Planning for KCW

Kids Clothes Week is coming up on Monday and I'm planning to sew along. I originally thought I'd come here to write and tell you about needing to buy fabric since my fabric stash is significantly smaller than my yarn stash, but then I actually went into my fabric stash and saw the madness.

I haven't sewn more than a small repair here and there over the last 2 years until this recent run at the machine. And yet, there's all that fabric. I could hardly believe it when I laid it all out on the guest bed to sort. And now I need to store it in some way better than the stack of weird plastic totes that still line the wall since we moved in almost 2 years ago.


And best of all, I found a few projects I cut out at least 2 years ago that no longer fit my tall boys. I swear they have each grown at least a foot in the past two years. I think I can rescue both pair- the one that would have been Ezra's will go on to be Ellie's and I'm going to get creative with a second fabric so that Ender can still wear his since I cut them so long over 2 years ago. I'm not sure why I originally cut them to be so long, but I did and now I'm truly grateful for the cutting oversight.

All that to say that I'm working on a plan for KCW that is slightly different than I originally thought it would be, but still good. I'm over-planning by a long ways, but I'd rather have more to do than less and not run out when there is good sewing time ahead of me.


The priorities:

1. Nice-looking but comfortable pants for the boys. I have two pieces of linen from who knows when that look like they are big enough to get at least 1 pair of pants for each of them.

2. 1 more pair of pajama pants for each of the boys. Since I let them pick pajama fabric we will have a pair of Toy Story pants and also some cartoon dog pajamas.

3. Finish the last 2 long sleeve dresses for Ellie.



Extra:

1. I cut pieces to make an Olivia top before we left on our trip, so I'm planning to make that one as well if I can figure out the button hole thing. I did button holes on my machine once or twice a few years ago and my memory is foggy. I'll try to mess around with that this weekend before the KCW challenge begins.

2. I have 2 more pair of leggings cut for Ellie that just need sewn up.



Now to figure out what to do with other fabrics in the stash. I've given up on trying to figure out how it all got there.

Little Beginnings

{Won't you join in the Yarn Along with Ginny this week?}

It's been a casting on sort of week since we got home on Sunday. It was warm enough here when we left on our vacation, but now that we're home again it is definitely on its way to truly being autumn. I haven't had to turn on the heat just yet, but the cooler evenings and mornings definitely inspired the casting on of a few fall/winter knits.


The rainbow-y colored ribbing is going to become thumbless mittens for Ellie and also a pair of mittens for Ezra. He picked out this yarn when we visited the Nerd Girl Yarns booth at Maker's Faire back in June and specifically asked them to be made into mittens. The colorway is Fantastical Fastener on a fingering weight- which means I'm knitting mittens on US 2 DPNs.


The white is the beginnings of my first hat for Halos of Hope. The Knitmore Girls are taking part in a friendly competition between podcasters to bring as many hats as possible to Stitches West to benefit Halos of Hope. And as if the contest itself weren't enough, they are offering prizes to people who participate, including some of Jasmin's own handspun. I'm starting now, and aiming to knit as many hats as I can between now and the middle of February.



I'm still reading Wuthering Heights, but failing to see the attraction. I think I would have loved it if I had read it at 16, but now as a married mother of three who rather enjoys a drama-less existence, I'm not such a fan of the drama for silly reasons. The language does make me want to read Austen next though- maybe Emma or Mansfield Park? I have a few things waiting at the library too when I get a chance to pick them up.

Run Away

We ran off for a little holiday again last week. I meant to put a quick post up on Saturday mentioning this long planned trip, but I was too busy out on the actual trip!

We went to Disney World for 9 days and this time around took my parents. It was such a blessing to have them along. We generally did the mornings all together, then split off for the afternoon: the boys and Brian went to ride all the crazy rides, my parents went off wherever they wanted to look around, and Ellie and I went back to the hotel for a nap. The nap was supposed to just be for her, but I ended up "resting" too on several of the days. I had originally thought I might get to knit during those hours, but I was too wiped out.

Each day we would meet back up in the late afternoon/early evening for dinner and sometimes a few more things in the parks. Brian and I took turns taking Ellie back to the hotel for bedtime and going to bed early ourselves.

While I'd love to come back into this space with all sorts of finished knits, it's even better to come back into this space saying we had a week full of family time, fun adventures AND a brand new 8-year-old.

More Little Things

Ellie is still in whirling dervish mode when the camera comes out, but I wanted to share a few more sewing things with you today even though I didn't get anything with her actually in the clothes.


I made two "wearable" muslins to test out a new-to-me waistband and also to see just how much ruffling I wanted before cutting into my real fabric. For the waistband, basically you cut it in two pieces- half the child's waist measurement on the front panel and half the measurement + about 3 inches on the back panel. The back panel has elastic sewn into it and that's where the stretch for the skirt comes from, but it allows the front panel to stay flat. I really like the look of this type of waistband.


On the first muslin I liked the waist band a lot, and it fits her perfectly right now, which means it may not last for long at the rate she's growing.

The second one is a fuller skirt, same waistband. At first gathering the fabric seemed really time consuming, but the effect is so nice it's worth the extra time.

And after trying a few different things, I cut the real material and made: 

It's amazing to me how just a little bit of ribbon and lace can change the whole look of a skirt. As I'm looking at sewing patterns and tutorials (and collecting them on a pinterest board) I'm learning to see the possibilities from the most basic of patterns.


I used the diaper cover pattern from the danamadeit.com tutorial as usual. I've made several of these now and they are so easy to just sit down, cut out a bunch and stitch them up, particularly with a serger. Ellie has a stack and they're going to last her for quite awhile.

Yarn Along

{Wednesday Yarn Along with Ginny. Won't you join in?}

The sewing craziness around here is almost done. A few more little things to share in this space and to finish at the machine and then I'm done sewing for the season.


I started Ellie's little Stripey Cardigan back in June, and as I've had to make design decisions about it I kept putting it down in favor of things where I could just. keep. knitting. I found this fabric while hunting down other material and immediately thought of the little cardigan and how perfectly it matched! I grabbed both fabrics and plan a little dress out of each, and maybe a skirt too if I have enough left over.

I started back to work on the cardigan after finding that fabric. I just did a bit of decreasing at the bottom of that sleeve so it won't be quite so wide and then I'm going to put a few stripes at the bottom before finishing it up and moving on to the other sleeve. I did decide that I'm probably going to go back to the bottom of the body and try seed stitch instead of the 1x1 ribbing and see if I like that better for the finished edge. If not, I'll do the 1x1 ribbing again, but not so much of it. It's not looking delicate enough to me as it stands now.


I started reading Wuthering Heights on the kindle and I'm about 1/3 of the way through. I've never read it before, and it always takes my brain about a paragraph to reset to the writing style and more complex sentence structure. The boys and I are still listening to Farmer Boy together.

What are you reading and making this week?