Saturday, April 30, 2011
Local ASG event
Of course I purchased three patterns and one of her sewing booklets. She has some great fabric as well but I did not buy; I may regret this later. The event went from 9 to 4, with break for lunch.
DH and I went to dinner and following dinner I spent some time doing some work with dress currently in progress. Hopefully tomorrow I will get more done with the dress.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Stylish Blogger Award
With this award I am to post 7 things about myself:
1) I have worked in the non-profit world most all of my career which allowed me to live in several states including my home state of VA. I have lived in Texas, California, Florida and Pennsylvania. My favorite two states were Texas and Florida. I hope to live in a coastal area when I retire-if I ever get to.
2) I am not a great cook but my DH and I don't starve! I love to grill and plan to try to grill some new dishes this spring/summer/fall.
3) I have been sewing since Junior High School and got the sewing gene from my Grandmother.
4) I have been married to my DH since 1973-38 years!
5) My sewing arsenal includes a Designer SE, Janome 300, Janome Coverstitch 1000, a Babylock blind hemmer and a Babylock Embellisher.
6) I love shoes and believe a woman can never have too many! But some days I wake up and still find I just don't have the right pair in my closet.
7)I have a nice fabric collection/stash and find a sewist can never have too much fabric!
Now to present the award to others:
Robin at A Little Sewing
Shannon (Mushy) at MushyWear
A Sewn Wardrobe
Sewing in the City
Trina at Slapdash Sewist
There are so many others to present to but thought this was a good start.
Later.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Dress in the making
Front and back bodice stitched to front and back skirt. Facings attached at neckline. No side seams and no zipper at this time. The pattern calls for stitching the front and back bodice, then facings then stitch to skirt. I prefer to sew bodice pieces to skirt pieces, then attach facings and zipper next. Then you have one continuous side seam.
Here is the dress with facings turned in:
I love this fabric. It has been great to work with. The colors in the dress look prettier in real time than in the photo.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Dress is in progress
I still need to pin fit and adjust the short jacket included in this pattern. Once done, then I will cut out the solid green fabric acquired from Sawyer Brooks. More later.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Today is my Friday
Some goodies arrived earlier this week from Snap Source. I just did not have the right size snaps for my KS jacket. So I ordered some larger sized metal snaps, plus I ordered tack buttons. They will end up being what I will use. I will need to add a buttonhole to the jacket waistband, but the tack buttons are more like what you seen on jean jackets in RTW.
Later!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Another item for Goodwill and moving on---
The McCall’s dress is complete except for hemming. I will not be keeping the dress as I just don’t like the look of it. Even using a size 12 in shoulder/upper chest area, the neckline is just not flattering on me.
I just did not feel like handling it again and trying to make it work. I am just not feeling the love to continue to work on it.
So I am moving on to the next project. This will be Butterick dress and jacket. It is Butterick 5460. I plan to use this fabric acquired from EOS earlier this year.
The jacket will be made from this fabric, a silk rayon purchased from Sawyer Brooks in January or February.
I cut out the pattern and pin fitted it to determine adjustments needed. Of course the usual swayback and FSA were necessary. I also needed 1.5 inch FBA. I also added some width to the front armsyce area as I did not like how the sleeveless area was sitting at the front.
I have the thread, the zipper and I am ready to go.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Looking forward to the weekend
I have only a few things to finish with the McCall's dress currently in progress. I want to make a few sheath style dresses using some of my recently purchased fabric. I pulled out several patterns last weekend to decide what dress to make and have narrowed them down to about three choices.
I have to go and travel to the park. The weather is not very good at this moment so this event may be rained out. Later.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Sewing, sewing, sewn
The other reason for sewing it was to test the knit fabric. Though I like the fabric, it is not as thick or "beefy" as I thought it was going to be. It was curling on the edges when cutting it out and making this top helped me to determine the right needle, length, etc.
I completed the top early this AM, having to only hem it. It is so easy to sew and with all the pattern adjustments already made it was truly immediate gratification. It helped to get my sewing mojo going again as well.
I used green fold-over elastic for the arm and neck bindings. I did not fold over the elastic; I just attached the right side of the elastic to the right side of the fabric and stitched 1/4 seam allowance. I then turned the fabric down and top stitched the edge of fabric.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
To sew or not to sew
So with all of that going on since Tuesday, I have gotten home later and lost my energy for much of anything including sewing. Last night I had a burst of energy to hit and decided to cut out a camisole top from the remainder of the fabric I just cut out for the McCall's dress. I signed up to participate in the "over the top" sew along to make tops in the first 15 days of April.
The pattern is one I have used previously in making some tops. It is a KS cami and cardigan pattern--pattern number fails me now. I am going to sew the top first to get a feel for how the fabric is going to sew, it seems it may be a little fiddly. I am using a stretch needle, but size may be wrong. I test sewed a sample piece last night as well. We will see. Back to share more later.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Knit dress up next
I am going to make McCall’s 6200 as seen at the right side in the Work in Progress section. I decided to cut out the size 12 in the upper area as McCall’s patterns sometimes run a little large on me. I transitioned to size 14 from the underarm to just below the waist area, then tapered back to a 12 from there. The bust measurement for size 14 was sufficient to not require a FBA. Yeah!!!!
I did make swayback and forward shoulder adjustments. The dress pattern is cut out and I now only need to set up my serger and sewing machine.
While deciding on making this dress next, I also pulled out some other patterns that I have been wanting to make into dresses. They include Butterick 5519, Butterick 5520 and this one.
Updates later.
Jalie 2921 Complete
I was able to finish the second Jalie top yesterday evening. I worked on it a little during the week; basting the side seams for fit and tweaking the center front seam.
I like my second version better than the first. As I posted previously I raised the neckline about an inch and also took horizontal tucks in the upper chest and upper back areas through the armscyce. This adjustment helped to better fit the underarm seams.
In raising the neckline I should have reduced the width of the tie collar, but didn’t so I now need to turn the collar down so it does not come so far up on my neck.
Untied and collar not folded down.
I stitched the sleeve and bodice hems with my coverstitch machine. I see more of this top in my future.
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