Wiksten Tanks

I am waaaaaaaay late to the Wiksten tank party. But after seeing so many Wiksten tanks pop up in the #mmmay15 feed and realizing I am in need of basic wardrobe staples like tanks and t-shirts, I thought I'd give it a try.

Painted Portrait in Lawn

When she was in town earlier this year, Martha picked out a few colorways of this pretty cotton lawn at Belleboo. I offered to sew her up a top from the fabric and she chose the Painted Portrait blouse pattern from Anna Maria Horner. I'd made a couple of these tunics before, so she was able to try them on to see if the style worked for her, which it did!

Dress Up Party Voting!

Wow!! I am behind on my blog reading and just learned that I have not one, but TWO garments in the finals of the Dress Up Party contest at Sew Sweetness!!!!

My Morris blazer and purple Southport maxi are both up for the big prize, along with several other gorgeous garments from some seriously talented sewists. 

Go check it out here and vote for your favorite!!

Ballet Skirts

2 skirts in an hour? 3 rows of stitching each? I wish skirts for me were this easy.

Vaguely based on this tutorial from Dana Made It, following kiddo measurements from this downloadable size chart at Sugar Tart Crafts (since I don't have easy access to my nieces to measure them). I ended up having to tighten the elastic on one of them, but otherwise the measurements worked for me.

The fabric is this striped ballet quilting cotton from Belleboo. Quite twee for my taste (I do not aime le ballet), but I knew my nieces would be all over it. 

And they were, although, wow, it's hard to get photos of little kids. New found respect for all those sewists out there getting professional looking shots of their kids!

Zoe's "cheese" face (?):

Anna always on the go:

Oceanside Shorts

I made myself some shorts to cope with Bangkok's sweltering heat (we're going on 3 months of unbearable heat now and I am fed up, y'all.)!

Clemence-esque Skirt

I bought this beautiful pre-cut length of Thai-style printed cotton (plus 5 more in different colors!) at Bangkok's Chatuchak market earlier this year and have been struggling to make it into something since then. I really wanted to make a dress, but the length of my piece plus the deep border print made it really hard to fit the pattern pieces. I must have tried laying 5 or 6 different sleeveless dress patterns over this fabric, but couldn't make one work. In the end, I decided to make a simple gathered midi skirt to really showcase the cool gold foil-y print.

Union St. Tee x 3

Basics, basics, basics. That's what Me-Made-May showed me is missing in my wardrobe. V-neck and crew-neck t-shirts are certainly basics. And I certainly need more of them... after 3 and a half years of living in Southeast Asia, where it's constantly summer and I don't have a dryer, all my t-shirts are pretty grubby and stretched out.

Noodlehead Gathered Clutch

I'm not normally a bag or pouch maker- I've made a couple in my life, but just haven't been bitten by the bag bug. But I wanted to sew a gift for my coworker, and bags/pouches are the best one-size-fits-all, everybody needs 'em kind of gift.

Dude Sewing: Linen Jutland Shorts

Shorts! Tim had a request for new shorts, which coincided with this year's Shorts on the Line competition/celebration over at Imagine Gnats and Kollabora. Kismet, I tell you.

Testing, Testing: Greenwood Tank

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to test the new Greenwood tank pattern, a lovely knit tank from Straight Stitch Designs,