Monday, April 12, 2010

Spring Organizing Fever

I haven't been sewing much, but I have been organizing! I finally went through ALL of my patterns and made it easier to see what I have at a glance. I followed the standard scheme: keep pattern envelope in a plastic sheet protector in binders divided by clothing type, then store patterns in paper or zip bags in numerical order. I have about 130-150 patterns...not too excessive!

I organized the fabric next...this hanging cubby works well. I put wovens in it and put the knits of the shelves to the right...


Here are the knits! No more fabric lurking in bins...well, except for my scrap bin...that is packed full of little bits of fabric. I didn't have the energy to redo that bin. I tried rolling the fabric to see if that would work (instead of folding) and I decided that I didn't like it. Rolling seems to stretch the knits and put stress on them. It seems to create lots of wrinkles on the wovens. I think I'd like to get another hanging cubby to fold some more fabric and it will be great. I could use some order in my notions bins, but I need to start working on summer clothes. I have a few dresses planned in addition to summer tee shirts. I know that many of my short sleeve tees are super duper short in the torso.
I feel good when I go into my neat(er) sewing room...now, I should stop blogging and get working on the summer wardrobe!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Easter Garb

I wore my Simplicity 3775 dress for Easter. It took me 2 hours to sew the whole thing. I did not make any alterations at all...very unusual for a vee-type neckline! It is a thin cotton knit. I plan on making several more...this is so comfortable and flattering.

Here is my son wearing his Easter outfit. On Saturday, I realized that he only had grubby clothes, nothing suitable to wear to church. I dug through my stash and came up with this thick brown rib knit and a scrap of linen (I made DH a shirt out of it) with stripes. He loves cars, so I figured that the chances of him wearing it would be higher if I appliqued a little car on it. I found some brown buttons for wheels. Mama was happy; tot was happy. Win/win! I felt proud that I managed to come up with a cute outfit for him in a few hours. I think I'll try to make some more clothes for him for the summer. Of course, it pains me a little more when he gets his homemade clothes filthy than if he gets the store bought ones dirty.


I am not crazy about the tee-shirt pattern for him...does anyone have any child (2T-3T) patterns that they would recommend?

I forgot to mention one of my pet peeves when shopping for boy's clothing. All the colors are barfy! I hate shopping for my son because there isn't much cute stuff out there. Hopefully I can come up with some ideas that will make his wardrobe more exciting.