Sunday, February 28, 2010

Drumroll please, it is complete

Here I am wearing the dress, using the mirror in the bathroom for taking the photo shots. I found red buttons!!! These have to be vintage as I have not bought red buttons in a couple of years.

I have mixed feelings about these sleeves. You can see how they hang when my arm is held down at side as in the first picture. Holding my arm out so you might be able to see the pleats at the hemline. I thought I should take a shot of my hand in the pocket. I like the pockets in this dress. I really like the fit of the dress and look forward to wearing it soon.
Wrinkles are present as it has not gotten it's final press. On to spring sewing next.





More spring fabric plans



The left photo is two knit fabrics; I have way more knits but I pulled these two for my first spring sewing projects. One is brown and orange; the other is black and red. Both came from Fabric.com

The middle photo is greens for spring. The bottom fabric will definitely become a Chanel type jacket. The middle fabric I used previously for a Simplicity dress, with this fabric as the dress bodice with ruffles. This fabric came from a eBay seller. The other "fruit" fabric is a cotton stretch and I think I acquired this from Fabric Mart. It was also available on another site called "Sew It Up".

The final photo is yellow/gold/orange colors. Again there are fabrics acquired from one to six years ago. They include purchases from EOS, Fabric Mart, Les Fabrique in Charlottesville, VA, Fashionista Fabrics and Hancocks.
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Thinking about spring



This is the time of year I put away the wools and heavier fabrics that I pulled for winter sewing. I began pulling fabrics from my collection of what I am going to consider sewing for spring and summer.

The photo on the left are neutral fabrics. All have been in my stash from one year to over 10 years. The bottom two came from Hancock's. The third from the bottom was acquired from Gorgeous Fabrics. The third from the top is a beautiful rayon fabric purchased from Textile Studios. The very top fabric I acquired while living in Florida and attending the National ASG meeting in Orlando.

The teals included fabrics from Vogue Fabrics purchased years ago. The second from the bottom actually came from Walmart. A very nice faux linen. The top fabric I believe came from Fabri.com and is a cotton Lycra blend.

The third photo is the pinks and lavender shades. The bottom fabric was another purchase from Textile Studios. Two fabrics came from EOS and the fuchsia pink and black fabric came from a fabric store in Hampton Roads, VA.
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Saturday, February 27, 2010

More patterns for sale

I posted a classified on Pattern Reviews for some additional patterns for sale. I am continuing to clean out my pattern collection. The Vogue and Simplicity patterns are $3.50 each and this includes shipping within US; shipping to Canada I need to add $1.25 due to extra cost. There are three independent patterns for sale as well, those are $6.50 each and this too includes shipping except for Canada, I will add another $1.25. You can go here to see what I have for sale in case you might be interested.

Almost complete

I attached the sleeves to the dress pattern upon returning home from visiting family. I only need to sew the hem for the lining and the dress fabric. I also need to sew three buttons on the front placket. I have various black buttons to choose from. I wish I had some red buttons but I don't and have not seen any at JoAnn's or another store in the area. I will use the black and if the right red comes along I can always change them.

I am very happy with the look of this dress. After inserting the sleeves, I tried on the dress one more time. The exposed zipper was 14 or 16 inches long and the dress called for 22 inch zipper. It is a little snug pulling the dress over my head due to shorter zipper length; yet I like the look of the exposed zipper in the back. I can live with this.

I decided not to attach black tabs on the front/side front above the pockets as I think this will add a separating point when you view the dress. I like the black piping at the pocket edge and I think that is enough of black. Hope to show you photos tomorrow.

MIL Birthday

Today is my MIL's birthday, so we are going to Danville to visit and take her out to lunch. The only thing I have done to my red/black dress is baste the lining to fabric at armscye. When we return home this evening, I will hopefully attach the sleeves to the dress. I will only have hem the dress after that and will have another new dress to wear soon.

Later!

Monday, February 22, 2010

Work in Progress

I wanted to show you progress on my dress. No, I did not finish it yesterday as I wanted to; life gets in the way of my sewing a lot lately.

Here is the lining for the front and back. Here is the back of the dress with exposed zipper.
The sleeve which I lined before attaching to dress. And here is the sleeve pinned at shoulder dress so you can visualize how it will look when completed.

I am really pleased with dress so far. I now have to decide whether to have the tabs at side front or not. They were cut out of the black material. Perhaps the black piping at pockets is enough.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

The end is in sight

Yesterday I had a stomach/intestinal virus thing going on, that started Thursday night. I was unable to go to work. Staying close to the bathroom was an essential part of my day. Thus between reading and some TV watching, I spent sometime in the sewing room. Thus the progress you saw on the dress from yesterday.

This AM I am feeling much better, yet spending some leisurely morning time, making sure that I may be able to venture out later today. Thus more time spent in my sewing room. I decided to go with an exposed zipper for the back using the black zipper I purchased last weekend. I think the black exposed zipper gives a nice and needed touch of black for the back area.

The dress back does not have an upper yoke piece like the front yoke. I did not want to attempt to draft one. Thus the back was looking very red. The black exposed zipper seems to, IMHO, balance the front and back. I have attached the shoulder seams as well. I normally then baste the side seams for fitting purposes. I did cut out pieces for a lining and decided to sew the front, front sides and upper yoke of the lining next.

I now need to sew the lining back darts, sew the CB lining seam and sew the lining shoulder seams. I will then baste those side seams and use the lining as my fitting "muslin" if you will before sewing up the dress side seams. I also cut out the 3/4 length sleeves and those will be attached the dress before attaching the lining to the dress.

So a little more to go yet; but I am pleased with the progress and to state again this has been fabulous fabric to work with!

Friday, February 19, 2010

First fabric purchase of 2010



This is my first fabric purchase for 2010. I have put myself on a fabric diet, so to speak. With all the snow and such, DH has not worked much in the past three months. He is in the construction business and work normally slows down this time of year, but this year has been exceptionally slow. However cash flow is improving and these two fabric pieces have been calling my name since December.

These items are from Fabric Mart and were included in the December swatches. The other day I noticed that the December mailer was no longer available for me to link to, so sent an email to FM saying if they still had this fabric I was interested. I got a response back indicating that it was and decided to place an order. They arrived yesterday!

Both are from a Liz Claiborne collection; one is metallic faille (top one). The bottom one is rayon/polyester Ikat floral print. The bottom one is definitely going to be a blouse. The other one I am still undecided about-dress, jacket?? But definitely for my upcoming spring sewing.
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Simplicity 2798 Red and black progression

This is the front of the dress pinned to AlmaMarie. Piping at pocket edge and yoke edge.
Closeup of yoke with piping and pinned placket to center front. I think this will be a nice addition.
View of the pocket with piping topstitched to edge.
Side view pinned on Alma Marie
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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Sewing moment

I got to sew for 20 minutes last night. I completed work on the lower front pieces and attached the piping to the front yoke piece and now have it pinned ready to sew to the lower front piece. At this point I am happy to get the 20 minutes to sew for the evening. It actually helped boost my "down" time before having to get things ready for work for the next day and I went off to sleep thinking about my next sewing projects.

I have decided that I am going to concentrate on spring sewing now and put the winter fabrics aside for next season.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Red and Black

I am so pleased with the progress I am making on the red and black dress. The wool gabardine is such a joy to sew with; the red I am using is what I call "my red". It is warm red color, reds with blue undertones do not suit me as well. It is a tomato red.

I have sewn the front pieces together which includes front pocket. I topstiched black piping onto the edge of the pocket. I think it will prove to be a nice design touch with the black wool gabardine yoke. Both pieces were purchased over two years ago from Fabric.mart.

More information later.

Finally, some photos

Here is the Butterick dress on AlmaMarie. I don't like the look of the back view in this photo, simply because AlmaMarie is a little bigger than I am now and the zipper is exposed. When I wear the dress, the back being less snug on me, the zipper is not so exposed. The last photo shows the lining at the shoulder and armscye area.
I cut out the dress fabric for the new Simplicity dress yesterday evening. I will cut out the lining fabric this AM and hope to get some sewing started on the dress today. I picked up some zippers, thread, hook and eyes and ,of course, a Simplicity skirt pattern since it was on sale for
$1 at JoAnn's yesterday. Updates later.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Can't Believe

I realized I have not posted anything since Sunday. Not much going on Danvillegirl's world related to sewing at this time. It is mostly work and work and no play. I have not even gotten an opportunity to pull out the camera and take a photo of the completed Butterick dress. I still have to attach the lining to the zipper. Other than that, it is complete.

I have the Simplicity dress pattern out and ready to cut out the black/red dress. I even have red lining for the dress. I do need a zipper and thinking I may use a black one and sew it exposed. After working hard to learn how to insert various zippers so they don't show, this feels awkward to me.

More later, got to get ready for work.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Heading to the finish line

The Butterick dress is almost complete. I had to take up all the seams-isn't that why we all like princess style garments, so many fitting opportunities. It fits very well now.

I have one dislike with the dress; the underarm is lower than I would like. In adjusting the pattern I raised it 1/2 inch which usually suffices for all sleeveless type dresses/blouses I make. Not so with this one. I will wear a jacket with it, so it will not be noticeable to anyone. I may slip a foam shoulder pad in and see how that works. I don't use shoulder pads as much as I use to.

I only need to hem the dress, the lining and insert a hook and eye above the zipper. I have two jackets that will go with this dress; one I made years ago and the other is a Kasper jacket purchased at a Kasper outlet store in Hagerstown, MD. I thought I was going to have enough of this fabric to make a jacket; if I could squeeze out a jacket from this it would need to be a bolero style.
I think my next project is going to be this Project Runway Simplicity dress. I made a dress this past summer from this pattern and it fit very well..
I have some red wool gabardine fabric and some black gabardine left over from a previous project. I keep seeing black and red suits as well as dresses in local stores. My plan is make the dress in red with yoke in black with a black band at the hemline. I am thinking of adding sleeves to this one, though sleeveless is still an option. I think I may use the red for the sleeves and again black for the sleeve band.

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Patterns for Sale - a set on Flickr

Patterns for Sale - a set on Flickr

I am cleaning out some patterns from my ever growing pattern stash. I posted a classified on Pattern Review as well. $3.00 each includes postage. Never used and come from a smoke and pet free environment. I will be posting some more patterns over the weekend. Multi size patterns-12/14/16 for Vogue patterns; Simplicity 6-14.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Additional tip about lining

"My tip is to trim 1/4 inch from the lining neck and armscyes; this way when the pieces are stitched together turn of cloth will pull the lining to the inside and prevent it from peeking out as it will be slightly smaller than the fashion fabric." This is a comment from "The Slapdash Sewist". Thanks for mentioning this. That is something else I just started doing. It works very well. In addition I understitch as far as I can through the neck and armscyes.

Dress and lining

Well best laid plans did not come to fruition on Sunday. With the snow from Saturday, meant shoveling the driveway for work on Monday. This ate into my sewing time and after all the shoveling I just lost interest in sewing for the day.

I have a Vogue pattern that I love the directions for attaching a lining to the dress fabric for sleeveless dresses. I also have the book Easy Linings (or similar title) that addresses this technique also. I love it 'cause there is no hand sewing involved. You attach the lining at neckline and armholes, trim seams, turn inside out. You then insert back zipper, keeping lining free and then you sew a continuous side seam for lining and dress.

The lining is now attached at neck and armholes; it is now draped onto AlmaMarie (dress form) waiting for the zipper and side seams to be sewn. That is how far I got on Sunday.

August Sewing Simplicity 7295

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