Squishy and Blazers

So tonight I logged in to write and announced happily "I almost have 1000 views on my blog!" to which my darling dearest replies "is that you looking at it 900 times?" 

I tried to look mad, but it was kinda funny....

Yesterday he looked at me like I had two heads when I suggested trying the Potty Training in 3 Days thing... I think it was the idea of making up a potty song that we all sing when ANYONE goes potty that pretty much killed that idea in the house.  But imagine how fun public restrooms would be?  Especially since Inara is still on her crusade to use EVERY one in America. We could bring potty success singing to random strangers all over the Olympic Peninsula!!

So I have one great tester to share, and a mini alteration... Let's do alteration first, cause babies are cute...
This is baby G, or as I call him, Squishy, my friend's little one... (wearing an outfit I made him a while ago)

Squishy got the following Carter's outfit for Christmas from his gran, but it was a bit too big...
 

I had pretty much a day to size it down and I was a bit stumped on how to size down a onesie, so I asked mom and she ok-ed my making it into a shirt... but really, the outfit wasn't complete without the finishing touches..... So I added a hat.... I just used standard head measurements and took off 1 1/2" for stretch and drew it out right on the fabric hoping it looked like I pictured in my head... 

I took the waist elastic in on the pants, shortened them and added the cuff.  I took some length off of the sleeves and added cuffs, and also changed it from a onesie to a shirt... and of course the hat...  Then the next evening we were talking about not having shoes/socks that matched.... so I grabbed the Precious Boot from Precious Patterns and made these real quick and dropped them in her mailbox late that night. 

I don't keep velcro around, so I used snaps... There are some things I would change in the future with this pattern, as I'm not a big fan of the exposed seams, but they ended up cute, I thought...  And here is Squishy all dolled up... don't you LOVE those chunky cheeks!!!

Okay... and I've also been working on testing a jacket for My Little Plumcake.  The Canaan's Incredible Blazer (so named by the tester who had the most GORGEOUS jacket and her son totally rocked his photos too) was just released yesterday and is on sale for a short time more... but even if you miss the sale, this is totally worth it at full price.  While you're there pick up the Ruby Reversible Skirt and the Jack and Jill Sailor pants (these are a slim fit, so make sure you check measurements). 

So this was a totally positive testing experience.  Michelle, the owner, was very sweet and receptive to input and the jacket went through two rounds of testing to ensure it was perfect.  Here is my jacket from round one....

This one is in suedecloth with flannel lining.  We had some sleeve issues along the way.... but clearly it's a hit since he insists on wearing it for naptime.   I did a couple little things differently because I HATE slip-stitching... I left the turn-gap in the pocket on the side, so I could stitch it closed when I attached the pocket.  And, this nifty trick made me happy... I left the gap in the lining to turn the jacket, and then realized I could pull the lining out through the sleeve to sew the gap closed before I hemmed the sleeve to the lining.  Here was my entertaining moment.... topstitching tiny sleeves is hard!  But totally 100% worth it for the best look...

So after round one input is in, Michelle made some changes and called for some testers to ensure she caught everything from round one... so I decided Inara needed one of these and I totally wanted another one for Connor.
Inara's was done in Corduroy for the outside and facing and a knit interlock for the lining.  And Connor's is in Corduroy for the outside and Oooga Booga velour for the inside.  I think this is one of the reasons I love this pattern so much.... the variety of fabrics make it so versatile and it can be good for a light spring blazer or you could do it in some nice thick fabrics for winter (though it is intended to be a slim fit, so you might want to size up if you do this).  A couple testers even added to the length to make it a little longer, which looked awesome as well. 

So first, here is Inara...being... Inara... I did talk her out of a neon yellow lining... you all know how she insists on picking her own fabrics, but I thought it was a *little* bright. 

I added the Simple Skirt from Dana Made It in the Corduroy from the facing to complete Inara's look.

 And Connor being Connor....

And Connor got a quick pair of Chapsters from PetitBaby to complete Connor's outfit.  How pretty is the view in these pics??  We just went down to the waterfront in town. 

Anyways, go check out the Blazer.  I highly recommend it, and pattern group for My Little Plumcake has lots of great women there for advice and help if you need it! 

And how priceless are picture where they are BOTH smiling!!!

Twirls and Trees

So I've been busy with orders and testing lately, but I wanted to update you all on both...

First, I wanted to show of this cute firefighter set... cause I love it, and I totally love these two patterns together...  The Hangout Hoodie from Peek-a-Boo and the Chapsters from PetitBebe.  There are just so many great ways to customize both.

I even included my mini shop logo on it!  Have I shown you guys my logo?  I love it... I had originally paid a gal to do it, and we were just in different universes when it came to design concepts, and the communication was really shoddy, and all in all I was just really unhappy with the drafts, so I tried to be fair about it and asked for 1/2 my money back and let her keep half for the work she had tried to do.  Anyways, I decided then to make my own... and here it is...

 And moving on...I've been busy testing some nifty patterns, yes I said nifty... Only one is out so far, so I wanted to share it because over in her Candy Castle Patterns Group there is a mini-sew along this week!

The dress is the Peppermint Swirl Dress - available now on her new website http://www.candycastlepatterns.com/

Testing this dress was so much fun, it really is sort of neat how the skirt comes together... but first... here was my fabric:

It's hard to tell, but they all sparkle.  Now, I tend to rush into patterns, so PLEASE take time to read how to lay the fabric to cut out the flounces, why you ask?  Because you need 7 of each color (if you do 2 colors), but you cannot cut the fabric if its folded... only stacked...  So what I ended up doing was tracing the pattern pieces onto one piece and then cutting out the fabric into the same size area (FQ for size 5) and stacking 4 at a time to cut).

So here are some progress shots....

This was the night before Thanksgiving... So I was baking and sewing... Connor stuck his finger into the crust :( 

HOW COOL IS THIS?  sorry, but it totally floored me to see it once I got done connecting the pieces.  Now, about 1/2 the testers just serged the pieces together, but I'm sort of skittish with my serger still, so I sewed then serged all my seams, and it really didn't seam to add too much time. 

And this is where being a tester gets sad... I was sitting on the couch, watching TV and using my handy dandy glue pen (instead of pins) to put my bias on, and this is the moment where I realized that the original estimate for how much to get was short... I was like 17" short and I had none of the same pink to make any... which did two things... made me very sad because I wanted to finish AND sent me to Joann's the next day... my first time ever Black Friday shopping...and I picked up a nice little stash, waited one person to get it cut, and was out of the store in an hour.  

So back to my dress.... Ta-Da!

The longest part of the dress was cutting out the flounces, I think.  They took at least 4 Netflix episodes of HIMYM.  After that, you'll be amazed at how fast it all comes together.  I think if I had the ability to sew uninterrupted, it would have been maybe 3ish hours?

The best part of this dress? Like the absolute best part?

 THE TWIRL!!!!

We also took some time last week to go to the city tree lighting!  Where they did this thing... that I will not make jokes about, but will say the name and if you snicker than you are clearly as mature as me... it was called the "Ball Drop" and they advertised it as they would drop 300 balls into a parking lot and everyone could go rush and get their three dropped balls...  Ok, so the balls were pingpong balls dropped from this firetruck:

And they had discounts and free prizes for the local shops on them.  The kids got balsa gliders that lasted all of 10 minutes (go figure, right?), and we hung around for the tree lighting... to which Santa arrived on a motorcycle drawn sleigh where the riders all had antlers on their helmets... seriously, how cool is that?  The kids were excited to see HoHo (as my friend's little one calls him) and we almost got some decent tree pics...Sigh

Anyways, grab your Peppermint Swirl pattern and run on over to the group for the mini-sew along -- it'll be fun AND if it's cold where you are .... the sleeves are all interchangeable with the Candy Castle Princess Dress, which you should totally get too, because its gorgeous!