Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Baby Shower Gifts

I love making baby presents - they're small, quick and ever so cute. One of my co-workers at Disney is having a baby soon, so for the baby shower, I made these:
Winnie the Pooh kimono top

Winnie the Pooh bibs; bib on the right has appliqued characters

Polka dotted and Winnie the Pooh bibs; polka dot bib has rick rac trim

Coordinating baby bunnies! My favorite toy to make.

1912 Ladies Afternoon Wrap



My group's pattern is the Ladies Afternoon Wrap E0291. I love this pattern because it makes up fairly easily and can work with modern apparel just as well as it does with period attire. I've been delayed in making this due to numerous issues, but working to quickly get back on track now.

Mine is being made in a dark fushia peachskin with a black peachskin trim. I find the peachskin drapes beautifully...that and I had just enough left over from my Amy Sorel costume to fit the pattern pieces - except the collar! I didn't have enough black for my undercollar pieces, so I cheated and cut it out of the wrap fabric and painted about a 1" wide section of black fabric paint along the outer edge to blend with the edge of the outercollar. (No matter how many times I photographed this, it was fuzzy.)


After everything was cut, I took to sewing together the darts and center back seam (slightly out of order from the instructions with the latter). I decided to not hand-finish these, but rather just use my serger for that. Then, to applying the sleeve trim, following the instructions word for word. Sadly, my progress photos of applying the trim were too fuzzy (maybe my camera is dying?) to be useful, but here's a shot of the actual color and drape of the sleeve trim:


When doing the topstiching on the trim, make sure your bobbin thread matches your wrap's fabric or you will see the stitchlines; as you can see in the photo, the stitchline is nearly invisible on the underside.

After applying trim and tacking my waistline pleats, I went to attach the collar...but something was amiss - I'd mismarked the center back and sewn the fronts together instead!



So, a step backwards, restitched the center backs correctly and was able to attach the collar properly. But what's this? A new problem?! Argh....


The collar is beautifully lying where it should be but now the right front is stretched out and the odd thing is, while the waist pleat and bottom hang considerably lower now, the point of the sleeve slash matches the left side perfectly...how in the world did this happen? I'm guessing I did something to the bias or the trouble-maker may be involved (he does enjoy torturing things on my dressform).

Kyo, the ever adorable trouble-maker

Hoping to figure out what in the world went wrong with this poor wrap while debating what type of tassels I want to use as well as what color/shape of buckles I want. The pattern calls for the front to tie, but I'm going to use a belt buckle instead which will match the one at center back. I have two round gold buckles, but they're so...normal. I think maybe a black jet/rhinestone buckle might be a good statement piece, but we'll see. I'm also still debating on adding some painted roses to either the sleeve points or maybe even on the collar. They would be similar to the ones from my Amy Sorel costume (notice a theme here?), which look like this:


I was thinking maybe a rose at each point (coming off a vine starting at each tassel) with some gold detailing added on...that or doing roses with just some gold outling on the collar...or would that be too much? Thoughts?