Stashcation: Parisian Nights

Well, I am back to work now. *Groan* I’ve been back one day and my mood went from happy to grumpy again. My vacation was so wonderful.

We went to Wasaga Beach. It’s northwest of Toronto, where I live, and is lovely.

Wasaga Beach

The sand is wonderful and the water was nice. It’s all sandbars along the beach and the water gets warmer faster than other lakes in Ontario. Not as warm as it could have been, though.

It hasn’t been scorching hot in Ontario this summer like it usually is, which is a great disappointment to me. I look forward to the heat and the sun every year. We’ve mostly had rain and cool weather. It was a windy day at the beach so eventually we were too cold to stay out of the water long and made our way to a restaurant for dinner.

My turtle

My stepdaughter’s sea turtle, inspired by Finding Nemo

The sand was still wet from all the rain and we easily made turtles by our beach blanket.

The next day, we went to Ashbridge’s Bay, which is a beach right in Toronto.

The beach is a lot colder than Wasaga. Freezing in fact. Our toes got numb after a while in the deeper parts. Closer to the beach, we were a little less numb and started having a water gun fight. It was an epic battle and got me in those giggle fits that have your sides hurting and you gasping for air. So much fun.

Beside the beach is the park area you see above, which is shaded by some lovely trees. The four of us sat in that area and played a dice game called Farkle. Many a fart joke happened during that game…

Then we escaped an impending storm in a pizza shop and heading home.

On Sunday, after the kids were picked up by their mom, a friend hosted a lovely barbecue on her rooftop patio and I spent Monday recovering from that… But I got to cuddle with the sweetest little dog during the evening which made the hangover worth it and this is coming from a cat person.

Those are the highlights of non-sewing during my vacation.

Back to sewing:

During my stashcation, I pieced together about 9 pdf patterns. I still have tons left, but putting together pdfs is a pain!

 

After all those pdfs, I cut out these patterns.

I cut out the above patterns after two or three nights of piecing pdfs together. It was exhausting putting all of those together.

From left to right, the patterns I cut out are:

2 Parisian Nights pajama sets from Winter Wear Designs

1 Parisian top from Go To Patterns

1 #5199 Little Atlas Dress from Lekala

I cut these out on Thursday night after Wasaga and then sewed the Parisian Nights pajamas on Friday and Saturday.

The first one is technically my muslin. It’s red and green. The green is a lightweight lycra and the red is a heavier cotton jersey. The binding on the top was a mistake, but I am too lazy to remove it. It is super mismatched in terms of weight which made the binding go wavy instead of flat. I graded the pattern up a size, but if you are a little bigger than the pattern, don’t grade up. It has tons of ease and definitely didn’t need to be graded up. I cut a ton of material off and resewed both the top and the bottom. The neckline is still far too large on the top, as is the waist n the shorts.

The second one is made with flannel print on the bottom that I picked up for two bucks for a yard at Value Village and cotton jersey in pink, which was also two bucks for a yard and a bit at Value Village. The shorts fit a bit better, but the jersey has almost no recovery and the waist band could definitely be tighter. I can’t decide whether I will fix this or simply leave it, because they are just pajamas (I am lazy so likely I will leave it). I left off the binding for the top, because of the recovery issue, and just turned the seams in and did a decorative stretch stitch along the edge in purple. I shortened the straps on the top by a few inches and the top fits much better. Because the shorts are in a woven, they could use extra room in the crotch, which I will definitely add for the next versions of these pajamas.

The pattern was a freebie as part of the Bundle Up sale from Pattern Revolutions back in June. I definitely recommend checking them out, because I got 8 pdf patterns in that bundle for around $30 US. They have bundle sales once every couple of months for indie patterns and are a great deal. I almost bought their little girl pattern bundle and then stopped myself, because I don’t have any little girls to sew for!

I am very excited for the rest of the patterns from that sale. I regret not printing them all out to put together during my stashcation.  My next stashcation won’t be until Christmas! The goal, however, is to have a much smaller stash by then. Although, I have so many patterns, I am guessing I will still have a ton more of those to get through.

I’m currently working on my Parisian top. I just have the buttons left. Oh, the pattern doesn’t include buttons, you say?

Well, my dears, I’ve got a pattern hack for you! Stay tuned!

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