Saturday, June 30, 2018

Butterick 6207

This was the last item I sewed; sometime in February.  I posted a picture of it on Instagram; it was hanging on the sewing room door.  I find myself wearing this dress quite a bit since moving.  I have gotten lots of compliments on this dress when I wore it shopping and recently to the doctor's office.

The fabric was purchased from Cali Fabrics. I truly like their shop and they are quick to ship.  I have been on a fabric diet and just recently purchased two knit fabrics from Simply By Ti.  This was a new to me shop and offered a nice discount so I purchased a floral knit and paint brush look knit.  I will take shots of the fabric soon.

I decided to wear this last week for my first visit to a doctor; this was a new patient appointment.  I took some quick photos using my iPad, which do not always turn out the to be the most flattering or appealing photos.



This is a great knit; washes and dries easily and no ironing.  I have one issue with the back neck.  I have a little fold of fabric that bunches up right under the neckband when wearing.  At the time of these pictures my hair was actually down to my shoulders.  At the time I took these, the styling was in place until I walked out into the humidity.  I had not cut my hair since April with my long term hair stylist.  I got my hair cut Friday and now just below my chin where it is now off of my neck.  Just to hot for that much hair length.  However with the longer hair the fabric bunching was covered up; now it will be exposed.  

To fix it I need to scoop out some fabric right below the neckband.  I just have not wanted to rip out the topstiching and the serged edges.  I am trying to find an easier solution as I really do like wearing this dress. I am going to pull out this pattern to see if I made a high round neck adjustment.  If I did then I will eliminate that for next time and should not have that bunching issue.  If not then I will scoop out more.

The third picture was to show the side slit. I realized that my slip showed a little but was okay with me.

 Since moving I basically wear shorts, cropped pants or boyfriend jeans (the weather is too hot for longer jeans).  I have always liked wearing dresses so it was fun to wear this one for a change.

More later.


Thursday, June 21, 2018

People watching

I like to people watch to see how their hair style looks, what they are wearing including shoes.  I find where I now live a very laid back casual style mostly.  It is interesting to see the styles here in the area where I live which tends to have more individuals my and my husband's age. I compare this to styles going 15 miles down the road and there are lots of younger people, many in the military and many young mom's. Wearing leggings, cropped tops or athletic wear. Not what my body can wear uncovered!!!

Even some of the businesses where I have been, the work style is pretty business casual. I am almost ready to do some sewing (if I can just leave my sewing room as I have it mostly set up now).  One thing of interest to me is seeing so many kimono style toppers/jackets.  When I lived in Roanoke, VA I just did not see this much at all.

I made this kimono jacket in 2016. Fabric was from Fabric Mart Fabrics.  The fabric was a silky polyester and you know poly can be very warm.  So for cooler days it worked well.  I just never felt comfortable wearing it.  Now I see a lot of this style or similar and in lighter weight fabrics with skirts (long and short) or with jeans and some shorts.  The weather has been extremely hot for the past few days and adding humidity to this and 87 degrees F can have a real feel of 96!  Not sure a lightweight kimono jacket is needed much, though some evenings at dinner in restaurants one may feel good.

I mostly wear shorts, knit or cotton tops with sandals now.  I love sandals and when living in Florida one could not have too many.  So I get to wear sandals again and loving it!

I did breakdown and buy one of the newly released Jalie patterns-The Bobbie V-Neck.  This seems like the best new pattern that's perfect for the weather and style for me now.  Look forwarding to getting it soon. This is my first "hard copy" pattern for 2018.  I think this is the longest run I have had on not buying patterns.

More later.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Still organizing and downsizing

I have made a lot of progress over the past couple of days.  I came across a few items that I have used sporadically or never.  I decided to sell them and posted two classifieds on Pattern Review.  Here is the link for the Simplicity Rotary Cutting machine.  This machine has never been used and you can find the description on PR.  The other item is a Janome Clothsetter for embroidery placements.  The link for this is here.

I most likely will have a few books to sell also.  Thank goodness that I have several rolling storage containers to keep things in as I can tell that I will have to manuever these around when I open up the cutting table to cut out patterns and fabric.

I am still looking for the right curtains to hang in the room.  And no I will not sew some as I find that sewing to be boring. 

As many of you know Jalie has released some new patterns and I will be making a purchase; have not purchased patterns or fabric since February.  There are a few Itch to Stitch patterns that I am eyeing also and those will not take up sewing room space!  😀

More later.




Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Beach time

Part of the reason for locating to NC was to live close to area beaches, not right on the beach, nor one or two blocks over.  My beach drive is 30 to 45 minutes away, but that is close enough and affordable.

My DH and I have good friends from high school that still live in our hometown of Danville, VA.  They had plans to go to Myrtle Beach which is two hours away from where we live.  So we took time from unpacking and setting up house to go visit our friends for two days.  It was a lovely break from our current routine.  The weather was perfect as the week before we had a monsoon for several days in a row.

My DH and I are(were) DINKS-double income, no kids.  We love other people's children and got to spend 2 1/2 days with a houseful of young kids and teenagers.  Goodness, they have a lot of energy. There were other adult family members included in the household.  It was an eight bedroom, 7 bathroom house with a view of the beach and porches on all levels-4.  NO ELEVATOR.  I definitely got my steps and floor counts in on my fitbit.

I spent some beach time with my friend and her husband.  My DH showed up for a little beach time, he is not crazy about the beach.  He then took two of the grandkids back to the beach house and watched them swim.

It was fun sitting around and talking as well as eating.  We all had backstories about going to Myrtle Beach every summer when we were in high school.  Interestingly, my girlfriend and I were close in high school and my DH and his friend were close in high school, but we did not date our spouses back then.  Funny how life goes some time.

Today I finally unpacked one of the last boxes of hanging clothes and low and behold, much of my missing sewing tools were packed securely in the bottom.  Yeah!  I have made even more progress on the sewing room and actually think that by this weekend I may be ready to pull out a pattern and fabric and begin a sewing project. Unless, I rearrange something else again.

Here is a link to the beach house.  It really looked like this video.

More later......

Sunday, June 03, 2018

Progress With Sewing Room

I want to thank many of you who recently commented on my post about setting up my sewing room.  Your comments were most helpful and good because you have been there and done this.

I have actually made some progress with one side of the room.  I thought I would share a couple of pics of the room thus far.  The struggle with the room is that my computer and "office" if you will are in the same room as the sewing room.  In my other house I had a little nook for my "office".  Actually having the computer in the same room with sewing allows me to watch sewing related videos and sew at the same time in the shared space.

Here is the organized side of the room
I have the sewing machine and serger set up.  The white table will be moved somewhere(?).  This is my cutting table and opens up on both sides.  I will have to leave one side down, I think, to make it work.  What you can't see is that next to the serger is my coverstitch machine, currently sitting on a wood tv tray.  I got that idea from one of my sewing friends in the Roanoke ASG. 

I have kept the sewing table my Grandmother had over the years.  I am now using it to hold the embroidery machine I gave myself for Christmas.  It is on the other side of the room that has yet to be organized.

I hope to put off curtains or I should say I hope soon my husband will drill and put up hardware so I can hang up some curtains to help control sunlight that blinds don't totally block out during the heat of the day.  There are even more "stuff" not captured in this photo.

My DH is going to be out of the house today and this will give me more uninterrupted time to arrange and rearrange the room.    I feel like I am actually making progress with the room!  More later.😉

August Sewing Simplicity 7295

 I am not doing well as a blogger. I have been working on this project since July 30. Today, I finally finished it. It has been a stop-and-g...