Lined tracksuit

It's amazing how necessity can motivate me.  During May, we were planning to go camping to celebrate a friend's 50th birthday.  We knew it would be cold, so I had been looking around to find warm tracksuit for the girls.  Unfortunately, all the tracksuits I could find were woefully thin.  So, 2 days out before our camping trip, I popped into Spotlight and picked up a tracksuit pattern (Kwik Sew 3773), some polar fleece and some interlock (tshirt) knit material.  In my naive enthusiasm, I decided that I should line the tracksuit to give it some extra warth - what was I thinking?!



Left - small pink stars interlock knit; Right - multi-coloured hearts on red polar fleece

 I finished the trackpants in time for our camping trip and I was so glad that I did. While we were camping, the temperature fell below zero and Samantha ended up sleeping in her new trackpants inside her new sleeping bag.  She said they were "snuggly warm for camping". :)  Yay, a happy customer!

Anyway, last night I made the hooded jacket.  It definitely took extra time and effort to line both the pants and the jacket but I think it was worth it.  Now that I have some idea of how to put the lining into the garments, it should go much quicker next time.  And using the fleece and knit was easier than I expected.  This was my first attempt to sew a knit fabric and I'm really pleased with the reults.  Mind you, I think fleece is very forgiving.

I don't have an overlocker (serger) but it seemed to work okay using the 'overlocker' stitch on my sewing machine.  I just love the fact that I didn't have to finish off any raw edges - what a bonus!  I did my own thing with the pocket on the front - it came out reasonably well, but I know what I would do next time to make it a bit better.

I had some fleece fabric left over, so I made Samantha a scarf as well.  She's been wearing it around the house today, funny little monkey.

Anyway, I have to sew a tracksuit for Asha now.  And I'm going to line that as well.  But after that, they can make do with a few unlined trackkies - it is a lot more work!  At least now the girls will be set for winter camping (this year anyway).  :)

Ladybug dress

Over Easter I managed to make a dress for Asha - the ladybug dress she has been asking for.  Again, just a simple A-line pinafore that I have done several times before (too easy, New Look pattern 6504) but I added an appliqued ladybug on the front.  All up, it was a day's work and Asha is thrilled with it.  I made size 3, as that is the smallest size in the pattern and I did shorten it slightly, but I probably could have still chopped 2 extra inches off the bottom.

On my sister's wise advice, I added some black dots on the wings.  I think they really do make it look much better

Ladybug size was based on a saucer from the holiday unit where we were staying at Easter!

And modelled by the happy recipient.  With this length, it should be okay for quite a few months!

The fabric came from Spotlight - I used a yellow soda denim (which has a small amount of stretch) and then a few quilting scraps to make the applique.  The dress itself sewed up very quickly, but the applique took me a few hours to do.

I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out.