Aftermath

Picture Day went well and I managed to have both girls photographed together as well. I'm excited to get the e-mail to look at the pictures. I hope we can find a nice picture of them together to give away for Christmas.

After daycare we drove to the bath house to pick up a swimsuit Isabel had forgotten on Sunday when she was there for a party and then we fetched Rickard at work.

After a quick dinner Sofia splayed out on the sofa and watched Bolibompa (like Cbeebies only in Swedish). This is how tired you get after a full day of daycare.



She wasn't asleep here but almost.

Today school is closed for planning so Rickard took the day off to be home with Isabel and as a result Sofia has to stay home too.

I think they'll have a great time, even if it is raining.

Picture Day

Sofia had Picture Day at daycare today and I had very good intentions to make her a new dress for the occasion.
Only I forgot about it.

And then I remembered. Yesterday.

I've made her an Oliver + S Jump Rope dress before and she has loved it to bits - almost literally. The placket has paint on it that won't go away and there is a tear in the bodice that I had to patch up a while ago.

It's also getting a bit small so a new one has been on my to-do-list for a bit.

I've never made the View B of that dress before but I have always liked how it reminded me of one of Sofia's favourite cartoon characters, Lola from Charlie and Lola.

She is often drawn in a tunic like dress with a collar and placket and when I proposed that model to Sofia she was all for it.

I found a nice soft cotton in purple with white stars on it and Sofia requested it right away.

After dinner yesterday, which was a quick thing since I bought Subways while Sofia was dancing and brought them home with me, I put the girls to bed and started on her new dress.
The broadcloth I had intended for the collar and placket hadn't been prewashed so I gave it a good steam with extra water and dried it with my iron. I'm not sure how that will work, I suppose we'll see when I wash it.

I messed up the first collar I cut out and I had to cut a second one, and the pockets could have been neater, but in all I think it turned out nicely.



I had purple cloud shaped buttons that I wanted to use but I could only find two so I had to change my mind.

Sofia happily put it on this morning and I was relieved to see that it fit her. I had dreamt in the wee hours that it was too small  and felt a bit nervous.

I started pinning the pattern at 8 pm and I sewed the last button on at 10:45 pm-ish. I have made the dress before which explains why it didn't take longer. The placket is a bit fiddly but I've made it three times for Isabel before so I had it pretty much memorised. And since I picked view B I didn't have to gather any skirts which also made it come together quickly.

Fingers crossed it holds up well in the wash now.

Vintage collars and families

I went shopping with my grandmother yesterday. She turns 90 next year and doesn't walk very well but she does her own shopping every week if someone takes her to the store.

My parents are on vacation so I offered to take her.

When I was a girl and lived at home I visited her and my grandfather every day more or less and I do miss our chats so it was nice to sit down with her for a bit after we were back at her flat.

We came to talk about the red dress I'm planning for Isabel for Christmas and I mentioned an idea I had of making the collar on it detachable. I told her of my woes on what fabric to use for the collar - cotton broad cloth doesn't exactly work well with a satin dress.
She told me of an olive green dress she had made for her in the 40's that had a basted on lace collar and how she had held on to it even though the dress was long gone.



It's from 1944, so definitely vintage and I think the lace has been sewn to a thin bias strip that was then basted onto a dress.She said she had held on to it and had been thinking about giving it to me for a while now.

It will be a perfect accent on a little girl's dress I hope. Her timing couldn't be better.

I loved hearing about how grandma had all her clothes made for her back then. Ready to wear was available but not in quantity and not where she lived in rural Skåne. It was easier to buy fabric you liked and go to the local seamstress to have it made for you.

Sadly all the dresses she spoke of yesterday are all gone. She said they had been thrown away or donated over the years.

Such a pity.



This is her in the 1940's.



And this is her and my grandfather on their wedding day. She was 21 when they married and he was 30. They had been married 61 years when he died in 2005.

Planning continues

Well, taping did commence last night. I got the bodice taped and ready to make a muslin from.

I was about to cut into it at the size 8 when I came to my senses and decided to wait until a time when I have the intended recipient's body available for measuring.

A 5 year old doesn't exactly like being woken up at night just cause Mum was too lazy to measure her before she went to bed. It never ends well.

So instead I watched some online classes on Craftsy that I bought and am slowly working my way through a first viewing.

Tonight I'll work on getting ahead on housework though. It's not my forte and sometimes we let things slip too much. I'm giving myself a head start for the weekend when the girls are off hiking and then Isabel's going on a sleep over at her grandparents'.

The best laid plans of mice and men

I had good intentions last night to get the size 8 of the Fairy Tale dress taped for Sofia so I can start on a muslin of the bodice.

The pdf was printed (I splurged on colour for the cover) and I was about to get going as soon as the girls were in bed but somewhere along the evening I got side tracked (baking, laundry and lunch box preparing can do that) and I ended up splayed out on the sofa playing Plants vs Zombies while watching reruns of old Big Bang Theory episodes.

That was good too.

But I'll give the pdf a new try tonight, along with pinning the Field Trip pants for Sofia on pink twill.

Gone phishing ...

Well. I suppose there's a reason not to have your e-mail capable cell phone turned on right next to your bed and having it check for new e-mails regularly even during the night.

Just as I was about to doze off I heard the little chirp my phone makes when I have a new Gmail. It displayed a little badge on screen telling me it was from Paypal and that I needed to update my credit card information.

Normally that would turn on all sorts of warning bells but I have been having payment issues at Paypal lately and I clearly wasn't thinking straight at 12:37 am.

I clicked the link. (First mistake).

I entered my user name and password and clicked OK (Second mistake).

I got a screen with some entry fields where I was asked to enter my credit card information, my name and date of birth and as I was typing my address I guess I finally woke up and had a quick thought that I had made payments via Paypal in the nearest couple of days without a hitch and most likely the issues I had were due to the seller and not my Paypal account.

I stayed my hand and decided to go to my computer to have a proper look at the address I had just visited and entered my Paypal login.

Sure enough it was nothing like paypal.com.

So for 45 minutes last night I was awake and tried to figure out how to change my password and once I had that solved I needed to come up with a good new password. And also remember to write it down so I could remember it in the morning.

I also had to change the password on all those other sites where I used the same because I was too lazy to figure out a new one.

I feel a little sluggish today.

Back to school

I totally forgot to post this picture of Isabel as she headed to school on her first day of 2nd grade. She's been back to school for almost a month now.

She was wearing the same ruffle dress I made her for last day of school before summer. It was pretty much the same weather - ie cold and overcast.

She chose to use the Messenger bag I made her for Christmas last year - or possibly even the year before.
She's shown no interest in it for months and months but now she's warmed up to it. It's a bit floppy but it works.

In Sweden all kids get a hot meal during the day and there is no need for a packed lunch. If you need to the kids can be dropped off early enough to have breakfast as well, but Isabel prefers to eat at home and we have been able to work our schedule around that.
They also get served a fairly substantial snack in the afternoon.

Oh, and did I mention that city-run school is free here? We pay for after-school care (breakfast and afternoon snack is served within that organisation), something like $125 a month. It's roughly what we pay for daycare for Sofia as well.
If we had been low-income that fee would be lower. We make enough to hit the roof fee.

Isabel had a great first day - although she didn't get the right amount of maths homework as she had hoped for.
I spent the afternoon having my nails and feet done and she asked if she could stay with me and watch. She's very interested in beauty, hair and make-up these days.
I said she could and she watched very attentively whilst chattering away with the manicurist.

Back log

So I take the lack of answers to my last post as a No. I am however contemplating wearing it tomorrow when we go to my SIL's for a 4th birthday party ... Still undecided.

I feel like I haven't been sewing much of anything lately - maybe that's because I've not sewn for the girls but rather done pleasure sewing for myself.

I've done up four beautiful Dresden plates and have had no idea what to use them for - but the other day I found a tutorial on turning them into plate chargers/place mats. Definitely doing that.



I have made three star pillows - none of which have been photographed properly and one of which (the pink one below) will be given away tomorrow as a birthday present for the 4 year old cousin.



I have started a new quilt using a lovely jelly roll by Figtree Quilts called California Girl. It's shaping up nicely. I still have lots of it to do but it will make a nice lap quilt soon enough.

I also started basting my huge Oh Cherry Oh-quilt but ended up unbasting it when I realised the border was much too wavy and I will have to fix that first. It's so huge so clearing space to baste it is such a hassle. It was quite a disappointment when I had to take it all out again.



This week I've been home sick and home because Sofia's daycare was closed. I sewed up this skirt for her in one evening. I love it on her as it has a lovely kicky feeling to it with the flounce and that tab being folded to the outside.
She loves it and that makes me happy and contemplating whipping up a couple more for her but I don't think she needs more skirts.

I'm having plans for a pink twill pair of cargo pants for her. I just need to tape the pattern together.

Also making all those half-square triangles for the star pillows made me want to revisit the quilt I made for Isabel when she was born.
I bought a lovely pile of blue Kona Cotton fat quarters that I expect any day now - I may have to think about doing an updated, and up scaled version of that quilt for Isabel. Maybe for Christmas.

Could I wear this to work?

The corset is DONE! I finished the last grommet yesterday afternoon and laced it up.

It's slightly large. I can easily lace it completely closed in the back which gives me no margin for when I (hopefully) lose a bit more weight.
But I can easily pick this apart if I need to and use the hardware again.

I ended up not attaching a mock belt like I had intended. I couldn't find a nice buckle and I wanted to have it done.



In this picture I get a few wrinkles at the waist and I think it's because I put the bunny ears (the part of the laces at the waist that you use to pull at to cinch it) too high up. I have since re-laced it and put the bunny ears one grommet pair lower.
I haven't tried it again after that.

I put in a really great modesty panel in the back but ended up having to cut it off because I had a brain fart when I attached it and it totally got in the way.
I haven't decided if I should make a floating panel (one you put in as you lace it up) or if I should just leave it as is. It's not like I'm going to wear it with nothing underneath.

So now the big question is. Could I wear this to work?