Sewing mishaps

Okayyyyy.  So some of you may remember that last week I started a blog series and I said I would be continuing it yesterday and today.  Well, that has not exactly happened.  In the first place, I decided I don't like the series.  The projects I had lined up were not exciting me and I have many other projects I want to do instead.  And the good news is that I am the boss of this thing, so I make the decisions.  So blog series cancelled.  Although I will show you one of the small projects I made for the series down below.

This past weekend, I packed up a few things, plopped the baby in the car and we headed to my parents.  They live just an hour and a half away.  The perfect get-away distance, in my opinion.  My husband watched our twins at home and I had a quietly blissful weekend with only the worlds easiest baby to look after.  Plus my parents held her 90% of the time when she wasn't nursing.  Score! 

Predictably, early Saturday mornng I pulled out my sewing machine.  Little did I know that my sewing machine wanted to teach me to be secure in my own general incompetence.  First up on the  humility tour was a peasant dress pattern that I was attempting to make into a tunic for baby Clara.

  I had this great fabric, but I didn't quite have enough of it for a dress so I shortened the pattern. And well, I shortened it too much. It is now a doll dress.

 It fits Clara, but it doesn't look good. And it is quite possibe that the elastic on the arms could cut off her circulation. I'm not a huge fan of amputating my babys arms. Call me old-fashioned. Sewing mishap #1.

This baby tunic turned doll dress was for my old series.  I was going to make two projects based around my favorite quote by the activist, Cesar Chavez.  This was the fun one!  I took printable fabric that you can find here, and printed out a public domain photo of Chavez.  I trimmed the fabric to the size I wanted and sewed it onto the tunic.

 Although the tunic itself is way too small, I really like this little detail and am definitely going to try it again.  Plus how cool that my girls have an activist doll dress, right?  I am fully aware that this is something they may tell their future college roommates about as they laugh at their quirky weird mother.  Totally down with that. 

The pattern I used for this dress is really great.  My project hurled chunks through no fault of the pattern.  As I used to always write on my biology lab reports in high school, "this project failed due to human error." The pattern for size 0-3 months is FREE and can be found here.

On that same Saturday, I decided to finish sewing tunics that I had been working on for my twins.  I had purchased the pattern from one of my very favorite bloggers.  The fabric for the bodice of both tunics came from this huge polka dot sheet I scored at a resale shop.

 

 I have tons left, so you can expect to see more polka dots on this blog in the near future!  The finished tunics looked amazing.  They turned out exactly how I wanted.  Only trouble is that when I arrived home and attempted to try the tunics on the girls, they would not fit over their heads. No matter how hard I tugged and pulled. And I have no shame. I tugged and pulled pretty damn hard. Sewing mishap #2.

I really think that this mishap is a result of the pattern, and not human error.  My kids have pretty normal sized heads, I think.  No one has ever told me, "Wow!  Your kids have monstrous heads."  And as every parent knows, strangers are weird and vocal and will totally tell you stuff like this.  So the absence of monstrous head comments leads me to believe that Camila and Maya have normal sized heads.  Now I fully intend to fix this mishap by simply making a buttonhole opening on one shoulder.  I'm not sure why the pattern didn't call for this in the first place.  I still think this is a cute pattern and the directions are pretty clear.  You can purchase the pattern here.  Just make sure to add a zipper or a button somewhere in case your NORMAL-sized kids heads don't fit either. 

Last night I decided to attempt to bolster my sewing confidence and make something simple that I couldn't mess up.  My sewing mojo is back after making these SUPER SIMPLE (I know!!) chevron pillows to match the fabric I pinned up to hide the disorganized sewing crap inside a cupboard.

 

 

 

 This week is going to involve more sewing-for-the-home projects, so stay tuned.  Unless of course I mess everything up and completely change my mind.  Because that could happen too.  Just keepin it real and trying to stay sane.