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 

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!

Over to the Dark Side

Okay; I've finally succumbed and, yes, I know I'm WAY behind the times.  LOL.  I'm so inured to the Big 4 pattern makers that branching out to an independent was scary.  I have had several Sewing Workshop patterns for years but have never made them up.  I've always thought them cute but just not on me, but couldn't resist buying them anyway.  Sooooo, after seeing several friends in my OK in Stitches group wearing their versions of this Independent pattern maker, I've taken the plunge.  I've just made up my first Liberty shirt.  Just going by my measurements, I started with the large.  It's supposed to correlate to a 16-18. 

I wanted to show you a close-up of how pretty this fabric is.  It's been marinating in my stash for about 20 years.  I know I purchased it in Florida but I don't remember the fiber content.  It does drape just like rayon challis though so I thought it would be the perfect candidate for this style shirt.

If you look closely enough, you'll see the top-stitching line of the enlarged back label.

A close-up with my embroidered grograin label.  I enlarged the back facing so I could apply the label.

And the front.  The sleeves are long and fit me well, but I'll wind up rolling them up just like I've shown here.  The next time I make this, I'll cut the sleeves down to 3/4 length and reduce the shoulders by 3/4".  They felt a bit large, almost drop shoulder looking.   But on the whole, I love the shirt.  I love the angular hem and the drapey, comfortable feel of it.  And even though there are no darts, it didn't look or feel like I needed to perform an FBA.

Here you can see the angular hem from this side shot.  It doesn't look like 20 year old fabric does it?  LOL.

Notice that I have the collar lying down versus up in the pattern photo.  I felt it was floppy and just decided to wear this way instead. 


Next I'm working on one of the SHAPES collabaration patterns by Louise Cutting and Linda Lee.  It's called the 9 Lives Vest but I'll be making a shirt out of this version.

Later!