Children’s Hooded Robe

Sorry for the extended absence.  2012 has been hard on a lot of families including our own.  My husband had an extended lay off and now has decided to be a foreign worker in Canada to support us, so hopefully I can get back on the ball now.  Effectively being a single parent to two little ones is an amazing change in my life and props to all the women raising children on their own out there.  I had no idea.

For patterns, I have a lot of ideas and I love getting requests.  If they are for kids, I don’t mind trying to put together free patterns and sharing them.  In August, someone requested the pattern for a hooded robe like I used on my kids Jedi costumes.  I’m horrified it took me so long to get to it.  I do a lot of side jobs and two of them sucked all my time this fall.  I finally finished it this morning.  Please let me know if you have any problems with it.  The hood is one size fits all because it pleats into the collar.   My kids have giant heads so it should work.

Here it is:

boys and girls robe

Men’s T’ai Chi Jacket

There is a style of jacket that American’s identify with asian culture.  This comes in the form of the neru jacket, Chinese jacket, and the T’ai Chi shirt.  They all have a similar line with slightly different finishing techniques.   This weeks offering is a pattern for a Men’s Chinese style jacket, suitable for practicing T’ai Chi.  One of the benefits of WordPress is that I can track search terms that people are using to get to this site.  This is a pattern term that gets people here almost daily.  No more disappointing stops for my wonderful new readers!

Click here for men’s tai chi pattern.  I hope you enjoy.  Again, this one is untested and I’m questioning the grading that occurred around the armsyes.  Please test pattern on some dollar fabric first to make sure it fits you and good luck!

I Squidn’t Think I’d Get to Squid Girl

So for my whole adult life, I’ve been pretty obsessed with anime.  Fortunately, I’ve had enough distractions to not let it overtake my life, but wouldn’t that be lovely?

I’m tooling around on the internet today and found a hat pattern made out of polar fleece.  I LOVE polar fleece.  It gives a really cartoony look and is easy to work with.  It’s one of my favorite things to make costumes out of that are based on cartoons.  This is a seriously awesome hat.  It reminded me that I’ve been wanting to do the Squid Girl dress pattern so in the awesomeness that is that Instructable, I decided to move it up the schedule a couple of months and get it out there.  I really need one of these hats, but I have too much to do right now.  Very sad.  So check that out, make one and send me pics so I can live vicariously through you!

Anyway….  Squid Girl……..

Squid Girl is a determined, naive squid with ADD who has come from the depths to conquer humanity so we will stop polluting the ocean.  Underestimating the land dwelling population, she ends up working at a restaurant on the beach in order to start her invasion.  Funny, light hearted, and very entertaining, this show is slightly different than some of the more standard story lines out there.  It’s refreshing and relaxing to watch.  What a cute costume for a little girl though!  Go out to Crunchyroll and watch this show.  Crunchyroll has a free viewing option and is the least annoying site out there with free anime.  I’m a member, be a member.  It’s a pretty great site.

I’ve been debating in my head for a while some ideas for using polar fleece or yarn to make the hat, but the dress is simple.  The instructable gives me an idea though and I believe it could easily be adapted to make a wig for this costume.  Very easily.

Bigger flaps, two colors, more “hair” or tentacles.  It would be fabulous! (Don’t pull it over your eyes, for example).  If you look at the notes on this site, you can see some other people’s interpretation.  Gives me lots of ideas.

So, for the pattern:

Girl’s Squid Girl Pattern (also known as sleeveless dress)

This is in girl’s sizes 7, 8, 10, 12, 14.   So some differences on this pattern.  It’s really easy and pretty intuitive.  I haven’t patterned facings for the neck or arms.  I haven’t written detailed instructions.  If you need them,  contact me.  I would edge the openings in bias tape in blue and use the same blue to stitch on the hem for the decorations.

Good luck and Happy sewing!

Children’s Gi

Here is the small children’s version of the Gi pattern.  My sons had a great time in these this Halloween using them as costumes.

3 year old paduwan without pants!

As you can see there are additional layers over and under this gi top.  For this costume I made a little dickie that looked like another layer underneath the gi top.  Since then I have learned that you can use a rectangular piece of fabric to the same effect.

This website about Kosodes is very detailed and informative.  I learned a great deal about some geometric construction in Japanese clothing here.

Here are the Children’s patterns:

children’s gi

children’s gi pants

I wish I were closer to my Tae Kwon Do Master and could continue to train.  I really miss it.  Good luck and as always, if you need help, please contact me at jacquelyne@sew4cons.com

Me at a martial arts tournament long ago

Anime Basics Patterns Preview

Here is a preview of the patterns under immediate development at this time.  The schedule has one pattern a week under development for the year.  There are over two dozen designs coming out with Steampunk having about half of the upcoming development.  The Steampunk patterns are more complex, please have patience while those are on the drawing board and stay tuned.

Today some of the patterns should be ready for pick up at Office Max.  They have a new upload site where you can send the files and apparently the bugs have not been worked out of it yet.  Fortunately for them, their in store personnel is fantastic and provides great customer service.  I will be using the patterns to do the mock ups for some of the upcoming anime designs and one of the goth designs.  When I get the kinks worked out of the patterns, they will be available on cd.  I’m just starting up, later this spring, I will put this business on Kickstarter to hopefully raise the funds to sell these patterns on paper.

The first pattern I’m working on for mock ups is the basic sailor uniform seen in numerous series.

Preview of Women's Sailor Suit outfit

The final pattern cover may change slightly from this, I haven’t decided whether to puff the sleeves or if it will be a shirt to tuck in.   I’m not nearly as obsessed with Sailor Moon as I used to be.  (But did you know the manga is  about to be re-released with a more accurate translation? Also being released alongside a new edition of Sailor Venus?) I like the untucked look from that show, but few people have the midriff that merits showing off.  It might be the number of pictures taken where the photographer hasn’t waited for a good pose on the person wearing the outfit.  Supplies on hand dictate that the mockup will have a light blue plaid skirt with a dark blue collar.

When that is perfected, the next one on the list is the anime pin up.

Anime Pin Up for Women

This one is very exciting.  A backless sailor halter with a full circle skirt gives a skimpy option for ladies wanting to look sexy.  The other provides the v-shaped waist line found in some series like Sailor Moon after they transform and some other fun options with the peek a boo shoulders and wide cuffs at the wrist.  These two patterns combined should give costumers the starting off point to mix and match pieces to create the Japanese school girl look that they are going for.

Also coming is this one for the tough women out there that want to look hot and be bad:

Muscle and short shorts

I’ve been reading too much Tu-LOVE-Ru.  I’m all about tails recently since the main character is pretty cute in that Manga.  Lala is a really awesome character, and all the girls are really cute.  (Of course that has nothing to do with this pattern, but I’m a pretty hard core geek.)  I think the design on the right would work really well with the sleeves from the anime pinup design.  I’m not sure where the fit dress shirt and shorts idea was inspired from or the main idea for the design on the left, but I really like them.  All of these are drawn in with knee socks and you will see that as a them in my designs.  Ravelry has many patterns for knee socks available if you enough of a masochist to knit them.  Otherwise, I highly recommend Sock Dreams for you knee sock needs.  I have tons of their socks and they are awesome and hold up well.

Lastly, I need an outfit for an upcoming con so I skipped ahead to a goth pattern to mock up for myself.

Bustle Skirt and Corset

I love this bustle skirt.  I think it’s terribly awesome and cute.  Why is this under goth?  I really don’t have a better classification for it.  There are so many fantasy/sci-fi comics out there that have a dark and gothic theme to them.  I’ve created the goth category for those things that can be used across a pretty broad selection of other categories and have a gothic flare.  I have patterned the long sleeve shrug, but I’m not sure if I wouldn’t prefer to knit it.  There are quite a few patterns out there that could be altered to create this look, but I will be going for some fabric first.  10 years ago I made a goth wedding gown.  The bride wanted to be the image of a crow with Victorian influences.  This dress is very similar to the dress I designed for her without all the feathers.  She wore black wings with the corset and skirt and looked amazing.

This weekend I will be running Maggie Bruce Medieval and Fantasy Tailor (my costume sales) at the Calontir Crown Tournament in St Louis, MO.  I should have credit  card sales access up and going by then, I just signed up for Square.  I know my credit cards have been down for a while, but now they are back.