Sew cute and Indelible… sewing in Grandmaville again (and sort of a tutorial too!)

Hi everyone,

I hope you all had  a great long weekend here in US and just as wonderful one anywhere else!
Summer is winding down, although it seems it only decided to show up here in Buffalo area – we had few of those hot and muggy days here…not my favorite for sure, not to mention that big snow-dog of mine… But, he still smiles, as long as we are walking and exploring the neighborhood!
 Love that pup so much. 🙂

I am still not in the full sewing mode it seems…somehow between the garden and house projects, that sweet granddaughter and all –  hours of the day just run away from me. But that’s life. Garden gives you back the fruits of your labor…

…and house projects” – hey they are actually SEWING related!! You see, now that two out of three children are out of the family home, it is time for me to expand my tiny sewing space a bit more.. So, final house project of the summer – my new sewing space!! Woo-hoo!!!
First things first – room had to be painted, so guess what I was doing during this weekend – furniture moving, cleaning and…speckling!! I have to say, it made me smile that speckle is in COLOR!! Lovely shade of pink-lavender that changes to white when dry – so cool!

Can’t wait to finish this and show you my new space!!

But in the meantime – that sweet, adorable, cutest-in-the-whole-world granddaughter of ours is growing, smiling, giggling and of course inspiring some more baby sewing!!

I already have so many cute sewing patterns for all kinds of outfits and clothes for her… don’t ask! 😉
But seriously now, one of my favorite sources for very cute patterns is Create Kids Couture site. So many cute, useful and wonderful patterns there and they come in so many sizes! I have several of them and so far tried Baby Wyatt’s Shortalls for my little girl – and really, really LOVE it! Very clear instructions and photographs to guide you through. So much so that I was comfortable enough to actually change and modify the pattern too!
Yes, you saw that right – pattern is actually for a BOY’S overalls, but stick with me here and you will see how I changed it to be a GIRLY one! 🙂
Our little Juliana is three and a half months now! Growing and giggling and getting cuter by the minute…Oh I am so smitten with that little girl and cherish every minute spent with her. She inspires all these cute, pink and baby-girl things, but for this one, I wanted something little more “grown-up”…?
There it was on my “current inspirations” shelf, (read: all over the sewing room since I love it so much), that beautiful INDELIBLE pile of fabric – yes, the first, gorgeous collection by my friend Katarina Roccella , the one I already blogged about few times.

So – that was it! Next sewing in Grandmaville produced this:

Oh, I LOVE it so much!! 🙂

Well, if you looked at that link above for Baby Wyatt’s Shortalls, you will notice that mine doesn’t look much like it, does it? But, YES – I still used that pattern and all the very good instructions in it, with few little modifications to make this, and that is what I want to show you today.
Pattern has only one piece to it (really neat!), with the dashed line marking the second piece (lining for the upper part). Here is mine, cut out for the size 0-3 months:

If you look at MY photo of the overalls, you will notice that I used that Lining piece to create a separate piece for my front too, since I wanted the bottom part to be a bit gathered and wider and kinda “pouffed-up” a bit? (is that even a word?)
So for cutting out the main part of the overalls, I simply placed my pattern so that this dashed line is on the edge of the fabric:

Isn’t this print beautiful?? I love that teal color with those small hints of deep purple and gentle pink that allows you to accent the print with those colors!

Back to pattern modification – you can also notice on the photo above that I placed a pattern piece so that I still had extra fabric on both sides? That is because I wanted my lower part to be wider and a bit gathered too, so I need that extra width. Also, I wanted pant legs to be longer, so there is extra fabric for the length too. While you can add to the length easily, you can’t just add this extra width to the sides – that would completely change your piece and it would NOT not work. You need to add it in the MIDDLE of the piece.

Here is a simple way to do it:

Just make a “pleat” in the middle of the fabric that will encompass that extra width – fold it in the middle so much that your pattern piece will now lay on top and reach the side edges of the fabric – hope the photo above is clear? Here is another one:

I pinned the fold in place so that it doesn’t move and shift, placed the pattern piece on top, marked and cut.
Since I didn’t use the UPPER part of the pattern piece, this also means that I needed to cut DOUBLE for that one (pattern calls for just TWO pieces, for the lining, but I needed FOUR – for lining and FRONT upper part). I simply layered TWO different solids (yes, the lovely pink and deep purple to accent the print!), both folded right sides together, placed my UPPER pattern piece (one above that dashed line), marked and cut:

So here are all my pieces, ready to sew:

Well, because of my modifications, now the bottom part doesn’t match the upper part, right? Quick basting stitch on the top edge of the bottom part, pull the thread and GATHER the piece to match:

Repeat for the other pair and then sew them together (with right sides together of course), and… VOILA!

From this point on my friends, this project is EXACTLY the same as the original one in the pattern!
So I proceeded with sewing on the lining and following all the clear directions to finish the overalls…

… with one more modification! Since my bottom part was wider and gathered, I also wanted the bottom edge of the pants to be gathered, with elastic in it for easy use.
Here is what I did:
– while hemming the pants (as per pattern instructions) I made the hem a little wider (mine was about 1 1/2″ wide) and stitched it double, making the casing for the elastic and a small ruffle bellow that:

These overalls have snaps in the inseam (between the legs), therefore once I threaded the elastic inside the casing, I had to stitch the ends in place, BEFORE folding and hemming that inseam:

This little bit of zig-zag stitching is NOT visible, since it is folded into the hem.

After I folded and sewn the inseam hem and added my snaps for closures, it was time to PLAY!!
With embellishments of course!
Made a small ruffle for the front and used a cute decorative stitch on my Pfaff to stitch the top part (and secure the lining too on the inside)

Made a little pocket for that Binky and few Yo-Yo flowers (in this case these are just two different size Yo-Yos, one from 3″ diameter circle (pink) and one from 2″ one (purple))

All of the sewing was done with 50wt Aurifil in pale pink (my favorite for baby-girl sewing!) and this gorgeous dark purple! Hey, it’s no secret that if I ever win lottery, I WILL have EVERY color and EVERY type of Aurifil in my sewing room. I’m just sayin’ Universe, are you listening? 😉

SEW…after all of that – here are few photos of the finished overalls:

Can you tell that I loved how my Black-eye Susans also accent the gold color in the gorgeous Indelible print? (by the way this print is called Florete Stains Tealberry)

Forgot to say that this pattern goes together really quick, even with all of my modifications! It took me maybe an hour to make it and then I spent some beautiful time just hand stitching those little flowers and ruffles…thinking about my sweet little girl and smiling all the way…
Yes I am really enchanted with her.

Hope you have the chance to stitch something cute for a little girl or a boy soon!

Thanks for visiting and have a lovely week ahead,
Marija

PS – you didn’t think I will leave you without showing off our princess, did you? He, he…