Who is still sewing Christmas gifts in the 11th hour? Me! I am so far behind on sewing in general and am just struggling with the motivation to sew at all. I guess sewing with deadlines is a true motivator though because here I am making Momma Mia a new PJ house dress in time to share for the #5oo4pajamaparty. This is also 100% supportive of my motto which is “Pants are dumb.'”
I made Momma Mia a pajama dress so she can feel extra comfy while lounging around this winter. I love wearing new clothing no matter where I am actually wearing them. This is the 5 out of 4 Easy Tee that you have seen me use so many times. This is one of my favorite patterns ever and I have likely sewn it in every combination at this point. Just like almost all of the other 5oo4 patterns, this one comes loaded with options.
Women’s Sizes XXS-5XL
Regular, FBA (full bust adjustment) or Maternity bodices
Top, Tunic, Short dress, and Knee Length Dress options
Hemmed or Band hem options for the shirt and tunic
Curved hem option that is in between the shirt and tunic lengths
Pockets for the dress options
Optional breast pocket
Crew neck, scoop neck, or v-neck
Hoods for both the crew and the scoop neck versions
Cuffs for all sleeve lengths (sleeveless, short, 3/4, and long), including thumbhole cuffs if you want them!
I sewed the knee length dress with a few extra inches added to make it a bit longer. I used the crew neck line and the 3/4 sleeves. Plus we can’t forget the pockets for snacks. She was a bit shocked and asked if I really put pockets in her PJs. I couldn’t come up with a single reason NOT to put pockets in her PJs, so yes she has pockets in her new jams! lol
My fabric is a festive double brushed poly that was sent to me by the lovely Jessica Cee of JOT designs. When I grabbed it off the shelf, I thought it was horizontal stripes, but was kinda excited that they turned out to be vertical. PS: Horizontal stipes can be worn my any BODY!
So who else is still sewing Christmas or Holiday gifts? I know I am not alone!
If you would like to add the Easy Tee to your collection for either yourself or someone else, here is my afflink.
Phat Quarters is working its way into adult patterns and out of the gate they were size inclusive through a 66 inch hip. I love this so much! The most recent pattern is called Catalina! Catalina is a lovely Raglan pattern that comes with various length options and a variety of sleeves and collar heights. I sewed up the dress length with the elbow bishop sleeves and a slouchy collar. I really adore the sleeves and this fabric makes them feel super lux.
The Catalina comes with two bust options – B and D sewing cups. This is like the Full Bust Adjustment included option that several other designers have. The pattern is drafted with a little extra room depending on which sewing cup you choose. I really love that both options are included as it means I don’t have to do my own full bust adjustment. I did adjust for my larger than life biceps though! The Bishop sleeves have a lot of ease built into them, but I still adjusted so they had the proper amount of fullness. I LOVE them! I mean, I LOVE THEM! I want these sleeves on everything! You can choose Bishop sleeves for the elbow or long sleeve lengths.
I styled my long dress in two ways to show you just how versatile this pattern is. You can wear it as a dress or belted and pulled out for a great tunic! I love when I am able to style garments in different ways to expand their use. I really adore this over jeans with sandals. I am so ready for warmer days to arrive.
Let’s talk about this amazing fabric! Roxy!!! I feel like only super foxy folks should wear fabric called Roxy, so I have been saving this fabric for something special! This fabric is from Stitchin’ Pretties! Laura is still packing and shipping at warp speed, so keep her busy during the madness that is our world right now! She will continue to do her “Buy 2 yards and I will send you a surprise coordinate”sale, until things settle down!
Please pay attention to the sizes at check out. This link has the higher size range. There is a separate pattern for the lower end, bundles, and kiddo options. 🙂 This way you only buy what you need! Shop soon while the new release sale pricing is in effect!
Happy Wednesday everyone! I hope you are having a good week so far, getting some sewing time in and most importantly, I hope you are healthy! Welcome to my stop on the Spring Fling Blog Tour! The theme of this blog tour is my favorite spring or summer sewing patterns. We could pick anything we wanted to share. I decided I wanted to make a dress from this adorable light plum and white mini dot printed double brushed poly fabric. I picked it up from Surge Fabrics a few weeks ago, but now it has sold out. Don’t worry, there are still tons of fabric options over at Surge!
Without much thought, I knew I was going to make the Willow Wrap Dress from Love Notions. I loved it when I first noticed it and was thrilled it was being offered in LN’s new expanded size chart. I decided to choose the bodice view with more front coverage. A lot of times, cross front bodices expose a bit more of the girls than I wish to share with everyone, so I was happy to see this one offered options for more or less coverage. I used the full bust pattern pieces. I used the gathered side option, elbow length sleeves and the longer skirt. I didn’t not adjust the skirt length for my height as I wanted my skirt to hit just below my knees.
This wasn’t a super quick sew, but it went together nicely and fit well! This pattern has 9 pieces and a mile of hemming, but it is worth it. This dress is pretty, easy to wear, and will have you feeling just a bit dressy for any party! You can sew it with or without the flutter at the cross front or choose one of the shorter length options.
This dress will be perfect for a spring afternoon, Easter Sunday, or dinner with friends, but we are under lock down here in Ohio. So for the foreseeable future, you will be treated to photos taken without my photographer. 😦 Whomp. Whomp. Anyhow, I figured out how to use the timer on my camera and brought all of you into my sewing space! My happy place! Welcome. This next photo looks like I am dancing!
So I have some exciting news!! Love Notions has generously offered to donate a pattern to one lucky reader who leaves a comment below! Please leave me a message to be entered to win a free pattern! I will leave comments open until Saturday early morning and then pick a winner through a random number generator! Good Luck!
I am back with another Love Notions Vivace and this time it is for Momma Mia. She liked mine and I wanted her to have her own. Who doesn’t love comfy clothing? It is lovely enough to wear out, but comfy enough to lounge around in. I used my left over fabric from my hacked Calypso. It was still laying on my cutting table and it matched the white and gold stripes I used for my Vivace. Win-Win! Two scraps off my table! You can pick up the Hailey DBP I used from Stitchin’ Pretties with this link!
I am obviously blogging this dress without having pictures of Momma Mia wearing it. We are all aware of the global pandemic happening now… COVID-19 and she is staying in and healthy. I don’t blame her, everyone should be doing their part during this time. Today is the last day of the new release sale, so I wanted to remind you how awesome this pattern is!
I gave Momma Mia the same length option as I made for myself. She does prefer a longer sleeve, so I may hack her some sleeves at a later date! I have said so many times, the best thing about sewing clothing, is you can make exactly what you want!
XS-5X
Knit and woven versions
Full Bust pattern pieces if needed
Dolman style sleeve
Three lengths- shirt, tunic & dress
Trimless pattern format
Layers
Print at home
In addition to the print-at-home
file is a large format file for copy shop printing is included for both standard and full busts. These files will print on six A0 (33″ x 46″) size sheets. Be sure to instruct your printer to print actual size in black and white on their cheapest paper. We recommend PDFPlotting for printing the large format files.
A projector file is also included for those using projector technology
As always this blog contains affiliate links, which is a small commission I earn when you make a purchase from my blog links. Thank you for helping to support my sewing.
Vivace is about to be your most comfortable everyday garment. As a shirt, tunic, or a dress, you can’t beat it! This is a super fast sew, but the extra wide neck band and the front pleat makes it a little fancy! Don’t worry, the wide V neck collar isn’t too tricky. The designer, Tami, even made a little video to show you how to do it.
So first up, fabric choices. I used a beautiful floral double brushed poly that I picked up from Ksews AKA The Material Girls on Facebook. I had 3 yards of this beautiful fabric. It sewed up so neatly. I adored the bright cheery colors of this one and then I added the striped contrasting fabric for the neck and sleeve bands for even more color. This stripes are cut on grain which is the opposite of the directions tell you to do, but I wanted my strips to be short instead of long. This pattern requires a knit fabric with 40% stretch and DBP has the required stretch in both directions, so it worked out fine! You could also make your top out of a woven fabric as that pattern is included as well.
Now let’s talk about options.
XS-5X
Knit and woven versions
Full Bust pattern pieces if needed
Dolman style sleeve
Three lengths- shirt, tunic & dress
Trimless pattern format
Layers
Print at home
In addition to the print-at-home
file is a large format file for copy shop printing is included for both standard and full busts. These files will print on six A0 (33″ x 46″) size sheets. Be sure to instruct your printer to print actual size in black and white on their cheapest paper. We recommend PDFPlotting for printing the large format files.
A projector file is also included for those using projector technology
I sewed up the 4x FBA graded to a 5x. I used the 5x sleeves so I wouldn’t need to do a bicep adjustment and my sleeves would still fit. These sleeves are a roomier fit which is nice. My original plan was to make the tunic length, but I had enough fabric for the dress length, so I went for it. I am happy I did, I could easily tie a knot at one side and wear this as a tunic! Double-Duty without the work! I could absolutely see sewing a few of these up, just to wear around the house as a house dress. Ultra comfy, super cozy. Totally a win-win
This dress sewed together very quickly as most Dolamn style garments, but it will take a few minutes to interface the neckband pieces..Don’t skip this step. It will make a difference in how neatly your neckband lays.
I think this dress will make the perfect summer dress. A little fancier than the basic tshirt dress, but just and easy to make and wear. I have one cut out for Momma Mia already. Give my blog a follow and stop back in a few days to see it!
As always this blog contains affiliate links, which is a small commission I earn when you make a purchase from my blog links. Thank you for helping to support my sewing.
I am back with another Love Notions Dress and a mash up to boot! So I sewed up Momma Mia’s first Tessa dress a month or so ago and she loved it! Actually I loved it too, but sadly it hasn’t been on the Love Notions size upgrade list yet so I will keep sewing them for Momma Mia. Last time, my promo fabric from Stitchin’ Pretties came with a note saying it would love to become a beautiful dress. So I made the fabric’s dreams come true and it became a Tessa Sheath Dress! This time I received this pretty red floral double brushed poly fabric without a note, but it was screaming at me to make it a dress.
I have a confession to make, when I order fabric, I usually don’t have a plan in mind. My second confession, I told Laura at Stitchin’ Pretties to “just send me something.” I trust her and her product. She doesn’t let me down! When this fabric arrived on my door step, I knew that it would be a dress. I typically feel that fabric with larger open spaces of background does well as dresses. Compared to a tank top, there wouldn’t be as much room to show off a great print! I love print, busy prints! Momma Mia isn’t quiet as flashy as I am in the print department. I knew I was making her a dress with this fabric! I decided on another Tessa, but with a twist. In case you do not know, you can mash the Tessa Bodice with all the skirts from Sybil. I used the Aline skirt from Sybil. This will give her dress a little bit of flirty flare, but not full on twirl factor! Also I only had 2 yards of fabric to work with. Speaking on the 2 yards, since the back bodice is “Cut as mirror image” you can use less fabric than if you had to “Cut on the Fold.”
*You can use this tip for any top pattern. If you don’t have enough fabric to cut a front and back bodice on the fold, you may be able to use the mirror image cutting technique. Just remember to add seam allowances if you adjust from cut on the fold to mirror image or your neckband won’t fit properly.
Tessa #2 with the Sybil skirt portion.
Tessa #1 with Tessa skirt portion.
You may have noticed that I colorblocked this Tessa with the fantastic Royal Blue. I have a bunch of smaller usable scraps from a few months ago, plus still some yardage tucked away. I have SO MUCH LOVE for this color! So at first glance, I was torn as to whether this royal blue was too bold for the red print. Typically, I encourage folks to “mind the tones” of your colors. For example, the royal blue is a jewel tone and the red isn’t. I posted a side by side picture in the group and asked if it works, yea or no. I got both responses, so that wasn’t at all helpful. In the end, my mind was made up and I made the first cut. Speed work for about an hour and TA-DA! Momma has a new dress. I put the finished dress on the dress form which has basically taken up residence in my living room window. I LOVED it! Like really loved it. I left it there for 3 days! When I delivered it, Momma Mia loved it too. She just happened to have perfectly matching shoes and a purse to add to her photo session! She is too much some days! Side note, I delivered this dress Monday evening. When I saw her on Tuesday, she was wearing it. She had been grocery shopping in it! 🙂 You go Momma! I am glad she is always willing to wear the clothes I make her. She makes this daughter proud!
This red floral print is called Felicia and I knew Momma Mia was going to LOVE it! This fabric was easy to sew and it drapes nicely. I did notice a little bit of wrinkling after I had thrown it in a bag to take it to Momma Mia, but a quick tumble in the dryer fixed it right up! This fabric has a nice weight to it also. As usual, Laura ships within a day and runs great sales and has really awesome fabric. Honestly, if you don’t know about Stitchin‘ Pretties, you are missing out.
I used the same boat neck line as the first Tessa, color blocked at the yoke and 3/4 sleeves. The above photo really shows the width difference in the skirt compared to the Sheath Style of the original Tessa. I love the that all 7 of the Sybil skirts fit with the Tessa. Maybe Momma Mia will end up with the entire collection. 🙂 I don’t think she would mind.
**The dress features a bateau or scoop neckline, optional yoke detail and five sleeve lengths: sleeveless, short, elbow, 3/4 and long. Two hem lengths are also included- above knee and shin. Bonus- the bodice part of the pattern can also be easily mashed with the Sybil Skirt Collection.
**Meant for knit fabrics, the Sybil comes with seven variations: pencil, a-line, swing, drop yoke with swing, gored, asymmetrical wrap and pleated. All versions, with the exception of the drop yoke, also have knee and midi length options as well as inseam pockets. All skirt waistbands can include the optional hidden control panel or a yoga-style waistband, no closures needed.
Before you leave my blog, did you check out The Fitting Experiment from 2 days ago? Did you leave a comment for a chance to win a pretty Love Notions Sabrina Slims pattern?
You can follow my blog by clicking the Follow button on the right side of my blog.
As always this blog contains affiliate links, which is a small commission I earn when you make a purchase from my blog links. Thank you for helping to support my sewing.
SequoiaLynn Sews 