Storing My Patterns

When I first started wanting to sew clothes, I did what most normal people do and I went out and bought some patterns. My problem? I could not make heads or tails out of them. Sure, they explained things in a well written paragraph. I'm more of a "hands-on learner" though, so unless it had pictures, it was all gibberish to me. It also didn't help that when I would sew the thing up and get it to look roughly how it was supposed to, the garment always turned out 20 sizes too big. I bagged using patterns and would just wing it. Sometimes an item would take me forever to figure out, but it would at least turn out and fit my child. 

For years it went like this. Now, my BIG sewing dream is to be able to make nice jeans for me. My legs are ridiculously long and finding jeans to fit them......yeah. Sorry short girls, you can complain all you want about having to hem your jeans. I would gladly trade you any day! I could not for the life of me figure out a pattern and how to put them together though. Then one day I happened upon Peek-a-boo Patterns Shop, Skinny Jeans Pattern and after a little debating with myself, decided to take the chance and buy it. 

OH MY GOODNESS! Step by step instructions! Being able to print out and use more durable paper! And the finished product actually FIT my child! YES! That was all it took and I was on my way down the PDF patterns road, never to turn back again. I have to admit, I went a little crazy and bought almost 80 patterns with-in a month. WOW. 

I really needed a storage system and one that my kids couldn't easily destroy or mix the pattern pieces up. I chose to buy binders and plastic sleeves.

(Don't you just love my childrens artwork on the fronts of some??)

One of the big white ones holds Dress patterns (I have that many) and the other one holds all of my shirts, pants, shorts, skirts, leggings, etc. I separate each category with tabs:

 For the smaller ones, one is my Japanese book patterns. 

I have the "master patterns" in one sleeve, then each pattern in their own sleeve.

Then one each for each season of Ottobre. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. And after my son ripped off the cover to one issue, I decided to put them in a sleeve too.

Now for the nitty-gritty. I print off a "Master pattern" and then trace out the size I need and tape that together. Here's my master plan and pattern pieces ready to go into a sleeve.

I always put the master pattern in the front and the pattern pieces that I've cut out in the back. And because I'm more of a "visual" person, I added pictures of each pattern, so that way I know what the pattern looks like. They are also alphabetized, cause I'm weird like that. lol

(And in case you are wondering the pattern in the picture is the Little Geranium Dress by Made By Rae.)

Both the Itty Bitty Baby Dress and Little Geranium dress by Made By Rae, and are a free download. :D

And here's how I label my pattern pieces:

So that's how I store my patterns. What about you? 

Why I've been MIA

I can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged. I have not been idle. I've been doing TONS of pattern testing and working on my own pattern as well. Here's some peeks of all I need to blog about. :D

Mae's Shirt

Tikatuly Usha Dress

My dress pattern :D

And Heidi & Finn's Sporty Maxi Dress

Maybe next week I will have more time to blog. I still have a couple more patterns to test and my own to get up on the computer! :D

Heidi & Finn Summer Maxi Dress

I was selected to pattern test Heidi & Finns newest pattern, the Summer Maxi Dress. 

This pattern was really quick to sew up and I love that it's so basic that you can add things easily to change it up and make it unique. 

I made two dresses in one day. Which, with 5 kids on my plate, that should tell you how easy and fast this pattern is! 

The first one I made out of white cotton gauze fabric. I had originally planned to do an ombre dye, so that's why we started off with white. In case I screwed up massively, I chose to take pictures of it first. So here's Aevarie in the all white version:

And yes, the ombre dye did NOT work. It still turned out all purple and wearable, and that's all that matters!

I love the added flowers!
 And again I have to clarify. My girls are really tall, so on an average 7 year old, this dress would go down to the floor.
We made a second one out of knit and modified the length to fit Aevarie. The pattern doesn't recommend knit, but knit is just so comfy and I couldn't resist! So here's that version:

I added a ruffle at the bottom too for that "unique" factor. I love that she could totally wear this to bed. He he he. :D

Zoe was dying to try on the purple one (although Aevarie said she could only borrow it for the day). 

Fit her perfectly! 

The weather has been horrible but the girls really wanted to go out and get pictures. Luckily it wasn't really cold, just super windy. We don't have to mention how many pictures have been taken of this dress......

You can buy the pattern here at Heidi & Finns Etsy Shop. And seriously check out all the other amazing versions of this dress on their blog. 

Loved this dress (we actually just finished our 3rd one last night!) and Thank you so much to Heidi & Finn for choosing me to be a tester! :D

Update: Here's our 3rd dress. I just love it!

Silly Pictures and some awesome shots

My kids are nuts. Total nuts. They're silly and weird, and it really shines through when I take pictures. Generally speaking, it takes me TONS of pictures to get a "normal human being" look. So because we had so many today, I wanted to share some of our nutty ones and my little "commentary" to go along. Enjoy!

Ms. Cooperative:

This is a great pose mum!

Creeper

I can somersault

Can't leave out a headstand

"I am a robot"

I can see up your nose!

Eeh, what happened to your face???

Mid-picture snack

Zombie child indeed

You can't eat my brains cause I ate them earlier!

I can't eat Aevarie, I shall eat my dress instead....

Since we have no brains, our heads make an awesome hollow sound!

No more pictures, please!

I swear I don't know where they get it from. 

Riding on an invisible motorcycle

Old Cronie

Blur girl!

Ugh. These pictures are giving me a headache.

And here's my "reward" shots:

More on the dress later! :D