A coat for my little lady

I have always found it really cute, seeing little girls wearing stylish little coats with pretty hats and scarves and having that elegant grown-up look. That's where my inspiration for that coat came from.

I bought this wool fabric in dark teal colour on one of my trips to Bulgaria. It is thick and feels very soft, ideal for a coat.
As usual I self drafted the pattern. I decided to go for princess seams and welt pockets.

For the lining I used grey viscose fabric. This project taught me that I should use larger facings and construct a bit larger linings for a more professional look.

Here I was experimenting with adding some interesting details to the coat. In the end I left it without any of them.

Another summer hat

Wow!  A few weeks since my last post here... Time has been flying...
The last few weeks I have been taking it slowly and spending less time in front of the computer. That doesn't mean that I have given myself a break from sewing. I just didn't have the opportunity to photograph my recent creations. By the way I have been fascinated by the beautiful and quality photographs of some other bloggers.

One of the latest things I made was something for my mum's birthday, but more on this in a future post.

Another thing I made was a summer hat for my daughter.

 Yes, another sunhat!

 If you have seen the previous two sunhats I had sewn (one for my boy and one for my girl), you have probably started thinking that I am addicted to sewing hats. Well, I am not. And although I have already made three of them I can say they just don't bring me that excitement as the one I get with creating garments. I was just trying to be practical and sew things that were needed.

The blue hat has been much worn so I decided to make another one in pink to go with her swimsuits and some of her clothes.
For the making I used a cotton fabric from "Dainty Blossoms" collection by Carina Gardner for Riley Blake. I didn't want to make exactly the same style as the first one. I wished to try something new.
The pink hat featured a wide brim like the blue one, but this time the crown of the hat consisted of several triangle pieces joined together.
To draw the pattern I used an old favourite summer hat of mine which my mum had kept over the years.

My old little summer hat

 I liked how the new hat turned out in terms of shape and execution, but was disappointed to see that it was bigger for my girl's head. And the annoying thing was that I actually started making it right but somehow got concerned it would be too tight on the head and added another little triangle to the crown, which I regret now. One or two more years before she could wear it....What a pity!

"Tiny flowers" summer tunic

I love summer clothes. They are more comfortable and also easier to make. I could't wait for the weather to start warming up so I could begin to plan out some new additions to the summer wardrobe of my little girl (and  if I get the chance for me as well).
As we are heading to a warmer place for the Easter holidays I thought I would make a short-sleeved blouse/tunic for Eva.
It all started with this..

and ended like this..

I used two of the fabrics I had bought on my recent trip to Goldhawk road fabric shops. They were pure cotton and very easy to work with. Despite that, the whole project took longer than I thought as folding all the little pleats evenly turned out a fiddly job.
The other task that usually delays my work is handstitching the hems prior to machine stitching. It's time consuming, but it makes machine stitching much easier and straightforward afterwards.
Not long ago a friend of mine mentioned to me that she was watching The Great British Sewing Bee on BBC2 every week. The series followed ten amateur sewers who faced different challenges every week. Shte thought it might be interesting for me to watch. And indeed it was, but it made me realize again just how slow I tackled my sewing projects, which made me feel a bit cringeful. I really have to try to be more organized and concentrated.

And this time I couldn't do without a flower accessory. Initially I planned a hairband with a flower, but once the blouse was finished I thought it might work better if placed on it.
It could go either here

or here

Which look do you prefer? I will attach the flower permanently as repinning it might damage the fabric.

And again the most difficult part were my attempts to take photo of my little daughter wearing the blouse. After half an hour chasing her around the room with the camera and telling my boy for a hundredth time to stay out of camera's view (I didn't want his blue pyjamas showing in the background of the photo) I ended up with an empty battery and lots of blurred pictures.

Kids Clothes Week Winter 2014 - a "winter fairytale" blouse

 As I have wrote in my previous post, I had already moved towards another project of mine - "winter fairytale" blouse. This name popped into my mind when I saw the blouse, maybe because of its white colour and delicate print.

 

This would be my second project during Kids Clothes Week (KCW), which surprizes even me. I started both projects from scratch and actually spent more time on drafting the partern, making toiles and adjusting them than sewing them. For the white blouse I had to make three toiles to get the desired fit. But it was worth it because looking at it now, I can say that I am happy with the result.

choosing which button to use

 

I even start thinking about trying to grade the pattern in bigger sizes. I am thrilled to see whether I could manage to do it.
Here is a little hair accessory which I made from the remaining fabric scraps. Not that any hair accessory manages to stay long enough on my little daughter's head.

 

And that's what my little cheeky boy did with some fabric scraps, while I was busy sewing.