For My Daughter

My 3 year old daughter LOVES when I sew at home. Her favorite part is sitting on my lap and pulling the "binks" (pins) out as we sew and putting them on my magnetic pin cushion. She likes to help by putting her hands on the back of my hands as we feed the fabric through the machine. She asks me on a regular basis "are we gonna sew today mom?". I love it. Having her help me with the pins and the sewing is nice because her attention span can only handle a few minutes at a time. She helps me sew, then goes to play while I pin the next section we are gonna work on. Then she is ready to sit still again for a few minutes. The MOST exciting part is when we are all done and she puts on the clothes that we've made and runs to tell her dad that SHE made her own clothes all by herself. Oh, and mom helped a little. The pride and excitement that is on her face is totally priceless. I was thinking when she gets older that if she is still interested I may buy her her own little kids sewing machine. That would be fun for us to do together.

These pajama pants probably would have taken me less than an hour to do had I been working on the myself. But my daughter was helping and that about doubled the time it took. I'm ok with that though because we did it together and it was fun. My mom gave me the fabric I used for the pants to use as curtains. I liked the little ducks on the bottom and thought it would be super cute as a pair of pants. And so it was. They are a little bit big for her right now but she loves to wear them because she made them.

In all honesty I really do NOT like this shirt. It came out too short for as wide as it is (even though I followed the pattern), and trying to make the straps was impossible. Make thin straps then turn them inside right. Yeah, right. I finally gave up on the straps and used bias tape. I had never used bias tape before and didn't realize that one side is longer than the other AND that you are supposed to open it up, sew it, fold it over, and sew it again. At least I think thats the way it was explained. I was annoyed and confused with this shirt. It went in the "never gonna wear it but learned something anyway" pile.

School Project - Pajama Pants

I am currently taking sewing classes at a local community college to get my A.A. in Fashion Design. I am super stoked about being in school for this. I tried college right after high school and it didn't work out. Then I tried college again about 4 years ago. Again... didn't work out. Now, I have finally found something that motivates and actually excites me to be in school. If you would have asked me two and a half years ago if I even wanted to own a sewing machine, I would have laughed and told you "That is what the store is for, and thats why my mom has a sewing machine. So I don't have to."

These pajama pants are the first thing that I made when I started school. I knew a little bit about sewing and could have probably opted to skip the uber basic sewing class. But, I wanted to start at the ground and work my way up. And in all honesty I am very glad I have that foundation now.

For these pants I bought straight up no stretch simple cotton fabric. I'm not a big fan of it because it is not as soft as I usually like, but for the purposes of learning it makes everything a lot easier. You do not have to worry about the fabric slipping against itself because of the texture, and it doesn't stretch, so there is no worry about the stitches getting weird. The pattern that I bought was a basic McCalls or Butterick pajama pants pattern. No zippers. No elastic. Just a drawstring. Looking back now I realize pajama pants are probably the most simple piece of clothing you can make. This being my first try at making something though it was a very slow process. I think I took about 24 hours total work time to get these done. Now, I could whip out a pair of these from zero to done in an hour to an hour and a half.

With these pants I learned a lot of basic sewing techniques. How to use a serger. How to fit a pattern to make sure its going to fit right BEFORE cutting material. What the different markings on the patterns mean. How to make sure your material is straight. And about a million other very simple very basic things. I never knew that tearing material (such as cotton) across the top will actually give you a straighter edge than if you cut it. Weird huh?