Is anyone there?

Hello! You may be wondering where I've gotten off to. My sewing has been completely derailed by the process of downsizing our household to fit into a 30 foot RV. Launch date is next week sometime and I hope to somehow get regular blogs in while we travel (I'm blogging here about the decluttering and our journeys).

I miss my sewing right now though. Yesterday I had a bit of a spaz, ranting that, 'I just want to sew something, damnit!' Am I the only one who gets this way?

My time for the last few weeks has been totally dedicated to the decluttering and preparing, and most of my creative needs have been filled vicariously through the children. Still, I try to continue learning every day. Here's a partial list of what I've learnt over the last couple of weeks, sans sewing machine:

How 'yes' gets easier to say to the children the more I practice
Giving away a truck load of fabric is much easier when it goes to a friend
I wish I was 'Roadschooled', as I hope my babes will be
Cookies taste really good with red wine
'Adult' art supplies are so much more fun for children Nothing is more inspiring than an empty room
My children actually do not play with their toys - they play with my toys
Time is much more important than things
Dreams are afforable

I thought I could do a bit of mailbag type format here on the blog while I'm going through this little project-less time. If you have questions about anything, which you also do not mind being published on this blog, I welcome them at vegbee@littleprintdesigns.com

In the meanwhile, have a lovely weekend :)

make your own serger cheat book

Hey, look what I found while digging through my books!

My serger cheat book! Remember a long, long time ago I kept going on about how handy this little binder I put together in my serger class was. The cheat book tells me how to adjust my dials to create the stitch or technique I need. The class came free-ish with the purchase of my Janome 1110DX, which is another reason to purchase from the independent dealer rather than the box stores. All told, the class was only 3 quick hours, just an intro really, and an absolute life saver (especially since I found my machine’s tensions had been set incorrectly at the factory and all the thread breaking was not my fault, damnit!) If you can go to serger class, go!

But for those of you who are intrepid enough to teach yourself, I highly recommend making yourself one of these. Very simple, just some written, printed or Xeroxed pages with spaces to write down what technique or serger stitch you are using, what settings your needles and looper tensions, the stitch length, and the differencial feed are set at, along with a space for a fabric sample of the stitch made from some scrap and stapled in. That simple, and mind bogglingly useful to have.

I have photographed my whole booklet, which I keep in a small binder. You can read what I’ve written (well, you can if you can make out my messy handwriting), but if you leave a comment with a specific question about any of the techniques I can provide additional specific information.

Here she is:

4 thread sewing: the base set up.

Ribbing: Just knit ribbing for necklines. Sergers are a dream for knits.

Clear elastic: where I discovered this amazing product. I would of never made more than one twirl skirt without it.

Differential Feed: to prevent the stretching of the knits and fleece, among other things.

3 thread wide: which I use now all the time. This is also how I found out about wooly nylon.
Flat-locking: way too fun, but I still hardly ever work it into regular sewing.
And wonderful, brillant rolled hem (along with faux-pintucks): Keep in mind that even if you have the same brand serger as I, you will have to make your own cheat book because every machine is set slightly different. As I said, if you have specific questions about any technique or the serger book set up, leave a comment and I will do my best to help you out :)

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This is a free tutorial and I encourage you to use the information in any way you need to (check the disclaimer at the bottom of the page). If it works for you, please consider supporting my etsy shop by purchasing a Little Print Design pattern or toss a dollar or two in my paypal to show appreciation and to encourage me to offer up even more quality patterns and tutorials.

Thank you!
Questions about the Donation? FAQ here.

I like you too

Okay, here's where the digression part of the new blog format comes in.

I don't normally toot my own horn (actually, I tend to dress in black and taupe in real life and hid behind my children... wait, I do that online too. Nevermind.) But, I've just noticed that I'm the Craftster Crush of the Month. I'm quite honored, and it reminds me that if you haven't been to craftster, you need to go now. It's really an amazing forum, very well set up and organized, and happens to be where I spent enough time drooling over all the amazing projects three years ago that I decided to borrow a sewing machine and teach myself how to do a few things. If you go back through my profile too, for those who enjoy a bit of voyerism, you can see how my sewing skills have improved over time.

One more thing! Remember how I said that we are shedding most of our belongings? My husband has been kijiji'ing this past week and getting creative at it. Here is the pics he took of the excess of glamor dolls around the house:


Followed up with a close up of the single happy boy doll:

Every classified ad should tell a story, don't you think?

Smootch's scrappy projects

Anyone who spends any time with a preschooler knows they are endless sources of ideas. Smootch can not make it from one end of a room to another without picking up some random object and using it in a novel way. Or taking something apart. Or asking two billion questions. It's both inspiring and exhausting.

Everything that I can say about my basic household gear being fodder for Smootch's imagination and crafts (don't talk to me of white glue and pasta strainers), my sewing scraps are doubly so. The little bucket that catches the serger cut offs is a gold mine as far as Smootch is concerned (flowers made by sticking fabric scraps onto a straight pin). Other cast offs are tied into complicated costumery for her dolls (sort of like a toga party got caught up in a tornado) and if she ever manages to get inside the ribbon box... well, let's just say that I keep my good ribbons up high on a shelf next to the medicines.

Smootch, today, strolling through the disaster that was my sewing room that I am now trying to de-stash (sobbing sounds - this is incredibly difficult!) and found just a rectangle of purple ribbing. "Mama," she asks - has been taught to under pain of time out until she's 30 to always ask first - "Can I have this?" Which, of course, she could. Then she did something that surprised me. She asked if she could actually sew with the material. Not just with my sewing machines (which is still a 'no' I'm afraid) or the stitch witch she thinks is somewhere in the house but I'm sure it isn't (long standing argument). She wants to handsew! Yay!

Last solstice I made her up a little sewing kit and needle book.


She's done a bit of hand sewing but often get bored and asks me to finish projects for her. Generally, she's not that interested. But I keep the kit handy just in case. And today was a case!

So, Smootch's ribbing scrap turn cuff:


Smootch did all the sewing herself, even threading the needle, something that used to reduce her to tears if she tried before. It's funny how much kids can do when they take a break from something and let their development catch up to their motivation. Another argument for better late than early, I suppose.

And there it is, in ten minutes, a sweet little purple cuff that any kid going through a fashion-deconstructed phase would love. Smootch is incredibly proud of herself. It's the first thing that she has been able to wear that was completely designed and assembled by her own self, no mama involved. Once she figures out how to gather, I'm probably out of a job :D

hat pattern avaliable

A quick note to tell you all that I've put up the bush hat in children's sizes here.



When there will be more patterns - who knows? Our motor home is now ours all ours and we are just clearing out our house. I've started documenting the RV living fun over here. My sewing machine is in the shop and will hopefully be out in time to make the journey with us. In the meanwhile, Smootch keeps doing these clever things that I hope to get some pics of soon and share. Until then!

excuses, excuses

Ah, so much for all my good, be dependable, blogging aspirations. I'm having a terrible time staying on track with the blogging and the pattern making. I am very much hoping to have a pattern out for the bush hat for children's sizes (adults will have to wait a bit) by the end of the week. I've been playing and testing in the evenings after the kidlets go to bed. Or that is the intention at least, until Birdie Boy decided to catch a bit of a tummy bug. I won't gross you out with the details.

But still, just can't keep a good pattern down. Here is my favorite test hat (and my favorite model).While I've got you here, reading my sad excuses for blog neglect, I should also mention that the infrequency of the posting will continue for awhile. In about 2 or 3 weeks my little family and I will be moving our worldly possessions - after selling or donating 90% of the bulk - into a hovel on wheels and beginning an extended scouting mission in the next province over to see if we can hear a place calling to us. I expect our motorcoach living to be four weeks minimum. It shall be an experiment in finding joy. And patience. And laundrymats.

I shall also be taking some fabric, needles, and thread, along with the laptop and my notebook of ideas. The inspirations never care that I'm busy doing other things and I'm sure I can find an internet connection here and there and have a chance to say 'hi!' to y'all. Smootch and I have been plotting something too and we're hoping to get a chance to give it ago without the distractions of normal life.

But that's not for weeks! Which is practically forever away. In the meanwhile, a major dejunking of the home, craft supplies, fabric, and tester garments I've made must happen. Wish me luck (or at least endurance :D).

bush hat

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Due to popular demand, pattern pieces to this bush hat now available to purchase in my etsy shop. Check it out!
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This design comes by way of a request for a sunhat tutorial, similar in style to the red gingham hat Smootch frequently wears. Smootch's hat is a rtw, but it is my favorite style of hat, one that I have always called a bush hat.



With a snap or button on each side of the hat, the brim can be worn up or down, depending on need and fashion sense. Worn down it provides excellent sun coverage (for your phantom of the opera type fellow).



And worn up it's stylishly cowboy.

This hat can be made to fit anyone, all you need is their head measurement (or noodle number, if measuring a four year old with a penchant for word games). I've made hats for my kids, but ones for myself and The Man are also in the works.

The tutorial below contains the steps I took to create the pattern for the hat, and below those are the assembly instructions. Before you look over the pattern creation, keep in mind that this curved hat does not need exact or precise curves in order to look fabulous. An approximation of the curves, and an understanding that you may need to tweak your pattern from the first try, will save your mental health. Basically, I'm saying, don't use the good fabric on the first go. But it will work. Trust me ;)

I have me one of those long rulers that can be curved and flexed any which way. I really don't know what they are called, if you do, please share. This flexy, bendy ruler is the tool of choice for creating this hat pattern, so if you have one, here we go!

Creating the pattern

Begin with some graph paper, your flexy ruler, a pencil, scissors for paper, and a head measurement. This hat has three pattern pieces: the crown, the side, and the brim.

The first piece to make is the crown, which is an oval shape.

Smootch's noodle number is 19 1/2", which I rounded up to 20" to not have to hurt my head with extra fractions and to accomodate all her crazy curls.

Take your noodle number (example number is 20") and divide by 4 (20"/4 =5). Curl your flexy ruler into a tightish circle to make a nice smootch curve.

Uncurl the ruler a bit to make an oval. Find the length you need (the head measure divided by 4) somewhere in your curve. Follow the curve with your pencil to the lengh needed.

Draw lines at 90 degree angles from the ends of your curved length to intersect and create a little pie piece. This is 1/4 of your crown.

(I know there are whizzy math ways to figure this out, but I don't know what they are. What we are working with is the 'looks good to me' method, which I've found to be every bit as effective as a technical geometric formula. But feel free to share the math way if you know, I always enjoy learning something new.)

Add a seam allowance to your pie piece.

Use your intersecting lines as a guide to folding your paper in half one time, and then another. With the paper folded, cut along the seam allowance.

Unfold you paper and there is your crown piece. Mark it with relevant info.

Next piece to do is the side. This piece could be just a straight rectangle, but to make it easier to sew and sit naturally a slight curve is helpful.
First determine how much depth is desired. Both my hats are 3 1/4" wide, and I'm pretty sure this will work for all toddler and preschooler sizes. But you decide.
Mark your desired depth on the side of a piece of paper. I've marked mine with a 'fold' before all else to remind me which end is which.

Put a slight bend in your flexy ruler, position one end on a mark, with the curve of the ruler directed away from other mark, and measure out your head measurement divided by 2 (example 20"/2 = 10").

Measure out your desired width several times from your curved line to indicate where to lay down the flexy ruler again, using the same curve. Mark out the other side of the piece, adding a 1/4" at the end.
Join the ends of the curves with a straight line.
(As you can see in the above photo, I ended up having to add a bit of paper to the end to accomodate the piece - and in case you are wondering, all pros do this :D)
So here's your side piece, to which you will add a seam allowance:

For the brim piece, the measurement of the longer curve of the side piece will be our base number, which should be your head measurement divide by 2 plus a 1/4" (example: 20"/2 + 1/4" =10 1/4").

To determine the brims's width, I just knocked 1/2" off the brim depth, leaving me with 2 3/4" width. Mark this width in the same way as done with the side piece, on the edge of a paper, indicating that that edge is to be placed on a fold. I should also mention that this piece is actually going to take up two pieces of paper, so now's a good time to tape them together.

Once again, curl up your ruler into a circle, this time as large as you can make it:

Pull the circle out until you get a ram's horn shape. Find your base measurement (head measurement divided by 2 plus 1/4") and trace the curve from one mark away from the other mark.

Measure out your width from several points along the curve, and then draw a corresponding curve, rounding it out to a sweet little rainbow shape.

Add seam allowances and jot down the revelant info.

Cutting out the pieces

crown: cut 1 shell fabric, cut 1 fusible interfacing, cut 1 lining fabric
side (cut on fold): cut 1 shell fabric, cut 1 fusible interfacing, cut 1 lining fabric
brim (cut on fold): cut 2 shell fabric, cut 1 fusible interfacing

Assembling the hat

First thing is to iron in your fusible interfacing. Follow the manufacturer's instructions and fuse the crown interfacing to the wrong side of the shell crown fabric. Fuse the side interfacing to the wrong side of the shell side fabric. And fuse the brim interfacing to the wrong side of one of the one of the brim in shell fabric.

With wrong sides together, stitch together the width-wise ends of the shell side piece to make a loop. Pin side piece, wrong sides together, all around the crown, aligning the seam with the top (or bottom) of the oval. Stitch slowly around the crown, adjusting the fabric to tuck along the curve smoothly.



Make notches in the seam allowance around the crown to allow it to curve smoothy. Press seam allowance towards the crown. Turn top right sides out. Top stitch around the top of the crown.



Repeat the above instructions for the lining pieces, nixing the bit of top stitch. Put lining aside.

For each brim piece, stitch together the width-wise ends, right sides together. Place the two brim pieces right sides together and stitch along the outside curve (stitch with the piece that does not have the fusible interfacing on it against the feed dogs, otherwise you'll end up with one piece longer than the other).

Turn the brim piece right sides out and press the stitched curve. Top stitch along seamed edge if desired. Machine baste the inside curve.

Loop and pin the side of the brim with the interfacing against the right side of the hat. Make sure the brim seam meets the side seam (this is the back of the hat). Stitch brim to hat. Notch the seam allowance and press it towards the side. Top stitch around the side of the hat, close to the seam.

Turn the hat wrong side out.



With right side out, position the lining over the hat, matching the seams. Use a slip stitch or ladder stitch to hand sew the lining to the hat.

(Oh, I just slipped in some hand sewing - I think at once time I promised never to do that. It's definitely worth hand stitching this part, it looks pretty sloppy if you try to stitch in that liner with the side top stitch. It only takes me about 10 minutes, though, and I'm extremely slow at it, not to mention have bandaids on my fingers from various kitchen injuries [including the deep cut from trying to open up the first aid box].)

Turn hat right side out again and apply snaps or buttons to side of hat (mine are located at exactly mid-point, but you can play with it a bit if you like.)

Place hat on people and just try to get a picture.

Tutorial? Ummm. (Here's me distracting you with a freebie)

Hey, I bet you came by today looking for a tutorial! Well, I do have one on the go, and it does actually have something to do with sewing. In fact, it's pretty kick ass, if I do say so myself, but it needs a few more days of design tweaking. So, if you'll bare with me, how's about you say, 'It's okay, Vegbee, to be a couple of days late with the tute, and all we'll ask in return is to giveaway a pattern or two.'

Which sounds good to me.



I haven't done any giveaways on my new ePatterns yet (which are old patterns, but I'm figuring the whole thing out before I get going on some new stuff), so if you would like to leave a comment on this post I will do a random number draw twice on thursday nite my time (July 9) and send two winners their ePattern of choice. Which will be either the Tiered Patchwork Twirler or Revolutions Frock - check them out and choose your favorite now, just in case ;)

Good luck, and talk to you thursday :)

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Hello! I've closed the comments (metaphorically) and have drawn two random numbers, thanks to random.org. The winners are Hilary and Serena.

Hilary, I will send you a Revolutions Frock ePattern as soon as you share your email with me. Contact me at vegbee@littleprintdesigns.com please!

Serena, I've just emailed you a link to your Revolutions Frock ePattern.

Thank you all for playing along and all the really sweet things you said. I feel honored to have so many people reading this little blog. You keep me going somedays. Truly. Hats off to you!

Speaking of hats, I should have the new tutorial up on friday or saturday (or sunday :O). Until then, cheers!

paper plate bomb, I mean, kite

We ran across this paper plate kite project while Smootch and I were reading an issue of Ladybug magazine. The story's premise was that the great big store bought kite wouldn't fly, hugely disappointing the wee girl, but this humble paper plate was a fantabulous flyer that saved the day. Handmade beats store-bought. My kind of story. And great little project too: the paper plate is thick enough for water colours and we love anything to do with ribbons.



The downside was having to go buy some kite string, and then finding the only thing in the whole store was these monsterous plastic doohickeys with no way of stopping your string from unwinding without strong arming the winding mechanism. Not good for preschoolers. Still, we bought. Silly us.

And then we waited, and waited, and waited until a windy day finally came (accompanied by a tornado, but that's another story), took the kite out to the top of the green space hill and -

Pphhutttt. Nothing. No fly, no soar. No this-simple-homemade-kite-kicks-plastic-store-kite's-be-streamered-butt. Just... nothing.

But we had lots of fun with the water colours :D

I'm on the prowl for proper instructions for homemade kites. Anyone have a success with one?

a fool for tulle

First, some housekeeping items.

a) Little Print Designs (me) is proud to present ePattern versions of the Tiered Patchwork Twirler and the Revolutions Frock. Visit my etsy for more info :)

b) Attention grandparents and aunties: I have backtracked a bit and decided to keep my mama posts and pics over on my other blog. Keep reading here for the sewing and crafty stuff I like to blather about. And tutorials, of course.

And now, on with the tulle!

I'm not normally given over to the ultra-girly, though I have been known to dabble in the frilly and princess. But I saw this skirt the other day and thought, 'my girl needs this skirt' (or maybe it was Smootch hanging over my shoulder saying, "Mama, I neeeeeed that skirt!" Whatever :D)

So, I wrestled my machine into doing one more project before it heads off for a tune up and Smootch test drove her new skirt yesterday:



My skirt isn't as twirly as Made's, but it was much simpler to construct. I put together a simple a-line skirt. The tulle was cut into 2" strips and sewed at the midpoint lengthwise onto the skirt in rows all the way around. Instead of pre-gathering the tulle, I gathered as I sewed by stretching the tulle width-wise. Slow, but I still found it faster than two seperate steps.


Smootch adores the skirt, despite it's relative untwirlyness. I like it too, though the colour contrast makes my eyes a bit sore. I'm thinking that a mama version might be fun for... well, I can't think of a single appropriate occasion, but who, really has an excuse to wear tulle. It's just something you have to go for.

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For more detailed instructions, visit Pink Picket Fence for her lovely version.