April's Sew-Alongs, Series & Challenges

2014 is flying! I can't believe the first trimester is already gone!...

March has been a great month. I started a part-time (just 8-16 hours/ week) as a Science teacher at a science center and I still had lots of sewing time! In fact I sewed day and night to keep up with all the pattern testing deadlines I had this month. They are all secret projects for now because I am not allowed to show them until they are released...  I can only tell that there are some great new patterns coming up soon! I can't wait to show you! (OK... I'll post just a sneak-peak of the fabrics I used or some small details this week...)
So, this is why I haven't been much here lately and not showing much of my sewing projects...

Now, let's talk about April's sewing calendar!
April is going to be a month full of sewing events and, again, I am really sad that I don't have enough time to join every single one of them... But I'm sure I 'll join a few. Wanna sew-along? Check this awesome list of sew-alongs, sewing series and challenges - either for women clothes and kids clothes.

KIDS CLOTHES


Project Run  & Play - season 9
W2 - Spring Break, W3 - Design your own fabric, W4 - Signature Style


Kids Clothes Week (KCW) - theme: Mini Me"We challenge you to commit to sewing clothes for your kids one hour a day for seven days."

Calling All Kids series (starting April 7th), by Alida Makes
"Is a series that explores children’s clothing as it relates to gender."


Flip This Pattern by FranceSuzanne
Pattern for this month: the Color Block Dress by Heidi & Finn


Secret Squirrel series by Sewpony and Straightgrain
You can see this month's acorns here.


Take One Dress by As-It-Seams


WOMEN CLOTHES


Challenge Create: Adult Edition, by Skirt Fixation
W1 - Nature inspired, W2 - Refashion, W3 - (hint of) Vintage, W4 - Destash time!


Selfish Sewing Week by Imagine Gnats
Starting April 28th.


The Monthly Stitch - Sewing Double!
"During April it’s time to revisit that favourite pattern and finally make a second one!"



2014 está a voar! Nem posso acreditar que o primeiro trimestre já se foi...

Março foi um óptimo mês! Comecei um part-time (apenas 8 a 16 horas por semana), a ensinar ciência numa Fábrica de Ciência Viva, e costurei muito... Na verdade tive que me agarrar à máquina de costura dia e noite para poder cumprir com os prazos dos vários "pattern testing" (testes a moldes de roupa) que tive de fazer este mês. Para já são projectos secretos - não estou autorizada a revelá-los antes de serem lançados no mercado... Só posso dizer que há vários moldes espectaculares a serem lançados brevemente! (OK, um dia destes mostro só um bocadinho dos tecidos que usei ou de pequenos pormenores...)

E agora: Abril! 
Abril vai ser um mês cheio de sew-alongs, séries e desafios de costura. E, mais uma vez, gostaria de poder participar em todos mas vou apenas conseguir juntar-me a alguns... Querem costurar também? Aqui está a lista de eventos de costura para este mês - alguns relativos a roupa de criança e outros a roupa de mulher. (Ver acima!)

The Picnic Dress

I have always loved red gingham. Maybe because of my sweet childhood memories or children's books illustrations of fun picnics with a red gingham towel laying in the green grass...

Oh, and I love picnics! I have sweet memories of day-long picnics and barbecues with all my extended familiy - this was an yearly event that we loved dearly. You all grew up, some people passed away, and we ended up not doing it anymore...
Recently me and my DH decided to start our own picnic tradition with our kids (and our parents). Now my kids love (love!) picnics! They just spent all winter asking when we could have a picnic in the woods or at the beach... Well, it was a long winter (it is still raining a lot around here...) and we are longing for sunny Spring days and Spring break (starting this weekend) to go on a road trip and enjoy a couple of picnics on the way!

So, March's pattern for the Flip This Pattern series at Frances Suzanne is the Beachy Boatneck top by Blank Slate Patterns. The concept behind this series is that you have to change the original pattern the way you want. I always try to keep the main design lines so the original pattern can still be recognized once it's flipped (see November's flip and February's flip). So I knew I had to keep the boat neck design.

By the time I started to make drawings (I will spare you from seeing them...) and planning this FTP I saw that PR&P season 9 w1 theme was "Spring break" and I found a few sewing series based on the Mad Men TV series wardrobe designs (one for women dresses and the other is the Take One Dress series at As It Seams). I got so excited (I do love a character themed sewing series!) that I searched for images of Mad Men's women wardrobe and I found a couple of dresses and tops with a boat neck design! 

These were the ones were I got my inspiration from:

So this post is about how I flipped the Beachy Boatneck inspired by Mad Men's women wardrobe! And turned it into a picnic dress! (Yay for Spring and picnics!)

I made a sleeveless top (the original pattern has short or medium sleeves) and have joined it to a gingham gathered skirt to make a Beachy Boatneck dress! Or - as I named it - the Picnic dress!

I hemmed the armscyes with a striped bias tape and used the same bias tape to embelish the front top piece with a straight line and a bow. I added vintage red buttons from the 1950s - the Mad Men era! The idea was to make it look a bit like Miss Holloway's dress!

I just couldn't do a pencil skirt piece for my Princess - she loves to dance and twirl! So I had to do a gathered skirt piece for this dress...

The skirt piece was made from a changed version of the lovely Betty Skirt pattern from the Shaffer Sisters. I got this pattern as soon as it was released (on late February) and have been planning to sew it right then but things got busy with a few deadlines of patterns testing and so I haven't yet had the chance to make a Betty skirt... 
I removed the yoke piece, raised the length of the skirt and have add a big sash to the waistband (sewn on both sides)!
I have been keeping this red gingham fabric for a special project, but as soon as I started to work on this one I immediately knew it had to be it.

PR&P season 9 W1 challenge is "Spring Break" - and as I said before, Spring break means road trips and picnics!

BTW, next month's Flip This Pattern is the modern looking Colorblock dress from Heidi & Finn, which is a slim "A" line dress. Will you join the fun? I already have some ideas on how to flip it!

And, keep following PR&P season 9! I love to see all the beautiful creations that are being made! There so many talented people around there... Amazing!
Project linked to: