Stylearc Victoria continued

I guess I know why there is only one other review out there in the blogosphere for the Victoria blouse.  For the life of me, I haven't been able to put the fronts and back together the way she instructs and have it look halfway decent.  I'm sorry, but I never thought I would call myself anal, but I suppose its true.  LOL.  I've tried 3 times and I finally threw up my hands in surrender.  The points are just too acute and I'm just not good enough to accomplish it to my liking.  Instead I have elected to applique' the front and back yokes to their respective pieces.  I have the back done and am working on getting the humongous front yokes pressed so they can be applied. 

Granted my fabric choice isn't great here but do remember this is a muslin. 

I'm putting it aside for now.  I've lost my mojo for working on it.  Hopefully it will come back.

Or I can try one of the other knit top patterns I purchased and mess with it.  Others have had such good luck with them.

Other sewing news to report is I attended a 2 day Linda Lee workshop at The Cloth Merchants for the Liberty Shirt.  Her trunk show was fun and I took lots of pictures for inspiration.  And guess what!  She had an EMBROIDERED Liberty!!!!!   How cool is that!  You know that's on my list of sewing to do's.  LOL.  Linda Lee really is a sweetie and we all had lots of fun.

I'll report back in another post about the Liberty.

Another bit of news (I don't remember if I've said anything: LOL), 9 members of my OK in Stitches group are going to New York and we're staying in the Fashion district.  We've going to tour the Koos van den Akker work rooms.  Then we're going to raid as many fabric stores as we can in the 4 days we'll be there.  It's been 25 years since I've been to New York.  I can't wait!

Later!

Remember M6566?

I forgot to show you all the Tee I made from McCalls 6566.  If you'll remember, I posted about making a muslin of this pattern letting you know it was absolutely huge and really sloppy looking.  LOL.  Well I have a fun Tee made from it now and I just love the pattern.  Oh and in case you haven't actually looked at the pattern, it's supposed to be longer in the back than the front.  The fabrics used are a black ITY from The Cloth Merchants and a mesh, zebra, sequin print I found at JoAnn's of all places.  LOL.


I'll be taking this with me on our "OK in Stitches" trip to New York in November.

The funny thing and easy thing about this Tee is that the front is an applique'.  The piece is sewn onto the front and it makes the tee look like a raglan but its not. Fun, eh? 

I can see making a few more of these to fit into my very casual lifestyle.

Updating the Stylearc Victoria blouse:  I've searched all over the web and can only find one other person (Pattern Review) who has made the top.  I find that rather hard to believe.  The blouse has such interesting lines. 

Oh well, onward and upward right?  LOL.  I've moved the bust point down and added one inch to the front and back pieces.  From what I can tell, I don't need to do an FBA.  It looks like there is enough room.  Time will tell I guess.  I'm getting ready to cut it out. 

More later!

The Victoria Blouse...

The Victoria has been calling me.  I can see several opportunities in working with this pattern.  Color blocking and embroidery come to mind immediately.  And you all know how much I love my embroidery.  LOL.  Fairly sheer fabrics are suggested for this blouse but I'm going to move towards quilting cottons for my muslin.  I have some pretty nice quilting cottons and I don't want to put all that work in on embroidery until I have the fit worked out.  I'd like this to be a 3 season blouse and I'm not much for sheers.  I purchased a size 16 and I'm sure I'll have to alter the tissue to make the hips larger.  That's just a given.  I'm hoping this won't get too tricky given the pieces I have to work with.

First up, I'm in the process of tracing the pattern.  I'll be making an FBA and since there are no darts and it's basically a princess front, I'll have to perform a couple of operations.  I use the book Fit for Real People as my reference when making most pattern changes.  So if you have this book, I'll be starting on page 149 with raising or lowering the bust fullness.  In my case, it will be to lower the bust fullness.  Then perform the FBA (full bust adjustment).

This is all I have for today.  I'll report back when I have more completed.

Later!

Butterick 5611 - with sleeves

I guess it's pretty obvious I like this pattern.  LOL.  I think I've made the sleeveless version about 4 times (a couple of them not blogged about) and it makes a great summer top.  This time I'm making view C, the dropped shoulder version with sleeves.  I'm using a pretty purple & black/navy gingham I got from Sawyer Brook and a couple of coordinating batiks.   I've made several pair of One Seam pants, not blogged about, and a navy pair will go very nicely with this gingham blouse.  The pattern description says very loose-fitting and it's true.  LOL.  I used the same size I cut for the sleeveless version (a 16) and after putting it all together, determined I could use a 1 inch seam allowance for the side/underarm seams.  It's such an easy blouse to make and I had to add a couple of touches from Threads #156 "Simple touches for standout blouses".  Instead of cutting the collar stand apart though, I choose to make my own narrow bias tape to lay across the stand diagonally.  I used a raw edge bias strip to embellish the top of the pocket.  You don't know how against the grain it was for me to use a raw edge.  LOL. 

But it's done now and of course I used my embroidered label.  I probably should have used a purple one but I didn't feel like doing any embroidery.  I just used one of the ones I had already made.  LOL.  Yeah I know, lazy. 

This is one of those things I needed to get off my plate and soon I can turn my attention to one of the Stylearc patterns.  I'm just itching to get one done. 


Okay here are the rest of the pictures:

I'm going to apologize for the funky lighting.  I had to lighten them because I took the pictures on a rainy day.  HUH, imagine that, rain in Oklahoma.  It's been such a rare occurrence over the last couple of years.

Funny, I found an old Chico's tank in my closet that matches perfectly.  It'll never happen again.  LOL.

Here's that fun inside collar stand.

I used the same dark batik on the sleeve tabs.

This is a closeup of the rick-rack stitch I used on the yoke instead of normal top stitching.  I wanted to play around a little. 


That's all I've got for today!  Happy Sewing!

Bullion Roses...

If you've been reading this blog for anytime now, you'll know I teach sewing to adults.  As I learn new techniques, I pass them onto my students.  Well I'm just crazy over bullion roses, especially when done in buttons.  I've been recommending a book "A-Z of Bullion Embroidery" from Inspiration Books, Country Bumpkin Publications, Australia.  They publish a whole series of books on fine/heirloom sewing. 

It appears the above book is getting very hard to find.  I don't know if they aren't publishing it any longer or what.  There are very few people who have published tutorials on bullion embroidery but I follow another blog La Sewista! aka Bunny, who does wonderful heirloom sewing and she has many tutorials on her blog site.  I found one for the bullion stitch which might help those of you who couldn't find the book.  Here is her addy  http://lasewist.blogspot.com/2009/08/hints-for-bullions.html

Now my bullion's aren't perfect; they are a work in progress but I figure if you get that close to me to see they aren't perfect - YOUR TOO DANG CLOSE!   LOL.

They can be a beautiful, unexpected touch on an otherwise plain shirt or blouse.  You would be surprised how many women have asked where they can purchase the embroidery design so they can machine embroider it.  LOL

You'll have hours of wonderful reading on Bunny's site.  I know I did.  Check it out!

I'm not in Love

Sigh.  I know; not a good start when you see that.   Well, I mentioned in the previous post that I had a couple of things to get off my plate before I could start one of the new Stylearc patterns that had arrived.  I have been dying to make Sewing Workshop's Icon shirt.  One of the girls in our OK in Stitches group made it up and wore to one of our meetings and I just loved it on her.  Here I thought "Ok girl you're getting out of your comfort zone and trying something different".  I should have known better. 

My first problem was trying to figure out how to tissue fit the dang thing.  This blouse has 11 pieces!  A right front, a left front, a right back and a left back; plus a left back extension.   Sheesh!  So I kind of muddled my way through it and decided on a medium.  It really looked like it was going to be fairly big and I would just be able to take it in where needed.  Because EVERY piece is different, you must cut it out on a single layer of fabric.  Ugh!  This was starting to be way too work.  I decided to use a soft blue chambray that's been in my stash for a few years.  I think it's from JoAnn's. 

Here are my pics.  I'm not quite done; still have the buttons to sew on but this is it.  I'm not sure how much I'll wear this or if I'll even make it again.  I think it's going to be one of those shirts that always need constant arranging & adjusting and frankly, that's not my cup of tea. 

I did lengthen all 5 pattern pieces by 2 inches to get a length that would work with my height.  I didn't like how long the back pieces were when they were finished.  The proportion just didn't look right to me.  So I wound up taking the 2 inches out that I added in the beginning.  And, of course had to make all those mitered corners AGAIN.  This blouse is a lot of work what with all the top-stitching and mitered corners.  And I found that a couple of the pieces were only laid over the top of other pieces (the back and the left side extension), not making the tuck that it looked like in the tech drawings.

Here's the back after shortening.  And as you can see, I did add a little light stitching designs as my fabric was so plain.  Dandelions blowing in the breeze.  LOL. 

This picture is the inside of the left side extension.  It's my save for the shirt.  The hips wound up being too tight so instead of the simple overlap the pattern directions wanted I choose to angle it out and sew it down again by retracing my top stitching. 

I'm disappointed.  It's a nice shirt but just not a style for me I guess. 

Later!

Stylearc Patterns are here!

It's been a very busy week what with celebrating birthdays, embroidery club, finishing items for upcoming deadlines (still not done with that), and teaching.  So when my patterns arrived, it was a welcome diversion.  So without further ado, here are my choices:

I thought this top had lots of color blocking possibilities.  Not sure about the pockets on the hips, but a princess-line Tee is pretty cute.

I LOVE the look of this Tee with a built-in cami.  I will probably make it not so form-fitting as I just don't need everyone to see my lumps and bumps.  LOL.

The Suzie was my freebie.  It has possibilities.  You can make this as fitted or as loose as you please by just not using the darts.

I have been drooling over this blouse ever since I found Stylearc.  I see color blocking here and also (a real biggie for me) I see lots of embroidering going on with this one.  Tone-on-tone embroidery on the yoke and front panels.  Yum!

I was really intrigued with this style pant.  The side seams are moved to the front of the pant.  Cute!  I think I'll have to have several pair to wear with some the of tunics I plan on making. 

This pattern could even double as winter cycling pants if I can find the right fabric.

So, what do you think?  Have any of you made the Stylearc plunge?  And what did you think of the one size in the pattern?  I ordered my typical size 16 fulling expecting to make room for my hips.  I ordered an 18 in the Wallis pant.

That's all I've got for today...