The Olivia and Oliver Peacoat

by Peek-a-Boo Pattern Shop

Ohhh my goodness this little coat was so much FUN!!
I bought the pattern in preparation for Kid's Clothes Week and thought I'd test it out before I made it with the intended fabrics. So I used a heavy cotton long-sleeved Tshirt for the outer and a thin Norman Rockwell baby throw-blanket for the lining and I just fell in LOVE with it, the fit is amazing!!!

I kind of impressed myself. I must admit; it was my first time actually doing basting stitches (which I should have done on a few other garments before....) and button-holes. oh lordy button-holes!! How stressful they were! After practicing over and over on scrap fabric, I gave in and just sewed them by hand. I had hoped to use embroidery floss but I had none to match. All I had in navy blue was overlocking-machine thread, so it took me much longer than I had hoped. BUT once I ironed them they looked OK to me, but I'm sure not zooming in on them for you :-P

I did learn a good lesson in buttons though;

I only cut two buttonholes (out of four buttons) and left the other two buttons sewn on top of the outer layer and..........

THE BUTTONS SAGGED!

I was pretty upset I hadn't foreseen this happening. I did choose some pretty heavy, rounded buttons after-all. I knew I couldn't just leave them be, and accept defeat. So I rolled up a tinyyy bit of leftover tshirt and superglued it to the bottom-back of the buttons to kind of prop it up. It helped alot (you can see the difference in the top pictures of it hanging!) I'm wishing I had snapped a picture now, maybe I'll reenact it for you haha!

The topstitching was so satisfying. I really took my time with it, as I usually have a hard time with edge-stitching.

So if you're wanting to make a darling little coat for your wee-one, I'd say the Olivia and Oliver Peacoat is the way to go. It came together so nicely, even with my novice skills. And I can't wait to make one again for Kids Clothes Week!

Thank you for reading! <3 <3 <3

Tutorial: Heat Transfer Vinyl Graphic Tee

I am so excited to share my love of Heat-Transfer vinyl with you! There's so much good about it; it doesnt fade and bleed like other iron-on transfers, it comes in so many colors; even metallics (I can't get enough silver and gold!) which is a big deal to me! It looks sharp and professional, and is such an easy hack to do right at home. I love the simple, clean crispy look of it and its SO inexpensive! I paid about $30 for 4 yards (a yard each of four different colors) on Amazon last winter and I still have about 3/4 of it left; It lasts a long time!! So I'm going to show you how it's done with the professional-grade vinyl, with NO professional equipment or tools!

You'll Need:

• Heat Transfer Vinyl (duh):  I use the brand name "Siser Easy-Weed" because like the name implies it's very easy to work with and comes out so soft with a nice little stretch to it!
• Teflon Sheet (This should come with your HTV order but double-check to be sure!)
• Exacto Knife
• an Iron
• (optional) A printer

 

For this tutorial I'm going to make the same NBYBOY graphic Teddie's wearing on his tank here, so I'll be using black and silver HTV.

Start by printing (or drawing) your desired graphic on plain ol' paper. If it's orientation-sensitive, make sure you print it "mirrored". We're going to use this is a stencil.

Take a look at your HTV. There is a shiny side and a dull side. The shiny side is the sticky plastic layer that will be peeled off in the end, and the dull side is your vinyl.

Tape your paper-graphic to the dull side of your HTV. Cut your paper pieces a bit smaller than your HTV pieces so you have a surface to tape your paper to. Be generous with your tape (you don't want it moving around!) and make sure it's on a flat surface!

Now it's time for the exacto-knife! Trace along the outlines of your graphic cutting right through the paper and the vinyl, but not through the shiny-side plastic layer (though its not the end of the world if you accidentally do so!) This might sound difficult, but you quickly get a feel for it!

If you have something like the letter B where there are "holes" in it, be sure to cut those out first; if you cut the outside part first, you won't have the paper to trace the inside lines!

Once you've completely traced/cut your graphic you can take the remaining paper off (tape too!) and start what we call "weeding"; peeling away the excess vinyl to leave only your beautiful graphic.  The key to this is to go slow and have patience if you're doing a complicated graphic.

I like to make a few extra slices from cut-lines to the edge, so I can peel away smaller amounts at a time. ( It's a little hard to see, I know!)

I like to use a pin to help lift and peel the excess vinyl and start at the inside of corners.

So keep on weeding away until you have nothing left but your nice clean graphic!

The backside that you just worked with will be nice and sticky for you to place on your desired garment. When this material is used commercially, they use a cutting-machine and a massive industrial heat-press, but we're going to use our household iron. The HTV comes with Pressure and Time instructions for "pressing" and you're just going to try to emulate it with your iron and own weight!

So arrange your graphic(s) how and where you'd like them to be, and lay your teflon sheet over it. I ironed this on with a little bit of lean, holding in place for about 20sec until I've covered the whole graphic.

Now you can peel away your plastic while its still warm for a matte finish, or let it cool a bit for a shinier graphic. I choose shiny!

Voila!!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and give heat-transfer vinyl a chance, you'll love it!

Goodbye Summer

Bring on the autumn crisp!

Teddie's wardrobe is already well in the works. I started off making a pair of HOSH pants by LouBee Clothing with a pair of jeans that have been loitering in my room for eternity (and I've since made three more pairs!) and a sweater that I drafted using the Darling Cardigan pattern by Owly Baby. I was actually very impressed with my sweater; I had no idea seemingly delicate cashmere could be cut up and not fall apart!

Can't get enough HOSHpants!

To help add to his fall wardrobe,
I am absolutely THRILLED to be participating in
Kids Clothing Week "Storybook"

Can you guess my personal theme for this challenge? I'm sure it will be a very popular one, 

but I just couldn't resist!

Earlier this summer I kept coming across KCW posts in all the sewing blogs and thought it was some super-secret-experts-by-invitation-only club or something. I was so jealous lol! So glad that is not the case. I can barely contain my excitement, I really want to start sewing pieces for it now. Im so impatient! Is that against KCW etiquette? Why must I wait!? I promise I'll still do more sewing on the actual week!
Sombody please enlighten me!

My Tools and Materials

The Tools

Three months ago when I first got the idea of learning to sew, I got a little overwhelmed looking online at all the supplies I would "need" and just how much sewing machines really cost! Luckily, i'm pretty thrifty (or maybe Im just cheap) and got all I really needed for about $25!

• Used Brother sewing machine $20
• WalMart "fabric" scissors $2.47
• Pins $2

That's it folks. These are my modest tools that make the magic happen! To any seasoned sewist I'm sure this looks rather silly and extremely meager... Believe me I would love to have fancy rotary cutters and maybe even a pin-cushion (lol!)  But to anybody who really wants to pick up sewing with very limited resources, these were all the tools I needed!
EDIT::  I forgot I also have a seam ripper. Very very handy! Im sure even experts have to use them once in a while! :-)

The Materials

I am much too frugal to buy fabrics from the fabric stores (even WalMart!).  So I make bi-weekly trips to a local Salvation Army with a spending limit of $15 which amounts to a BIG bag of interesting clothing of all types of fabrics to work with. I very rarely "plan" for what I'm looking for. I flip through as many sections as my babyboy will allow and buy whatever appeals to me at the moment. I do however, always buy a "crazy print" shirt if I can find one! You'd be surprised with the inspiration that can come just poking through donated rags! 

Sew cheap! :-P

Thank you so much for reading!

xoxo Goodnight

Hello and welcome

Good morning from Massachusetts! I'm Tabitha, the stay-at-home mother of my dear little boy Teddie. We just LOVE our beautiful hometown (hence the blog title!)

Early this summer, I was fed up trying to find clothes I loved for my little one. So my overly-confident mind told me "just MAKE his clothes!" and so I bought a $20 sewing machine from a virtual yard sale and dove right in and just fell in LOVE with making clothes, and seeing all the wonderful patterns and sewing blogs out there!

So I'd like to share with you my learning-to-sew journey here. I'm sure my friends will appreciate me plastering a blog with my sewing adventures rather than on facebook!

Thank you for reading, I'll leave you with a picture of my lovey wearing my very first creation:

                              

  ...I'll be sure to elaborate on my next post!