Sewing retro (Telaria challence) and KWC

This week is Kids Clothes Week (KCW), a week to spend a bit of time each day for sewing for kids. I have been doing a bit of sewing anyway in the last time, but to match also the challenge set by Telaria I chose to sew a retro-style dress for Sara. It is the Debbie’s birthday dress.

I like the way she looks with it, and it is an easy and quick sew.

Here is a picture of the back, which has a button closure.

The Pattern review:

Pattern Description: Debbie’s birthday dress (View 1): An A-line dress in the spirit of the 50-60´s. The front has a parted bodice.

Pattern Sizing: Size 5T for a nearly five-year old.

Did it look like the original photo/drawing once sewed?: It does.

Were the instructions easy to follow?: Yes, they are very clear.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?: I like its flair and elegance, but I did not like the way is finished in the inside. The construction makes it also difficult to use french seams, so I finished the seams with a zigzag stitch, which is not so neat.

Did you learn anything new from this sewing project?: Not really, but the construction is interesting.

Fabric Used: a wool fabric of Lancetti bought this summer in Italy. The lining is “Monkey Swing” from Birch Fabrics.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made: None.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?: I might sew it again in a couple of years.

New summer dress and other summer projects

The temperatures have dropped here since a couple of weeks and it is actually quite chilly around here. So it feels quite strange to keep posting about the summer sewing, but let us go quickly over it. Here it comes: the last post on the summer sewing to complete the record.

The last dress before the summer holidays for Sara was the one to become her favorite. I made it following this tutorial, which now seems to work only upon an invitation. We liked several of the dresses made with this pattern, such as this one or these two. It has a rectangular top, with shirring at the back. The straps of the dress can be designed in different ways: I chose to make a buttonhole in the middle of the back. The straps are tied on the back making a v-shape, and going through this buttonhole. The skirt is great for girls: it is a rectangle made with two pieces with the full width of the fabric. As twirly as it can get.

Sara felt like a princess with this dress and loved it.

For Pablo I made still two other shorts before the holidays. For one pair I followed the tutorial of MiRincónDeMariposas, as already done here. It was actually too big for him but perfect for Sara 🙂

The other pair of shorts were more successful. The pattern is from the Ottobre magazine 3/2012, the “puffer fish” shorts made with linen. It was fitting perfectly.

From the same issue I made this romper:

I happen to have the very same fabric as the one of the ottobre issue in my stash and decided to make it just as theirs. It was looking very nice on Pablo, but by the end of the summer it was already a tad too tight around the tummy.

Experiments with water! (I)

We have been doing some experiments with water, following a nice book that we borrowed from our library: Experimente – Velbi entdeckt das Wasser (experiments about water).

The first one requires a mirror. You put it for some time in the freezer and after you take it out, you breathe on it. The water vapor in your breath condensates on the cold surface of the mirror, so that you can observe water drops on it. No wonder we need to drink all day long: we are constantly loosing water!

A second experiment consists in checking if several items like clothespins and paper clips can float on water. You then try it again, but putting on the water surface one of the layers of a tissue handkerchief. You will see that the lighter items do float now, because they feel a stronger “skin” of the water. It can be a nice moment to explain how some insects can walk on water or how much strength dragonflies need to break this skin in order to lay their eggs inside the water.