Front opening Vogue Dress

Front opening Vogue Dress
Originally uploaded by Danvillegirl

Dress stays open below last snap. Need to incorporate Sandra Betzina's walking ease.

VogueDressSideview

VogueDressSideview
Originally uploaded by Danvillegirl

Side view of me wearing the recently completed Vogue Dress. This was at the end of the day so forgive the disheveled hair. I like the dress BUT there are some wearing factor issues that should I make this again I will change. More about that later.

Fused and marked

Fused and marked
Originally uploaded by Danvillegirl

This is the front piece also fused and serged. The blue marking is for the center front. As I posted below, it was much easier to and safer to make pattern marks after the piece was fused.

Fused&marked2

Fused&marked2
Originally uploaded by Danvillegirl

This is the back piece and after fusing and serging I was able to mark the pleat and notch markings onto the fused piece. I normally snip notches but not with this fabric.

Fused and serged

Fused and serged
Originally uploaded by Danvillegirl

Here is the front piece of the jacket. It has been fused and serged to stablize this fabric. It truly unravels as you look at it. I

I was asked if this fabric contains a chenille weave. I don't think so. It truly has an usual look to it and is much prettier than I can capture in the photos I take. I remember that it is a rayon blend and perhaps the blend is a little wool.

I'm Back

Wow, this computer situation has been a pain. I got my computer back yesterday after being in service since Thursday. I finally got it up and running and beginning the reinstall of sooooooo many programs! I had backed up a lot of things, but I missed some. I am sick about some of this.

Yesterday I took a sick leave day as I scheduled three doctors appointments. I have been having problems with my left knee so I met with Orthopedists. X-rays reveal healthy knees. At this point I am being treated for "Runner's Knee" with an anti-inflammatory pill, ice pack on knee for 20 minutes and some exercises with restrictions on some knee exercises I do at CURVES. If in six weeks still pain, then MRI. Next visit was mammogram-what a fun time that was. Last visit was ob-gyn annual check up. So I call this my head to toe doctor day!

By not having a computer all weekend, I started on the Butterick jacket and made great progress. I took some photos along the way. I hope to post those a little later this week This is a very easy little jacket to make. The difficulty with the one I am making is the fabric.

Quick Comment

Well computer is down again! Can't live with them, can't live without them.

Same problem as last week so back to CC for diagnostic checkup. On the bright side instead of sitting at computer last night and this AM prior to work, I spent productive time in the sewing room!

Just had a minute to post something from work before shutting down for the day. So I may be away from blogging, looking at fabrics, reading other blogs and pattern review and answering emails for a few more days. Just think of all the things I will get caught up on when computer is back and just think of all the sewing I can complete with my free time.

Later.

Sewing in bits and pieces

Last night was our agency's Annual Awards Banquet. Arriving home after 9 pm. No sewing or going anywhere near the room.

Tonight however I did spend some brief time continuing to work on my Butterick jacket pattern. As I mentioned previously, the fabric I am using is rather easy to ravel, just looking at it can cause a thread to fall off. I cut out fusible tricot interfacing that I will fuse to the fabric pieces before serging. I was unable to do any more after that as dinner was expected----food is overrated.

Tomorrow another small bit of time hopefully can be devoted to the actual fusing.

Sewing plan was accomplished

Well I got the blouse pattern cut out. I am using fabric from my stash that I acquired from JoAnn fabrics perhaps three years ago. I wanted to use this as a wearable "muslin" before cutting into my really good fabric. This is a polyester, microfiber of some sort.

I also cut out the Butterick jacket pattern. I found some marking errors with this pattern when pin fitting it. I am making view C and this has pleats at the yoke front and back. When I pinned the pleats for the front pattern I used the numbers for the size to pin the pleat. When I pinned the front yoke to the front bottom it did not line up correctly. After unpinning, I looked at the marking for the pleats and found they had mislabled the pleats. If you follow the pleat marking you find that you cannot go by the number marking but the pleat marking itself. So if you are planning on making this, you may want to make a note to check your pattern. I decided to lengthened the jacket by one inch. It is a shrunken jacket style but I liked the length of it when I pin fitted it but that length was before turning up the hem, thus the decision to lengthened.

The fabric I am using is very ravelly so I will be using lightweight fusible on all pieces to help stablize the fabric and will serge all edges also. Here is a shot of the pattern laid out on the fabric prior to my cutting it.

Lace two designs combined

Lace two designs combined
Originally uploaded by Danvillegirl

Here is a close up of a combined design.

One of my ideas is to replicate the Prada Lace Clutch bag. I also saw a great McCall's tunic pattern with lace shoulders and upper sleeves.

Lace in machine

Lace in machine
Originally uploaded by Danvillegirl

I realized that I had not posted about my lace embroidery project. I think that was because my computer went on the blink. I am creating lace using an embroidery card and my Designer SE. The great thing is that I can also use these embroidered lace designs with my Janome 300 E embroidery machine while I sew with the SE.