My Simplicity Spring 2012 review

This year Simplicity spring sewing patterns look very promising.  There is something for everyone.  I picked just the ones I plan to buy to add to my collection.

I wished this pattern came out when my daughter was born.  I will buy it and keep for future baby shower projects.

 Who needs a pattern to make a scarf?  I do :).  It is always better to have the correct measurements even when it looks like a simple project.

 This dress looks like something that Jeniffer Lopez would wear.  I love it!

I love this pattern.  Peplums are such a huge trend this spring and was searching for a vintage 80's pattern but his a more modern approach.  Adding to my MH list.

I am not sure is this is another Peplum style.  I am adding this one to my MH list too.

 The other day I was thinking about making "a wardrobe".  But I was thinking how difficult it is to find patterns that would look good with each other.  This is what I needed.

I can't leave my daughter out.  I love this version of a pillowcase romper.

Blogs I follow

As you can see I stopped blogging for a while.  Having twins have not been an easy task.  I had to cut back on some of my sewing but now I am back to doing some projects.  I have been inspired and bought some new patterns and fabrics and I did some pillowcase dresses for my daughter on the weekend.  No... pillowcases is not all I planned on doing lately but my daughter has taken over part of my sewing room. 

Anyway, I wanted to mention that I was looking at some of the blogs I follow and I noticed that a lot of my fellow bloggers have not write anything for more than 6 months.  I know life keeps going on and people might find other interests.  On the other hand, I noticed some bloggers just keep getting better at the sewing skills and at their blogging.   Here are three of my favorite bloggers:

One blogger I admire is Sewl Sista #1.  She is very modern and I like the way she gets inspired and project her ideas into beautiful garment.  Every time I visit her blog I get inspired to continue sewing.

Another blogger I follow is Sharon Sews who have been sewing for years and have been published on many sewing magazines. 

One of the most impressive persons is Peter Lappin who started sewing not so long ago and has 1503 followers.  He was published by Vogue recently.  I enjoy reading his blog.

I will continue to write about three favorite bloggers each month so that others can get inspired by then too. 

I bought a lot of new fabric

I am not going to post pictures right now but I guess I will back to sewing at my sewing room. I went to Joann Fabrics last Sunday during the Superbowl and I spent 70 dollars in fabric.
Surprisingly, Joann was totally crowded. I guess I was not the only one who decided it was a better idea to go there than to stay at home watching tv.

I also received my first Fabric. com order today. I am super excited. I ordered fabrics for my little daughter. I ordered some Cat in the Hat and the Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric. I will be making some Dr. Seuss pillow case dresses for next month and nother apron knot dress. Those dresses are selling so expensive right now at Etsy and I was tempted to buy some but I found out that for the price of the dress I could buy enough fabric to sew three dresses. Yes, that is right.
Good for them who are selling them and making money, but for us in the sewing community paying $30 dollars for a dress I can make myself is a big "no-no". Mmm, I will be posting the details about this project soon.

So finally I found some excitement and I do have a lots of project that I will be posting soon.
I will be washing the fabrics tonight and posting pictures on the following days.

I got some new patterns.

Yesterday I went to my local Joann Fabrics and picked up some McCall's patterns for $1.99 each.

Hopefully, this time I will get to sew all of them because I really need some new clothes that fit.

I picked up some pants, dresses and tops patterns. I ended up buying something for my little girl. That little girl is taking away all my sewing hours which by the way are not that many.

My spring sewing plans

Firstable, let me say that the pattern companies are not helping me out to get my "sewing mojo" back. I visited the sewing store trying to find patterns that I like and lately it is very rare to come home with more than one pattern.

I just checked the Simplicity website to see if the new spring patterns were out and these were my favorites.


Since I had a daughter I cannot look at sewing patterns without thinking about what could I sew for her. It is a trap! I like this Simplicity pattern to make her some summer outfits. Adding to my pattern collection.

It was very hard to find a pattern that would not look like a sewing pattern I already own. This may not be many people favorite, but I like it because it looks modern and easy to sew. I like the one shoulder look.

This is a must have! Finally a pattern for mother and daughter. Reminds me of Matilda Jane clothing.

I hope you like my choices. Now I need to find some spare time to sew.

Another pillowcase dress for my daughter

It has been a very busy year. I can't find enough time to sew and when I do all I do are blankets for my children or alterations. While trying again to get my sewing "mojo" back I found myself doing another pillowcase dress for my daughter. This time I picked some Halloween fabrics. Sorry this is the closest picture I got of her wearing the dress. I hope to be able to do more sewing for myself next year.

In love with knot dresses - Simplicity Pattern 2171

I made a knot dress for my daughter using Simplicity pattern 2171. The pattern was very easy to use. It won't fit my daughter until next spring thou. I still don't understand very well how children measurement works. I measured my daughter waist and chest and decided I should go with a size 3. It runs a little bit big on the chest and I did not made adjustments because I would ruin the bodice part. Anyway, the dress turned out to be gorgeous.

This pattern is one of the most populars right now. Moms are using it to create "Matilda Jane" look alike knot dresses and I have seen a few dresses selling at Etsy for over $35 which I am pretty sure were created using this Simplicity pattern. My advice, if you can sew and like the look of this dresses go buy some Calico fabrics and you will love the results. I hope to sew more of this in the future.

Here is the dress I made. I picked up some Calico fabrics and tried to copy the one in the picture. I also made the ruffled pants which I altered so that she can wear them this fall. I will be posting pictures soon.

Simplicity Pattern 2699 - Cute apron!

While I am trying to get my "sewing mojo" back, it looks like all I can do right now is sew for children. It may be because a lot of the children clothes in the retail industry are not fulfilling my needs.

I made an apron which I intend to use as a bib mostly for my two year old daughter. I used Simplicty Pattern 2699. I made view A with a couple of alterations. It was very easy to sew and only took me a coupe of hours.

I recommend this pattern for begginers. It is very easy to understand. So easy that I did not had to be reading the instruction so much when I was doing.

My McCall's Pattern Fall review

I know I might be late for this review since it has been more than a week since the McCall's pattern fall collection was released. I may not be sewing a lot lately but I always check the new patterns and continue collecting them. There is nothing wrong about dreaming about new projects that may never become a reality because of my lack of time lately. Right?

I am not to impressed about this season adult collection thou. It doesn't look too different from last year. I see a lot of 90's fashion influence too. I love the fall crafting projects and the children patterns are darn cute. Here are my favorites.

Can you tell I have a girl? I love this look. Reminds me of Matilda Jane dresses.












Leggings continue to be a favorite this year.




Not loving this look so much because I would have to use knit fabric.

I like this quilting project, if I liked to quilt.

These pants are definetely a must have on my wardrobe.

The Pillow case dress that took for ever

Finally I got to finish the pillow case dress from my last post. I used Simplicity Pattern 2383. It is not that it was difficult to make, it was just that I don't have the time to sew I used to have before becoming a mother of twins. I finished it about two week ago and did not have time to post the picture until now. The difficulty level of this dress is "easy". It shall not take more than two hours to accomplish and what took me the most was deciding if I should use ribbons or rig rag. The monkey embroidery part was not so easy for me because it was my first time doing this kind of work. Next time I will be better at it. I recommend using this pattern even for beginners.