Saturday, October 20, 2012

Babe in the City

Hoo boy!  Where have I been?!  It drives me nuts when bloggers are constantly apologizing for not posting but it seems a little nuts to take an eight month break and not acknowledge it.  Eight months indeed.  But I'm here now, and I have things to show you!  I may not have been blogging but I have been sewing, so I've got quite a back catalog to share.  What's the statute of limitations on these things?  Is that a thing?  Is it tacky to share baby quilts that were given to babies who are now two and a half?  I'm going to say no.

Today, however, I'm going to share something much more recent.  The most recent something, in fact.  Ginny and I just returned from a trip to the East coast to visit friends and family and attend a wedding in New York City.  Having grown up in New England but living in LA for the last seven years, fall is the worst time of year for me.  It makes me so sad to read all about crisp weather, changing leaves and snuggly fall clothes while we're still having 116 degree days (not an exaggeration).  Visiting places with cooler weather is a prime opportunity to bundle up in our fall fashions that should not be squandered.

Of course, three days before leaving I decided Gin needed, not just an appropriately autumnal dress for the wedding but also the perfect cozy fall coat.

For the dress, I decided on the Junebug dress tutorial from Craftiness is not Optional.  It's a good simple tutorial with printable pattern pieces for size 2T and instructions for making other sizes based on clothes you have.

Instead of making a casing for the elastic in the sleeve I simply folded the sleeve edge over twice and pressed then sewed the stretched out elastic to the wrong side with a zig zag stitch.  This way makes a little ruffle at the edge and I think looks a little less homemade.  I also added a lining to the skirt as well as pleating the skirt instead of gathering it.


The coat I made her is Simplicity 2534.  I used a thick gray corduroy with some black pre made binding and lined it in aqua. The pattern's smallest size is 3T which seemed like it would be a little big so I sized down all of the pieces before I traced and cut them.  I just eyeballed the difference between the other sizes and drew new lines at a similar distance from the 3T lines.  It worked great!


This was a good little pattern.  It's a really nicely finished coat and came together easily.  I ambitiously bought some wool to make a second coat for her at the same time but wisely held off before the trip.  But seeing as we are just starting to get some lower temperatures here (i.e. low 70's, blarf) she'll be needing a back-up coat soon enough!

3 comments:

  1. Good to see you back! I personally would LOVE to see everything you made. No statute of limitations here! I cannot believe how big Ginny is already. What a cutie pie :)

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  2. It's your party, so blog if you want to!
    Love to see what you've been up to... and of course
    the adorable Gin!
    Yeah aren't we _lucky_ it's so cool, now?!
    Please, Nature, give us some real fall weather!

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  3. Cute! Cute, cute, cute!!

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