2012

From the yearly archives: 2012

Bubblegum Dress

Posted May 17, 2012

I’m sharing this pink dress I made for Clementine over at skirt as top today as part of the Vintage May series Kristin is hosting along with Jess of CINO. Click over to skirt as top to see more pictures and a peek at the vintage pattern I used to make it!

Those of you who are fans of the pink rainboots will be happy to see they’ve made an appearance again. I am going to cry big fat turtle tears on the day I discover she is too big to squeeze her feet in these anymore.

Click here to see the post!

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Liberty Tie Top

Posted May 16, 2012

Another spring top today! Made with Liberty cotton lawn purchased at Purl and the same pattern as the Hello Pilgrim dress.

This one was completed just before leaving for New York a few weeks ago so I wore it over to Purl to buy some more Liberty as a reward. Not sure why I felt that making one top meant that I should buy enough fabric for *two* more tops, but I did. I get irrational around Liberty*, what can I say?

I shortened the dress pattern and left off the pockets and sleeve caps, using some bias tape to finish the armholes instead. The tie is longer and I like it…

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It looks like May is just going to be a big party

Posted May 14, 2012

I have a bunch of fun stuff on the radar this month that I’m excited about:

First up, I’m participating in the Vintage May series over on Skirt As Top at the end of this week (as in, better go write the post after this Rae!). There’s a fun Flickr pool for you to add your “vintage” creations and play along.

I’m also excited to be a judge (and a sponsor, too) for the Skirt Week competition over at Crafterhours this year, so if you’ve been wanting to make a skirt, either for yourself or your kid, go enter it in their awesome competition. More info here.

And I’ve…

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Motherhood

Posted May 14, 2012

I hope you all had a lovely weekend! For those of you who celebrated Mother’s Day yesterday, I hope it was lovely. I received this adorable little hand-painted birdhouse from Elliot along with a homemade card that slays me every time I look at it. To you maybe it is just a couple of stick figures. But it’s GOLD to me, y’know, PURE GOLD. You might also notice that he (or more likely, Mr Rae) had to tape it back together prior to delivery due to the fact that his stinker of a sister took a scissors to it while no one was looking. There were tears. It’s all better now though.

Speaking of tears. I can’t talk about Mother’s Day without mentioning two…

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The dwarfs make another appearance

Posted May 10, 2012

Edited: This post was originally entitled “Snow White makes another appearance,” in reference to the fabric used, but as Snow White doesn’t actually appear anywhere in this post, I changed the name.

This morning I decided it was time to take on another challenge. I made this Charlie Tunic with the leftover fabric from my Snow White top ages ago and she’s been refusing to wear it for weeks. There was chocolate involved. And as you can see I emerged victorious.

We are both wearing our tops today!!!

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She occasionally, briefly, wears things I’ve sewn

Posted May 9, 2012

Do you ever accidentally put two fabrics together and it totally works? One day I set these two fabrics down in the same stack and it was meant to be. The grounds for both fabrics happen to match perfectly and so do the purples. I love how these look together. I’m not sure what I did right to get her to put the dress ON — there’s currently a backlog of about six other garments I’ve recently finished for her that she absolutely won’t wear (even when full-scale mini-marshmallow bribery is being attempted) — but she did and that’s what’s important. It was kind of her to indulge me on this one. Even if I had to chase her around with the camera…

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Heather Ross Fabric Design Workshop in NYC

Posted May 8, 2012

The weekend before last I flew to New York City (for the second time ever) for a Photoshop for Fabric Design Workshop with Heather Ross. That Heather. She is just amazing. I’d read about the first fabric design workshop she taught in Portland a couple years ago and thought it would be so SO cool, but honestly felt a bit intimidated by the whole Photoshop thing. I’d been messing around with design software for about 5 years with my own set of paltry self-taught skills, but was using the cheapest software I could find just to try it out (specifically Inkscape, which is vector-based, basically a poor man’s Illustrator. Also happens to be free). I finally bit the…

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Spring Top Wrap-up: JUDGES and behind the scenes…

Posted May 4, 2012

I thought you might like to have a better introduction to all of our beautiful Spring Top Sewalong judges!

Week 1: Adrianna of Crafterhours (whose Skirt Week competition is just starting up again this month), Astrid of Connecting the Dots, and Deborah of Whipstitch

Week 2: Anna of Noodlehead, Shannon of luvinthemommyhood, and Kelli of True Bias

Week 3: Jamie Christina of Jamie Christina Patterns, Dana of MADE, and Lindsay of Lindsay, etc

Week 4: Meg of Fashioned by Meg, Edith of Edeenut Creates, Florence of Flossie Teacakes, and Jenny of Wan Life to Live

A big THANK YOU to these ladies for…

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Spring Top Week Wrap-up: WINNERS

Posted May 4, 2012

Just wanted to congratulate our wonderful Spring Top Sewalong winners one more time with a review and a quick wrap-up!

Here are the tops that won the Reader’s Choice Awards (highest number of reader votes each week):

Week 1: the Simple White Pleats top by Ruby:

Week 2: the Bow Collar top by Kristin:

Week 3: the Gauzy Summer Top by Nicole:

Week 4: Embroidered Tova, by Nina:

And here are the tops that won our Judges’ Choice Awards
(highest judges scores each week)

Week…

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Spring Top Sewalong Wrapup: SPONSORS

Posted May 4, 2012

A big thanks to all of the sponsors who donated gift certificates to their online shops to our winners!


Charmstitch	Fashionable Fabrics	Pink Castle Fabrics


Whipstitch	Modern Fabric Studio	Fabricworm


Banberry Place	Fabric Fairy	Magpie Patterns

Thanks to donations from these shops, I was able to offer great prizes to ALL of our 2012 winners. These sponsors are all shops where I shop for my fabric and patterns, and I would love it if you would support them when you’re shopping for fabric and patterns online!