Spring 14 Ideas House

 {This is not my house}

Happy Spring! Welcome to a little photo tour of the Bachman's Spring 14 Ideas House. This was a nice getaway after the long harsh winter we had around here. For Spring 14 the theme is "Aegean Oasis" ~ sophisticated blues, greens, and diverse patterns of an overseas retreat.

Are you interested in 'visiting' some of the previous Ideas Houses? If so, these are just a click away: Holiday 13, Fall 13, Spring 13, Holiday 12, Fall 12, Spring 12, Holiday 11, Summer 11, Spring 11, Holiday 10, Summer 10, and Spring 10.

In the dining room, mirrors added to the back of garden art and hung on wall.

 The dining room table is set for entertaining, a casual yet sophisticated scene features white plates enhanced with many blues, layering, and wood accents.

 Garden art added underneath glass dining room table, bracelets used as napkin rings, mini plant with test tube vase and paper as place card holder.

 Decorative tape wrapped around candles.

 In the kitchen, vintage dresser turned into a kitchen island.

 Salvaged wood box used as kitchen shelving/organizer.

 In the living room, shell pots used as candle holder.

 Hearth filled with zen fountain and water bowl, DIY sand and rocks design below glass on side table.

 Pile of branches side table.

 In the sunroom, brass bells.

 In the reading room, wicker 'nest' couch with nest full of blue eggs pillow.

 Lamp shade made from book pages.

 Dog bed.

 In the girl's bedroom, bamboo room divider as headboard, typewriter table used as a nightstand.

 Vintage mailing cart used as bench/coat rack/storage, wall drawers for magazine rack and shelving.

 In the master bedroom, headboard made from salvaged wood.

 Workbench used as table.

 Votive cups layered on top of candlesticks.

 Bare tree used as scarf holder.

 In the tablescapes room, watercolor wedding table, decorative hanging glass orbs, ribbon and metal wall art as chandelier.

 Ribbons tied around glassware stems.

 In the bathroom, one fish, two fish, red fish, here is a blue fish, decorative terrarium as a fish bowl.

My favorite part of this Ideas House was all the blue, especially the turquoise (and white) in the dining room and kitchen.

What was your favorite part?

PS I hope you get a chance to visit this Spring 2014 Ideas House (there are so many more ideas to see than are in these photos) it is open March 20th - April 13th, 2014. Fall 14 Ideas House is planned for September 9th - October 5th, 2014. And the Holiday 14 Ideas House is set for November 6th - December 14, 2014.

Two Tea Party Doll Dresses

 There is currently a Little Things to Sew: Cover to Cover Challenge going over at Bartacks and Singletrack until August 31st, 2014.

Sew one (or more) of the 21 projects from the book and add it to the Flickr group.

So far from the book, I've made a tutu, mittens, 4 art smocks (found here: 1, 2, 3 &4), and today I'm sharing my latest creation… 2 tea party doll dresses.

Project details
Pattern: Tea Party Doll Dress (difficulty level 2 out of 4 scissors) from the Little Things to Sew book
Size: 18-inch doll
Fabrics:
dress 1: pink/white/gray vintage floral (leftover fabric from a Pattern 8 dress and a popover sundress), DS quilt collection blue floral from JoAnn (leftover from a Holly Hobbie outfit)
dress 2: green/white/blue vintage floral (leftover fabric from an origami collar dress and a popover sundress), solid blue cotton
Notions: buttons, Velcro
Mods: I used Velcro for the closures instead of snaps, I would recommend using snaps as was suggested in the list of materials

Don't let the tiny size of this doll dress fool you, it takes just as much time to sew one of these up as it does a girl dress. If you're looking for a quicker and easier doll dress to make, try the Popover Sundress.

PS Looking for more clothes to sew for an 18-inch doll? How about a reversible skirt?

Two Art Smocks

 Miss C has outgrown her 2 art smocks: the one I sewed in October 2011 and the one I sewed in January 2012.

So of course I sewed her 2 new ones. It's nice to have an extra one, you know, when one is dirty in the hamper or when a friend comes over for a visit :)

Project Details
Pattern: Oliver + S Art Smock from the Little Things to Sew book (difficulty level of 2 out of 4 scissors)
Size: Large (7-10)
Mods: the 2 patch pockets were eliminated
Notions: Velcro, 3/8" elastic
Fabrics:
Art Smock 1: blue floral polka dot is Heritage Studio Collection by Fabric Traditions, Kona baby pink
Art Smock 2: Hello Kitty Glitter cotton, Chic Bebe dots pink/white

I wanted to give you a peek inside to show you that the instructions give the results of a very polished interior. The sleeves and side seams all are French seams. Kids are tough on the things they wear, so this art smock will stand the test of time.

Once the fabric was cut out, it took less than 2.5 hours to sew one up.

Some of the best features are the practical long sleeves and with the Velcro closure in the back so she can put it on and take it off all by herself. It's really a fabulous design and pattern. It's my favorite project from the Little Things to Sew book.

She picked out all of the fabrics herself, so I have a very pleased customer :)

More Popover Sundresses

 I sewed up 6 Popover Sundresses last May and just finished 4 more these past few days. The Popover Sundress is a really great instant gratification sewing project as it's a quick and easy sew. Other great things about the dress is that it's completely reversible and there is no elastic, no buttons, no zipper! And the best thing about this pattern is that it is free!

 Project Details:
Pattern: Oliver+S Popover Sundress (free online sewing pattern in sizes 2-8)
Size: 5
Mods: I did French seams for the side seams, making them super seams, so they will be more durable.

Fabrics:
Dress 1:
The floral print is from Fabric Traditions called Garden Party
The solid robin's egg blue is Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton Robin Egg
These 2 fabrics are leftovers fro the Girl's Floral Party Dress I sewed almost 3 years ago.
The solid bubble gum pink is cotton from my stash

This is my favorite dress of the 4, the colors and fabrics are super sweet, pretty, and girly. What a dream it would be to sew little girl clothing everyday in robin's egg blue and bubble gum pink!

Dress 2:
The green floral polka dot is Stonehill Collection by Donna Wilder for Fabric Traditions
The solid green is cotton from my stash

Dress 3:
The pink floral is vintage that was left over from a Pattern 8 dress
The solid gray is cotton from my stash

Dress: 4
The modern large blue polka dot is "England Swings" by Rebekan Merkle for Timeless Treasures Fabrics
The green/blue/white floral is vintage
These 2 fabrics are leftovers from the Origami Collar dress

These dresses were made for and will be donated to Dress A Girl Around the World.

Little One-Yard Wonders

I have a little bit of special news to share with you today.

Let me introduce you to a new book that will be coming out soon. It is called Little One-Yard Wonders: Irresistible Clothes, Toys and Accessories You Can Make for Babies and Kids by Patricia Hoskins and Rebecca Yaker. It is the third one of the One-Yard Wonders book series, I blogged about the first one here and the second one here.

I am excited to share that one sewing project that I designed made it into the book! The book contains 101 projects total. As you can see, six projects are featured on the cover and how fun that my project is shown on the cover (to say that I am thrilled would be an understatement). Can you guess which one of the six is mine?  It is the red polka dot play set/play mat/table cloth. I designed it and sewed it up four years ago and submitted it for publication for this book two years ago, so it is super fun to see it published after all this time.

June 3rd, 2014 is the official publication date for Little One-Yard Wonders, but it is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

I will share more about Little One-Yard Wonders in the future...

Thank you for taking the time to visit here.

Happy weekend everyone!

Josephine Dress

 The FLIP This Pattern for the month of February is the Violette Field Threads Josephine Dress/Blouse which comes in sizes 2 - 10.

The Violette Field Threads Josephine Dress or Blouse has the following features/options:

• dress or blouse
• long or flutter sleeves
• pin tucks
• tailored collar
• ruffle button tab or not
• dress can have waist sash or not

 I chose to sew up a dress (with all of it's bells and whistles) with long sleeves, the ruffle button tabs, and the waist sash. I even made my own bias tape out of the same fabric (bias tape is needed around the collar). My greatest challenge was matching up the 'stripes'. I wanted the floral stripes to match all the way across the front, back, and sleeves. I also wanted the button tab to be in the solid dark color and the ruffle button tabs and the waist sash to be in the vine part of the fabric. I'm super pleased with the results. I had 2 yards of this fabric and I used up almost all of it for only a size 5!

Project Details:
Pattern: Violette Field Threads Josephine Dress
Size: 5 with 1 inch added in length
Fabric: 2 yards of Alchemy Victoriana (port) cotton by Amy Butler
Notions: Seven 3/8" buttons

I'm thrilled that everything came from my stash.

 This was my first Violette Field Threads sewing pattern. A couple of things that I really liked about this pattern:

• that for one of the rectangular pieces dimensions were given instead of a pattern piece, I have quilting rulers, so I can cut out rectangles quickly and I prefer to do it this way, plus it doesn't waste paper
• measurements were given (for the pin tucks, buttonhole placements) instead of markings on the pattern pieces, I really prefer this, I'm a numbers person, please give me numbers and measurements, for me it's such a drag to transfer markings from the pattern pieces onto the fabric

I really liked the method that was used for making the pin tucks, I had never done it that way before and it has become my preferred method now.

Without waist sash

Be sure to add your Josephine dress to the Flip This Pattern linky party by February 20th.

Sew In Tune Winter 2014

 Sew In Tune Winter 2014 is here! It's an online sewing series where you sew up an outfit inspired by a tune. The hostesses are Melissa from Melly Sews and Stacey from Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy! All this week there are two Sew In Tune posts per day, so check out their blogs to see them all.

 Today it is my turn to play and the song I picked was Waterloo by ABBA.
More specifically about my inspiration:

• Waterloo battle: military inspired jacket
• Napoleon was from France: the jacket sewing pattern I used is from France
• The ABBA music group is from Sweden: Swedish flag (blue with a gold Scandinavian cross)

 For my son, Mr. J, I created 3 pieces: a pair of yellow trousers, a blue jacket, and a white long sleeve t-shirt and here are the project details...

 Yellow Trousers
Pattern: Oliver+S Art Museum Trousers with this zipper fly tutorial
Fabric: yellow cotton twill
Size: 7 with 9/10 length
Sewing notes: My first zipper fly! I have been sewing up a ton of little girl dresses these past few years, but only a handful of pants. I am so happy I tackled the zipper fly. I'm so pleased with how well it went and with the result that I hope to sew zipper flies on all pants in the future.

 Blue jacket
Pattern: Oberweiden (paper pattern in French, comes in sizes 6-12 years)
Fabrics:
Jacket: blue cotton twill
Lining: Kona cotton in blue and gold
Size: 10 years
Sewing notes: This jacket is "demi saison," so it does not close (I am really thankful I didn't have to sew all those button holes, especially because I added 6 buttons instead of the suggested 4). The sewing went pretty well as I knew enough French to get by and there are easy to follow drawings. I'm not a huge fan of putting in sleeves, but these went in extremely easily.
For the lining of this jacket I was inspired by the Swedish flag which is blue with a gold Scandinavian cross. It was really quite easy to add the gold Scandinavian cross. First I cut out the blue lining fabric. Second, I took 2 inch strips of gold fabric, folded under .5 inch on each side, then topstitched them onto the blue lining fabric.
I really like the details on this jacket and am thrilled that it is gender neutral, so hopefully I'll get more use (and therefore my money's worth) out of it.

 White long sleeve t-shirt
Pattern: Made by Rae flashback skinny tee for big kids, comes in sizes 6-14
Fabric: I bought an adult size t-shirt from the clearance rack, so I used an existing t-shirt to make a smaller one, using the original hems, cuffs, and neckline ribbing, like in this video.

 If you would like to sew along you can add your Sew In Tune creations to the flickr group.

Many thanks to Melissa and Stacey for the invitation to participate in the series.

PS I created a challenge for myself. I want to complete the following 4 sewing projects before the Great British Sewing Bee Season 2 airs in spring 2014.
These are from the Great British Sewing Bee Season 1 and they are the 'following a pattern' challenges from all 4 episodes:

1. A-line skirt with invisible zip
2. Trousers with zip fly
3. Summer dress with French seams, rows of shearing elastic, and rouleau loop straps
4. Button shirt with collar stand

So with finishing these yellow trousers I have crossed 'Trousers with zip fly' off the list and have 3 more challenges to complete in order to reach my goal.