Long holiday weekend

TGIF!!! and a holiday weekend. I will be sewing.

This week I wore two skirts that I made over the past few months. I wore this one Wednesday. I fits better than it looks in this photo. I love the back pleats. I wish I had had time to take a shot of how I looked Wednesday. I purchased a pair of brand new, never worn, suede Ferragamo (sp) shoes from the Discovery Shop, a local thrift store that funds go to help the American Cancer Society. They went with the skirt and knit top I wore perfectly. (This reminds me I need to take some photos of some recent shoe purchases I have made.)

Today I wore the brown herringbone skirt shown here. I truly love this skirt pattern.

Starting on the Vogue dress tomorrow.

Next dress project

I have not made it to sewing room yet this week. I do know that I am going to make Vogue 8593. I keep reading and seeing other bloggers post on this dress. I have seen it in a solid, in large and small prints, on petites and average to tall women.

I hope to get time tonight to at least pull the pattern out of the envelope and start cutting out the pattern for pin fitting. I will be making solid color dress out of gorgeous double knit from Gorgeous Fabrics.

Later!

Butterick 5247 for Immediate Gratification

Recent sewing projects I've completed have been challenging. It is the first time in probably months that I started a dress pattern and completed it in one day. This was a nice project for immediate gratification sewing.

I pin fitted the pattern yesterday morning and began the process of making adjustments to the pattern. I needed a FBA of 1.5 inches; also a swayback and narrow back adjustment. Using my Fit For Real People "bible", I needed this reference to guide me through making a FBA with cut on kimono style sleeves. Using their method I was able to make the adjustments fairly smooth, even though it incorporated cutting off the sleeve and the bottom of the dress and then reattaching and truing up side seams. Some similar cutting and reattaching occurred after taking a narrow back tuck and swayback adjustment. All went back together well.

I cut out the fabric last night. I set up the serger and the coverstitch machine and was ready to sew this AM.

I probably could have completed the dress in two hours including allowing time for fitting. It took me longer as I took several breaks to do laundry, cooking and such. The dress is now complete. The only thing left to do is make the tie belt as this is one option for belting the dress. I also have two other chain type belts I plan to wear with the dress.

The only use of my sewing machine was to sew the darts that I kept as a result of the FBA and to baste the side seams for fitting before serging the seams. All other sewing was with the serger and coverstitch machine. I am loving the coverstitch machine more and more. I am getting much better with aligning the beginning and ending stitches to help stitch over and better secure the stitches. Acquiring the seam guide for the machine has also been a tremendous help.

I took a few photo shots of the dress hanging on the hanger before starting cooking dinner. My second garment for 2010 complete.

Dresses

I spent time in sewing room last night after dinner. I realized I have way too many patterns! Yet I just purchased a few more 'cause they were on sale. I perhaps need to set a goal to not buy any more patterns for 2010.

I decided to go through my dress patterns and find a few that would work with double knit fabric. I acquired a navy blue double knit, I think, in the early part of 2009 from Fabric.com . I just recently purchased double knit from Gorgeous Fabrics. I narrowed my pattern selection down to three potential dresses.

Photos courtesy of Butterick and Vogue Pattern websites.

The first Vogue pattern may have the wrong side of the fabric showing-having not read the instructions yet. The Butterick dress pattern would based on reviews and comments by other bloggers. The navy fabric will work for either of those.

The double knit fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics have two distinct right and wrong sides so the second Vogue pattern is the best candidate for that fabric. Both pieces have been washed and ready to go. So I need to get ready to go myself.

I want to end this post by saying thank you to those who recently left comments on my previous post about my job. I appreciate your empathy. Sometimes you just have to go through, over or around a brick wall. I am getting there and by Monday hope to be on the other side.

2010 Sewing Goals

This week has been the week from ______! since returning to work from vacation. My job was changed once again; I truly was somewhat ambushed by my boss as I did not see this coming. I have had to work through the many emotions that this change created for me. Sometimes you just have to let go and let God! Once I did that I started to feel better.

With this job change, I just have not had the energy to go into my sewing room and prepare for my next sewing projects. Fortunately though, I have allowed myself the opportunity to think about what I want to work on next. I had been leaning toward dresses and have decided that will be my focus at least for this month. I also decided to come up with some sewing goals for 2010. I don't want to set a goal of sewing X garments. For me, not achieving this will feel like failure and I just don't want to do that. So my goals are broad yet measurable.

1. Spend less time at computer taking advantage of that time to do more sewing.
2. Reorganize sewing room.
3. Refashion some garments acquired through Goodwill, other thrift stores,consignment shops and items already in my closet.
4. Reacquaint myself with machine embroidery and incorporate this into a minimum of three garments this year.
5. Work on sewing with a plan.

2009 Sewing Affirmations Review

I posted my sewing affirmations for 2009 on January 3. So how did I do?


1-Take advantage of sewing opportunities and spend more time at machine than computer. I give myself a B on this one. I still spend too much time at computer when could take advantage of sewing time. This will be an ongoing goal for me.


2-I will make some garments from BWOF since I renewed my subscription. I did make three garments (knit top, faux suede jacket, wool skirt) from BWOF; one I just completed today. I have plans to make more garments as I renewed the subscription again.


3-I will learn and use two new sewing techniques.I learned three-all involve working with or around zippers. One was sewing linings by machine to invisible zippers; the other was inserting a regular zipper with the outcome to look like an invisible zipper; the third was attaching a facing to an invisible zipper. I have used two of the three techniques on a fairly regular basis.


4-I will continue to sew for quality not quantity.I really worked on this. I really worked to have well fitting garments, seams lining up as they should, plaids or prints matching up nicely, adding linings to make the garment look and wear better, and more. I completed 23 garments for the year which was a lot less than what some others have recently noted. Not sure if the low quantity is because of this goal or because of goal 1.


5-I will make one good pair of well fitting pants. Oops! I failed this one. Did not even try though I bought two pant patterns. Maybe in 2010. RTW normally fit me just fine.


6-I will strive to use patterns more than once. I made some strides there. I made three skirts from one pattern, a couple of tank tops from a KS pattern and a few other knit tops from other TNT patterns like KS and Jalie. I also have a Simplicity dress pattern I used again for a knit dress. I have a couple of dresses in mind to sew soon and involves using a previously sewn dress pattern.


7-I will use fabric from my fabric collection more often. I think I did better with this one for 2009 but still gave in to the urge to buy more fabric which sometimes got sewn up quickly and other times not and now is aging nicely in my collection.

I have not fully thought through my goals/affirmations for 2010, some of the above, like #1 will be back on the list.

Well, it is back to work tomorrow. I have had a nice time off for holiday and vacation. Even though I did have a bout with vertigo, I was mostly able to do much of what I wanted during my time off. Later.

Three skirts-30 days.

The BWOF skirt is complete! I left off the belt carriers so I don't restrict myself to wearing one size belt. I used the blind hem stitch on my sewing machine to hem the skirt and topstitched the lining hem; quicker by machine. I am glad this skirt is complete.

My plan was to have a month of skirts, thus these three were done in 30 days. The BWOF is the first completed project for 2010. From left to right:Butterick 5249 ( my third skirt from this pattern); New Look 6918 has contour waistband and skirt front overlay. I added a lining; BWOF January 2009 Skirt #112.

And the skirt goes on

Today, I am taking new measurements! I ended up having to take up the skirt even more. So basically all of my fitting adjustments were for naught. For someone who has sewn a long, long time, fitting myself for skirts is rather frustrating. In the past, the issue has always been the skirts were too tight and had to let them out as much as possible; and sometimes that was not enough. I know it is better to take up than let out but!!!! Enough ranting.

I love a challenge and thus is why I choose to try numerous patterns instead of making my same TNT one all the time. Maybe it is the style and the fabric but with the last fitting I thought I had made enough adjustments for the skirt to fit. I had to undo part of the waistband stitching to take up the side seams another 3/8 inch on each side.

It is now ready for hemming. I am debating on whether to use the belt carriers or not. I do plan to wear a belt with this but with the carriers I will definitely limit the belt width. Off to hem now.

Update on BWOF skirt

I am making progress on the skirt. I truly thought I would be finished with it and ready to start on some dresses.

As I stated in an earlier post I made adjustments to the skirt pattern. I added width to the waistband area and added to the skirt as well. In retrospect and from fitting the skirt I did not need to add to the skirt portion except at the top edge that would attach to waistband. Thus I ended up taking deeper seams in the side front area of the waistband and also taking a smidgen in the side back areas of waistband. This resulted in my cutting off about an inch on each side of the skirt front and back. This is the amount I added from top to bottom. This seems like a lot of wasted work but truly I rather have the too big issue than making something that is just too tight. All in all, this is a learning opportunity.

I now have to go back and make the same adjustments to the lining pieces. Once all of those are completed, I will need to hem both lining and skirt. I really like the look of the skirt and look forward to wearing it when I return to work next week.

I now leaning toward sewing some dresses. I am getting encouragement from DH as well.
More updates and photos later.

WIP-BWOF January 2009 Skirt 112

I began working on this skirt yesterday and made good progress. I probably could have finished it but wanted to spend some time with DH.

I began working on the skirt this AM. Yesterday I determined that the front and back facing pieces were not going to cover the entire waistband area. I do not understand why those pieces were drafted that way. I checked the pattern pieces in the magazine and I had traced appropriately. This would look unfinished and rather ugly. You can see what I mean:

My solution was to cut out waistband pieces from lining fabric and will attach to skirt lining. This pattern did not call for a lining. I like linings in my skirts most of the time, and particularly for wool. I drafted a lining for the skirt portion when cutting out the pattern. The waistband pieces will be from silk fabric acquired from Fabric Mart last year. (Odd saying that since this is the new year.)

Here is parting shot of the skirt front. More later:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

I appreciate everyone who stops and takes time to visit my blog. I so enjoy reading other blogs to see what that blogger is working on, to get inspiration and to learn a new sewing technique or a way to improve on how I sew something.

Let's hope 2010 is a better year for all of us; that the economy improves, people are able to return to work, and that the Republicans and Democrats find away to govern for the people instead of their current method of, if one is for something then the other party is not!!!!