In defense of stuffies

I’m starting to understand my creative rhythm.  I can’t keep churning out project after project for myself without losing a little bit of my sanity.  Somewhere in there, I need to vary levels of difficulty and concentration to keep myself from burning out.  This should be really no surprise to me, or that’s certainly the way I was taught to teach–alternating activities of high concentration with just plain fun to keep students engaged and more receptive to learning.

In light of this, I present an argument for making simple stuffed animals or stuffed whatevers.

Nostalgia:  You know your room was populated with them when you were a kid, so why not populate your own kids’ rooms with them.  For me, making a stuffie is a triple-whammy of nostalgia.  Sure, I had my own collection, but also my Great-grandma made them, and when I was a kid, I made them all outfits as well as making my own little stuffies from whatever bits and scraps of fabric I could muster up.  My crowning achievement in stuffie making?:  crafting a faux amber heart necklace for my American Girl doll out of–wait for it, temporary dental adhesive (wouldn’t you know it was the right color and dried perfectly?).

Scrap busting:  If you’ve sewn for more than 3 minutes, you know that sewing creates tremendous amounts of scraps.  There’s sometimes when mentally you just have to chuck things because it’s ridiculous, but there’s other times that you can’t bear to part that precious bit of voile or silk or corduroy or what have you.  Stuffies allow you to use up those bits and highlight their beauty too.

Mental health:  Sewing stuffies is not difficult.  They use little fabric and it’s mostly straight line sewing with a few curves thrown in that won’t be ruined if they end up a little less curvy.  It’s glorified pillow making, really, just cuter.  After all of the topstitching that goes into a pair of jeans, it’s just the kind of simplicity your brain needs.

Death to (knit) wadders!  We all start every project with dreams of that perfect fitting shirt or dress, but despite our best intentions, sometimes everything goes awry.  If you’re like me, wadders tend to stare back at you in the closet, mocking you.  I say dispatch of them in a satisfying way!  Take a big rotary cutter and turn them into confetti stuffing for your stuffies (I say knit fabrics because wovens tend to make for a lumpy hand when used as stuffing.  Of course you could use polyfil too, but it can leak out of the seams–and that’s a kind of fiber I’d rather not have in my kids’ diet)!!!  Fabric confetti will give your stuffies a delightful heft that polyfil stuffies cannot reproduce.

Smile factor:  Can you put a price on this (acutally I can–it cost me 2 naptimes and a couple of hours watching a movie only because I made them fancy with embroidery, but my materials were otherwise free, unlike pricey homemade stuffies you find on places like Etsy)?

Go make someone a stuffie.

These particular stuffies elephantine are the Unforgettable Elephants from S.E.W. Sew Everything Workshop.  It is my entry for Patternreview’s Sewing for Children contest!  And my review is here.

Ho-ly-chi-cken-c-ow

I made my own jeans.  And they actually fit pretty well.  There’s a hair of gappy in the waist due to me losing more weight since I made my muslin, but other than that, I’m happy with them.  I got rid of most of the bagginess in the seat via cutting the back inseam 2 sizes smaller and by folding out some of the length in the back crotch.  There’s still some excess in the back, but most of that is from the waist being too big and everything sagging down.

I’ve talked here before about Kurt Wallander having sweaters for certain temperature ranges…I guess these jeans will be for my weight now +5 lbs.  I’m at least understanding the process of pants fitting better even if my weight is a little hit and miss right now.

So what if it took me a week’s worth of naptimes to get through making these.  I got them done, and they fill an enormous hole in my wardrobe which has been missing jeans since my maternity jeans have been big enough to step out of.  I used Vogue 1034, the Today’s Fit pattern by Sandra Betzina.  I passed these over before because they have that high-waisted mommish sort of look.  I picked up the pattern though when I knew I was going to do the fit class with Sandra Betzina herself…I figured she knew the pattern so well that there would be less fuss, and any and all of her directions I’ve followed have yielded great results.  When I opened up the pattern, I saw to my delight that there were directions for making them lower rise which I followed.  I like where they sit now.  The double pockets are kind of fun, but my do they add bulk even with the extremely lightweight cotton batiste that I used for them.  This is pretty lightweight denim too–I can’t imagine trying to do these pockets in heavier fabrics.

I took my time on the topstitching using an old spool of Coats and Clark heavyweight thread I bought a long time ago to hem some jeans (my most favorite Banana Republic jeans I got on clearance for I think $15–I blew the knees out of them though ;( ).  The thread is a little thickish, but with a denim double needle it did the job.

For the next pair, I’ll try some different topstitching thread.  The double needle really made a difference.  The rows are perfectly spaced and I only had to make one pass on each round of topstitching.  It did take extra time to rethread though vs. just changing the top thread if I had used a single needle.  I certainly see why people set up an extra machine for topstitching.

The top is Burda 7508 which you have seen before in leftover fabric I had, but I never got around to writing about version two in this pretty aqua striped shirting.  This top has gotten a lot of wear with the heat.  It strikes a good balance for me of being the kind of fitted tops I like to wear but in a reasonable fabric for summer.

Here is my review of the jeans.

And the review of the top.

Sunshine dress

I forget about yellow as a color.  I like it, but I guess I gravitate towards other colors first.  But when I saw this Milly print from Emma One Sock, I was convinced that I need to pay more attention to yellow.  It’s just so happy!  I just so happened to have a gift certificate to EOS from my birthday and I had been haunting their site frequently to find just the right stuff.  I’ve become a fan of Milly too since I bought this fabric and also a pretty voile from Elliott Berman when they had their anniversary sale.  They make such adorable girly clothes–so this seemed a good pattern.

It being sweltering, this rayon knit is lovely and cool.  You all know I’m a knit addict, but they are too hot in the summer, but rayon is nice.  My beef with rayon knits is that most of them are wimpy, and the ones that aren’t (like this one) are super pricey.  Yay for birthday money!

The pattern is BWOF 02-2007-123.  I made it before in this peacock colored print.  I mistakenly put the wrap piece on top instead of beneath the full front piece on this one–it gives it a different look than the other dress, but I think I like the other one better as I can wear a belt.  A belt with this one is too much on my short waist with the short piece on top.

Overall, I’m glad I could pull off making such a happy summery dress before it got too cool to wear this.

My updated review is here at Patternreview.