Friday, October 30, 2009

That's one big happy family...


...wearing their family reunion sweatshirts (46 of 'em, to be exact). The project took over my dining room for about a week — boxes of sweatshirts, stacks of printed heat-transfer vinyl, an iron and a roll of parchment paper.

It was my first time working on sweatshirts instead of tees, and I still consider myself a novice when it comes to tees! Heat transfers work best when they're done on a hard surface, so my biggest dilemma was how to keep the bulk of the sweatshirt fabric from ruining the transfer. The solution: buy a cheap wooden cutting board and slip it inside the sweatshirts while ironing on the transfer. It worked great.

And the best part: this family was delightful to work with. I got to hand-deliver one box of shirts, which was promptly torn open (upside-down, even) by a pair of little kids who couldn't wait to get to their own pint-sized sweatshirts.

So we're now plotting a shirt design for our own family reunion next July....

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Or something like that. There were 16 separate requests on Etsy in the last month for adult-sized Lucy van Pelt costumes. 'Tis the season for crabby amateur psychiatrists, perhaps?

I just finished the second of THREE Lucy dresses I'm making this year. Pictures to follow, since I'm awfully proud of these! Dropped waist, ruffle around the neck, puffed sleeves, crinoline, covered buttons. Dress #3 is cut out and ready for assembly tomorrow.

And...tomorrow I get to help a friend's daughter with her "bright person" costume: mortarboard, brightly colored clothes, battery-powered lights strung around her neck, and a T-shirt that says "Bright Person" in garish rainbow letters. Now if we can just figure out how to rig a light bulb above her head....

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Just wondering...

...whether McCall's always prints their pattern numbers exactly across the bust line. I just had to adjust a pattern for an A-cup (obviously not something I'm making for myself!) and the little half-inch strip I cut out exactly removes the pattern number.

Anyone know?