Lookee what I'm Making

I had an idea for a cute dress that I could wear for church, but also when I run errands. I know I needed something that would work with both heels and flats or sandals. It had to work with boots and tights and it had to have room to grow. So I drew up this little baby. 

I then searched through all my patterns and thought, which one would work best for this dress. Which one could I adjust to fit. I then found one that I bought a few months ago but still had not made. It's by Leanne Marshall for Simplicity, number 1877. I love her patterns! They are so gorgeous. 

I actually bought it for the one on the left (the yellow one) but I knew that I'd outgrow that one in a couple of months, so then I knew it had to be the one on the right. Maybe the one on the left can work later on if I add a lot more fabric in the midsection between the ruffles and make it a jersey knit fabric. I also had the orange jersey knit that I hadn't used, which is why my illustration is in that color. The fabric selection for this pattern calls for Linen, Silk, Satin, Chambray, or Poplin, unfortunately, most of those, if not all, have no stretch. So, I opted for Jersey knit, one size bigger in the pattern and called it a day. 

My pattern pieces are all cut out and I am hoping to finish it by tomorrow because we have a barbecue to go to and I'd love to wear it then. We'll see how it turns out! Come back and see the end result. 

BTW: I have a few ideas for some upcoming blog posts. Would ya'll like tutorials with pattern pieces? I don't exactly know how to size them up or down, I'd have to make them in my size and then ya'll would have to size it down to your pattern size (or I could try to figure it out). Then, I'd upload it and ya'll could follow along, maybe a sew along? Let me know what you think! 

Are there any patterns that you know would work well for maternity clothes? Let me know!

It's A Boy! Pregnancy Update

This is the 10 week Baby Bump Update. Actually, I'm a bit late, Week 10 and 3 days! lol. I am apparently having a boy. Well, at least in my dreams I am! It's actually way too early to detect whether it will be a boy or a girl for real, but last night I had a dream that I was carrying a sweet baby boy in my arms and feeding it from a bottle. The baby was only a few months old and it was such a precious baby. I was so in love and full of peace and joy that I still can't get over how much I felt the love in my dream. I am so excited now! For the first time I actually feel like I am pregnant. 10 weeks is still early to feel pregnant, unless you've been dealing with morning sickness, which I haven't, but other than that, I've felt normal. Not now, I am more excited than ever to be pregnant. I was telling my husband that because we have all boys that I really wanted a girl, but after this dream, I could care less if it's a boy or a girl. In my dream I had a boy and I was so in love that it didn't matter that it wasn't a girl, I loved it immensely nonetheless. So whether or not it's a boy or girl, we will be over the moon happy! :)
Here are the pictures we got today.  You can see his head on the right, tummy in the middle and legs at the top left.

 Here is one farther out, the circle in the middle is my uterus with baby at bottom of circle relaxing, and the circle on the right of it is my bladder. The reason I always have to pee, the baby is pushing on it! lol

 Here is a profile picture, you can see the face on the head, the arm on the right is sticking out straight on the background (grey). She (or he) kept moving her arms and legs back & forth. It was so cute! The legs are on the bottom, to the left of where it says CRL.

So, in other news, we decided to have a Gender Revealing Party. I got the idea a while ago from the show Cake Boss, where he made a cake for a couple who wanted to find out the sex of the baby after cutting the cake open. If the inside was pink, it was a girl, if it was blue, it was a boy. 

The cake is in the picture below. You can watch this episode Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE. 

and then I saw a blog post last night, which for the life of me, I cannot find! (I FOUND IT, RIGHT HERE!!!) So I googled gender reveal cakes and found some cute ones I really liked. 

Like this one from HERE

this one from HERE. I really LOVE this one:)

This one from HERE

Aren't they all so cute??? 

We are excited to do this. I'm already starting to think about it, the decor, the food, the cake, what will it be like? For sure I am getting the Red Velvet cupcakes from The Cake Pop Company in town, they are DELICIOUS!!! Probably with boy or girl diaper booties on the top of them. So anyways, that is my Baby Bump Update. Until next week! 

McCall's M6504 Dress

Hi everyone, I went to the Japanese Fall Festival in town on Sunday and I wore the dress that I made a while ago, by a while I mean like 2 or 3 months ago but it didn't fit because I made it one size too big. It finally fit me since my chest has grown quite a bit with this pregnancy. I hadn't shown it to ya'll because I didn't have Aubrey at the time and it didn't fit me so it wouldn't have looked good on me at the time. But here it is and a few extra pics from our day:)

 my 3 boys

 My Sunshine:)

 We even found this little pooch who looked a lot like a little Asian man! lol

 and we heard a story from an authentic Japanese Storyteller:)

Here are more pictures of the dress. For those of you interested, the pattern is McCall's M6504:

 I found that the back was a bit too wide, but the front was perfect, so I might take it in again later at least 1/2" to 1" in the back before I wear it again.

 Close up of the pattern.

 The bottom is pretty flowy and perfect for twirling! It's made out of 11 total gores.

So what do you think of the dress? Do you like it?

Balancing the Side Seams on an Altered Sewing Pattern

Yesterday I posted a post on How to Turn a Straight 2 dart skirt into a Flared Skirt, here is the continuation.  I am going to show you how to balance the side seams after you have altered the back & front pieces as you would on the last blog post.

Here is my drafted back pattern already altered. I then cut it out.

 You have the front and back pieces now altered.

 Back

 Front

 Now place them back to back. As you can see, the Front piece (yellow) is bigger than the Back piece. If you wore this, the side seams would go towards the back of the skirt, they wouldn't lay on the sides like they are supposed to. This is why we balance the side seams.

 Mark the Back side seam to the Back of the Front pattern. 

 I only marked the bottom, but I advise you to go all the way up!

 Measure the distance from the mark to the side seam. Mine was 5/8". Also measure the top of the line mark at the waistline (not shown here).

 Now divide that measurement in half and turn the pattern piece around and mark the FRONT pattern in at the Half amount. Half of 5/8" was at the 5/16, which was the 2 1/2 mark if you're going by eights.

 Now I made a line all the way up. I later made sure to make the line go in more at the top bc it needed to be taken in halfway at the top also since it was bigger there also.

 Cut at the line.

 Now onto the back skirt. I added a new piece of paper to the bottom. I marked the HALF amount to the extra piece of paper.

 Add the line. I also added to the top the half measurement of the Front Top Pattern so that they are even on top. 

 Now hash mark the old side seam off. You can see where the orange is. This is what I added to the Back Pattern piece.

 Now I lay them on top of each other and they perfectly match. Job done! 

Hope this helped! ;) 

How to turn a Straight Skirt into a Flared Skirt

Hi everyone! Today I am bringing ya'll a tutorial that I thought some of ya'll would love. It's a tutorial on how to turn a 2 dart Straight Skirt into a Flared Skirt. Like I stated on yesterday's post, I am using a half scale pattern so that it is easier for ya'll to see what I am doing. You will just do the same thing to a full size pattern. I have written the regular size pattern measurements and just cut them in half for the "half-scales."

First, I have my FRONT 2-dart half scale pattern piece. You will do the exact same thing to the back pattern piece. I will trace this half scale (you the full scale) pattern piece onto a sheet of paper. My half scale pattern that I will trace is Orange and I will trace it onto a white paper. You can use Pattern tracing interfacing paper to trace your full size pattern, which works wonderfully and doesn't mess up your old pattern piece for the straight skirt with 2 darts. 

Now I have a white half scale pattern piece and have chosen to make the adjustments over an orange cardstock so that ya'll can see what I am doing better. Make sure that you add a Horizontal Balance Line to the middle of the skirt. You do this by making a line perpendicular to the Center Front or Center Back of a skirt pattern. A clear ruler is usually the best way to mark a HBL. It will run parallel to the floor to make sure your fabric is aligned and not all wonky.

Now, we will draw lines from dart points to hemlines parallel with the center front & center back lines. Another way to make sure they are straight is to make the lines perpendicular to the HBL by using a clear ruler.

Now Cut out your pattern piece but don't cut out your whole darts. I find it easier when I don't cut out the whole dart, and instead just cut down one side of the dart leg for each dart really close to the dart point but not TO the dart point. I have marked the dart leg I am going to cut with a RED line. It will now be posted on orange card stock so that ya'll can see better.

Now you will cut from the hemline to very close to the dart point AND from one dart leg to very close to the dart point. CAUTION: Make sure you DO NOT cut all the way through the dart point!! Leave a small dot, the dart point, there to hold the pattern together. Cut as close as possible without cutting it completely apart.

Now you will Close the darts by taping them together at the dart legs. 

Now you will mark the dart closest to the Hip Line as A and B. 

(as shown on photo above)

Measure the distance between A and B and then cut that measurement in HALF and add it to the hip line. (as shown below) This is to even out the flare. My distance for A & B was 1 1/4" in half scale pattern, so 5/8" would be what I would add to my Hip Line. (yours will be much greater since it is a full size pattern) As you can see there is a tiny red dot with a tiny red line to the top and right of the dot to mark where my 5/8" measurement is at. See picture below and to the left of hemline.

By using a Styling Design Ruler that I purchased at JoAnn's I will blend the new hip line in. 

This ruler is great for patternmaking and adjusting patterns because it has a curved and a straight side. The top of my line will begin at the little green mark at the top of my hip line. I usually start the line at where my dart points end and blend it in to the top of my hip line, all the way down to my new hemline point.

I don't know if you can tell from the below picture, but I used the 10" to 17" side of the curved ruler to blend my new line. (It was taken with my phone camera and didn't come out very well. Sorry)

Also, use the curved ruler to make the new hemline. Blend in the lines, it's ok if you cut a bit off some lines as long as it is blended in nicely. You can probably tell at the hemline where the old line (green) is overlapped in some areas by the new line (red) to create a smoother hemline. 

here it is zoomed in:

I also hash marked the old hip line as to not confuse us anymore. No longer needed. Also, you may blend the waistline using your curved ruler to make a nicer waistline. It is your choice to add 1/2" to 3/4" hem and any remaining seam allowances if your pattern does not already include them.

Now you will do this for the back piece of skirt. Once you have both skirts done you will balance the side seams. (I will go over this on tomorrow's post) 

Hope you enjoyed today's tutorial. Don't forget to leave me a comment and let me know if you will try this out and what you think. Should I do more of these tutorials? Be sure to follow my blog, share, Like my page on Facebook! and check out my YT Channel:) Thanks!