Back view

Back view, a photo by Danvillegirl on Flickr.

Here is view of back. The exposed seams will be trimmed to 1/4 once all fitting is finalized.

Right front view

Right front view, a photo by Danvillegirl on Flickr.

Here is the partially completed front portion of the jacket.

Jacket progress

I made good progress on the Sandra Betzina's Vogue jacket pattern over the past two days. All the seams have been sewn
after basting and fitting. I took a 3/4 seam for the shoulder seams. I did not take my usual 1/4 inch horizontal tuck in the upper chest area. I will probably take deeper seams in the front seams; this is the great thing about princess seams, the ability to make easy fitting adjustments.

After my search for the perfect gray zipper, I decided to go with the brown. The medium gray zippers were a good blend with the gray fur, but the metal zipper teeth were just too much of a contrast. I have stitched one side of the zipper and that is where I stopped the sewing for the evening.

Will upload photos soon.

I appreciate your thoughts and prayers

I want to say how much I appreciated your thoughts and prayers during this time.  I feel like so many of you are my friends, because of our love of sewing and our sharing together of that passion through our blogs.

Today there is a more of a sense of normalcy again.  We held my father's funeral Monday.  The weather was very accommodating and in the low 70's.  I was able to reconnect with many relatives on my father's side that I had not seen in years.  I feel at peace knowing that he is not suffering anymore.

Today I shopped for all the foods and such that I need to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for DH and me.  I always love to cook for Thanksgiving.  I think it is because I have plenty of prep time to fix the dinner.

I spent time this afternoon finalizing the fit of the Vogue jacket and then cut out the fabric.  All of the zippers I ordered online arrived this week.  The zippers from Sew True proved to be the best gray color for the front separating zipper.  I have decided not to sew the pockets.  I can change my mind when I begin as I do have the zippers necessary for the pockets.  I am just not feeling the need for them.

I am currently waiting for DH to come home.  He has decided to stop and get us Chinese food for dinner.  The perfect before Thanksgiving day dinner tonight.

If you celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, I wish you a pleasant and thankful holiday.  If you are not celebrating, I also wish you a pleasant day on Thursday.  More later.

A time of loss

I am so thankful that I was able to travel to see my father on Friday.  He has been suffering from Alzheimer's for about 6 years now.  He became very ill about three weeks ago and was in the hospital for nine days before being sent to a short term care nursing home.  I was truly stunned when I arrived on Friday to visit with him.  He was still very ill and had lost so much weight.  The dementia had gone into overdrive.

Saturday morning I received a call that he had passed away.  For this I am also thankful because I know he has gone to a better place with my hope that his mind and soul are now at rest.

I have lost both parents to this horrible and life taking disease.  It is so very difficult to lose them to such an illness that leaves them as a shell and they no longer know themselves and no longer know who I am.

So this week I will be thankful that he no longer suffers with trying to form sentences, or trying to remember how to walk or trying to eat or even understand.  I know he is in a better place and hopefully whole again.

Vacation and Holiday

Today I begin my vacation and holiday time off!  I really am looking forward to the break.  My mind and soul needs rest and time for creativity.

As much as I would like to begin the time off today sewing, I am traveling to NC to see my father who has been moved into a nursing home providing some needed skilled nursing services.  Fortunately he has been moved closer to where I live so the travel will not be as lengthy as it was previously.  This will allow me to visit more frequently.

I will be back home early evening and plan to begin the pattern fitting process for the new jacket.  Zippers that I ordered have not arrived yet, hopefully today.

More later.

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who offered information on zipper sources.  I found some zippers on eBay from Zipperstop that hopefully will work out.  I also found zippers on SewTrue this afternoon and decided to order two from them also.  They should arrive this week and with my upcoming holiday/vacation next week I should be a go to make this jacket.

I have finished some hand sewing things I needed to do with the recent Butterick skirt.  I will plan to take some photos of me wearing the latest skirt.

After I complete the jacket I want to work on some tops and another skirt or two.  More updates later.

SOS

I need your help finding a separating zipper, 20 to 22 inch length, in dark gray.  I am getting ready to start making this jacket.

The fabric I am going to use is a faux leather/shearling/sherpa type that has a contrasting dark grey fur that will show in the exposed seams and of course the collar.  The right side is a golden brown shade.  I have a brown separating zipper with metal and molded brown zipper teeth, but it is a dark brown.  I went to Zipperstop and found the limited selection of colors which I can easily get at JoAnn's. 

Your help is most appreciated. 

Lining pinned and ready

The lining to the Butterick skirt is pinned and ready to attach.  All I need is few moments of sewing time. 

My next garment is going to be a jacket, this one from Sandra Betzina's Today's Fit pattern line.

Photo from Vogue Patterns website

I purchased some lovely faux leather/Sherpa fabric from EOS.  I was going to use a KS pattern that I made a jacket from before.  DH was really pushing me to make this one, which is rather unusual in that he normally does not suggest patterns for me to make that often.  I need to get started with this as I plan to have it completed to wear in our ASG Annual Fashion held at our annual holiday event.

I have some vacation time coming up around Thanksgiving so will have some extra sewing time, I hope, during that week.

More later.

I've got a feeling, that today is going to be......

A good day for sewing. 

Last two weeks have been so hectic at work that I had a major melt down on Friday-at least major for me.  A good Appletini and nice dinner with DH (who also had a crazy week) helped reduce the stress I was feeling.  After a good night's rest on Friday and last night, I am back to feeling happy again.

I also have been very sewing motivated today.  Last night I cut out the fabric for my next skirt again using the Butterick pattern shown in the right side of this blog.  This AM, following my coffee break and blog/email reading, I began the sewing of the skirt.  Here are a few shots of my skirt in progress taken with my iPad camera app:

The pleather is a brown/black croc skin that I think I purchased when I lived in Florida over 12 years ago.  It was going to be a purse, but that never came to be.  The bottom front of the skirt is a brown polyester gabardine acquired from Sewing Studio several years ago, which I was going to attempt to make a pair of pants.  That did not happen either.  So today both have become part of a new skirt.

The pleather has not been difficult to sew and mostly I have sewn from the wrong side which is more of knit type backing. When I topstitched the pieces I switched to a Teflon coated foot and that worked very well.  I decided I wanted to line the skirt so I will work on that this afternoon.

My next challenge is going to be a jacket using faux Sherpa/shearling acquired recently from EmmaOneSock.  Our ASG Christmas party always has a fashion show and this year the show will be about jackets.  More on this later.

Decisions, decisions

Thank you to all who gave me feedback about the jacket.  I have decided to just use a solid color.
I plan to cut out that pattern this weekend.  But before I sew it I have the desire to make one more skirt from the Butterick pattern I recently used to make the color blocked skirt.

I really like all three versions and will eventually make all three.  The next skirt will be similar to the view of the one in the upper right hand corner.  I have some pleather that I will use as the yoke contrast with brown gaberdine.  The pleather has been in my stash for over 10 years and appears to be in great shape.  The brown gab was a purchase made several years from Sewing Studio fabrics.

So glad today is Friday; it has been a heck of work week.  I make my budget presentation to CEO this AM, wish me luck!!  Sewing this weekend will be such a stress reducer.