FullOfStitches.com blog.A good laugh leaves me in stitches!

Darts used to drive me crazy until I stumbled into how I sew them now..

First, as I cut the patterns, I mark the pieces by stabbing pins through the pattern piece then gently hold up the edge of the pattern and carefully put a pin through from the wrong side into the pattern piece exactly where the first pin marked (I’ll try to get pics or video of this up)

The darts are marked by pins at the dart point and about 1/4″ from the edge ON each dart leg.

Now, I position the fabric so the dart legs away from me on the ironing board and I can use the left pin to replace the right pin (so the left pin goes down through the wrong side of fabric on the left dart leg, then up through the right dart leg from the right side).

Next, I stab that pin into the ironing board (doesn’t my friend have the coolest burn mark on her ironing board cover?). The dart point had been marked by another pin: keep it in place and work the folded edge of the fabric to make a straight, even fold from the pin to the edge of the fabric.

Now, carefully iron the fabric to make a crisp fold without melting the heads of the plastic pins and permanently adhering them to your fabric.. (’cause that would be bad..)

Take a straight edge and something to mark the dart: pencil, disappearing ink..line up the straight edge, draw a line between the two pins.

See how lovely?

Use the pins to pin the dart in place to maintain the edge and keep the fabric from moving whole sewing (a third pin in the middle helps).

Either, sew by hand with small stitches. Or, by machine:

At the normal stitch length, begin by sewing a few stitches backward, and then stitch, stopping about 1/4″ from the edge of the fabric.

Change to a smaller stitch length..

..and sew off the edge of the dart. (With practice, you’ll be able to change the stitch length at the appropriate place without stopping.)

Leave threads long and tie them in a square knot (really, shortening the stitch takes care of this, and I just snip the threads, leaving ~1/4″ ends). Tada!:

Press dart in direction suggested by pattern, and you’re good to go!

Crafting overtook the game table set up in the corner of the living room. Then fabric filled some of the laundry baskets and were piled onto the coffee table. I considered building cabinets along the wall. I prayed for a cabinet to organize this chaos.

Last Friday, I was visiting a friend whose children have nearly all been potty-trained. She asked if I knew anyone who is expecting and needs a changing table. I drew a blank. Is anyone I know in the area expecting right now? She showed me the unit and my corner of piled baskets of fabric came to mind.. If she didn’t find anyone in need, may I have it? Apparently, she’d had it on offer for a couple weeks without takers and was more than happy to give it to me!

My cutting mat fits on the lower side of the table, where the changing pad belongs. This disturbs Ben a little.. Now, the bottom drawer has scraps and fabric the children have requested, the middle drawer has my projects, and I’m working on organizing the top drawer.

LX fits in the cabinet, so I’ll move in there more slowly. Otherwise, he dumps out what I put in there, or claims it as his own.

Last month, I cut out a couple dresses. Late at night. And managed to have the pattern pieces upside down. The green fabric has words across it: birds, flowers, fruit, vegetables.

I think it’s cute. This is view 1, with the scoop neck. MissB took these pictures for me.

Apparently, this is the only picture of both toys together! About midnight (or was it 1AM?) I remembered that the children were invited to a joint birthday party today. And I didn’t have a gift yet. So, I grabbed the Wee Wonderfuls book and started crafting. I had already decided to make the giraffe and so it was traced, and I cut it out of the leftovers from a dress I had prepped to sew yesterday. The giraffe is for the 2yo boy. His big sister is 4 and I flipped through and picked the Tag-Along doll. I traced the pattern -searched for fabric!- and found a nice medium brown. I cut her legs from pink with polka dots and her dress is blue. I couldn’t find my corduroy, but I finally found it today and she has pretty black cord hair.

I think she came out cute. I had scheduled to be home at 11:30 to get them started sewn, but didn’t leave the coffee shop (where I study) till after noon! I could have used that extra half hour to finish the dress! And maybe make the giraffe a giraffe. Without the tail and horns, oh, and ears, he looks more like a tailless dinosaur, so we nicknamed him the giraffasaurus.

We played sidewalk chalk, pop the balloon, and musical chairs . There was a piñata and bouncy house.

Loads of fun!

Life is good.

My MIL made there cute dresses and pants for the girls. Each has it own unique trim and hem treatment. She sent the scraps and I made a doll dress. MissB made a couple things, too. A collar pattern became a crown, a bodice pattern was used to make a bib. (I’ll try to get pics later)

We’ve gone on a couple picnics.

They took me to the range on Mother’s Day. <3

The girls made cupcakes (or tasty hockey pucks). yum!

Ben helped the children make s’mores. (that’s blueberry stains all over him. Ben also got to clean the carpet!)

We flew the kite. And lots more! Have a great weekend!

I had picked up this blue and brown voile on sale at the fabric store with the Swing Dress in mind. Then I started on the Chantilly muslin and decided that would combine well with the blue for my Resurrection Celebration (Easter) dress.

I added brown piping at the waistline. It seems as if I could have used an 8 at the waist instead, maybe I stretched it while adding the piping.

I did pick up some brown to use with the red muslin top, so maybe I’ll drop down a size at the waist and see how it goes.

The only change i made on the pattern was to add 8″ to the hem. Overall, it fits well, flatters my figure, and is very feminine. I think it’s a keeper!

My Mother-in-law, Barb, sewed these cute dresses for the girls for Easter. Adorable!! The pattern is McCall’s M6312. These are the dresses that I had hoped to help with when she was visiting. We found this adorable silhouette fabric on discount at the local quilt store (no complete selvedges are left, or I’d let you know it’s name). It took a while to find the right contrasts, too!

Barb sewed the dress together and left the buttons/-holes and hems for me to do. On this pattern, the straps are supposed to be buttoned closed, but the straps are so short, it didn’t make sense to take that extra half inch to overlap the fabric far enough down to add the button. And, since it was cut on the pattern size of the girls’ age, with added length, it was too big around. So, my simple solution was to move the buttons over to take in the fullness. The buttons can be moved as the girls grow -MissC’s dress (4 year old) fit MissA (8 year old) with the original button placement.

I like to add something to make the dress individualized for each girl when I make them. Since I was on hem duty, I thought it would be fun to use hem lace -which I’d never used before- in the girls’ favorite color. I went with muted colors instead of bright to go with the dresses. MissA has peach as it is close to pink, MissB has lavender or lilac, and MissC has Mediterranean blue.

Celebrating the Risen Lord!

I went with the size 4 on top and size 10 waist. I think it looks a lot better. The puffiness of the gathers should be lessened by the weight of the skirt.

The back has some movement, good. I had my oldest daughter take another:

This just looks a touch loose to me. Good. Woven fabrics need “ease” so the wearer can move. When this has a skirt, I’m sure it will look fine.