I was lucky enough to participate in the current issue of
Stylo magazine. If you don't know what
Stylo is, it's a super hip online magazine dedicated to sewing (mostly children's wear) and is the brainchild of
Celina Bailey and
Jessica Abbott.
I was asked to be a part of the
One fabric Five Designers article which meant that I received some amazing surprise fabric in the mail from
Miss Matatabi and I could make whatever I wanted with it. It was really hard to decide, but in the end I went with the
Small Fry Skinny Jeans by Titchy Threads that I have been wanting to make forever and then embellished a
Voila Top from Cali Faye with some metallic thread.
First of all that fabric. It's a beautiful floral
Japanese Nano Iro fabric from
Miss Matatabi. That base is gray with purples, pinks, and of coarse the metallic gold. There are also some other color ways that she carries and I am drewling over her red and blue ones. The fabric is a brushed cotton so definitely for the colder weather. It was really great to work with and I can confidently recommend it.
The Small Fry Skinny Jeans by Titchy Threads have been on my list for awhile. I have seen so many versions pop up and they always look so great and professional. I had a really positive experience sewing up this pattern. It has photos for instructions so it feels a lot like a sewalong and she did a really good job of walking you through all of the steps. I did taper the legs more and raised the back pockets to make them look more feminine (I feel like they were maybe drafted for a boy because the ease feels more like what I am used to seeing on boy skinny jeans). If I made them again I may go down one more size. The only negative thing I can say is that it's a lot of work to put into kids clothing. I am kinda a selfish kind of sewer and usually stick to really simple and quick projects for my kids unless it's for a special occasion. I am totally planning on making up the
ginger jeans for myself, but not sure if I want to put the time into making jeans for my kids again. Glad I did this time though. Because they are pretty fun.
The top is the
Voila top by the Cali Faye Collection. It's a really simple and fast make and I could see myself making up a few more daughter. I lengthened the sleeves a little on this one to make it more fall appropriate. I also added some topstitched embellishment with
gold metallic thread. I was a little nieve in thinking I could just buy the thread and start sewing with it - wrong. It started unraveling and splitting and pulling immediately. After doing some online research I realized that I should use a special needle for metallic thread. I didn't have time to hunt one down so I started trying the needles I had in my stash. In the end my jeans needle worked fine. I think it just needed a bigger eye in the needle so that the thicker and coarser thread could run through it smoothly. The fabric is just some cotton voile that I picked up at
Mood.
If you havn't seen the latest issue of Stylo yet you can see it
here. You can see my daughter on pages 21-22 and page 215, but you really should look through the whole thing if you have the time because there are some great projects in there.
