Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Richmond Trip

I love Richmond. The more I travel here for business, the more places I find to go after meetings.

Last night I went to Hancock fabrics on Midlothian Turnpike. I found some black crepe fabric to become a dress using the recent Simplicity pattern. They sell KS patterns, so purchased two of them. They also sell DVD's and I purchased two of the Palmer/Pletsch DVD's. I then had dinner at a new Chinese restaurant in the same strip center. It was the best Chinese I have eaten in a long time. They were having a grand opening and I truly hope they do well as I plan to eat there again when next I am in town.

Tonight I went to a mall called Short Pump Town Center which is a suburb of Richmond or it is to me. They have Nordstrom's, Dillards, J Crew, J Jill, Chico's etc. All of the stores we do not have in Roanoke. I was able to acquire two Kasper three piece suits on sale for $89.00 each. In RTW and in petite sizes, Kasper is the best fitting garments on me. They were regularly priced at $280. I am doing my part obviously for stimulating the economy. I will get tired of the suits before I will ever wear them out.

The great part about this shopping adventure was the window shopping. I saw so many sleeveless blouses with ruffles just like this and this. Plus numerous other garments similar to numerous other patterns in BWOF.

Time to shut down now, early meeting tomorrow. Then on the road back to Roanoke. Weekend is in sight.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

New Fabrics

New installments to the fabric collection.

From Les Fabrique: Both are cotton fabrics with a touch of Lycra. I have gotten stuck on teal, green and yellow. Using an idea from two other sewists, I am thinking a print skirt-pencil style- with a shirt/jacket garment in the solid color.









From EOS:

This is another cotton fabric that I finally deviated from the greens and teals. The background is an off white or creme. I thought skirt when I saw this one. But always subject to change.

This is a cotton twill that the colors are much nicer than the photo reveals. It is a gold, silver/gray, burgundy on creme background. The idea for this one is a dress.


The solid fabric is an Irish Linen that has a metallic side and a matte side. In real life, it has more gold undertones than silver but camera and filtering just did not capture that. I fell in love with Nancy's-Encue Creations- blouse. I found this fabric on some site but fell to bookmark the site and had to search again. Fortunately I found it on Emma One Sock site. Nancy has a "great white shirt" sew along going and I do like the McCall's pattern she has posted on her site for my new fabric.
Later, getting ready to travel.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Limping along

Yesterday was another pleasant day weather wise. As for sewing, not much to write about.

I did set up my serger, coverstitch and sewing machine for sewing the brown/creme knit dress. I actually did sew the front neckline/collar together, sewed gathering stitches for the knit bodice, sewed the gathering stitches for the midriff and basted them to the front stay. Began pinning the midriff/stay front to one side of the front bodice and that was the end of my sewing for yesterday.

I am going on a business trip to Richmond tomorrow late afternoon and will return on Thursday; thus no sewing during the week. I will be thinking about it.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Work and No Play

Friday evenings I normally do grocery shopping after work so that Saturday can basically be a play day. The past few Saturdays we have had to take care of family issues with MIL.

This past Friday was a day long trip to Richmond, VA for business purposes that requires leaving very early to attend an early AM meeting, lunch, afternoon meeting and 2.5 hour driving trip back. Then pick up DH and take to get his vehicle out of the shop. Thus grocery shopping was postponed to Saturday.

So Saturday proved to be mostly a non-sewing day. The sun was shining instead of raining so being out and about in sunny, warm to hot weather proved to be pleasant anyway.

Late last night, close to midnight, I did finish cutting out the Butterick dress. So I have two pending sewing projects ready to go. This AM I set up the serger for the brown and cream knit McCall's dress. I need to thread the coverstitch machine and I am ready to go.

More later.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

New Projects

I completed the pattern adjustments to both the McCall's and Butterick pattern. This afternoon I was able to cut out the fabric for the McCall's dress.

This is fabric I acquired from Fabric.com. It is a chocolate brown with more of cream instead of white circles as I noted on the Flickr photo site. It was a lovely knit to cut out and I hope it proves to be as nice to sew.

I hope to cut out the knit fabric that I just recently acquired from Gorgeous Fabrics for the Butterick dress later this week.

Time to watch a movie with DH.

Imaging

In some recent training classes I have attended, the instructor spoke about "imaging" and how by doing so, the person was able to succeed in accomplishing their goals. They are able to visualize themselves doing certain things to accomplish the goal at hand. I think we sewist do that a lot when it comes to sewing. We set a course to achieve a certain garment look. Sometimes with great success and sometimes we have to revise the course.

Yesterday my DH and I had to travel to Danville as my MIL continues to be plagued with pneumonia and some other health issues. I took along some sewing magazines-Australian Stitches-to keep my sewing mojo going. I also began visualizing another dress using the Simplicity pattern I just completed. In doing so, I began thinking about the steps I needed to take to accomplish what I wanted. I began making my list of things I have and do not have to accomplish this new garment. I then began focusing on plans for the two knit dress patterns laying on my cutting table. The trip to Danville went by much faster, though my DH complained that I did not talk enough. He does not appreciate the quiet moments that I do.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Latest wearability report

I wore my new dress and the knit jacket yesterday to work and to our local ASG meeting. The guest speaker owns the fabric shop in Charlottesville where I acquire the fabric for both garments. We normally meet for dinner prior to the meeting, so she, her husband and friend joined us.

When she walked into the restaurant and our president introduced her; she immediately recognized the fabric. I was pleasantly surprised and she said she may not remember the person's name but she knows her fabric and make the connections that way.

I want to say that I played around with the jacket collar before leaving work that AM. I was able to make the jacket more wearable for me by not turning the collar back. It is stitched at the center back in such a sway that I could make the collar lay more in a draped manner that turning back. That improved the wearability for me, thus making it a little more of a keeper. I loved the fit of the dress and by underlining it, IMHO, helped with reducing the wrinkle factor and was pleased with how well it held up for a work day wearing into a social evening wearing.

My DH truly admires the dress, that gives it 10 points for wearability right there. I already have plans and another vision of the next dress using the pattern. This will become a TNT for sure. I have learned quite a bit from Carolyn at Diary of a Sewing Fanatic and her designing ways with her TNT dress pattern.

But before I start on another version of this pattern, I want to make up the two knit dresses I posted about previously.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Newest fabric purchase and new sewing plans

As mentioned in an earlier post, I just acquired another lovely knit fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics. Here is the promised photo.



I am thinking about making this Butterick dress pattern and using this fabric.




I also want to make this McCall's dress. I have a brown with white circles knit that I acquired I believe from Fabric.com. about a year ago that I want to use to make this one. More later.

Monday, June 08, 2009

The Knit Jacket

I finished the jacket yesterday. I am not all that happy about the outcome. My first impression of the pattern and the actual garment were not in sync. I just did not have eough fabric left to eliminate the turned under hem showing in the collar area. It is just a look that does not appeal to me.



A suggestion of using a decorative stitch or some trim was a good one and I considered it. I decided however that this will call even more attention to this area and I really want the focus on the dress I plan to wear with it.



Interestingly I saw a pattern at KS that is actually more of what I thought this jacket would look like, even though the collar style is different. I really like the KS pattern.


So without further ado, here is a photo of the jacket.






You can go here to see more shots and some additional comments.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Update

I have just about finished the knit cardigan. I am thinking I should not call it a cardigan. It is a short sleeved jacket.

I also have to confess that in working on this just a few short moments ago, I realized that the front and front neckline hems are going to show when worn. I am glad I realized that before I decided to use my coverstitch machine for hemming this area. I have to admit, I am disappointed with this and wish that I had realized how this was going to shape up before I started this project.

I just am not a fan of seeing the turned under hem showing when the shawl collar is of course turned back. I don't have enough fabric to make a facing that I could attach in order to not have this look. I am really disappointed about this as I bought new shoes to wear with the dress and knit jacket. The shoes are a gorgeous green like the jacket and the green dots, stripes and piping used in the dress. I was so excited about this outfit but feel a little let down now.

I believe I mentioned that I purchased this fabric from a fabric store in Charlottesville, VA. The owner of the store is going to be a speaker at our upcoming ASG meeting next week and I had planned and will still wear the dress and jacket to the meeting. Good news is she is also bringing fabric and such to our meeting so some shopping will be a part of the meeting as well. Perhaps she will have some of the green knit!

I will have some photos to post later of the finished project.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

New Fabric, New Patterns and Few more sewing minutes

I ordered a 'gowchass" knit fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics. Of course I don't have availability to a camera at the moments so you will have to be patient and wait. But it is truly lovely, exceeded my expectation.

I also got two new patterns this week. They are from an independent pattern maker called Colette. Her patterns come in a little booklet and I am looking forward to trying both patterns. I ordered "Macaroon" and "Parfait". Both are cute dresses. I want to try the Macaroon pattern first.

I sewed a little more on my knit cardigan this AM. I had a doctor's appointment so had a little extra time this morning to attach the collar to the back neckline and to topstitch in place. I then pinned the side seams to try on. I think it fit well. I unpinned the side seam and then pinned the sleeves in place to sew them next. Slow but steady.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

A little sewing here and there

I got in just about 20 minutes of sewing last night. That enabled me to pleat the collar portion of the jacket and then to sew the collar seams together. Following along with the pattern instructions, I then sewed the collar center back seams together and then topstitched 1/4 inch from the center seam on both sides.

Next steps are to sew the back neckline to bottom of the collar; then I will baste the side seams for fitting purposes before serging side seams together. I will probably insert the sleeves before the final side seam sewing. The instructions call for inserting the sleeves in the round. Most sewists like to insert sleeves in knit tops using the flat method.

The final steps will be the hem stitching and I will finally get to use the coverstitch machine. Got to run, I am actually cooking dinner tonight.

August Sewing Simplicity 7295

 I am not doing well as a blogger. I have been working on this project since July 30. Today, I finally finished it. It has been a stop-and-g...