Ellie's Ottobre Shirt

Here's my latest sewing creation...it's an Ottobre pattern for a basic long-sleeved knit T-shirt (#11 in issue 4/2008). This is Ellie, who looks very much like Sunny. But, don't you dare call them twins because currently, they don't like it. Oy.

The whole shirt is serged and honestly, it took me less than two hours to cut and sew this. It went together very quickly. I can't believe I was ever afraid of knits. They're my favorite thing to sew now. I think the best thing you can do to make sewing knit shirts easier is to sew your sleeves in flat. Trying to serge a set-in sleeve can be frustrating!

The kitty fabric is a cotton interlock and is from Joann's. The purple cuffs and neckband are a cotton pique Lacoste fabric from Denver Fabrics. Denver fabrics is awesome. They have a TON of fabric, some of it is designer. They occasionally have Burberry prints.

The hem is cover stitched, of course. Speaking of cover stitching....I'm thinking of buying a Babylock cover stitcher. Baby Lock has a binder attachment for the cover stitcher that I'm drooling over. I want to see it successfully apply a knit binding to a neck edge before I buy it, though. My Viking 936 does a fantastic cover stitch, but it doesn't have a nice binder attachment. It has a binder foot, but the foot doesn't put a double fold binding on. It's single fold and it looks crappy, in my opinion.

I don't know why, but Ellie wanted me to take a picture of the candy she was sucking on while I was taking photos. So, there ya go. Yum.

After I took that photo, she was outta here. So much for that.


See you soon. :)

Costume Patterns? I'm SET!

Its safe to say I'll never need another kid's costume pattern.

Thanks to Kris at Quilted Simple, I am the proud owner of 11 new-to-me kid's costume patterns. She was also kind enough to include some fabrics. THANKS KRIS!!

While we're on the subject of costumes, I'll give you a peek at Luke's Super Why! costume. I'm loving my coverstitch machine. Nice waistband, huh?

Too bad this is the only section that turned out well. lol! I had it looking really good but had to rip out a section because somehow I didn't measure Luke's waist accurately and it was too big. Or the elastic stretched WAY more than I had allowed for. When I went to re-stitch the section I ripped out it all went to heck. But the nasty looking part is on the inside, so I'm not going to worry about it!

Here's the leg hem. Looks pretty nice, doesn't it? It isn't perfect, but I'm not very experienced with knits yet. I'm starting to get the hang of them, though. They're kind of fun to work with.


I also cut out and traced out the next piece of the costume:

Its a girl's shirt pattern, but kid's t-shirts are interchangeable sometimes. Instead of making a one-piece costume I'm making separates because he's going to a costume party this weekend and there's a party at school and then there's trick-or-treating....and potty time can be tricky with a one-piece costume. So its separates for Luke. I don't want any accidents!

I need to get this done by Sunday because that's when Luke has a costume party to go to. Oh, the pressure! This is what Super Why! looks like for those of you who don't know who he is...

Super Why! is the guy on the right in the green and blue superman costume. Luke is so excited about his costume and I have a feeling he's going to want to wear the costume to school throughout November. He still doesn't quite get that Halloween is only one day a year!