Laura Learns to Sew

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season! I've spent the last few days enjoying the company of my daughter, Laura and her husband, Thomas, and their 2 puppies. Chaos! But fun chaos. They left this morning, and my 2 dogs have done nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep all day!


For Christmas, I had purchased Laura a new Babylock sewing machine, so it was time for some sewing lessons! As much as I sew now, I did most of my sewing for kids when they were younger than 6, and then just sewed sporadically, so she wasn't actually exposed to it that much.


Fast forward to this year though, and she had mentioned a few times that "if she had a sewing machine, she could make XXX ". That was enough encouragement for me.

In addition to the machine, I also purchased the Colette Sewing Handbook, which she promptly read cover to cover. She's also an avid blog reader, so she's been reading the sewing blogs too.


And the first thing she made? A pair of clover pants! Really, we're calling these a wearable muslin, but they do fit pretty well. I'll adjust her pattern pieces just a bit, and she says maybe in a year she'll attempt another pair! For her next project, she says perhaps a skirt. The hardest things for her seemed to be keeping her stitching an even 5/8" away from the edge, going around curves, and "seeing" how it was all going to work out in the end. Things seasoned sewists (like myself) take for granted, but it really is just a matter of practice and experience.


Enough about all that though... you just want to see the finished product, right? Right! And I am so proud... they look great!

A fantastic fit in the back! (She is wearing my shoes which are a couple sizes too small... all in the interest of a cute look).


Before you know it, maybe she'll have her own sewing blog.


A final look, with Ella (Sam is the black one... say their names together... yep, you got it right):

Dog Sweaters

Hang tight... I'll have pictures of the "wedding dress" at the event itself in a couple of days, but these little sweaters have been waiting in the wings. A little back story... earlier this year I knitted sweaters for Laura and Thomas' 2 little puppies that were not going to get much bigger. Haha. Like any good rescue puppies, they turned out to be something a little different. And bigger. So now their adorable little sweaters looked like they were shrunk in the wash.


Fast forward to a freak snowstorm in October, and reports that the puppies hate cold weather, and I had to get busy. Too late for that storm, but they're ready now.


Basically, Laura sent me new measurements, and having traced a dog coat that my mom had for her little dog, I only had to "grade up" in length. It's a flat style with tabs that go around the neck and belly and velcro shut. I used a sweater knit scrap, interlock knit scraps and batting, giving them 3 layers of warmth. I basted the batting to the interlock, treating it as one piece, put right sides together of the interlock and the sweater knit, left a hole for turning, and stitched around the edge. Then I turned, topstitched to close the hole, and put a buttonhole near the neck for their leashes since they use harnesses. Like this:

I did sew the collar on separately, and I think it is upside down from the original tracing, but it works. You know, they're lots cuter ON the dogs. Hit it!

Sam modeling the sweater side, collar popped, and leash attached.

A good view of how the tabs go around the belly and neck.

Reversible. Looks like a little jailbird (jaildog?).

Ella with her collar popped, leash attached.

Close up of the buttonhole.

The reverse side of Ella's. She's thinking "do these stripes make me look fat?"

"Nah. I'd like a treat now, please. All this modeling has made me hungry."

What's Better Than Puppies?

Not much, really.

You've already seen this green sweater, but of course, Sister Ella needed a sweater of her own. I finished this about a week and a half ago.

So, knitters out there, I'm pretty sure that my picking up the stitches method for the ribbing around her little butt is completely wrong, but, hey, it worked. I made her sweater a little bigger, but I think that Sam has grown!

I decided that sometimes those sweaters would just not be warm enough, so I made some liners out of fleece that can also be worn on their own. And my dear fellow blogger (who knows who she is), there is no orange here!

I made 4 little fleeces so they each have a UK and a Georgia one. And with the leftover fleece, I made some toys. Apparently, they are delicious!