Lots of stuff goin' on

It's been totally busy here and I feel it's going to get worse until after the new year.  Right now I'm worried our trip to New York will be cancelled with the prospect of Hurricane Sandy.  Ugh!  So we'll just have to see what happens.  If we have to reschedule, we just have to.  Sigh.

There's been a bit of sewing going on.  Just a bit.  I've made a couple of cardigans since it's starting to get a little on the chilly side here.  My sewing room is over the garage so it's always colder in here.  I keep cardigans draped all over the room.  LOL.  The first one I made was the Sewing Workshop's Ann's Cardigan.

I realize the background is pretty busy with but this is where the light is at this time of the afternoon and you have to take it where you get it.  LOL.

It's a nice cardigan.  Believe it or not the length was fine for my 5'8" frame.  I'll warn you though, the sleeves are really long.  This one is a wearable muslin made from a double sided double knit I purchased from FabricMart back when it was on sale.  There is a band sewn from the hem around the neck and down to them hem on the other side.  It's very wide so I cut it in half.  I'll probably make it out of darker fabric the next time but on the whole I like it.

Next up is the Burda cardigan.

I made this one from flocked ponte found at Hancocks believe it or not.  I really, really like this one.  The pattern shows this as being quite short in the back and I lengthened it by 4 inches.  It almost has a peplum effect in the back.  I'm not sure I care for it and I may take that away in the next version.  But I've been wearing the heck out of it.  LOL. 

It's a very easy sew and I know I'll make this again and again.

And finally I've been doing some doll sewing.  I've decided to try to start selling some of my doll clothes on my etsy site again.  This one is modeled by my 18" Madame Alexander girl.  Soon I'll be sewing for my new ball jointed doll (BJD) Agathe.  That should be interesting. 

That's all I have for now.

Later!

Edited to add my Etsy site addy:  www.threadworx.etsy.com 

Yummy...

You know...I'm supposed to be on a fabric diet.  That doesn't seem to be working out for me.  LOL.  I just got these yummy fabrics in from Sawyer Brook.  They have a fabric swatch club you pay to receive.  But I purchase so much from them, I get the swatches for free.  It's called the subscribers exclusive.  Here is a picture of my latest goodies from them.

The yummy red Italian boucle on the right has ribbon as part of the weave.  I'm going to make a jacket of some sort with it.  The print on the left is called "firework" and is rayon.  The hand of this rayon is fabulous!  It is going to be another Liberty shirt.  The black and tan fabrics are twill's with a touch of Lycra and will become matching pants. Sawyer Brook still has some of each left the last time I looked.

I've been retired for almost 17 years (at age 39), and had (and still do) have a hard time not choosing clothes and fabrics that would be perfect for work environment and not a more relaxed home environment.  So, I've decided that since I like nice clothing but have nowhere to wear anything "nice", I will try to dress just a bit nicer for home.  I can't see myself wearing anything other than jeans (or jeans styled) at home since they are so comfortable for me but I can add a little pop to them by choosing colors and patterns that are different than the typical denim.  That's also very "IN" this season too.  LOL.  For once I'm actually in tune with a style.  And I'll substitute my typical hand me down denim shirts from Alan for shirts that actually fit me like the Liberty and nicer Tee styles. 

My question is "do those of you who are retired still have trouble changing your outlook when choosing fabrics or clothes for a more relaxed style?"

That's all I have for today!

I'm a Baaaaad Blogger

Oh dear...things have just been very busy here.  For the last 3-4 weeks Alan and I have been dealing with a sad family event which happened out of the country.  Alan is now out of state dealing with it.  Hence, not much blogging.  But...there has been some sewing. 

First I attended a  Linda Lee (Sewing Workshop) Liberty Shirt event at The Cloth Merchants.  Loved it; but I felt like the village idiot because I was so slow to get my mind wrapped around doing something backwards.  LOL.  As a consequence, I didn't get much done in class as I would have liked.  For my Liberty shirt, I chose a black chambray linen (for the body of the shirt) and used a lovely Italian cotton print for the flat piping.  This time I chose to bring all of the hems and facings to the front to highlight the lovely cotton piping.  And in doing so, had to hand baste all that lovely piping in place.  LOL.  Here are the results of my efforts.

 I know it can hardly be been, but I did an FBA on the fronts and it hangs much better for me now.  Strangely enough, I didn't have to lengthen this pattern.  It's length is fine.  Weird, eh?

Oh, sorry about the darkness of the pictures.  It's cloudy and I have lightened them. 

I love how my Liberty turned out.  I can wear it either as a light jacket or as a shirt.  I think I'll make a shell to wear under it for the versatility.  I have a nice pair of slim black pants I made (not blogged about) that will go nicely with it. 

My sister, Deb, came to visit last Wednesday and left this morning.  We had a sewing weekend for her.  She's a beginning sewist and still needs a bit of help here and there with her own sewing.  So we made 5 pairs of pants for her!  We used up all the fabric she brought with her.  LOL.  Talk about stash busting! 

And while she was here, I altered a Burda vest pattern to fit her and I'm making it up for her this week.  The striped linen I'm making it from will go with at least 3 of the pants we made.  I'll ship it off in the mail along with the pattern when I'm done.

The weather is finally turning cooler here and we got an inch of rain over the span of a few days.  Good sewing weather.  LOL.

Later!