Danvillegirl Sewing Diary

Our Roanoke Valley ASG had Cynthia Guffey as a presenter for a special sewing event today.  Great day with sewing related friends and Cynthia G was an entertaining as well as educational presenter.  I learned some new things about fitting as well as some important sewing techniques.  Some information I knew well but it is nice to have it reinforced.

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.

First, thank you Cennetta for giving me this award.  I apologize for lateness of accepting it and posting about it.  My sewing inspiration comes from many sources and particularly viewing so many other blogs and exchanging comments.  Cennetta's garments are gorgeous, fashionable and well fitting on her , DD and her customers. 

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…

I did not achieve my plan of completing Butterick 5460.  It was such a pretty day and a holiday so I spent time with family outside in the sunshine.  Here is how the dress looked Sunday AM


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.

I was able to get the dress (Butterick) cut out and to actually do some sewing this evening.  I love the feel of this fabric, a cotton stretch woven.  The seams have been serged and darts sewn.  I hope to be able to complete the dress tomorrow.  I am not lining this one.  The fabric is thick enough without adding a lining.

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.

Well today will be my Friday, I am off for the Easter Holiday starting tomorrow-Good Friday.  So looking forward to the time off.  I will be sewing.  I am ready to cut out the Butterick dress and jacket pattern. 

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!

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.

Another extremely busy week at work, leaving me feeling tired and not motivated to sew.  This AM I busy helping with a kite festival in our area for my Rotary club.  Hopefully this evening I will have some time to spend in the sewing room and that my sewing mojo will be with me.

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.

I made a camisole top from KS 2759.  This is a pattern I have had in my stash for some time.  I have made two tops and cardigans from this pattern in the past year or two.  So to stay in sync with others working on tops for the first 15 days of April, I thought I would make this pattern again.

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 a…

I have not really been in much of a sewing frame of mind this week.  We had another structural reorganization at work this week which changed my job yet again.  I know I will be able to handle the adjustments, I do have more responsibilities----but I had to eliminate a staff position requiring me to have to do some of what this person was doing plus taking on other job duties.  Once the dust settles I will be okay.

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 …

I cut out knit fabric from Denver Fabrics acquired  earlier this year.

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.

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.Collar tied.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.