Sew Many Books: Victoria Plum Goes Fishing

I am so happy for the chance to be part of the Sew Many Books series hosted by Emily over Nap-Time Creations. I remember following it last season, and enjoying it a lot. It was such a surprised to be invited to be part of this too. =) I am closing the series today with a:

You can read all about it HERE. 

Glimpse of our last week #14

This is where I show you bits and parts of our week behind the scenes.

I haven't focused on taking photos this week, so there aren't many to show you. S.was crying a little less, but that was just for a few days. He's back on his almighty screaming mode... yeah, my baby still cries a lot, these past three days have been way too much. Luckily for us, this happens by day and he sleeps well at night. Anyway... we took G. on a guided tour through our town's firemen house. She was absolutely amazed. We have a friend there who offered to walk her through the building, showed her everything, they were inside every trunk and van. She taught her a lot about them. It was fun. There was a little time to sew for both my kids, I made 3 pieces for him, and 1 for her (a pattern test). Plants and small stones - she loves to collect them. He played... for like two seconds and then... soe more crying. 

Bringing home a guest post

Today I am bringing home the guest post I did for CratingCon a few days ago.Just in time to link it to Project Run and Play week two... enjoy...

Hello CraftingCon fans. My name's Magda E. and I blog over House of Estrela, about my sewing projects. For over two years I've been sewing from my already existing fabric stash and refashioning. Yes, you can say I am cheap, but it has been a great challenge to sew according to many themes, using, only supplies I already have. It has improved my creativity. And for today's post it hasn't been an exception... and I started with this:

This is a dress my sister wore for a few years, when she was done with it, it came to my refashion pile. It was perfect for what I needed.

The idea of creating a princess inspired outfit, that my daughter could use on a daily basis was in my mind for a while. When the chance to do a post for Crafting Con came up, I couldn't be happier that I could finally do it. First I thought about doing cinderella, because I love blue, but then I did Princess Sophia, which is my daughter's favourite. Did you know she was inspired/based on queen Sophia from Spain? It would make sense for me to do her, since I am half spanish myself. 

I didn't want it to be too princessy, as I said before, I wanted it to be used on a daily basis. So when I looked at Sophia's there were three things I had in mind to reproduce... sort of... And they were the colour, the scalloped hem and the pearls. These were the three things I wanted to add to my dress. It was my first scalloped hem and I didn't follow any pattern or tutorial. It's not perfect, but works. I used the pearls in the hairclip flower and in the button in the back. 

I used RaeAnna's Bumblebee dress pattern for the bodice. I have used it over and over because I know it fits my girl in a lovely way. I even used it for a Snow White costume. But I did a few changes and adjustments to the pattern. Especially in the sleeves and back piece, which I cut on the fold as one and then sewed up an opening so it could fit through my daughter's head. 

The flowers printed in this dress reminded me of Sophia's skirt flowers too, which was a bonus I wasn't counting on. The little miss liked her new dress, she said she felt pretty with it and wanted two of the hairclips. Then she had a fun photoshoot with her daddy, which is great. I hope you all enjoyed it too. 

Thanks so much for having me.

Glimpse of our last week #13

This is where I show you bits and parts of our week behind the scenes.

I come a little late this week. Somehow I didn't realise it was Saturday already (even though, technically it will be past midnight hen I hit publish here, so it's Sunday alreasy) until a couple of minutes ago. I lost most of my photos this week. I can't find my camera's battery charger and I have been taking photos with my cell phone. The problem is that it is new and accidently I've erased almost all photos from this week. Here's some from the ones I was able to save. 

This week I was able to finish a new outfit for G., it will be part of a series post and we did a quick photoshoot with the (photo in the middle of collage) background... I loved it. We had our usual family time out at a park, mostly everyday (and we will as long as the weather still allows us to). We often go to daddy's work too (picture of the beer bootle caps - she loves to make up games with them). 

And, I have been trying to figure out ho to make a dress for myself to ear at a wedding. It will be Oct. 11th and I still haven't started... Oh geeezzzzz!!!!

CraftingCon Princess Sophia from Disney

Yesterday my entry for the CraftingCon series as a guest poster was up. Here's a link to it (click image below), in case you've missed it!

Glimpse of our last week #12

This is where I show you bits and parts of our week behind the scenes.

I haven't collected too many photos of our days for the last two weeks. There were good things going on, and here I have compiled a few photos from the best things. September 1st my daughter started daycare again, the previous night my niece slept over because later on the first we had a birthday party to go to, where my G. had so much fun. I offered some more fun fruit desserts to my daughter and I also made some home made mini pizzas. They were a huge success. We had three days away from home. We didn't go on holidays for years, it was the first time for my kids. We were a little apprehensive because S. is so young but it went great and we had a lot of fun. 

August Wrap Up

I haven't blogged in august as much as I have the previous months in which I sewed like crazy and always had something new to share. Nope! August lacked on projects done around here. I've been away from my machine and it starts to bother me, but first things first and S. still needs me at 100% all the time. Otherwise, he'll cry!

Most of all, there were glimpes of our weeks to show you... 

Click any photo to take you to the origal post if you'd like to. 

Apart from that there was a baby shoes refashion, and t-shirts turned into girl's briefs.

 

Heidi from Elegance & Elephants hosted her Knock off series again, and I have sewed along - actually blogged along because my project was made in July. 

And, there was a few no sewing related project coming up too, in my personal Pinterest Challenge. 

  

Pin 1 - Pins 2-3

 

Tinley Tee and Love Me Knot Tour

When Chelsea from Get Your Crap Together invited me to her pattern tour I didn't have to think much. I jumped in right away. I had the opportunity to work with Chelsea before in several ways and I just couldn't say no again. 

When the themes for Project Run & Play were announced, I hadn't sewn my two pieces yet. That was great, I thought I could do both things in one, and I went looking for inspiration. The first theme's 80's cartoons and my oh my, I was a child from the 80's and as soon as I googled them, there were so many I wanted to get inspired by... after all, my pick was:

I had something to work with now. I love to sew with a theme. And started sketching something. I wanted to make an outfit, mixing Popeye's & Olivia's clothes colours: red, black, blue and yellow in it. But I was going to refashion and I was limited to what I had. When searching in my pile of refashioning clothes, I was happily surprised with s women sized t-shirt with sailor prints. How great was that? I couldn't even remember I had it. I was using denim for the shorts, but then I found this suit with a very cool print in it, and I knew I wanted it as the future Love Me Knot Shorts for my daughter. After I finished both pieces, I didn't like to see them together, so I paired each of them with store bought clothes, and did two different photoshoots. The shorts one didn't go that well, we went to a birthday party at an amusement park, and because of that, she was just too excited to pose. The shirt photoshoot was actually done by dad and they had so much fun together.

Let's start with the Tinley Tee. This has become one of my favourite patterns and I am sure I will turn into it a lot from now on. Not only it has a perfect fit, it is super easy and quick sew. It comes with four sleeve options  - short sleeve, long sleeve, gathered cap sleeve and flutter sleeve, (isn't that great?!) and the option for a regular hem or a banded hem. 

I did the cap sleeve option and the banded hem one. I used the original t-shirt for front, back and neck pieces. For sleeves and back I used leftovers from (the sleeves) man's shirt I used back here. The only changes I made to the pattern was the band. My lenght is different because I used what I had to save time. 

And then the shorts... I did a few changes to the original shorts instructions. I didn't make any changes to the actual pattern pieces, but I did sew them differently. I made a knit band waist instead. The darts on the back pieces worked perfect for this. I had a little fabric left from the t-shirt I had cut and it would be perfect for what I had in mind. No waste, I was able to use every bit of it. 

Instead of gathering the shorts on the hem and attach the bias, I tried something different, and I did a regular hem, and added the bias only on the sides. At first I wasn't so sure if I liked the changes I made. You know when sometimes you risk to do something different and then you regreat it? Well, it was almost the case. But once my daughter wore it, I liked to see it on. 

Just like the shirt, the shorts are a super quick and easy sew. Perfect for begginers, or people like me, who have a new baby keeping you from spending lots of time on your sewing activities. This was a bonus for me at the moment. 

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Tinley Tee

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Love Me Knot Shorts

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