The dawn of lawn; or, voilà the voile

Sorry to make readers choose from two horrid titles, but there you go.  Simplicity 2211 is a Lisette pattern by Liesl Gibson of Oliver + S kids patterns (which you've seen on this blog here and here).  This is a doubly Lisette project because I used her fabric as well.  It's probably the nicest fabric I've ever bought at JoAnn - a cotton lawn that is lightweight, not see-through, hardly wrinkles, and is much better suited for tops than the quilting cottons I often choose.  It has a nice amount of give that makes it easy to fudge things as you sew.

Can you believe that I've actually sewn something blue for myself?  This is shocking.

I made this pattern in a size 6 and it fits great, though the arm bands cut into me as I pushed the stroller this morning.  The construction is straight-forward and wise, although I always find these exterior plackets counter-intuitive - as I do anytime that I'm asked to sew right side to wrong side.  Just goes against everything I learned back in Home Ec.  Overall, a very successful grown-up sewing project.

Mama's reward

Scrolling through my (paltry) blog posts from 2011 and 2010, I confirmed that I haven't sewed anything for myself in about two years.  Getting pregnant shifts one's creative energy as well as one's dress size.

However, now that school's out and daycare's still in (which is too glorious for words), I just sewed myself a nice, simple skirt from Echino linen-cotton fabric by Etsuko Furuya that I bought a year ago in Portsmouth.  

Purple + green = perfection

Simplicity 4236 was a bit of a squeeze in a size 6 (thus 1/4" side seams) but allowed me to get a skirt out of just one yard of this uber-pricey fabric.  As usual, a side zipper is a recipe for a bumpy disaster and as usual, I forgot to switch it for a back zipper.

Keeping with the Echino theme, I also fixed up a pair of hand-me-down toddler jeans for my son with some "flower bed" fabric in chartreuse.  A peppy cure for holes in knees and frayed cuffs.

chartreuse + red = also fantastic