Click Delete

Just a quick post.  I have been under the weather with a terrible virus that includes coughing and coughing and coughing.  So much so that I also lost my voice. Not being able to talk for me is like having your mouth wired shut and can only drink liquids.  My mother said I was born talking!

I have almost completed my sweater duster. I needed to reduce the width of the shoulders so that the sleeve and shoulder would hang better on me.  I also need to take deeper side seams after basting at 5/8 and trying on for fit.

As mentioned previously I am on a pattern/fabric diet; though I did fall off the fabric diet 3 days into the new year.  But I am back on it again.

I found it was easy to resist recent pattern sales at JoAnn's and on Club BMV, though I did renew my Club subscription.  So far I have clicked delete before opening emails from Club BMV, indie pattern newsletters and just glanced right over the ads in the JoAnn's flyer/bulletin about pattern sales.

I have not broken out in a cold sweat from doing this either and have resisted going to the trash file and opening those emails!  I think I will make it to the summer.

I still want to post my end of year fabric purchases, plus my January purchase.  Post soon.

Love when Friday comes

I find that I start looking forward to Friday every Monday.  With the arrival of Friday comes thoughts of sewing and family time for the weekend.

I need a zipper for the current Butterick top in the works.  I have numerous zippers yet not a one that will work if I decide to sew an exposed zipper as called for in the pattern notions. Hopefully there will be one at JoAnn's this weekend. If not I will make it work some other way.

As someone said at work on Tuesday when I said it was my Monday on a Tuesday; the great thing about three day weekends is a 4 day workweek.  Enjoy your weekend and happy sewing.

Late night

Tonight was our Annual Awards Event where we recognize various business and donors in our community.  It is always a nice event as it was tonight.

One of the things I like about the event is seeing the clothes that the ladies wear.  It is amazing that when I see something someone is wearing I immediately think I have a pattern for that or I have a similar fabric in my stash.  Sometimes the style is a unique design and find myself complimenting the garment and then enquiring if that bought this local or at some boutique.  My hope is that it is a local store and will take the opportunity to go and see and touch the garment.  You really can not go around touching some of the clothes on these people, they are usually ones I see maybe twice a year unless they are involved in my business segment.

I walked away with some new design ideas.  Now if I only could gain a few more hours in the day and a tad more energy to sew after a 10 hour day!

TGIF

I have had a week of Mondays.  I am so looking forward to the weekend.

I plan to pin fit both the Vogue dress pattern and the Butterick blouse pattern tomorrow and will most likely sew the dress pattern first.

I might even made a stab at one of these this evening.  Off to fix a light dinner and then we will see where my energy level is after that.  Maybe the glass of wine is giving me high hopes. :-)

Updates since last week

I was surprised to see it had been a week since my last post.  Here's what has been happening:

I made a skirt from this McCall's pattern-M6654.  I made the fuller version View G.  I used the fabric leftover from my recent top.  I did not add a casing as the pattern called for.  Instead I used a wide black elastic stitched to the top edge of the skirt.  Photos to follow later.  I ended up taking out some of the fullness.  I will have to get use to this style.  I wear pencil skirts the most so this feels and looks quite different.  Not sure I like the wavy stripes running horizontally across my lower half.

I fell off the no pattern purchase bandwagon on Saturday!  Simplicity patterns were on sale at JoAnn's for 5 for $5--$1 a piece how could I refuse.  Here are the ones I purchased.

This pattern buying binge led to taking advantage of Club BMV purchases!!!!  My last Club purchase was December 18.  Will post which ones later.

I began the pattern fitting process for the Simplicity 1199 on Sunday.  I plan to make View A, the same as the model is wearing.

I also ordered fabric and expect one package to arrive today.

We had 12 inches of snow starting Monday afternoon.  Yesterday spent the late morning digging out and the other part of the day was work at home.  Enjoyed the quite time and was very productive.

That's it for now.  More later.

Weekend

I have not had time to post this week.  Last night after dinner I finally got to do some sewing on the McCall's top.  I should be able to finish this and start on the simple skirt pattern from McCall's as well.

I am still on the no pattern purchase band wagon, made it through 30 days thus far.  I have been very tempted.  I do so like some of the new Vogue patterns and a new StyleArc top pattern.  I am working also to organize my patterns.  I have all the dress patterns sorted into boxes/bins using the pattern company as the sorting process.  I had been taking photos of the patterns and cataloging them using Evernote.  Good idea, slow process for me.  There is just not enough time in the day to do all that I would like and my energy/stamina is not as it use to be.

More to follow.

This and that for Sunday, 1/4/15

I am ending my PTO/Holiday today; it has been fun to be off from work.  I have to admit though I am getting antsy and ready to go back.

My Vogue dress is complete and will post photos of it later but not on me at this time.

I am putting myself on a pattern diet.  I wish I could say I will only buy x for 2015.  Heck, I am just trying to make it one day at a time.  I am at least going to stay on the pattern diet for the first quarter and see how that goes.  Just reading blogs and Pattern Review has me wanting/wishing for X patterns that I don't have.  Though if I was honest with myself and dug through what I have I would probably find something similar.

I did buy a bunch of patterns at the end of December and that included StyleArc patterns on Etsy. Most of the patterns were McCall's as Club BMV sale for McCall's was right after new releases and is so hard for me to resist.

I am not putting myself on a fabric diet; I should as I have a lot and want to try to sew up what I have. Having said that, I purchased  black and white jacquard fabric from Mood which arrived earlier this week.  Love it!  Need to take photo and post.  I just placed an order with Fabric Mart for taupe sweater knit and signed up for Julie's Pick Membership.  I had been a member before and let it lapse.
Last year I did a year end wrap up; not this year.  I just don't feel the need; that's my personal feeling/preference and others who do it are entitled to do as they wish as it is their blog.  I actually enjoy reading those, I don't enjoy the work for me to do it.  I have a page on the blog that lists my projects completed for the year and maybe for 2015 I will just post a photo and not do just a list.  One can click the link if they like.

I am not going to quantify how many projects I will complete for 2015.  I am really focusing on quality sewing and find that when I do that, the project is better and the fit is perfected.  Just like the dress I just completed.  The work that went into that took up most of my holiday sewing.  And that is okay as I do like the fit and look of the completed dress.  It is definitely a cold weather dress as the wool and double knit I use has some body to it.  Again more about that later.

I am trying to decide what to sew next.  Still thinking.

Wishing everyone spectacular sewing for 2015.  Going to my sewing room now.

Tidbits

1. Working on the McCall's top, pattern cut out last night
2. I did some sewing this afternoon and think that this will be an easy peasy top to sew. It only has three pattern pieces.
3. Went window shopping today and found a few items I liked that I know I can sew.
4. I want some new fabrics.  I need some sweater knits to make some cardis.
5. I want to make a few more knit tops to add to my wardrobe for casual as well as work tops.
6. I am also designing some skirts in my head and plan to sew some soon.
7. I pulled out some fabrics from collection to use for these skirts I am sewing in my head.
8. Will share photos of the McCall's top tomorrow.  I think I will have finished it by the afternoon.

Home for awhile!

I am back from my business trip to Baltimore and it is a shame that I did not have the opportunity to find and visit any fabric stores.  Carpooling does not allow much independent time.  Besides I was in meetings all day and in groups for dining.  I am happy to be home and plan to go into the sewing room soon.

Sipping on my first cup of coffee for the AM, spent time reading reviews at PR.  Lots of inspiration there.  Prior to sewing my Reunion Dress, I wanted to spend some time sewing tops.  I need more as those in my closet now have been around for some time now and I want/need to refresh my collection.

I also plan to tackle making a pair of pants.  All these years of sewing I still shy away from this garment!  I truly can buy well fitting pants for me from certain clothing lines and thus focus my time on other garments that I can make to fit me better than RTW.  This is my personal challenge to myself and I am armed with enough information on fitting that I should be able to make a nice fitting pair.

I also need to make a few more skirts.  Some skirt patterns have made their way to me via the postman.

More sewing and updates to follow!

Sewing Activities of Late

Returning to work this week after my staycation slowed down my sewing mojo. Last evening I sewed the Santa Monica T using knit fabric from my stash that was left over from another project. I chose to use the previously traced Santa Monica T pattern; when cutting I added extra 1/2 inch for side seam allowance.
I serged the top using 3/8 seam allowance per pattern instructions. The bodice fit but the shoulder and arms were wonky. Obviously I need to retrace the pattern as there has definitely been body changes and sizes.

In September there will be a high school reunion (my 45th reunion) and I need to focus on making a dress. I have two patterns in mind and God knows I have numerous dress patterns in my stash so I have some more options. My DH thinks I should wear a black dress and I have several black fabrics in my fabric collection'.
So this morning, I have gone through my fabric stash that I keep in the sewing room to cull out fabrics that I know I will not sew any time soon . I will move those to another room where I store fabrics and pull out some of the black fabric I want to consider for my class reunion dress.

A black dress will be my August garment of the month.I hope your sewing weekend will be a productive one.

Weekend update

Yesterday was supposed to be a nice sewing day. However the morning started off with computer issues. It ended up requiring me to call the GEEK SQUAD.  This led to two hours of online work to the computer.

All seem to be well, but then monitor blew. Visited the GEEK SQUAD at Best Buy. I now have a new monitor, that now goes with the new computer. It is a touchscreen monitor. I'm just happy everything is working again. It is amazing how much we have become dependent on computers.

So today I installed Dragon Speak. That was the plan for yesterday morning. I'm now using it to dictate this post. Due to constant neck and shoulder issues I hope that this will help eliminate some of the problems I have when doing a lot of typing. I use Dragon speak at work and that's why I decided to try it for home. Of course at work the software was my employer's costs. This one is mine and I think it will be worth it.

Now off to the sewing room with updates later.

Ramblings

I did enjoy my husband's company's Holiday party.  Nice fellowship, food and fun.


Some progress made on the skirt.  I have sewn the lining unit making all the fitting adjustments on it that I needed with the skirt.  I still need to sew the side seams of the skirt now that I have the fit just right.  All markings have been made along the basting stitches; ready to sew when I can get into the sewing room for some sewing time.

I have done very well with the pattern diet.  I received four patterns from Lisel & Company from a Pattern Review 12 days of Christmas give away, some immediate pattern gratification with that.

I have seen a few new patterns from independent pattern makers that have struck a chord for me.  I will have to wait until March though!  That's the plan and hoping to make it through.  So much temptation.

More later.

Yeah, it's the weekend!

Seems last week was a long, long work week.  It is called "budget season" and everyone goes a little nuts because we have deadlines thrown at us for completion of various portions of the budget on top of our usual daily job responsibilities.  So I am happy to have a restful and sewful weekend.

I am so ready to begin my new dress project.  Now that I have made the dress previously I hope it will go together well this time around.  Updates to follow.

Google Reader

This morning while reading pattern reviews at PR, I went to a new blog and wanted to subscribe to this blog.  When I attempted to save to Google Reader, I got a message that this reader will be retiring July 1.

Perhaps you dear reader knew this.  My question is what other reader resources are available that you may currently use? Ease of use? etc.

In prep

The fabric did very well in the washer and dryer.  A lot of the loose fuzz was eliminated and the fabric is a tad softer which is okay by me.

I was out of town a few days this week for business travel.  I had so hoped to be able to visit a Hancock's Fabric store while traveling; it just did not happen.  Not that I don't have enough fabric or patterns on hand.  Actually was going to look at buttons and stock up on a few.

The fabric is laid out on the cutting table and the KS vest pattern is adjusted.  Hopefully this evening I will be able to cut out the vest and set up sewing machine.  Maybe even sew a little.

More later.

Preparing skirt pattern thoughts

Decided to skip CURVES this AM!!! Walking around the grocery store and Walmart later will give me some exercise points today.  It was just one of those Saturday mornings where I wanted to do nothing more than drink my coffee, read some and go into the sewing room.

There have been plenty of discussions around the sewing blog world about using TNT patterns and using those as a jumping off point for creating a new but different garment from the TNT basic one.  I truly admire those individuals who do this time and time again.  I too have a few TNT's.  Given my personality, and supported by various "personality" tests such as Myers-Briggs and Right Path, I tend toward spontaneity and variation from routine.   So I tend to have several patterns that vary a lot or very little from another pattern.

That's the story I am sticking to when another big envelope arrives with more patterns and my husband says, "More patterns?"  Of course they are I say, I don't have these.  I also from time to time talk about my selling patterns on PR or eBay., which as I tell him gives me more funds to buy new patterns when Club BMV has their next sale.

Back to my original thoughts on my blog post for this AM--I just completed the fitting adjustments for the newest of Vogue skirt patterns recently arriving in a big envelope.  As I am making all of these preparations, I am thinking why not use a pattern that you have already perfected the fit and instead of cutting and taping pieces back together?  You could have cut out the fabric and lining for a skirt by now.  That is true; but the thrill of conquering something new is  the key challenge for me.  Sometimes, not all the time, the sewing of the TNT pattern feels like sewing numerous straight stitches to make some curtains for the kitchen or bathroom.  It equates to boring for me.

Please dear reader do not take my remarks personally if you are TNT pattern sewer; I am talking about me not you!  One of the sewists I admire and love how creative she is using her TNT patterns is Carolyn of Diary of a Sewing Fanatic blog.  From reading her blog, my guess about her personality is she is very organized, makes lists and works it.  To me, she is queen, I think, of  sewing with a plan.    My plan most of the time is sewing a skirt, a top, a dress without thinking wardrobe plan and on occasion not really knowing what pattern I am going to use til I walk into the sewing room.

Whatever your sewing personality may be, enjoy your process and enjoy the pleasure you get from sewing.

This and That

I am looking forward to the weekend.  I have taken the pattern out of the envelope and hope to get going on the next skirt.  My work activity this week has just been draining and just no energy to do much more after getting home from work.

I have to say that we had some cooler temps recently and this has been a boost to my doing more planning for some garments for the upcoming fall and winter.  I have definitely taken time to move the spring/summer fabric from the sewing room to the fabric storage room. (That sounds like a vault of some sort, trust me it is not).  And I have selected some fabrics to begin a transition wardrobe.  Coupling those from the stash with some of the new pieces I recently acquired.

I also got an opportunity to visit Les Fabrique in Charlottesville and picked up two nice pieces of fabric at 50% off.  One was an ultra suede piece and the order was a border print linen blend.  I will post some photos of those soon.

Congratulations to several sewing bloggers who were selected to be part of the Mood Fabric Sewing Network!  I think this will be interesting to follow and actually see what this is all about.

More updates later.

I resume this previous broadcast...

As previously posted, the power outage interrupted my previous sewing momentum.  After being home finally after a week in a hotel and getting food restocked and some resumption of normal life, my sewing mojo somewhat disappeared.

This past Monday I traveled to Richmond for a state government committee meeting in the late afternoon getting caught up in heavy duty rain, driving through areas where roadwork slowed down traffic to a crawl along with the rain; coming up on a wreck which slowed traffic some more and getting caught in a heavy evening commute, my usual 2.5 to 3 hour trip took me 4 hours.  By the time I got checked into the hotel, I was too tired to go to Hancock's Fabric as is my habit or even Short Pump Mall.  I went to dinner and then returned to my room to do some work that needed my attention via the computer.

Tuesday's business meeting went well but long.  After a quick trip to Nordstroms, I drove back to Roanoke without all the travel woes I had traveling to Richmond.

The rest of the week was pretty hectic work week and my sewing mojo was just gone.  Thursday night was my ASG meeting and after not attending since February, it was nice to have dinner with ladies who like to sew and I got to sit and talk with our guest speaker, Mary Ray.  I was prepared to think this was going to be more about quilting and she does incorporate quilting into her garments; I was delighted to see the garments she has made and some were made using quilting techniques, but the garments are far from the boxy shaped jackets with lots of piece work and the like.  Many of her garments are showcased in Threads magazine which was nice to see them up close and personal.  I walked away from the meeting feeling my sewing mojo to be on the rise. I even purchased her skirt pattern.

With all of that said, I spent about an hour in my sewing room yesterday.  I attached the lining to the skirt and  now only have a few more steps to take to finally complete this simple skirt.  I have begun the process of looking at fabric stash and thinking on to the next few projects; that for me is a clue that I am going to resume my sewing time once again.

Sewcation Derailed

Last Friday, I was so excited that I could spend the weekend completing my McCall's skirt.  DH was late getting home and I had gone grocery shopping after work so that would reduce my time to do that chore on Saturday.  Once DH was home, we ate a light dinner (supper) and watched a little TV.  He decided it was time to take a shower as it was close to 9 PM.

While watching TV, the floor lamp light near where I set, flickered a few times and I thought then I really needed to get some new light bulbs.  When DH went to take a shower, the power went out, then came back on, then out again, on again and finally out for the night.  We were able to sleep through the night in spite of the high temperatures. Saturday was suppose to be close to 100 degrees.

Saturday AM-still no power.  We decide to go out for breakfast.  Let me say that power surges and outages are somewhat typical for our neighborhood; no rhyme or reason to be given to us from APCo for this in the 9 years that we have lived in our house.  So not having power did not truly phase us until we go out for breakfast and see the storm damage all around us.  Tree limbs broken-new and older trees.  One tree limb laying across power lines on the road that leads in and out of our neighborhood.  Fortunately the tree was only blocking one side of the street and power lines were still intact but could have easily snapped.

Two of our favorite breakfast places were closed due to loss of power.  Several other chain restaurants were open but crowds and waiting time was 45 minutes to an hour.  DH proved to be the smart one and called a hotel to make reservations for us to spend the night based on what we were seeing, hearing and briefly reading about, this was no typical storm that came through.  When checking in, wait time for checking in was over 30 minutes due to long line of people that were in the same situation as we were-no power.  While standing in line, DH called reservation 800# and extended our stay for another day, smart move and smart man.

As it turned out, we have been without power since last Friday, a week ago.  The stay at the hotel has been extended several times, power came back on last night and we will be back in the house tonight.   Today I spent time washing clothes, and scrubbing out two refrigerators as we lost all of food.

Many of you who may read my blog have experienced some of this as the storm came through WVA, Southwest VA and into DC.  I am grateful for the other states (NC, Florida, Indiana) who have sent power crews to assist in this repair and restoration.

I have always felt empathy and concern for others when they have undergone Mother Nature's wrath; I have learned you can not fully grasp how difficult those situations are until you go through it yourself.

I am thankful that I know I will have some more sewing days ahead; sometimes life just takes a different course and derails your plans.

Looking forward to the weekend

Not much going on in my sewing world this week.  I have been thinking forward to the weekend sewing projects.  I have decided I am going to make the peplum blouse first instead of the skirt.  I am seeing this top pop up on Pattern Review as well as on other blogs.  I truly like how each one is so different from another and I saw one this AM where the sewist was wearing it with coordinating shorts.  It was a great idea.  One I may have to copy.

I did order some knit fabric from Linnie Darling, a new source for me.  I saw the name on PR and clicked to visit.  I will have to take a photo of the fabric but for now you can go here to see it.  It is lovely as in the photo, a little thinner knit than I anticipated but well worth my purchase to me.

More later.