Sewing with Spin

The jumper and bolero came out great and fit Skylar just right. But I hadn’t expected on the first day of school for her to protest wearing it.  “I don’t want to wear that!” It only got worse from there, with her crying and getting very upset. “But I want to wear my Disney Princess shirt”. I promised her she could wear that tomorrow if she’d only just wear this dress today. Just today! “I don’t want to wear a dress! I don’t want to wear that. Get it off me!” She even said her friends would make fun of her. I don’t know where that came from either. I almost cried myself. I don’t think I said that until I was a tween. My Mom always made my clothes and I don’t even think I noticed them. Which now I realize is good and bad. She even protested the cute little pink socks with the ruffle. “I don’t want to wear these wedding socks!” Wedding socks? And the shoes too.  It was getting late and I really wanted to take her picture in the dress.  In most of them you can see she is crying. I let her wear her Disney Princess sneakers.

After all that she enjoyed her first day of school. Her friends reportedly did not make fun of her dress and I really liked the way it looked on her.

One thing I need to do when sewing for my four year old is occupy her while I’m sewing. Yesterday I broke out the toy sewing machine (that really works, supposedly) I’d gotten for her when she was two because I got such a good deal on it I knew I should buy it for someday. Yesterday was that day. Skylar loved it!! Well it didn’t really sew anything of course (that would require Mommy to thread and re-thread it and re-thread it thus getting none of her own sewing done) but no matter. I also got her some cheap Disney Princess fabric to play with. It was $1.50 a yard because it was stained and a “second”. She loved playing with her fabric so much, I was able to get my own sewing done. But by the end of the day she’d cut her fabric up into such tiny bits that there wasn’t much left of it.

I went to Wal-Mart first thing this morning to get her some more cheap fabric to play with. I went out the the Massapequa store because the two newer ones closer to me don’t have a fabric department. As it turned out, this one no longer does either. It was the “Grand Re-Opening” of the store. Where the fabric department once was were some housewares. Only a small part of the “craft” aisle has a few sewing notions in it. But no fabric other then felt squares.

Determined I headed all the way out to Setauket (thank you GPS) – half an hour away but luckily they still had a fabric department. Their store survived the cut, but the employee that I asked there said they plan on phasing out all the fabric departments eventually. They still have a decent fabric department and a big table of exactly what I was looking for – $1.50 and $2 per yard fabric. Well I was actually looking for $1 per yard but I think that may (sniff) really be a memory now. When Skylar was a baby I was able to get $1 per yard fabric – and I’m glad I did. Now I have it in my stash. It is situations like this that really justify hoarding fabric.

I did get a few yards of fabric Skylar is having a great time with. I taught her to cut “larger” pieces and got an easy pattern to teach her to sew with it. I’m showing her how to lay out, cut, and sew a pair of pants she can wear. She’s not exactly getting it yet but she already shares my enthusiasm for sewing and shopping for fabric.

This morning I pulled out my pattern bins to look for Skylar’s back to school dress. I picked out Simplicity 3856 which features a cute dress and short sleeve jacket. This time I’m cutting the largest size on the pattern, a Size 4, which is a relief because I’m not worried about preserving the other sizes for someday. (Previously I did that by tracing the pieces out onto tracing paper.)

I had Nick drag out the heavy bin full of fabric from the utility room. In there I found a nice pink print that will do for the dress. Skylar approved.

The fabric is labeled Spring Bliss by Dena Designs, Inc. for Fabric Traditions. It’s pink with flowers, enough of which are brown to make it right for Fall. The weather is warmish anyway. I have no idea where I got this fabric but it must have been on sale or clearance somewhere which is how this bin got so full.

More exciting: I also pulled out a pattern for Skylar’s Halloween costume, McCall’s MP413, which has five views of beautiful princess-y dresses on it. I asked her to pick out the one she liked best and I was glad she picked Snow White! All those bright colors will be so much fun. And it has a cape too.

So it’s time to get cutting. Oops…Not so fast. Oh yeah I’m supposed to wash the fabric first. Admittedly, I so often blow that off…ugh. But you know, I will throw Spring Bliss on the quick wash cycle and do this right.