Roses in December Ruffled Scarf

So we were packing for this upcoming trip and I thought it will be cool to have some accessories for myself. I had a half-baked idea of a shirred scarf in my head and a just perfect jersey fabric at hand but there were still a few kinks that I couldn't think of a way to get around..that is..until now.
Once I thought through the design and felt confident, I left the piles of clothes to be packed on the bed, handed the munchkin her favorite toy, and got to work ( sounds familiar...eh).
It was an easy-peasy scarf and if I weren't interrupted by my bunny who now wants to "Sew clothes" it would take me about 20 mins...I think.
The scarf is super soft and very ruffley...just the way I wanted. I wore it to work and what to do you know...I even got compliments :). My colleague told me the scarf looked very nice, she even asked me where I bought it. I tried my best not to look smug when I told her "I made it"...lol.
Incidents like these totally make my day...and ohh..almost forgot.. the tutorial is in the works and will be here very soon.

Sleepers to jacket refashion - guest post at Me Sew Crazy

Some time back I showed you these jackets and promised a tutorial. Well, here I'm the tutorial is live as a guest post at Me Sew Crazy. Hop on here to check out my tutorial. If you know Jessica you know that she does crazy amazing things with the sewing machine and has the cutest models to flaunt her creations. So look around for a huge selection of children's clothing tutorials. If you have never visited Me Sew Crazy you are in for a real treat.

Merry Christmas

Photo credit: cohdra from morguefile.com
From our family to yours - Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Hope you have a fun and relaxing holiday with your loved ones.

December sewing - pint sized accessories

So I finally realized that its December already and whats winter without some ( a lot of ) accessories. I stumbled upon this superb tutorial from "From An Igloo" and just had to make it. The pattern is so good and it came together so easily that I made more ( for gifts).
If you're looking for a hat pattern, look no more. Make these...pronto...ok!

I finally succumbed to the bunting trend that has been over the blogosphere for a while now ( Is it too late already? No. Don't answer that question). I made some kiddie scarflets and used bunting appliques to decorate these.

The best part - Kiddo loves them. She keeps saying "Mama I'm dinosaur...lol"

Oh Summer! Jumper and bloomers set

I know you're thinking that I have gone nuts! Summer in December? Yup! While most of us are only thinking about the shawls, sweaters and coats, there are some places where summer is but just around the corner. This is a jumper and a bloomers set that was a custom order from one such place. The top is made in a lightweight butterfly print. I also appliqued some butterflies to match the print on the bodice.

These are made in size 6T and the client wanted something in light yellow. I took the liberty of pairing it with gray print and apparently my client likes it. Here they're together:

Of Course, Whats a little girl's outfit without a matching hair-bow. Here's the close-up.

Simple and sweet. I like it this way. Hope the little girl likes it as well. I have only recently started taking custom orders and so far I'm really enjoying it. Its a little stressful to prepare something with a deadline, but its also a lot more creative, to make something according to a clients specifications and tastes and to a little girl's liking.

Here they are. All wrapped up and good to go.

Sodee Naturals Giveaway Winner

Photo credit: cohdra from morguefile.com

Thanks a lot to Sodee Naturals for sponsoring this giveaway at Blooms And Bugs. I picked out three winners for a jar of Sodee Naturals Eczema Cream using Random.org. Here're the winning commneters:



#18
Jo said...

I like Sodee on facebook

#23

TracyB said...

Hi, I liked them on Facebook as Tracy Leigh. If I don't win, I'm definitely going to buy some of this and try one of their products out!

#31

pits2love said...

Liked Sodee on Facebook! Ty!

Congratulations to all of you. I'll be contacting you shortly to get your mailing address for your prize. PS: TracyB and pits2love I'm having trouble finding your email id, Could you please email me your address or a way to contact you at bloomsandbugs[at]gmail[dot]com

Holiday orders at Blooms And Bugs Studio

Here's a little skirt that I finished over the weekend. This is based on the same pattern as Belle Layered Skirt. This was a latest custom order for Christmas. The customer wanted me to create a skirt for her spunky 4 yr old niece. This time I tried making it in knits. The outer layer is a baby nay printed knit and the inner layer is an organic knit solid.  I have sent the picture to her and she thinks it will be perfect. I have just started taking custom orders and I'm finding it really challenging and exciting to work with the specifications of someone else. I hope your preparations for holidays are going well too.

Belle Layered skirt tutorial is live now

 

Belle Layered Skirt

The Belle Layered Skirt tutorial is live at Moda Bake Shop. Hop on here to check out.

Sodeenaturals: Product review and a giveaway

This is not one of those highly popular fabric, notions giveaway but having suffered with eczema myself and having seen my daughter suffer from it I know that these products may be worth more than any fabric, notion, patterns ever. For a parent with kids suffering from eczema this may be the best Christmas present ever.

A couple of months ago I read an announcement on a blog asking for testers for a natural eczema cream. It seemed like a genuine company with good products. Me and my daughter often suffer with eczema, it sometimes gets so severe that we have to resort to heavy steroid medications to get rid of it, the worst part is that there's no 'cure' for it. Whenever the symptoms appear, the doctor prescribes some steroid ointments to treat the affected areas. They work, but as soon as we stop using them the symptoms re-appear. Besides worrying about the long term effects of these medications, It was also frustrating to see our daughter constantly scratching herself. So when I found that this company claims to have a natural remedy I contacted them to be a tester. Britta was very honest and open with me about their products and results. She also gave me a complete list of ingredients of both the products they wanted me to test. I sent across the list to my daughter's pediatrician to get her approval. Once she approved I started applying the products on the areas that were affected by eczema. I used the creams first on myself and then on my daughter we both had almost similar results so I'm just writing mine. Here's how my experience went:

I found that application of these creams relieved itching in all the areas, which was a big relief in itself. After consistently applying for a week ( twice a day) the breakout also seemed to be reduced but it didn't go away completely like it would when I used conventional medications. I tried the original cream first week and then switched to Seabuckthorn Eczema Skin Protectant Cream. I found Seabuckthorn Eczema Skin Protectant Cream more effective than original. I did have to apply some steroids later on to get rid of the red patches that were visible on my skin. So in my experience it doesn't cure the symptom completely but it relieves the itching and it reduces the symptoms considerably so the amount and frequency of steroid medications like hydrocortisone needed is very less. I was a little disappointed that I still had to use hydrocortisone, but having my daughter ( and myself) free of all the itching and having to use hydrocortisone only once in a while made it so worth it. I highly recommend trying it once if someone in your family suffers from eczema. The best part is that these creams don't have steroids so they don't thin the skin like the conventional medications.

Britta also sent me a goodie basket of their other natural products to review. I have been using their Sea Salt Soap, Hair Tamer shampoo bar and they feel really nice on my skin and hair, but the one thing that I absolutely love is their Garden Utopia Body Butter. It has just the right floral scent and my skin is so nice after using it, no dryness or oily residue. I'm definitely going to buy some more of this in future.

Now for those of you who would like to try one of these eczema creams, here's a chance to win one of these:
Sodeenaturals has offered to giveaway three winners one jar each of their natural eczema cream. The winner may choose from among the three creams they offer. This giveaway is open to international readers as well.

To win this you can do any of the following:

1. Like them on Facebook and leave a comment here.
2. Blog about it and leave the link as a comment on this post
3. Tweet about sodeenaturals and post a comment here.
4. Pin your favorite product from their website on to pinterest and leave a comment here.


Note: Please leave a separate comment for each of these activities, you can do any/all of them for one separate entry each.

The giveaway will close on Dec 12, 2011, 9:00 AM PDT. I'll post the winners on Dec 14, 2011 which I'll be choosing by random number generator from random.org.


If you don't want to wait for the giveaway and want to try sodeenaturals products right away, they have offered a discount of 10% with the code bloomsblog. They offer free shipping within US and very reasonable shipping charges for other countries. I hope you will try some of their products with this discount.

Sew Easy part 13 : Hot chocolate skirt

You can read the story behind this series and the first part here. Click here to read the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth,  eleventh and twelfth edition of this series.


I was searching for something else in my stash when I found this scrap of really nice corduroy. Of course I had thought it would make a nice skirt for little one and of course I forgot all about it. So instead of putting it back there and forgetting about it once again, I put everything else aside and got to work with the scrap. The result is this Hot chocolate skirt. It was super quick, I actually had company when I made this and my guest was surprised that I made it so quickly.
Here's the skinny:

Supplies:
Corduroy or some other heavyweight fabric: half yard
Elastic : 1 inch wide for the waist: 15 inches
Heavy fabric scraps in a coordinating color: 2-3


Measurements:

Length: Your desired length + 2.5 inches: L
Width: Measure your little one at the widest part from waist down ( tummy or butt)
Add 5 inches to it and divide by 2 : W

Construction:

1.

Cut to rectangles of length L and width W. If your fabric still has selvage with it use it to reduce your work. Cut the rectangle such that the two selvage ends fall on the same side when you sew the side seams. Actually in this skirt these seams are not the side seams but front center and back center seams.



2.

Sew two seams along  both L sides.

 While sewing these seams ( right sides together) Leave about 3-4 inches unsewn at the bottom of selvage side. If you don't have selvage side in your fabric, don't worry, you could always finish the edges. If you look at the left bottom corner, you can see the part I left unsewn.


Sew another seam at the right side from top to the bottom. 

3. Making the front pleat

To make the pleat at the front sew about 5-7 inches long seam about 1.5 inches from the earlier seam at the top right side. It should be parallel to right ( actually front center) seam.

3.

The smaller seam that you just did will make a partial tube at the front. Now just flatten this tube such that the smaller seam falls on the front-center seam. Now sew a rectangle around this seam such that the smaller seam is smack in the center of the rectangle and the rectangle lies within the flattened tube. Also make sure the length of this rectangle is only up to the smaller seam.

Since it is difficult to see the seams in the original pic, I edited it and the black lines in the above pic is the rectangle I was talking about.

Still Confused?
Here's another tutorial on sewing box pleats. For this skirt you just have to make sure that the original seam ( the longer one) stays right in the center of the pleat.

This is how box pleat will look at the outside.


4. Hem the skirt

Finish the unsewn part of the center back seam by folding and sewing down the fabric at the seam allowance. I didn't have to do it because I cut at the selvage so my edges were already finished, I just folded them and took them in while finishing the hemline.
Hem the skirt by folding the fabric twice and sewing ( seam allowance 1/4 inch).



5.

Prepare the elastic casing by folding the fabric at the top about quarter inch and sewing and then folding again about 1.5 inch and sewing. Leave two one inch gaps in the seam on either side of the skirt, because we are making this skirt flat front.

6.

 Insert the elastic from one gap and take it out from another. Pull the elastic a bit to gather the back of the skirt. I highly recommend holding the elastic with some safety pins and trying on the child at this point to check that the skirt is snug but not uncomfortable.

7.

 Sew the elastic down to the skirt at both ends. I use stitch 1-14 shown above but if your machine doesn't have it any zigzag stitch will do. Go over each side 3-4 times for additional strength.

8.

For appliques I cut out some flowers from another baby cord fabric and just sewn them without any interfacing. If you don't want the hassle of interfacing etc, make sure you use a heavier fabric like denim, corduroy etc. I just sew the
regular stitch to fix these to the skirt but I guess zig-zag would work better. I also applied some fray check on the boundary of these appliques to reduce fraying in the wash, but I'm guessing that their circular shape will anyway help reduce fraying.


Just like that, "The Hot chocolate skirt"

Coming up in December

The Tshirt dress and firefly applique pattern both will be published very soon. I may also throw in a brief commentary on how to make the other firefly dress.

Sorry, but I don't have any pics for construction process of this one.

I know quite a few of you have been waiting for this pattern. I even have a mailing list of people who would like to get informed when this pattern goes live. So the wait is almost over, the pattern/tutorial will be live first week of December.

This fleece coat has been made out of a fleece sleeper that was way too short for
 my daughter but fitted well at the waist. I did this easy refashion and turned it into a coat. I'll share the construction details with you soon.

This skirt legging looks like something ideal for spring but I made it in November and I'm thinking that if I share the tutorial this month you would probably be able to make it for your munchkins in spring...do you like to plan your sewing?
 Me too. ( Only they don't get executed)

Excuse the not so clear pic, but this itty-bitty skirt looks super cute in real life. It is made out of corduroy and I think it will look good worn with a pair of tights/leggings even in the cooler months. The toddler seemed to be fascinated with the flower appliques. I have finally decided to pay attention to Mister's suggestions and use some embroidery/appliques on munchkin's clothes.


Actually there are many more tutorials that I have been working on but they may not be ready in December...or maybe they will be...who knows. Keep checking this little nook on the internet to see what I'm up to. I see some giveaways, Sew n Shows and much more on the cards this December.