My secret other lives.

I actually have three lives that I live simultaneously. 

1) I am a wife and mother to two children.

2) I am a classically trained professional musician.

3) I have a sewing business.

Recently I have been having trouble deciding which hat I have on at any given moment. And they do overlap. My son is tall and skinny. After hours of searching the stores for jeans, we gave up and bought some denim material and I made him a pair. They still need some tweaking, poor kid. But I have dresses to make for my Etsy store!

I played in a string quartet for a wedding this weekend. I am forever depressed by how frumpy I have become. I prefer to be comfortable and my 'comfortable' clothes are sweats. Even my dressy black is getting old and frumpy. So I took time out from my sewing business (and my family) to try my hand at a pair of pants for myself. Here's the result.

A little blurry but it's very difficult to take your own picture!

Today I am focusing on the shop and baby clothes. I have ideas for FIVE different warm, winter dresses. The first is this kelly green corduroy with white lace. So far just the yoke is done.

I originally planned to put the lace on by machine. After pinning it on the yoke, I realized it would be so much easier just to whip it down by hand. 

The embroidery I kind of made up as I went, eye-balling the green curvy line then putting three red french knots in each curve.

KinderRose: "Better-Than-Tights" pants

KinderRose: "Better-Than-Tights" pants

These pants are so soft and comfy!

Now available on my Etsy Shop in three sizes.

www.KinderRose.Etsy.com

"Better-Than-Tights" pants

My daughter and I share a mutual dislike for tights! I hated them when I was a kid, still do. She hated them. And how do you get tights on a squirming child? But I had made some very fancy dresses for her to wear in the cold Illinois winters. My solution: "Dress" pants, as she called them. 

They are made of soft, white flannel. All seams are enclosed French seams. And the lace around the ankle is so sweet.

Better pictures to come tomorrow, with daylight!
With those better pictures will be a new listing on my Etsy sight :
www.KinderRose.Etsy.com

Holiday Season!

I have decided it is time to get ready for the holiday season. Seems early but if I start now I should be able to get several dresses out soon. I already have three definite ideas. Nice warm, soft corduroy and flannel, with lace, of course. And I found the cutest fabric! A border print with Santa on it. Lots of ideas!

Pictures to come soon...

KinderRose: Polka-dot Bishop constructions

This dress's construction and the rest of my blog can be found at www.kinderrose.blogspot.com

They are part of my Etsy Store at
www.kinderrose.etsy.com

Polka-dot Bishop finished!

Wew! Here it is. It took longer than I thought it would but I like the way it turned out.

All these pictures can be seen in full view by clicking on them.

I'll start backwards...

Today I spent several hours perfecting my handmade buttonholes. Some may ask "Why?" Well, about six years ago I bought a very nice Bernina Sewing machine and one of the selling points of this particular one was the built in button hole feature with several options. I went to the instructional classes and have read the books but have never been completely satisfied with the machine buttonholes I was making. Today, I can say that the four buttonholes on the back of this dress are the best-looking buttonholes I have ever made on a garment. Unfortunately, I don't know how to take a good close-up picture of these beautiful buttonholes. But here is the back view.

The hem is scalloped. I always like the way these hems turn out. Seems worth the extra effort. It is hand stitched with a running stitch from the back. I used DMC floss the same pink used in the smocking around the neck and arms.

The inside seams are enclosed french seams, even the ones behind the smocking as noted in the previous blog post.

The smocking is done with pink, white, and purple DMC floss. I buried the knots of the smocking between the pleats. Otherwise they may scratch baby's sensitive skin.

The sleeves are smocked with the same colors as around the neck. Cluny lace was attached to the sleeve edge by hand at the same time I hand sewed the hem of the sleeve.

Polka-dot Bishop constructions

Today I was very happy to find that the new technique I was trying for this smocked bishop worked beautifully! The idea is not to pleat over the thicker french seams where the sleeves connect to the front and back of the dress. You roll the back, sleeve, front, other sleeve, and other back pieces through the pleater one after the other but without seaming them together. Then, when the smocking is done, you take out the pleater threads and sew up the seams. I still wanted french seams but I had 3/8 inch seam allowances. I ended up cutting one seam allowance to 1/8th of an inch and folding the other seam allowance over twice on top of it, then sewing it down by hand. The seam was very tiny!

But look how nice the smocking looks. One can't even see where the four seams are!

I hope to have this dress on my Etsy shop tomorrow.

First item on Etsy

I just posted the pink daygown on Etsy. It took longer than I thought it would to set up the store and get the photos the correct size, etc. But I am now officially a seller on Etsy.

I have started the next dress. This one is a smocked bishop with short sleeves. I debated about long or short sleeves in my mind for some time but decided to go with the short sleeves. They look so sweet. And not everywhere is as cold as Wisconsin! That's the wonderful thing about the internet.

Here is a picture of the dress cut out.

It is pink polka-dots on white background. Very cute. I am planning to smock it in pink and have a hand sewn scalloped hem.

Pink Daygown

Here is my first dress for KinderRose. I am still not completely satisfied with the photos. But they are getting better. Double click on each to see more details. Suggestions are welcome!

This little pink daygown is made out of buttery soft flannel cotton. It has five tucks on each side of three pink embroidered roses and a lace ruffle around the neck. The hem is done by hand with matching embroidery floss.

I wanted to make this as cozy as possible for baby. I made all the seams enclosed french seams with cotton thread so nothing will poke baby's skin. The embroidery uses no knots, the ends of the threads are woven back in on themselves. The lace around the neck has a flannel band between baby so as not to be scratchy.

The picture below shows the INSIDE of the gown.

Photographing Baby Dresses

I have tried twice now to take pictures of my first dress. I am not happy with the quality of the pictures. They are blurry and unprofessional. I think in this situation, selling online, the pictures are so important to show your product.

I have spent the past two days reading our camera instructional book. Pretty dry reading! But I do have a better idea of how to take more focused pictures manually. Today I will try again.

My sales permit from the State of Wisconsin came yesterday. Legally I can start selling!