One thing that’s been really fun for me is making things to wear on the floor when I go. You might not know this, but almost exactly a year ago I was stitching up the very first Washi Dress in Rashida‘s awesome washi tape fabric the night before I left for my first ever Quilt Market. It wasn’t until I wore the dress to a Quilt Market event last spring and got so much positive feedback from everyone on it that I realized that maybe I should try to do a women’s pattern. When I got home, I started working like crazy on it. That’s where I was a year ago, pre-Washi-hype. It amazes me sometimes to think about that, in retrospect. It’s a little crazy, actually, how much has happened in a year, and I have to tell you that I feel nothing but gratefulness to all of you guys, for how you received that pattern and helped make it a success.

The Washi Dress is a pretty hard act to follow, but I did make a few new things to wear to Quilt Market this year, including this cute little dress that I wanted to show you today. Melody brought some samples from her new line for Kokka, Ruby Star Polka Dot, to Camp Stitchalot a couple weeks ago, and I ended up swiping a little over a half a yard of this awesome arrow print. I’ve been dying over this design (and if we must be truthful, the whole line) ever since I first saw Melody’s sneek peeks on her Instagram. It’s debuting at this Market, so don’t worry you will see tons of pictures of this in my Instagram feed. I’m also completely in love with the ridiculously awesome Staple Dress April made for Melody out of the blue version of this print too. Maybe Melody will wear it at the same time and we can be twinsies.

Anyway, when I realized I had just enough fabric to cut it down the middle and make a little dress out of it, I was suddenly crazy inspired to design something super simple that would really show off the print. I wanted the lace yoke to be see-through, so I didn’t line it, just bound all the edges with off white voile. There’s no closures so it just pulls on over my head, but it’s roomy enough that it works. I hope this does the print justice. I also left the selvage visible at the bottom on purpose so that people could see Melody’s name and the name of the line, and I la-la-LOVE how that looks! That idea was totally a brainchild of my Michigan homegirls at the last local meetup where I started working on it — you guys are awesome for suggesting that I leave it, I’m so glad I did!

This is way more leg than I will ever probably show with this dress, ACK. Hot-cha-cha you guys {*a little embarrassed*}. I think I will be wearing it with skinny jeans underneath instead. What do you think? Do you love this print as much as I do?

The weekend before last I had the privilege to teach at Camp Stitchalot, a sewing retreat here in Michigan that is hosted by my friend Brenda over at Pink Castle Fabrics. I finally got my photos uploaded and labeled today so you can experience the fun and awesomeness vicariously through my photostream.

I was thrilled that Katy Jones, Melody Miller, and Rashida Coleman-Hale were also “counselors” for the weekend. We had so much fun together, and it was great to get to know these incredibly talented ladies a bit more.

Katy (pictured above), who is just as hilarious and endearing in real life as on her blog, has already written a couple of posts about Camp that are really great — so if you want to get a sense for what the weekend was like, you should really read her posts here, and here. She really summed it up for me with these words:

“Camp is all about hanging out with like minded people and not feeling like a nerd for wanting to sew non-stop for 3 days.” – Katy Jones

It’s so true. It was amazing how much sewing 30 people produced in three days. The thing that really made this weekend so amazing and fun was hanging out with so many different, fantastic people: women of all ages, sewing abilities, and interests. We had so much fun together. The sewing is great, but the experience of making new friends, talking, and laughing together is rather more important.

You can peruse my photos in the gallery below; if you click through to each one there’s more information. You can also view my whole Camp Stitchalot set together.

Registration is also open now for Camp Stitchalot August 2013, so you if can, don’t pass up this opportunity to sew, sew, sew your heart out this summer! The counselor lineup is amazing for that session, as well (geared more toward quilting rather than general sewing this time around), and there are sure to be even more fun weekends ahead from Pink Castle.

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Wouldn’t you wear them every day, if you had a pair of pants this awesome? These were inspired by my friend Emily’s velveteen pair for her daughter Phoebe (first pic in this post).

A genius stroke with the pattern matching across the back seam, if I do say so myself. Not on purpose, of course. I can only pattern-match when I’m NOT trying.

I made a flat-front waistband and pouch pockets (both are options in the pattern) with a double gauze lining. Even though it looks like I might have used piping around the edges of the pockets, I actually just cut the linings a bit larger than the pocket and rolled them outward around the edges. The results are okay…this is really “cheater piping,” but it looks pretty good.

Though she wore it once with the pink shirt (a puff-sleeved Flashback tee, tutorial here), here is the actual ensemble we’ve been privy to here at our house for the past three days. I’m going to make her throw these in the wash tonight. And that yellow striped shirt? I made that too (more on that, soon)!

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Another one of my spring tops for you today, this one in off-white lace.

I have to say, I die a little of embarrassment whenever I show my face on this blog. I know I probably come off as a sort of person with narcissistic and attention-seeking tendencies (I mean, give me a break, you kind of have to be to be a blogger, no?), and though that may be partially true, for some reason it seems weird knowing that you’re all looking right at me and I can’t see you back. I get self-conscious and I feel like I have to say something about facial expressions that are awkward and strange (like in this post), or my thighs, or whatever distracting thing I feel the need to comment on — that you probably wouldn’t even notice otherwise. Sometimes I get around that problem by cropping my head out of a shot, just to focus less on me and more on the garment (Exhibit A, below). But it’s hard to be the headless blogger all the time, especially when the composition works better with a head. So I guess I just have to be okay with posting cheesy pictures from time to time. Anyway, enough about self-consciousness; more about the top!!!

This top was completely inspired by this lace top I stumbled across on Pinterest. I fell in love with the photo and couldn’t stop thinking about finding some lace to try to recreate it. I think I got the overall look down but now there is the issue of “who wears this? and WHERE?” — which I didn’t really think through completely before I started. The outfit with the gold earrings and the pink pencil skirt, for instance, reads more “ladies who lunch” than “Rae about town” or “Rae carting child to karate” or even “Rae on a date” or “Rae goes to church,” so when am I going to wear it? I don’t exactly yet know. Suggestions???

One other (pretty major) problem of wearability still exists with this top, as the ladies who witnessed its first donnage last week at our latest local sewing meetup will attest: I cannot get this top to stop busting open at the snaps. This was obviously due to a gross underestimation of how strong my chest is. JUST KIDDING. I blame the clear snaps that I picked up at a nearby sewing superstore, which, though nearly invisible and therefore seemingly perfect for a white top, won’t stay shut worth a damn. I cannot comprehend why one would need snaps that don’t close. Maybe to dress a mannequin? A corpse? Neither one is on my agenda, at least for the near future.

This beautiful lace fabric came from the remnants floor at Britex during our recent family trip to San Francisco and the pattern is my own, something I drew up based on my measurements using a pattern-making book. The edges were trimmed with a strip of white voile cut on the bias, which worked out quite nicely, methinks. This lace was slightly stretchy but much easier to sew than the stretch lace I used for the Angel Top, so it went together quite quickly. Oh, if only it would stay on.

This is top #2 of five that I’m planning to post this year as part of my Spring Top Sewalong! You can join in by sewing something for yourself and posting it to our friendly photo pool! More info can be found here. We’ve extended the sewalong until Monday, May 27th, so you have just a couple more weeks to sew along!

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Today, though, I am totally wiped. Naturally I stayed in bed until 10:30 and ate chocolate-covered pretzels for breakfast. Thank goodness my kids are still with my awesome mom-in-law until this evening. I was going to try to take the day off, but it’s not really working, since I got sucked into the Vortex of Obligation as soon as I opened my computer. That’s okay, though! Being on my computer gives me a chance to show you the adorbsable brushed cotton pajamas I made for Clementine. I posted a picture of them (reposting it again, below) last week as part of my “Parsley Pants is here!” post, but here they are in action on the little stinker herself!

SMILE!

The pants were made with Nani Iro brushed cotton from Kokka (I blogged about these fabrics last fall) and my new Parsley Pants Sewing Pattern, which comes in kids’ sizes 2-10. This is the simple elastic-waist option, which is crazy easy to make. The pajama top was made with my Charlie Tunic pattern. I cut the bottom hem of the shirt so to give it a curved shape, and put the facings on the inside instead of on the outside. The sleeve is more of a 3/4 length — I seem to prefer that for girls — so if you have the Charlie Tunic you can just shorten the sleeve, or if you have the Charlie Dress Add-on you can use that sleeve. By the way, we have a $1-off Charlie Dress + Tunic bundle in the shop now if you’re interested in having them both.

As you can see, Miss Thing here is beginning to inherit her brother’s knack for unusual poses. She loves these pajamas, mainly because some of the pink flowers sparkle, something you cannot really see in these photos but I swear is true. I love them because they are soft and beautiful, and she will wear them without protest.

You can see more Parsley Pants in the photo pool as well:

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