B6183 Progress

I only got some real sewing on Sunday.  I completed the back unit and I found an Okay zipper to use for the back zip.

Blue exposed zipper

I had a very difficult time inserting this zipper.  I love invisible zippers and can install one so quickly.  This required two passes to get it right.  I am not real happy with the bottom of it but hopefully no one will get that close to see it.

I have some fullness to take out of the back princess seams from waist to hip.  I basted the side seam after attaching the zipper and sewing the shoulder seams.  Other than that fullness the blouse fits well.  I love that I did not have to do a FBA as I was able to take advantage of the D cup front pattern without needing any extra!

Not a lot more to do and hope to do a few minutes here or there this week.

ASG Meeting

Last evening I attended our local ASG meeting; I have not been able to attend this year as I would like and it was great to be among such talented sewists.  Our guild celebrated its 20th anniversary.  The founder and most all of the past presidents plus current one spoke to the group about its history and growth.

Of course we had sew and tell.  I wore and presented my recently sewn McCall's blouse.

I saw on Pattern Review this morning the winners of the fitted blouse contest; though I was not a winner it was fun to participate in a contest.  The blouse is a winner for me as it has passed the "wearability" factor as well as the washing, drying, no ironing test.  I do see me making some more blouses, not this one for now, as I do have some other lovely fabrics in stash that have aged enough to become something besides just fabric.

I had a great time talking with my sitting partner last night.  It was fun for both of us to learn how much we love shoes and don't really need more but ........  We also seem to be patternaholics as well.

Weekend sewing plans are to make the McCall's knit dress mentioned in an earlier post.  I have pin fitted the pattern and need to make a FBA-no surprise there.  I made the usual forward shoulder, upper round and horizontal tuck for upper chest and upper back.  Still need to make the swayback adjustment.  For the FBA, I really need to figure what technique I want to use so that I can eliminate the resulting dart.

Off to get ready for work.  I am wearing my Butterick dress with front ruffles today.

We have a special employees luncheon today and I am making a presentation of an award to one of my staff.  I have not worn this since late fall; this is one of my favorite dress patterns.

Updates later.

Made the deadline!

Made the deadline for Blouse Contest at Pattern Review!!!!!!  Here is view of the front.

Back views!

Semi side view.

This is my March Garment of the Month also!!!

Deadline looming

I have attached the collar stand and collar to the blouse.  You can see this here and here.  I look photos with my iPad last night and uploaded to Flickr.

Sleeves are ready to be inserted, sleeve cuff to add, buttonholes and buttons.

I ran into some issues attaching the collar stand and collar.  Perhaps neckline stretched some, though I did stay stitch earlier on.  I don't recall having this issue when I made previously and had no notes to myself on the pattern instructions that this was an issue.  After several attempts I finally got it attached okay.

I have to find buttons.  I just don't have enough on hand so will visit JA's today; sometimes they have a good selection and sometimes not.  Praying today is a good day.

Updates later.

More patterns from Club BMV

As I have noted previously, I am a patternaholic!  Club BMV is such an enabler; I am getting better with resisting more pattern purchases. Now, however, I have become obsessed with Indie patterns and have purchased a few recently.

Here are the two patterns I bought during a recent Club BMV sale. Both Katherine Tilton patterns.  I truly love the look of these pants.  I never sew pants; I am going to change that as I want to give these a try.  At my age and time in life, it is rather ridiculous to not give pants sewing a try again.  No more excuses.




 

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Blouse update

I am making slow but steady progress on the M5522 blouse.  Here are a few photos:

The blouse has been hemmed, required to do before attaching front band.  Front band attached and edges topstitched.  The piping truly added some depth to the ruffles.  Here is a close up:

I have also stitched the collar and is read to attach to the collar stand, no photo yet of that.    Not sure what color buttons I will use and need to purchase.  I am thinking black.  The princess seams are to be topstitched and I am holding off on that until the end in case I may need to take in the princess seams.  My second fitting created a doubt in my mind that the blouse was fitting enough; and if taking deeper side seam would work or not.  I still have some time to complete this for the PR contest, but feeling a little pressured now.

I love this fabric but it can be fiddly.  I found when I attached the front band that  fabric "crept" into that stitching and I had to go in and remove stitches and fabric that got caught up in the sewing of the band. 

Will add more photos later.

Spring time!!!???? and Blouse Progress

I am still continuing plans to switch to spring sewing.  Last week we had three glorious days of spring time with highs in the 60's and 70's.  Then Wednesday night, winter returned and Thursday was a high of 28!  Yesterday another great spring day-high of 72.  Today we are expecting rain, temperatures dropping to lows in the 30's with ice and snow called for.
 
If you look in the right sidebar of the blog under Instagram photos you will see a shot of the blouse.  That was the status this morning.  Since then I have interfaced the collar, collar stand, sleeve cuffs and front bodice band.  I have also turned up the hem and plan to stitch that tonight.

I basted the front bands and side seams earlier this week for my first fitting.  I found the size and fit to be good.  I think that I will need to make adjustments to the shoulder length before adding the sleeves.  I cannot find my blouse I made previously; I think I may have decided to give it to Goodwill as I was not wearing it very much.  I remember the sleeves being rather full and will probably made adjustments there also.

More updates and photos later.

McCall's Blouse

I am making good progress on the McCall's blouse.  I am not following the pattern instructions on this one at this time.  The instructions have you sew the the upper front and back together at the shoulders and side seams.  Next you saw the front bottom pieces and the back bottom pieces together and then sew them together at the side seams.  Then you attach the bottom pieces to the top pieces.  Now if you have to make fitting adjustments you have to remove stitches at the seams that attach the top and bottom pieces and then you make have to undo the side seams to get in there and make those adjustments.

By sewing the bottom front to the top front pieces and doing the same for the back, you will then sew the shoulders and sides together.  You then have one continuous side seam and adjustments are easier to make.

Progress so far has been made with front and back units.  The blouse is now attached at the shoulders.  Because the blouse has a front band that you attach to the front of each front piece, I plan to baste this and baste side seams to take my first fitting.  I may need to made adjustments to the front and/or back princess seams of the bottom pieces.  Or I may only need to adjust the side seams.

I am also going to use the ruffle piece with this blouse.  I have already developed a design idea with this ruffle that will be different from the pattern instructions.  More later.

"Sometimes I get a good feeling---"

I have been listening to music this evening and I have this song playing over and over.  Yes, I do have a good feeling as the temperatures rose some today making it feel like spring could be coming some day soon. 

Something did arrive earlier this week, new spring fabric from EOS.  I have not even taken it out of the plastic wrapping yet. 

French floral on stripe knit

Royal blue 11 oz rayon knit to go with fabric above

Floral lightweight cotton

The blue fabric is much prettier than it is showing up here.  My plan is make a skirt to wear with the fabric above it or to incorporate both pieces into a dress.  The floral cotton piece will become a blouse.

Speaking of blouses, I have serge finished the edges of the main bodice pieces of the blouse I am currently working on for the Fitted Blouse Contest at PR and as my Garment for the Month.  Another good feeling.
I hope your week has been going well.  More later.

Blouse progress

I pulled out the pattern pieces for M5522 to see what adjustments were made previously.  I made one additional adjustment-a 5/8 inch high round neck adjustment. Other than this adjustment, I felt all pieces were adjusted correctly for my usual changes.

There are 12 pattern pieces!!!.  Here is the start  of the layout of the pattern onto the fabric.

The fabric is from Vogue Fabrics purchased 2011.  There have been several times that I pulled out this fabric with the idea of making a blouse.  Now was the right time.

Since taking this photo of the beginning layout I have not cut out all pattern pieces.  Next step cut out interfacing for appropriate pattern pieces and for the fabric weight.  Updates later.

Ending and Beginning

I added the neckband to the New Look top.  Sorry, no photo to show at this time.  With all the adjustments I made I am not happy with this top.  There is still something off about it.

After attaching the neckband, the right back shoulder area looks stretched out of whack.  I snugged up the neckband on that side and it still stands away from my body but the left side fits as it should.  I have decided that this top will be something I will wear around the house.  I have spent enough time on it and I can say I learned something about fitting adjustments that I know now that I can use in the future.  Thus I am ending this project and have decided to also end my cold weather sewing.  It is still cold here in my neck of the woods, I am just ready to move onto spring sewing.

With today being March 1, it is time to begin work on my March Garment of the Month.  I had previously posted that I would make a Vogue knit dress, that will be later in the month.  I also signed up for the Intermediate Fitted Blouse Contest at Pattern Review; not the first time I have signed up for PR contests.  I either don't finish in time or others use more patterns or use more fabric to win the stash and pattern contests.
Thus to meet both deadlines, I have decided to sew a blouse for the garment of the month.

From McCall's Patterns Website

This is the blouse.  I made this blouse a couple of years ago.  I made view B previously but did not include the ruffle.  I have auditioned several fabrics from my stash-decisions, decisions, decisions!

Cleaning up and moving on

I decided that I really needed to clean up the sewing room and get rid of a lot of stuff that was just laying around; I also vacuumed up all the debris on the floor.  I then sorted through a huge bag of patterns that really needed to be put away.

I have a fabric storage room-I like the sound of that- but let me clarify that the room stores other stuff as well such as Christmas ornaments and the like.  Plus I have my grandmother's sewing machine and sewing table in this room also.  The bulk of it is plastic containers of fabric.  I am periodically traveling from sewing room which is at one end of the house to the storage room which is at the other end of the house.

I had pulled a lot of fabric for potential sewing projects for the fall and winter.  There were just too many in the room and I decided to cull through the stack of fabric and put it back in storage.

So now that patterns are put up, excess fabric out of the way and floor vacuumed I proceeded to put out top/blouse patterns and fabric to sew up over the next few days.

I will give the Alma Blouse a try later on.  Let me also state that the pattern is a good one and the issue with the pattern is operator error not the pattern.

I will share with you later what I plan to work on next.  Off to the sewing room now.

Next up-blouses/tops

I pulled some fabric that was acquired last year or this year for potential tops to go with this blue skirt as well as navy pants in my wardrobe. The fabric below was acquired from Vogue Fabrics in 2011.

 This is a fairly recent purchase from Fabric Mart; a rayon challis fabric.

This is fabric from Waechters Fine Fabrics in Asheville, NC.

What has not been decided is what blouse/top patterns I will use.

I wore the Vogue top and McCall’s skirt

Today I finally decided to wear the Vogue peplum top and the McCall’s skirt.  I received numerous compliments about the colors and the summery floral print.
As to wear ability—let me say that I will wear this again but there are a few things that I will adjust when making the next peplum top.
First, I will shortened the width of the shoulders.  It felt large.

Second, I will lengthen the bodice by an inch to 1 1/2 inches.  It feels short-waisted but that appears to be how it looks on the pattern envelope.  I felt myself pulling the top down after I had sat in my office chair for awhile.

Third, I had folded out about a 1/2 inch in the upper chest and upper back to bring the underarm seam up for a petite.  I still felt the underarms were low.

Other than that, I did like the top and skirt together.  The skirt felt a little loose in the waist but not too much, actually it proved to be more comfortable as they day went on.

Here are the photos I took before leaving to go to work:

Buttons

The Sencha blouse is complete except for buttonholes and buttons.  I have some beautiful blue buttons but not enough of the ones I wanted to use.  I think I got them at Hancock's when they were going out of business here in Roanoke several years ago now. 

My only close by source is JoAnn's Fabrics.  Hopefully when I go there today they will have just what I need. Another source is in Floyd but time to travel there is just not going to work at this moment.  If no luck at JoAnn's I may try online; that is hit and miss due to monitor colors not always being accurate. 

I am not sure what I want to work on next.  I think I want to make the Kay Unger dress; I am also thinking skirts and most particularly a BurdaStyle skirt in the September issue.  I have read several reviews about it on PR and the reviewer's blog. 

More later.

Cutting and cutting

This morning I completed the cutting out of the Simplicity skirt pattern.  I cut out the skirt fabric last night.  I like to line my skirts and though this pattern does not call for a lining, I do.  So this AM I pressed some Ambiance navy lining fabric that I purchased earlier this year and then cut the skirt lining.

I decided to cut out the fabric for the Sencha blouse by Collette patterns.  Sometimes I just prefer to cut out several patterns so that I have several in the queue to sew.  I had ideas to cut out several other patterns but nixed that plan to move forward with the sewing of these two patterns.

My Club BMV patterns arrived yesterday so will again plan to work on the Kay Unger dress once I adjust the bodice.  I have decided not to use the black/white diamond faille fabric at this time.  I have a lovely royal blue double knit that I think will make up well for this dress pattern.  I suppose I must be in a "blue" sewing mode at this time.

Updates later.

Your either in or your out!

It's out!  I am putting aside the Lutterloh top.  I am frustrated with myself over the "rookie" error I made.  So I decided to move on to some other projects.  I also am waiting for the mailman to deliver my Vogue replacement pattern, so that dress project is on hold.

This is now in!  I have a beautiful navy blue fabric from EOS, it is RPL (rayon,poly,Lycra).  I made another skirt from the same type of material a year ago and I love the fit, feel and wear of that skirt.  I think this will be the same.  I am using a Simplicity skirt pattern purchased within the past month or two.  I cut out the pattern pieces and will pin fit them later.

I also have this lovely fabric (above) acquired from Fabric Mart earlier this year.  I had always planned to use it to make another Collette pattern-the Sencha blouse which stays sold out on her website.  I made this blouse several months ago from some leftover fabric I had in my stash.  As many people have mentioned the blouse is rather full through the upper chest/shoulder/neckline area; mine was also.  The bust, waist and hip fit well.  So I decided to go down two sizes in that upper area.  This fabric is darker looking than shown in this photo.

So the blues are in and looking forward to making these soon.

Saturday Sewing

DH and I spent the afternoon shopping for family and us. New sheets, comforter and a new pillow for me. Time for some spring update for the house. Bought niece some socks to go with a pair of tennis shoes we bought last weekend, an Easter present. Stopped had pizza and then came home. I was then able to have time to spend in sewing room. I worked on the McCall's top. I serge finished the front side seams. I then worked on the ruffle that is attached at the neckline.

Sencha Debut

Here is the completed blouse. I ended up having to take deeper side seams after I sewed on the buttons and tried this blouse on again. I will make more blouses from this pattern but found I really can go down about two sizes in the shoulder/upper chest and go down one size for bust to hip. I ended up taking one inch side seam.

Here is a view of the back. I learned from making this blouse that the back turn back needs to be interfaced up to the fold line. I used water soluble tearaway stabilizer underneath as I sewed the buttonholes and buttons.

All in all I am satisfied with this blouse but the next one will be a better fit.

I did get the sewing machine and serger set up for the McCall's top. Most of my day was spent on putting down new area rugs, laundry and trying to get my netbook to connect with my router. No success there.

More later.

Progress

Buttonholes are completed on Sencha blouse. I only need to sew on the buttons. Fortunately I had some in my collection that I think works well with the blouse. Hopefully will get those sewn on this evening and the blouse will be complete.

I have the McCall's top cut out and ready to sew. My issue with this top is thread. I am having a heck of a time finding a matching thread. The ones that are readily available to me are either too green or too blue. Frustrating! Trying to match with colors on my monitor with online thread sources will be a hit and miss. When all else fails I use grey serger thread. Only with any topstitching, this will not work. I will come up with some sort of solution.

After I make these two tops, I think I will tackle another dress pattern and I want to make a jacket. Have not made a jacket in along time. I think the last one I made was a BWOF one.

More later.