I made yet another pillowcase dress on the weekend, and it was the cutest one yet! I’m going to have to stay out of Walmart’s fabric aisle for a while because it’s becoming a serious problem. I got to deliver this one to the little birthday girl this morning but I snapped a picture before I let it go.
I’ve been finding myself walking around lately with my shoulders hunched up by my ears. I’m waking up with a sore jaw and a headache from clenching my teeth all night. And you know what is causing all of this tension? My hobby. Ever since I got the notion to turn this pastime into a tiny business I have found it to be less-than relaxing, but that’s not something I would change. It is giving me something to work on besides the day to day keep-the-children-alive-and-make-sure-they-don’t-turn-into-axe-murderers. The biggest problem is that I have all these ideas floating through my head and not much time to work on them, nor the patience to allow it to happen slowly. My incredibly calm, patient and supportive husband sat down and worked out a plan for me and it’s starting to look less overwhelming. My shoulders can now be found at chin-level!
The Mother Huddle’s Fat Quarter Pillowcase Dress is another pattern I’ve used a lot. I’ve made three already and have the fabric to make another one this weekend. I think I originally found this on someone’s Pinterest board and knew I needed to make it ASAP. The first one I made was so cute, but P absolutely would not wear it. The monumental fights we had over this dress made me alternately irate and sad. Eventually I felt so bad about it that I decided to start again from scratch for P. This next one turned out even better and she is willing to wear it on occasion so all was well in the end. The other two dresses, as well as the dress-to-be, are going to my friend’s three little girls. I hope I get a chance to see them all worn together!
The tutorial is really great. The pictures are clear and so are the explanations. I did have a bit of a problem in that my fat quarters were not quite wide enough to cut the bottom panel correctly for size 4. I ended up just trimming the sides up a little and making it a bit narrower than it called for, but it still fit fine. I’m sure that part of the problem was that my fabric wasn’t wide enough. I got the fabric for the first one from Fabricland but apparently they are discontinuing their fat quarter bundles. Fortunately, I discovered that Walmart carries tons of really cute bundles for $12. Unfortunately, there are so many that I can’t help buying more and making more dresses. If you are a friend of mine and you have a little girl, don’t be surprised if she receives one of these for her next birthday.
I learned the basics of sewing back in junior high school home economics. I actually got a C- in that class, which is pretty ironic given that my current occupation is home-ec in a nutshell. I hope I’ve improved, but I guess it is possible that I’m still barely-passing. My husband would never tell me if it were true, and that’s just one of the things I love about him.
Though I learned to sew way back then (more years ago than I’d like to count), I never had my own sewing machine and didn’t feel like I was missing anything. But then I became a mom, and lived in a house that wasn’t a glorified bachelor pad. Suddenly it seamed like a sewing machine was something I was supposed to have. So last Christmas I asked for one and, lucky me, I got it! It took a while to get my sewing mojo as it required taking some of my precious free-time away from knitting. But once I got started I was off to the races. I’ve finished a few projects since then, and I’ll share some of them with you in the coming weeks.
This afternoon I was inspired to show off my most recent project, the Urban Unisex Hoodie by Heidi & Finn. I got some cute pictures of A wearing it while running around at the park and wanted to share them with you. My choice of fabric (a light-weight fleece and lightweight jersey) wasn’t the greatest as some of the seams got very thick and my machine had a hard time getting through. I also think the nap on the fleece bunged-up (that’s a technical term) the machine so I had to do some impromptu manual-reading to learn how to clean it. The thread frayed and split a lot, which I’m chalking up to bad thread choice for the fabric, though that is a highly uneducated guess. In the end, I’m eager to try the pattern again with different fabric as the finished product is quite cute.
Cowtown Knits 