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!

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!