Victoria

I have made considerable progress with the Victoria Blazer.  Our Christmas was low key this year; DH and I stayed home for the holiday.  Both of us have had stressful work lives lately and the thought of chilling out was a nice present to ourselves.  I cooked Christmas dinner on Christmas eve so it was truly a DDSD-don't do stuff day!

DH gave me a new camera and a lovely Brahmin purse.  The camera I got before Christmas and now also have a sturdy tripod to use.  Now I need to take classes on taking better pictures.

















Back to the blazer.  I am just about finished with it.  I am not sure in the end if this will be exactly as I had hoped it to be.  I will say entering the New to Me contest on PR has helped ramp up my sewing mojo.  Having next week off I am happy to sew several other items on my to sew list.

I will say that the By Hand London instructions for this jacket are well written and I think the pattern is one a beginner can tackle.

Here are some photos of the jacket in progress.

Since taking those photos I have now attached by basting the collar and the lapels.  I have sewn the lining fabric.  I am going to line the sleeves though the pattern does not call for it. Because of my fabric the lining will help give it some stability and hopefully less wear of the sleeve fabric.

More later..

Silk for jacket

I have completed the pin fitting of the By Hand London Victoria Blazer.  I cut out the pink and black raw silk fabric.  Boy does it ravel!  It is somewhat loosely woven, thus the raveling and you can see some sections of how loose it is.

I serge finished all seams and I think I will also apply a light weight black fusible to the body of this jacket to provide a little more support.

I have a lot of sewing plans in place in my mind for my upcoming holiday and vacay time.  I don't return to work until 2016!  That has a nice ring to it!!!! :-)

More later.

By Hand London

I began the pattern fitting process for By Hand London-Victoria Blazer.  I am using a pink and black silk fabric that I have had in my stash for a number of years.  You can see it in the photo below.  This is from 2010.

The pattern has a large amount of ease as noted on the finished bust/waist and hip measurements.  I cut a size 12 that may prove to be larger width wise than I want.  Several reviewers indicated that the pattern runs large.

I will be using a black lining that also has been in my stash for sometime.

More updates later.

New fabric from Mood

I took advantage of a fabric sale from Mood earlier in the week.  I was pleasantly surprised when I found in my mailbox yesterday a package with this new fabric.  This was a quick turn around--thank you Mood!

The fabric colors were not as I thought they would be and actually they are more of what I prefer.  I know I will make some sort of blouse/top from this, just not sure which pattern I will use.

Without further ado, here is the fabric--

It is a repeat design not a true border print.  The fabric is a silk with lycra blend.  I also have two fabrics I got recently from Michael Levine in Los Angles.  I forgot I had not taken photos of this fabric.  Adding this to my to do list.

New Fabrics

I mentioned in a previous post that I had purchased two fabric pieces from Sawyer Brook that arrived recently.  Today the fabric I ordered from Denver Fabrics came.  So without further ado, here are some shots of the new fabrics:

Green mid-tone silk rayon fabric from Sawyer Brook, I think it was called Avocado. 

This is the second piece from Sawyer Brook.  It is a cotton with raised circle designs woven in the fabric; I suppose a jacquard.  I think this will be a summer sheath style dress.

Today’s newest additions:

This is from Denver Fabrics, a knit geometric and stripe design.  I am thinking a Jalie knit top with tie.

This is an animal type print in olive green and white.  Also from Denver Fabrics.  Probably will become a knit dress.

I fell in love with the colors and not really sure what this will be but it is a lovely stretch lace fabric.  It is really a lovely fabric in real life, more so than seen on Denver Fabrics website.

Now off to fix dinner and hopefully find time to cut out the KS jacket.  I made some additional fit adjustments to the pattern this afternoon and I think it is a go now!

Update on Holiday/vacation sewing

I cut out the Vogue blouse pattern. I had thought about sewing it up but decided I wanted to spend time cutting out patterns, so I cut out the McCall's skirt pattern. This skirt does not call for lining but because I am using wool crepe I wanted to line it.

I pulled out some silk panel pieces that I got from Fabric Mart as a bundle. I had enough to cut most of the lining from the panel. I used another solid color that matched the green fabric and the green in the silk panel for the lining of the two side back skirt pieces.

I then traced the Burda jacket pattern. Whew! that was a task. I still need to pin fit the pattern. I am unsure about the size I used so I traced the largest and the next smaller size so I can test fit both sizes. The larger size, Burda 44, was listed as a 14 for USA patterns. I hope this is the case. That was a lot of tracing for it not to work. If it is a match to size 14 I will have to do a FBA but that will be okay.

Once I fit the Burda pattern, I will cut out the sage green faux suede fabric. I then will start the actual sewing and plan to sew the Vogue blouse pattern first.