(like the rod stewart song)
i'm a millennial living in the bay area who loves dark beer, the environment, and sewing for the tiny humans in my life.
All in little girl apparel
as previously mentioned maya and neela have beautiful complexions and can pull off very bright colors. where other kids would get washed out or overwhelmed by bright bold prints, these girls look amazing. which means aunt maggie has a lot of fun picking out fabric for them.
when i came across this remnant of amy butler voile (spearmint buttercups from the soul blossoms | joy collection) at gather here i knew immediately it would be perfect for maya.
while i ponder the all too quick passage of time we're gonna finish off back to school week by talking about the skirts i made nora and etta for the first day of school.
since this was etta's first year I let her call the shots. bucking tradition (she's a firecracker my bo betta) she requested a skirt as opposed to a dress. naturally i saw this as an opportunity to try a pattern i've had for a while, but haven't yet sewn: the hopscotch skirt by oliver + s.
let's continue back to school week with what nora and etta wore last year.
the instant i saw the library dress pattern by oliver + s i knew nora and etta would love the faux wrap style. however the back presented a problem as nora and etta are past the age where dresses that button up the back are practical.
at that point i was pretty confident i could alter the pattern to close with a zipper, but when i saw this tutorial post over on the oliver + s blog i had no excuse. after first making it one time as instructed for maya (will blog about that rendition next week), I tried my hand at a zippered version.
it turned out fantastic. (as have both subsequent versions, one of which was the show & tell dress in corduroy.)
the tradition of making each girl a special dress or outfit for their birthday continued in 2014 (read aboutmaya's first birthday dress here and etta's third birthday dress here) and first up was maya's second birthday.
a few months earlier i had made a polka dot class picnic tunic by oliver + s that was incredibly popular with maya and her mom. so when it was decided that the party theme would be farm animals i decided to do a twist on that much loved style by adding a pig embellishment.
let's kick off back to school week with a throwback post to the dress i made two years ago for nora's first day of kindergarten.
earlier that summer i was back in michigan visiting my family and took nora to the store to pick out fabric. we settled on this gradient sprinkle print in pink (for her) and blue (for etta) as well as some accent ribbons.
i came home to cambridge, poured myself a harpoon summer ale, and set to work on two roller skate dresses by oliver + s. since we couldn't find any accent fabric that went with the sprinkle print i made version a. lined in white cotton batiste they ended up being perfect for the first day.
the birthday dress tradition continued when etta turned three (read about maya's first birthday dress here). she asked for a fairy tale dress by oliver + s (okay she asked for a pretty dress and i decided that meant the fairy tale dress).
however she did specifically request a pink fabric with blue flowers. so while visiting victor i made a trip tostonemountain & daughter in berkeley and picked up this adorable print. to this day it remains one of my favorite fabrics.
sometimes it's fun to ask the girls what they want in a dress and make it. other times i ignore what they are saying and make what i want.
this is an example of the latter.
maybe it's because I've spent a lot of time in pdx (and love it!) or maybe i'm just their target demographic but i love the show portlandia. i mean 'dream of the 90s', 'she's making jewelry now', and 'dream of the 1890s' really describe my life.
when i saw this bird print at stonemountain & daughter last spring i knew it would be perfect for maya the animal lover.
the only drawback to having four awesome nieces (split into two sets of sisters) is that i am almost always sewing the same pattern multiple times in a row. i mean giving one girl a twirly polka dot dress and not having one for her sister? only a monster would do that. so pretty much the only time i make just one of something is for each girls birthday.
this began when maya turned one. my sister was having some working mom guilt at the time for feeling like she wasn't throwing her daughter a 'pinterest perfect' birthday party.
being an amazingly thoughtful and awesome little sister i offered to make the birthday girl a special outfit for the day to go with the balloon theme of the party. (bubbles, balloons, and any other floating spherical objects were far and away maya's favorite things at the time.)
last month my family rented a house on the oregon coast for a few days. we were across the street from the beach which was very conducive to photos on my then unshattered iphone.
so here are some 'artistic-but-not-really-because-every-shot-looked-amazing-due-to-the-setting' photos.
most of the time my sisters accept my creations with open arms and indulge me by sending frequent photos. on the rare occasion they make a request for something my nieces actually need i try to oblige. so when my sister abby mentioned over christmas that her girls needed more long sleeved winter dresses i knew that would be part of my january to-sew list.
having a new years resolution to sew my stash, i was struggling to come up with something i could make with the fabrics i already had. once i saw the beautiful holiday dress gail made her daughter out of corduroy i remembered the amethyst fine whale corduroy (now on sale) that had been sitting in my fabric basket for two years and decided to use it to make a library dress by oliver + s.
remember that 'lil man flannel i made? well these pants were intended to go with it.
i had this corduroy in my stash from a jacket i made etta, I originally purchased it back in cambridge from gather here. i picked up the accent fabric at a store in scottsdale when we were at spring training. yep that's how vic and i roll: baseball games, fabric stores, and beer. #compromises
feeling confident in my corduroy abilities after my experience with farmers market jacket and winter dresses, i decided to try my hand at a new challenging pattern: art museum trousers by you guessed it, oliver + s.
given that my parents were hippie baby boomers who joined a tofu co-op in the early 90's, it's not surprising that there weren't a ton of rules in the kempner house. (in hindsight the fact that we were all naturally good kids who liked school, had nice friends, and weren't too boy crazy was probably conducive to and thus afforded a laissez faire approach to parenting.)
maya and neela's dad is indian. he's also a huge packers fan, which isn't relevant to this story but if there are facts about him going up on the internet he would want it included. also one time at banana republic someone mistook him for an employee because he is just that stylish. (did i miss anything om?)
anyways because their dad is indian and their mom is caucasian maya and neela have beautiful ethnically ambiguous complexions. this means two things: 1) they are likely to follow in their aunt's footsteps and be featured on promotional material for any institutes of higher education they attend and 2) they can pull off colors my sister and i would never even try, including mustard (or cheesehead as the case may be) yellow.
shut the front door our friends are procreating?
to celebrate i made their baby girl an outfit. maybe it's the ann arbor in me but doesn't this outfit look like it should be worn to the farmers market?
the sunday brunch coat was actually the second oliver + s pattern i ever made, way back when maya was a baby.
my craftsmanship was much improved (i.e. more hand sewing) this time around: better seam binding technique, under stitching, french seams, edge stitching, and a blind stitched hem.
about a year ago i made the ambitious decision to take both nora and etta to the fabric depot in portland.
all three of us immediately fell in love with this poppy print. envisioning the garden party dresses by oliver + s, we also picked up some coordinating solid fabric, and two very fun flower buttons.
then i started a new job and this fabric sat in my stash.
and sat.
and sat.
after an enchanting encounter at the detroit zoo lead to a new fascination and favorite animal my sister and i decided maya had to be a peacock for halloween.
my vision was for a dress that could later be worn independently and some sort of detachable fan. i set out to find some 'abstract-in-pattern-and-peacock-esq-color-scheme' fabric for the dress. my first trip out i came across this apples fabric from the liberty of london fruits and leaves collection at gather here. jackpot.
sometimes i can't even take credit for the concept behind my work.
my sister sent me a drawing nora did of her dream dress: purple polka dots, three quarter length sleeves, collar, and most importantly a twirly skirt.
i combined the tinny dress pattern from straight grain with some purple polka dot fabric from a local fabric store and a few weeks later nora received her dream dress as birthday present.
i guess you could say these are the dresses that really started me sewing.
june 2012: i took my new bike out for a spin and grabbed some coffee at 1369 (if you haven't been there and are ever in boston i highly recommend it, it's quite possibly the most darling coffee shop of all time).
then i wandered into gather here (an amazing fabric store in cambridge, massachusetts). when i emerged an hour or so later i had my first oliver + s pattern: the family reunion dress, a few yards of quilting cotton, some buttons, and thread.
