Our FI Nest

 Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a massive Jalie fan. A year or two ago they did a series on Jalie basics and how their patterns are the building blocks of a wardrobe. I was thinking of this as I sewed up my 15th (? not sure of the actual count, but it's been many) pair of sweat pants from Jalie 3355 . It got me thinking about the best value patterns and this one is definitely up there, especially if you have kids. I thought it would be fun (well, rewarding for me to see all my projects in one post) to showcase all I've done with this pattern. And I haven't actually started to modify it or colour block it as I've seen others do. Once I start that, the possibilities will be endless.  5/6 of the versions I sewed for back to school This pattern has been a staple of my oldest's back to school wardrobe since he started school. I've tended to make him about 3-4 pairs a year. I don't actually have photos of all of the versions and some he has since outgrown or b...

The sewing plan progress has slowed down as I've been working through muslining the new patterns before cutting my good fabric. I'm not sure I love the muslins but I'm glad to have a bit more of the crappy fabric out of my stash and saved some heartbreak with my good fabric. Before I go into a lengthy post about my process (just kidding, I'll be fairly brief and just show more pictures) here's the final result of the Jalie Rachel dress. I was pretty nervous to cut up this fabric as I really love it so I did make a muslin first. I'm still trying to figure out my proportions and adjustments to make. I have a longer torso and a slightly lower bust line so I added 1 inch at the upper lengthen line and 1 inch to the hem line. When I made up the muslin I found the twist portion was actually a bit low on me.  I also realized I didn't love the simple twist in this fabric and wanted to add the ties on the next version.  I think the lin...

I sewed up another couple Jalie Nicole 's recently, but first up is the one that's part of my 2020 sewing plan aka sew down the stash recently bought plan. In my last Discovery Fabrics order I bought some solar stretch in Poppies  because I loved the Nicole version Dawn from TwoonTwooff made. Yep, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. We just won't play who wore it better. To complete this outfit I'll be making some purple Clara's. As mentioned in my last post, they are already cut out and just need to be sewn. Here I'm wearing my Éleonores in raspberry jegging fabric. I just realized I've never actually blogged about these ones so will have to do that at some point. They are my most worn pants. I do love them, but let's be honest, main reason is because they are the only pair of pants that fit comfortably at the moment. I need to lose about 10 pounds to get back to fitting in the rest of my pants. Thank goodness I have a decent wardrobe o...

I bought a lot of fabric last year despite it being a year to sew down my stash so I'm trying to focus on using it up and expanding my work wardrobe. I've been hesitant to make the pants because I've recently gone up a dress size and I'm hopeful I'll come back down. I just don't want to put in the effort of making something for it not to fit in a couple months. The dresses and leggings are more forgiving size wise so I'll likely start there.   If When I complete it all I'll have made 2 pairs of Sabrina Slims  Pants 1 pair of  Vanessa Fluid Pants 1 pair of Éleonore Pull-on Jeans 1 pair of Clara Leggings 2  Classic Tee s Sloane Sweatshirt Alice Top Nicole Tunic Rachel Dress It's not quite a full SWAP (Sewing with a Plan) as not all the tops will go with all the bottoms and it is missing a topper that coordinates with everything, but it will fill some holes in my wardrobe and use up a good portion of my recent fabric acquisitions....

This year's homemade costume My older son is a bit Harry Potter obsessed. Last year I made them Year 1 Hogwarts robes and they went as Harry and Hermoine. I upcycled some black curtains I found at Value Village to make my son's robe and bought some cheap fabric for my daughter's. This year my son wanted to go as a Quidditch player. I definitely didn't want to spend $50 per costume to buy the game robes. When looking at some movie stills to get some ideas I came across the Quidditch try-out/practice robes from the 6th movie the Half Blood Prince and realized I already had fabric on hand that could work to copy it. Yeah for being able to use up a bit of the overflowing stash. Movie still found on Pinterest I used Jalie 3355 hoodie as the base for my pattern. To figure out the line work on the jerseys I took the line drawing from the pattern and did a screenshot of it. Then I measured the pattern pieces for each size and expanded the bodice to that siz...