Graduation

In Sweden we call the last day of school of every grade, graduation. Maybe you do too?

Isabel graduated from 1st grade last week and will have a long summer vacation this year since Rickard and I have taken our vacation weeks overlapping, giving the girls 7 weeks off.



After making the eyelet bordered Playdate dress for Sofia, I went ahead and started planning a graduation dress for Isabel as well.

She's a bit harder to please these days. She's very set in her ways on what styles she likes and what colours to match but she sometimes has a hard time verbalising it.

I took her to the fabric store and I think we browsed it for about an hour before we settled on a style and a fabric we were both pleased with.

Not only does the dress have to fill the criteria of being in the right price range. It has to be age appropriate as well as within my range of ability to pull off.

We settled on a dress based on the Ruffled Halter top by Oliver + S, made from white poplin and eyelet.

I started by enlarging the patterns slightly. The biggest size is XL and is said to fit a 10/12 frame. Isabel is not yet 8 but she has outgrown most of the Oliver + S size 12 patterns.

So I added a bit of depth to the armscye and some width to the top, I also lengthened it to a dress and marked up for a possible slit in the sides in case the dress would be too slim and hinder her movements.
After that I copied the front and made a back. I also enlarged the top ruffle pattern piece to match the front panel.

I then started thinking about the ruffles and decided I didn't feel like gathering them. I hate ironing with the heat of a thousand suns and I know I said a lot of bad words when I set out to iron the Ruffled Halter tops I made the girls last year.

So I studied a camisole Isabel had with ruffles that weren't gathered and with some help from my awesome online friends and my tailor aunt I managed to work out how to construct the ruffles using a flounce instead of a gathered ruffle.



On the original pattern the ruffles are two different depths and widths. I decided to only use one depth and draw the pattern piece wide enough to fit at the bottom and trim as needed higher up.
I copied the largest pattern piece and drew a line on it every 1.5" starting from the middle, going out to the sides. Then I cut up along each line with my paper scissors, leaving a tiny hinge at the top so it still held together.

Then I drew a centre line on a new piece of paper and taped the centre edge 1/4" to the right of the centre line. Then I spaced each cut up pattern piece 1/2" from the previous, almost like a fan.
I made sure to keep the upper edge smooth and taped the heck out of it to keep it all in place.

Then I had a long look at it and decided that maybe 1/2" wasn't enough and so I taped the left half of the pattern piece 1/2" to the left of the centre line and spaced it 1" apart.

Once that was done I traced the outlines onto the backing paper and cut out my 2 new pattern pieces. I also opted on not placing them on the bias but against a fold on the grain.

I cut out one of each flounce in regular muslin fabric to get a feel for the drape and I decided the 1" spread was the one to go with.
I suppose I could have cut the pattern piece in smaller increments and spread them even more and that would have been ok too. It's all a matter of taste.

Once I had decided on my flounce I measured where to place the ruffles on the dress to make sure they would overlap.

The original pattern says to just sew a straight stitch along the bottom edge of each ruffle but I wanted to add a bit more flair to it so I edged each ruffle with some white eyelet lace I had at home.
I serged it in one go, then ironed it over and topstitched it in place. I did the same on the hem edge of the dress itself.
I also serged the upper edge of each ruffle.


Instead of sewing the ruffles wrong side to the right side of the dress, I placed the ruffle and dress right sides together with the ruffle up side down. Then I sewed it on, folded it over, ironed it in place and topstitched.
Since the eyelet fabric frayed easily I didn't want to have any raw edges.



I didn't sew any ruffles on the back of the dress. They would just bunch up and wrinkle when she sat on them.
The ruffles are attached in the side seams just like the original pattern says.

My lowest ruffle ended up being a bit longer than the dress itself. I thought it would be a cool feature - but I think the proportions of it were wrong and it ended up looking really weird so I opened up the seams again and cut the ruffle a little on the corners so the sides all lined up. The ruffle is still longer than the dress in the centre but it's not an issue there.

The dress ended up a bit sheer in the back that wasn't hidden by any ruffles so the night before graduation I sewed up a pair of white knit Nature Walk pants made into shorts for Isabel to wear underneath. i think they'll end up being a favourite of hers because they fit well even though it was only a size 12.

Vampire teeth and kissy mouth chocolate cake

A few weeks ago we had a day off in the middle of the week.

June 6th has recently been elevated to National Holiday status and changed from our Flag Day to our National Day. Second day of Pentecost has had to give up its status as a day off.

The day before, on the 5th our little baby turned 5. I wrote about that here.



We celebrated with some gifts in the morning. We bought her an iPod Nano so she could listen to music and she got a speaker set so she could play it in her room.
She got some play dough, a book and some clothes.

Since the day after was a day off I quit work early and Rickard was home on sick leave (after a wisdom tooth extraction the week before had turned into a bad infection and he was on antibiotics), we decided to celebrate in the afternoon the day of.

Both sets of grandparents have retired so there was no need to postpone it to a weekend.



Sofia requested a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and candy for decorating. Especially vampire teeth and "kissy mouths".

I put icing on the cake and let her decorate to her heart's content. Then we put the customary number and elf in the cake and come candles.
It was a huge hit.

(The recipe is from Nigella Lawson's "How to Eat" and is my go-to chocolate cake recipe.)



The best gift she got that night a dress up-dress fashioned after Belle's dress from Beauty and the Beast. But the thing she's played with most since is the Barbie doll my parents bought her.

Playdate

This dress has been a long time in the making.

I'm not sure but I think I bought the fabric at Christmas and I have been quietly obsessing over it since then.

Sofia has at least three Playdate dresses already but she is doing what most girls her age are doing. She's growing like a weed.

So the dresses have all become smaller and smaller. When I found this border fabric I knew it was destined for a new Playdate dress.



The fabric is very sheer so I knew I would have to line it. I had a hard time deciding on lining it with batiste or poplin. Both options were sheer as well and a good weight for the exterior fabric to play along with. But were they both heavy enough to make the dress non-see-through?

In the end I decided on the batiste since it's supposed to be a summer dress and the poplin was a bit polyester heavy.



Instead of gathering the sleeve caps I made a pleat to echo the pleat in the front. I did make a pleat at the sleeve edge at first, just like the pattern states but it didn't sit right so I ended up taking it out.

I also constructed the yoke a bit differently meaning I had to slip stitch it by hand on the inside. Something I will not try again.
The original instructions from Liesl of Oliver + S are excellent and it would have been an easier way to do it - but at least I know that now.

I wasn't very pleased with the end result at first. The dress reminded me of a night gown or a Lucia gown, but Sofia likes it and once she puts it on and she starts running around in it I don't get those vibes any more.

Tribulations

Would you look at this little face!

She's had a rough day today. This morning she said she felt queasy and wanted to stay home from daycare.

Daddy came back home so I could go to work and an hour after I had left she threw up. Although apparently not because she was ill I am told - she says she was looking at something on the telly that made her feel sick and that's why she threw up.

I'm working from home tomorrow so she can get an extra day off and so Rickard can finish up at his office before he goes on summer vacation.

I work one more week after Midsummer then I'm off for 6 weeks! It's going to be glorious. Three weeks all together and three weeks just the three of us girls.

Isabel is off at camp this week and next. We all miss her but we'll get to see her on Sunday when they have a Visitor's day. I can't wait to hug her again. I hope she'll let me.

Bunting

I haven't posted anything here in a while but today I finally managed to upload and sort through the pictures in our camera and I have a few posts prepared for the next few days.



Here's a fun bunting idea I probably found via Pinterest. The wall above my computer desk was bare and boring and I had been looking for something fun to spruce it up with.

I had a pile of paint chips from when we were considering painting the kitchen and I cut them up with a craft punch then ran them through the sewing machine.

I sewed on a piece of ribbon at the beginning and end for easier hanging.

The wall still lacks some oompf but at least it looks less bare now.

Books

This is from my favourite books to read to Sofia.



It's about a very special cow called Mamma Mu (Mummy Moo) and her friend Crow.

Mamma Mu isn't like other cows. She likes to climb trees and build a tree house. Much to Crow's dismay.
He tries to convince Mamma Mu that cows.don't.climb.trees.

He has little luck and in the end has to admit that Mamma Mu really could build a tree house.But of course he points out that she's bent a few nails. "Well , it's so hard to see where you hammer when you hold the hammer with your tail" Mamma Mu replies.

And of course he has to make one too just to show her he can. And of course the Crow's castle he builds is bigger and better and leaves him exhausted.



He scuttles off to his Crow's nest and Mamma Mu climbs into her tree house and sits there pondering how it doesn't matter if a nail or two gets bent. It's still a tree house.

Five

Five years ago today I dropped Isabel off at daycare and went with Rickard to the delivery room to be induced.

Sofia was 39 weeks and 3 days old and I had developed a symptom called Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy.
I itched all over and would scratch myself until I drew blood. It had been going on for about two weeks and on the weekend came to a head when I demanded to see a doctor about it.
They drew some blood and came to the conclusion that an inducement would be necessary.



At 9:15 pm this little one squirmed out. It had taken 5 hours from the last dose of labour inducing meds until she decided to join us on the outside.

She was a big girl at 4550 g, and she had to spend her first hour with Daddy since they rolled me away to be operated on after the delivery.



But that was over quickly and I was rolled back down to hold her properly.



She's been an inquisitive girl with lots of attitude from the get-go.



At five she's taller than her big sister's class mates and there is nothing she cannot do. At least according to herself.

She's in daycare and this fall she will join in the Big Kids's group. She's very excited about that.

She loves music and dancing and crafting. She's the other best thing that ever happened to me.