Where have I been????

I have a been a bad blogger of late.  Between spraining my ankle and recovering from that and working, I have not been very motivated to sew until last week.

I cut out the Renfrew top and have finished it in time for the weekend Christmas time with family.
The fabric I used was a stretch velvet from Style Makers Fabric.  It was a lovely piece of fabric. Some small difficulties in cutting it out, sewing it was a breeze.  I mostly sewed it using the serger.  I even liked the selvage on this fabric so kept it intact to use somehow on something else.

I have a picture of the completed top on Instagram, user name is danvillegirl and you can see it on the blog under the Websta Widget on the right side.  I will post some photos of me wearing it soon.

I am not on vaca and holiday returning to work January 3!!!  Plenty of time to do some serious sewing.  I am going to put myself on a fabric and pattern buying sabbatical come the first of the year. I have more than enough of each to keep me going for sometime.

More later.

Current project

I am currently working on another Renfrew top from Sewaholic. This will be my fourth top using this pattern.  I have just about worn out my last one made about two years ago.

I am using this lovely velvet knit fabric from Style Maker Fabrics called Expresso. A very rich brown color.

It was an easier piece to cut out than I thought it would be and sewing so far has been good.  I am using my serger to complete most of the sewing since the top has all the fitting issues complete. That's the great thing about a TNT pattern.

I have tried to do a little sewing on it during spare moments before or after work.I have so many other projects that I want to start on after this one and not sure which one to do first.  I will have some vacation time the week after Christmas for more sewing.

Thanks for stopping by and always appreciate your comments and feedback!

Butterick 6392

I am glad I had the sewing opportunity last week.  This is the other garment I made and wore last weekend, Butterick 6392

It was a fairly simple pattern to make, I cut size 14.  A dislike was there were not finished measurements on the pattern pieces; the only finished measurements listed on the envelope was the length.

It looked like there would be no issue with fit as the pieces looked as if there was a lot of ease.


Adjustments made were shortening the length by 1/1/2 inches; even then it was longer than I actually wanted.  I also did a swayback adjustment of 5/8. I also shortened the shoulder width by 5/8 inch.

The fabric is from Fabric Mart purchased in April 2015.

Diamond Quilted 

I fell in love with the fabric and had many ideas of how I would use it and then with change in weather I put aside for cooler weather.

When this pattern was released I knew immediately that I had the right fabric for this pattern.

This was an easy project to sew; one needs to pay attention to the marking for tie placements and right front self facing.  The biggest issue I had was the ties and turning them.  I used to have Fasturn tubes and they have gone missing.  I had another "gizmo" for turning but not a very good one.

DH took photos of me wearing this last weekend.  I lightened some of the photos so you can see the quilted design. It is a rich black fabric as you can see in the two photos below.

Here are the two side views

Left side

Right side with ties.

The sides are sewn with wrong sides together. The right side tie is sewn into the seam.  The left side tie was to be attached to the folded over self facing, the fold over stops where the left and front are attached at the V.  I opened up the seam that attaches the left to the right and inserted the tie in that seam to make it more secure.  I am not sure why the instructions would not have you do that.

By sewing the side seams on the right side of the fabric it creates what I called wings.

I truly like this pattern and the unusual design.  Not sure that I need another one, but was a pleasure to sew.

I wore this to work on Tuesday and no one really got to see this as I walked into the entrance of our building and fell on wet floor.  I sprained my ankle and have been laid up all week from this accident. I am on the mend and plan to return to work on Monday with ace bandage and foot trolley for my right foot.  Glad I got a pedicure during my vaca😇