Sewing for others...

doesn't stress me out as much as I it used to, but it still does to some degree and it does take me longer.

I had a lot of things I wanted to make in March and I as I stated, I had a busy busy month w/work and chorus activities going on too.  So I didn't get 1/2 of what I wanted done and quite honestly, most of it got pushed into April.

1)  Shirts for my husband - I had planned on making 3 shirts total (don't know why I said 3+1 earlier in the month as it was always only three).  The process for this involved retracing out 3484 in a new size as my husband wanted a bit more room then the last shirt had given him.

This basic patter is really quite good and I love the versatility of it!  Not to mention that it makes a good basic structure to add embellishments too.    I made two shirts from the basic pattern itself: first was Green w/leopard print accent.  I actually thought this shirt was pretty fun - but it's probably my husband's least favorite

The under collar is out of leopard print too which I think is a fun little surprise

And I used these Black and white buttons that have a kind of animal print vibe to them.

despite the fact that it wasn't his favorite, my husband did wear this shirt out once already.  

I have all the fabric to make myself a purple version of this shirt, but it's not at the top of my list at the moment.

I did almost the same thing with some brown solid and a cotton w/pin-up cowgirls on it.  My son loves this shirt and would probably steal it if it shirt would fit him.

And, for the third shirt, I used the Kwik Sew pattern but added shoulder yolk pieces and welt pockets from a vintage pattern I have:

This one is everyone's favorite!

I got started with the "Sew bossy" play suite, and got all the pattern pieces traced and muslins made for all of the pieces.  The blouse... well it turned out terrible, but the skirt and shorts fit first try.  but there are other things higher on my priority list at the moment so I've set that aside for now because...

I finally cut into my apple print fabric:

And made great progress on that dress (to take to Viva).  

I think it could still use a little fine tuning on the fit, but overall I'm really happy.  Especially with all the work I put into the collar.

The pattern instructions were really wonky around how the facings are turned to make the button plackets so I had to make it up :-\ and that's probably my least favorite part of the dress.  I'm really happy with everything else - even if my husband does think the apple print is 'too much'

I also spent a LOT of focused time cutting out some additional projects with the goal to get as many of them as possible done before we leave for viva on April 15th. Including this wrap around dress in a green shantung. 

as well as a sun dress out of purple roses and a silk vintage blouse.