Sew-A-Long Day 4....I'm Tired

I'm here! 

In hindsight I should have chosen a different week for the sew-a-long. This week has been hugely overwhelming to me. Not because of the blog, the sewing is something I've actually enjoyed and brings me some stress relief, but I have had so incredibly much on my plate.

This week has been jam packed full of activities and appointments, we are expecting house guests this weekend for the upcoming week, and today was my sweet baby girl's 5th birthday party! Sitting here today amongst the aftermath of her birthday party I can't believe 5 years ago today she was in my belly. Out of my three kids she was my quietest baby in utero. I was always poking her trying to get her to move thinking something was wrong. Ironically she is my most spirited and has brought me the most grief and frustration! Yet, she is the absolute sweetest child when she wants to be and can melt my heart in half a second. How is it that the fiesty kids have that ability? Her smile literally lights up my life. Yesterday she was excited to have passed her swimming lessons. As she came running to me report card in hand, smiling ear to ear, I almost started to cry to see how big she has become! Why is it, that as a mother, moments like that can just really bring a flood of emotion in an instant?

This photo was taken a little earlier today. After the party she wanted to immediately run out and spend a gift certificate she had gotten. Two out of the three zonked out on the way home. A perfect photo to portray how I feel right now.

Check out the awesome hoodie she is wearing in her car seat (she received it as a gift)! Someone point me in the direction of coordinating sweatshirt fleece prints and I would be in heaven! 

 Now the thing about birthdays, at least in my house, is I rarely ever get any good pictures. There is always at least one child blurred, random arms and legs in the photos, or just bad lighting. This is the closest thing I have to showing you my baby girl's birthday dress. :( Yeah, I know, but you can see her cute smile and that is more important than any dress!
This was of course made with the Lil Blue Boo Hoodie pattern, which I turned into a dress the same way I turned this hoodie into a dress. Another really simple way to modify the pattern for your little girl.  This wasn't originally what I had planned for her birthday. She was going to wear a big twirly sundress, and although we had the sun today, our weather is already turning chilly. I'm happy with how it turned out though and she will be able to wear this through the year.

Have any of you noticed this pattern to run large for your kiddos? I would normally buy a 5, or even 6 for my little girl and I made this dress using a size 4 of the pattern.

I promised to show you all a little better how to line up your stripes. Be prepared for really awful photos as they were taken in the middle of the night. They should get the point across though! :)

 You can see to the left my shirt front already cut out. To the left you will see my back pattern piece getting ready to be cut out. It is on the fold of my fabric. The reason it looks short is because it is. I was too lazy to tape the rest of my pattern piece on so was just making sure I cut it as long as my front piece. :)

Now the first thing you need to do to make your stripes line up is to make sure that when you fold your fabric it is as straight as can be. Keep in mind my fabric is straight, my cutting mat isn't. Can you see how my fabric is folded and the stripes are in line with bottom layer of fabric? Very important! Take a few extra momments to do this and you'll be glad you did.

Now the second thing you want to do is make sure that where the stripes sit on the front of your shirt are where they are going to sit on the back. Line your pattern piece up so that the bottom of your back piece is going to match where the bottom of your front piece was.  See how the bottom of my front piece is a blue stripe? That is what I want my back piece to have as well. Where you see the cut line on the bottom of my back piece is where my pattern piece should really end.

Another good idea is to make sure where your anderarm seam is going to be is also matched up. You see on my front piece the underarm seam ends at a green stripe so there is where I want my back piece as well.

Both pieces cut, side by side, and you can see that they will match up when sewing.

I also like my arm pieces to match up as well as best they can. You can do this by following the same steps. In my case when cutting my arm pieces I want to make sure that the underarm seam is going to start with a blue stripe. See the bottom of the curve on the front and back pieces how the bottom is blue?

Ok, I'm going to try to get through your questions that I haven't answered yet. If I miss yours ask me again, it wasn't intentional! :)

Amanda asked how to use her rotary cutter along curved lines. This is just practice. I also found this difficult when I first started using mine a lot but now it is quite easy. Don't press down too hard or the curves are hard to navigate and make sure you are using a super sharp blade.

Twins Squared asked if the neckline needed to be adjusted when making hoodless versions. I didn't adjust my necklines at all aside from adding the binding and they were perfect. Not too big at all. I don't think you will find them large. Adding the neck binding actually makes the neckline smaller as the binding brings the neck in. Tighter than with the hood even I think.

Tammy asked if knits are easier to sew with a serger. The nice thing about knits is that they don't unravel so you don't need to finish your seams. Using a regular sewing machine will work fine and no need to use a serger. If you become comfortable with your serger you will get professional seams using that, but you certainly don't have to.

I've absolutely loved seeing all of your photos in the sew-a-long flickr group! They give me inspiration!
Post your photos, my absolute favorite is going to win a  prize! In the next day or two I'm going to choose....

Now, I need to clean the sewing room as that doubles as our guest room. YIKES! What am I going to do without my sewing space for an entire week?!

I will leave you with this... You may have been wondering what that strange blue floppy thing was in the picture of my little girl.

It was my attempt at a mermaid tail. I've never claimed to be a cake decorator, but thankfully a group of 4-6 yr olds aren't too hard to please! Thank you once again Betty Crocker. If you're wondering why a couple of the cupcakes are missing candy whales....well, after a long week when you are decorating your child's birthday cake at 1am, you get hungry.

 Etsy finds will resume next Saturday! :)