to the beaches, playgrounds and water-parks. But for some reason, my kids just didn't feel like leaving the house these last couple of days. At first I felt like we were wasting the gorgeous sunshine (which is kind of rare in these parts), but then isn't summer also about just lazing around without a schedule? Aside from sleeping in until 9, here's a bit of what we've been up to these last couple days.

painting in pajamas (or underwear)

playing with new birthday toys (my first baby just turned 5!!)

taking dolls (and action figures) for little walks

playing in the sprinkler

trying to drink water from the sprinkler

 cooling down with homemade blueberry milkshakes

harvesting greens from our little garden (crunchy summer peas as a snack, kale to be made into kale chips for supper, and mint that I'm hoping will end up in a mojito for me..)

and of course, my new sewing project. I'm hoping to have this finished in the next couple of days so I can wear it out while the weather is still so perfectly summery

x melissa

a simple, satisfying project

I was having one of those days yesterday... It felt like I couldn't quite accomplish anything. It was probably the first really sunny day of summer and my kids just refused to leave the house. I managed to get one kid out on our patio for about 20 minutes until a stupid wasp chased him back into the house again. (Truth be told the wasp really was just minding his own business but my kids are still kind of freaked out by them.) Whenever my kids seemed like they were happy doing an activity like painting, playing with trains, dress-up etc, I tried to sneak away to do some sewing or cleaning. But sure enough, once they noticed I wasn't right there with them they came chasing me down.

By the end of the day I was feeling super annoyed. You know that feeling when there are just so many things that you want to do, but you can't, but then you have a wee bit of time and you don't know where to start? Yup. I was there. After moping around feeling sorry for myself for a while, I decided to sew up a couple of these

Thank you Jeni for creating this pattern. Such a simple, satisfying project. Exactly what I needed :)