Ice is my friend...

 So, ten days out and I'm out of the sling and back to ten fingered typing.

I'm moving my  arm fairly well, if a bit slowly.  At least, so long as I'm raising it straight in front of me, lol.  Lateral motion is not quite so far along.  And my arm is still pretty much purple and green above the elbow. Hence the ice pack, lol.

But I've been told not to lift anything heavier than a coffee cup for at least a bit longer, so, while I think I could manage to do some stitching,  manhandling an iron is still beyond me.  So I think I will work on patterns/ cutting for the weekend, anyway.  Mayhap by next weekend I'll be able to push the iron around and press seams and hems and such.

But, you know, I was extremely blessed in this whole thing.  Not only that we caught it early enough that it was a simple fix...so far as orthopedic surgery goes, that was probably the least invasive, most minor procedure I could have had, but the surgeon told me in my post-op visit that he was glad we'd gone ahead and done it, because 'there was bad stuff going on in there'.  I had two small bone spurs that were beginning to saw away at tendons and such.  He cleaned up the 'frayed' bits, but no major repairs were needed...yet.

But beyond that, I realize that I was extremely fortunate to be able to get it taken care of. We have fairly good insurance, and I have a job that is flexible enough that I can take off time/ work from home so that I could actually get the repairs done.  I know there are many, many folks who don't have that option.   My Sweet Babboo can work from home so he can take me to my therapy appointments until my arm is up to driving...maybe next week. And that's a blessing, too.

I did a little checking to see what causes bone spurs...basically, it's the body's response to osteoarthritis/ thinning cartilage in the joints.  Now, I've been told for years that our bodies are basically very smart and can heal up but...can't it tell the difference between cartilage and bone?  If I'm losing cartilage, that's what it should be making...right?  (Insert laughing emoji). 

So, not much sewing will be happening in the immediate future, but I might be able to get a queue of sorts lined up and ready to go once I feel like I can do all the stuff.  Janice has been releasing the August wardrobe picks piecemeal this week because she's had trouble finding suitable garments.  The Hydrangea picks will be in Friday's post, but the four that have been released already are quite heavily leaning to fall.  I'm not sure I'm going to follow suit; down here, I've got at least 8 more weeks of full on Summer before things even start to cool down.  I am not ready, in so many ways, to start prepping for fall.  So I'm thinking.

Which is good, because I can't do much else...lol...

Workin' on the Second Set

 ...because I feel really lame talking about the February wardrobe picks when it's halfway through May, lol.

But, we had ankle pants, a knit top, and a denim overshirt for February.   I had some pink chambray for the overshirt; I copied off the pattern and laid the fabric out and realized that I just wasn't going to be happy.  It was too red.  I wanted a true pink, not red mixed with white to look pink.  So I did one last check of what was online, found some lightweight pink cotton twill and ordered it.  But that meant the shirt was on hold.

So,  I waffled a bit on the ankle pants.  I thought about just using denim capris, but it didn't really fit the aesthetic.    I pulled up my pattern catalog (the whole reason I keep my Pattern Review membership, lol) and got reminded of a pattern I've been wanting to make for a while now...an Out of Print Vogue/ Marcie Tilton pattern for lantern-style pants, Vogue 8712.  I dug around and found some very lightweight rayon-blend denim, purchased something like 8 years ago to make a shirt. But it was a bit darker than I wanted, once it arrived, so it has been in a bin since.  The reviews indicated that a drapey fabric would be best for the pants so...bingo.  I had actually altered the pattern a couple of years ago but didn't get it made up and I had a jolly time trying to figure out what I'd done.  I finally pulled out a TNT  New Look pull on pants pattern to compare and convinced myself they would work.

I decided to make a cut-on waistband, so I raised the top edge, and then I reshaped the pockets a bit. With the side entry I kind of thought stuff would fall out, so I made them a little deeper and shaped them so they wouldn't be hung up in the sideseam quite as much.

So I cut out the pants Monday and Tuesday, and yesterday the pink twill arrived.

Ohmigoodness, it's PERFECT.  I ran it through the washer and dryer and got it about half cut out last night.  Finished cutting it a little bit ago; all that's left to cut is the interfacing.

But LOOK at that pink.  It's a dead match for the pink in the first set.

And I can't remember the last time I actually had something cut out the day after I got the fabric.  

Changes to that pattern...I turned the collar piece into the cut-the-upper-and-under-collar-at-once shape that Nancy Zieman and Louise Cutting advocate, and I pulled out my copy of David Page Coffin's Shirtmaking to get the placket for the sleeve; the pattern just had a continuous lap, which I thought would be truly awkward in the twill.  It's light enough for a shirt, but it's bulkier than I wanted to do something as fiddly as a continuous lap.  This will be my first go at DPC's placket technique, but I've done it before with other patterns so I think I can make it work.

I have some more cloth diapers to finish off before I change the thread in the serger but I think I'm going to have a really good start on the 'February' combo.  'March' will be easy...I can pretty much pull that from the closet.    

Still playing catch up...lol...

Still no garments made this year...

 Ok, I still have no real sewing to report.  I have been mending all the facemasks....where the bendy bit has worn through or broken, and a tedious business THAT is...and I have worked hard, if not too successfully, at reviving a lost art:  Darning socks.

I remember in the last year of my grandmother's life she moved around between my mom & dad's house and that of my dad's siblings, as she was dealing with cancer treatments that left her really not able to care for herself.   But one thing she did while she was at my parents' house, at least, was darn socks.  I remember going to visit when The Princess was about 5 months old and being astonished at the incredible work done on the toes of relatively cheap socks.  But my grandmother was of the 'make it do or do without' generation, so she darned the socks.  I, however, bought socks that were so cheap it made more sense to throw them out when they got holes in the toes...which they did at a truly ridiculous rate.  But, fast forward mumbledy mumbledy years and I have become enamored of cushy and supportive and ...expensive... socks.  Socks that don't wear through the 2nd or 3rd time you wear them.  But...even these wear through at some point, and they are definitely worth the effort to darn.

Even if I am terrible at it.

Case in point:

 Sigh.  At least no one will see the toes.  It might help if I had an actual darning knob; I put them over a laundry detergent measuring cup cap.  It worked...sort of.  

 I have also washed my 'MOB Dress' rayon crepe, and I discovered something when I pulled it out of the dryer...

(hanging lengthwise)

 

(Hanging crosswise)

That print is actually horizontally oriented!  The more I look at it the more I think I'm going to have to cut the dress out on the cross grain, just so those twiggy things look...right.

And I am going out on a bit of a limb for the pattern.  I wanted something with a bit of a vintage vibe but a trip to JoAnn's didn't really turn up exactly what I was looking for.  So I dug through the pattern stash and found a dress pattern that I made up sometime in the 1998 - 2000 time frame (the copyright date is 1997).  I loved that dress and wore it and wore it until some weird something happened and it got a hard, melty place in it (it was rayon crepe...so go figure).  I don't know what it was but it was truly tragic.  HOWEVER, it is the size I wore 20 years ago...

I'ma gonna hafta size that puppy up a little bit, ahem.  But this is the closest I could find to the  dress I want, so we'll see if my fitting skills are up to the task.

And we'll also have to see if I can find appropriate buttons.  I may be scouring the internet.  I really have not had much luck looking for buttons; all the sites seem to be so hard to navigate.  I just want to search for, say, 3/4" blue buttons, but...for some reason that isn't very searchable.  

I have a wee bit of unselfish sewing to do, and I have at least ONE thing my wardrobe needs desperately, but maybe by the weekend I can see about altering up this pattern to fit the current bod.  I do seem to remember that it was generously...maybe even excessively...blessed with ease, so perhaps I won't have to add as much as I expect.  We shall see.

On the Cutting Table...

You may have noticed that bodacious number under 'Fabric In' for this year on the sidebar.

I can legitimately claim that 12 yards were purchased for sewing facemasks; I am slowly whittling that down...but the rest represents a lot of wishful thinking.

One of the pieces that I bought early in the year was a printed knit from Gorgeous Fabrics.  I can't just make a plain ol' T shirt out of it; I think the impact would get lost.  It needs to be a part of something that will set it off...then, if I have any left, maybe I'll make a sleeveless t or something.

I pondered and I pondered...but the pattern that kept coming to mind was

Vogue 9108, the view with the full back (not the criss cross straps):

I read the reviews, thought it over, read the reviews again, pondered a bit, and then finally went looking through the stash to see if I had anything that would work with that print.

I think I found enough:

The print 'reads' as light in intensity, for all that the colors in it are bright; I have purple knit that matches the bit of purple in the print and it could work, but I think it would fight the print for attention.  The gray is  more on the right intensity level, I think.  Then the stripe and a bit of blue on the bottom; I've got both a hot pink and a green ribbon; I'll play with it when I get there and see what looks the best.

I think I am just so weary of cranking out masks...and I haven't even made a fraction of what some folks have done...that I'm ready for something a little bit weird and a whole lot fun.  My only hesitation is that all of that rayon knit could possibly be heavy and droopy. 

If I can just mix a little fun sewing in amongst the masks, I think I will enjoy it all a whole lot more.

And maybe I would quit wandering into temptation on those fabric sites...lol.

Choir Wardrobe 04.09.17

SO...here's the Vogue 9057 top that is fresh off the sewing machine as of 10 PM last night...which is something, considering the flat fabric arrived on my doorstep about 2 PM yesterday afternoon.    The color is terrible to photograph...a pearly dusky pink.  Which is pretty much the standard interpretation of 'mauve'.  But it looks washed out beige in about every photo.  Worn with the Burda vest that I wear All. The. Time. and the pin stripe tropical wool modified Oxfords from last year's SWAP collection.  Interesting thing about those stripes...I think they're tan and gray, but, being only two threads wide, they can read as other colors...including mauve and lavender.

That same box contained 2 yards of  a mauve-ish lace yardage as well, but it was something of a disappointment.  The color is perfect and the pattern is lovely but...it's very stiff, being embroidered/couched on fine nylon net.  I had rather anticipated some drapey lace and had something in particular in mind.  But it's not at all drapey.  Whatever I do with it...it's going to be kinda like wearing denim, as it's about that stiff.  And there are odd spots in it here and there where the filler in the cording shows through...and it's a kind of odd, oh,  greasy-sewing-machine-lint color.  I may be able to satin stitch over it and cover it up, but it's rather annoying.  Why did they use such a yucky filler for the cording?


But it is pretty at a distance, anyway.  I thought about making a denim-style jacket out of it , but I really don't have time for anything that involved. I'd like a long vest, but I'm not sure if it will hang or stand, if you know what I mean.

My own personal sewing challenge...make something I can wear by Friday this week.    So it's gotta be ridiculously quick.

Think...think...think...

Choir Wardrobe 2 07 16 - Grayscale February

Black, white and gray.  Sounds like February, doesn't it?  (we can add a pop of red or pink next week as it is Valentine's day...lol).

But I wanted to try the monochromatic gray, which, according to the featured Bloglovin' style post, is tres vogue right now.

As if.  LOL.

So.  A gray RTW baby cable cotton T Neck sweater,  the gray denim Jalie Jeans Jacket, and a pair of wool/lycra pants that I made from a Burda pattern  back in something like 2003 that I might or might not have reviewed but am too lazy to go look it up.  The pants fit really weirdly and I threw them into the back of the closet...now, 15 pounds later they fit fairly well.  Ya never know...

I made the long necklace, too, discovering that wire work is not as hard or as time consuming as I thought it would be.

Another craft to stash stuff for...lol...

Speaking of stash, I HAVE CUT OUT EVERY PIECE OF FABRIC THAT ARRIVED IN MY ONLY PURCHASE SO FAR THIS YEAR!  Yes, I know that's yelling but that's huge.  I'm so proud of me at this moment. :-D

AND - I've cut tops out of two other pieces of fabric as well.

So now it's time to leave the cutting table and actually sew some stuff.

Some of it might even actually turn out to be SWAP worthy.

Which, I know, is not the heart and soul of SWAP... I'm supposed to make a plan and stick to it.

But, you know...I think if you BUY with a plan...think how the pieces will work as you accumulate them... SEWING with a plan kinda automatically happens.  The tops will go with the bottoms will go with the toppers.  Because the fabric all coordinated as it came in.

Just a thought...

I have not forgotten about the 10 Year Giveaway, either.  I'm coming up on  1800 posts to Sew Random; I'm shooting for having the giveaway ready to announce on the rollover post.

Which is about 12 posts away.  Stay tuned. ;-)

On the cutting table

...the pledge I made to myself last summer was to 'add nothing to the stash until my next birthday'...which will be in July.

And the last fabric purchase was July 2.

But my navy blue rayon/lycra t-shirt, which was floppy to begin with, has completely stretched out of shape.    So, being in need of a new blue T, I clicked through to Fabric Mart and discovered that they had jersey knits on sale for 50% off.

Fate, no?

So I snagged 2.5 yards of a blue rayon/lycra jersey, and, to make the shipping worthwhile, I also got the last yard of  a charcoal gray modal/lycra and a yard and a half of a blue/white rayon/lycra stripe.

My hubby was tut-tutting me for ordering fabric...until I told him this was the first purchase since July.  HE'S bought way more fabric for his re-enactment gear than I have in the past 9 months...lol.

I figured it would be three-four tops (depending on how generous the cuts are; FM sometimes is quite generous), which I could sew up pretty quick.


The fabric arrived today:

I've already washed it and it's up on the cutting table for a date with the patterns and weights tomorrow.  It all feels yummy; I'm looking forward to getting some nice new tops.

But.  Wouldn't you know.

The blue one...the one I needed the most...is rawthar sheerish.  I checked the description again and it DOES say 'semi sheer'.  Oy vey.  How'd I miss that?  I usually scroll right by anything that says 'semi sheer'.  I guess I was just suckered in by the perfect color.

It's only sheer if stretched.  So that just means I've got to use it for something drapey.  And I have no clue what that is going to be a this point...so, as much as I don't want to do it, it may end up in the stash whilst I contemplate a suitable pattern.  Since I've already sewn up 2 3/4 yards, that will not be a net gain in the stash so technically I'd still be ok on my pledge.

But...rats.

Squeezing in a queue addition and a RTW rant...

We have company coming this weekend, which means I have to make the room I use for cutting back into a guest room.

It's not in too bad of a shape...well, it's been worse, anyway.  But I'm determined to get a top cut out before I pack it all up.

I've traced off virtually all the pieces of Vogue 9057  ...the view with the shirttail hem, the view with the pointy hem, both views with the assymetric hem...which I traced face up and face down, to get that offset...and the bracelet length sleeve and the deep-hemmed-for-rolling long sleeve and an extra short sleeve to be rolled a bit, plus one neckline binding to use. (And I just realized I didn't trace the armhole binding for the sleeveless version...rats...).  But I'm going to cut one of those out of the yummy brown rayon 4-way stretch that's been in the stash a while.   Probably won't get it sewn this weekend...there is company coming, after all...but soon.  Hopefully before Oct. 25th, so I can wear it in choir this month.

And we still have a plastic curtain with a red zipper blocking the back part of the house...fall break means the contractor went to the beach with his family.  So.  We have oddball stuff just crammed everywhere; it's going to be an interesting visit.

I had a wee bit of time yesterday between leaving work and having to be home for my youngster to climb in the car and head off to his second shift janitorial job, so I stopped at the mall in search of some colored jeans.  I wanted a gray pair and a brown pair.

I parked in front of the store that I'd had jeans-purchasing success in earlier this year, but a quick wander around didn't turn up any colored jeans.  So I hiked to the department store at the other end (fortunately it is not a huge mall).  I found three tables with colored jeans...Gloria Vanderbilts, Lees, and another brand that escapes me at the moment.

I started trying on 14's and 16's.   That was the size I'd bought last.

They were huge.  Granted, they were high in lycra content and they were labeled as 'relaxed fit' but...holy cow.  I went back and tried again.

I ended up with a pair of 10's and a pair of 12's that might be a bit big but I was tired of trying on.

Now, before you get all excited that my weight loss program has worked so well, I need to tell you that there is no weight loss going on here.

In fact, I currently weigh about ten pounds more than I weighed when I checked into the hospital nearly 30 years ago to deliver my firstborn.  When my regular, non-maternity size was a 10.

There is NO WAY I should've  left the store yesterday with size 10 pants.  NONE.

Now, I'm way beyond thinking the number on the size tag means anything at all.  But it would've saved me a LOT OF TIME had those jeans been marked for the actual size I am.  Then I would've tried on the right size to begin with, instead of pants that were two to three sizes too big.

 CRA-ZEE.

At least they were on sale.  I got both pairs for less than $60.  That was encouraging, considering I was on the brink of giving Stitch Fix a try with a request for gray jeans...knowing that the jeans that came in the one box I sampled had a $128 price tag (that whole box went back...).  I was that convinced that my wardrobe NEEDS gray jeans.  So, while I'm shaking my head over the size tag, I'm tickled to get something new into the wardrobe;  the only non-blue-denim I've worn in longer than I can remember is black.

You will see them in the Choir Wardrobe.  Probably a lot.

They'll look good with those Tilton tops..

A Quick choice

Although this may look pink on your monitor, it's actually lavender...really and truly the very shade of lavender that is this month's accent color for choir.  I was looking for another piece and found it in my linen bin.   4.5 yards that I believe came from Michael about 11 years ago; I probably ordered 3 and it was cut very generously.

But it is a fairly substantial linen.  Soft and kind of lofty.  If you click on it, you can get an idea of the weave and the texture.

Obviously not getting it done for tomorrow, but there are 3 Sundays left in May and I really and truly have NOTHING but a scarf in this color.  So I need to make at least one item up really quick.

A tunic?  A tank top?  An unlined jacket?  A little tailored top?

Oy, the choices are endless but the time is not.

Think think think....

Back to the cutting board...

I got the 2nd go at the Neue Mode jacket complete to the sleeves; it was looking pretty good.

Until I tried to put in the sleeves.

I had something like 1 1/4" too much ease in the front, after I *thought* I had painstakingly walked the seams to make sure I didn't.

I pondered what to do.  At some point, I wished I had an already-tweaked TNT jacket to compare the pattern to, but I didn't.

Or did I?

I wore one of my McCall's 5191 jackets to work last week, and when I got home that night I realized...that one might do.

Now, I looked hard at the McCall's jacket and it is wide on the shoulders, with a shallow sleeve cap.  I don't think I'd be comfortable in it had I not made it from lycra-blended fabric. But, taking that into account, I compared the Neue Mode jacket to the McCall's and found that I still needed to raise the underarm (cough) slightly. 

 You can see the two iterations of underarm-raising clearly...I ended up raising it something like 2", and adding a good bit of fabric just in front of the lower armsceye.

Once I had the  armsceye adjusted, I began to work on the sleeve to make it match. 

The Neue Mode sleeve was actually rather large on me anyway, so I narrowed it  by slashing from the cap to the hem and overlapping the sleeve cap.    I did it to both in front of and behind the shoulder point, and that resulted in a need to shorten the cap height to true up all the seams.

But I was still over an inch too long in the front.  I finally took a wedge out of the front, tapering to to nothing by the back seam.

I have a weird looking sleeve, but it does actually kind of resemble illustrations I have seen in old pattern books.  So who knows. 

Finally, I ended up narrowing the back at the lower armsceye, where I had a pouf of fabric.

So I took apart the muslin, trimmed down the pieces that could be trimmed down, cut some of the new ones from pieces that had to be replaced, and ended up cutting a new front and side front.




So it's ready for the 3rd time.  If this one looks bad, I may just ditch the pattern for the time being and  try one from a pattern company whose sloper is more familiar for my black denim jacket.

And, you know, I was cutting , so I also cut out  a first go at the Sewing Workshop's Helix pants...to which I have, whaddya  know, added pockets.  A turquoise Jalie top and a black-and-gray strip Jalie t.

A goodly number of these garments will work for SWAP, but I'm not sure I'm going to finish.  The Refashion/reversible requirement may KO me at the last minute.  I had a plan for that...a silk blouse that's been cut out and in the queue for a REALLY long time, using buttons I'm removing from a worn-out version of the same pattern.  But the SWAP plan is turning out to be fairly casual and I'm not sure a silk blouse will be 'sympathetic' to the rest of the collection.

And I'm losing an  entire weekend in April to a sudden out of town trip.

We'll see...

In the Queue...

We had a 'winter weather event'...basically an ice storm although it was not as bad as it could've been, it was bad enough to close the roads for a couple of days.

So I spent some time at my cutting table...

I unpicked the denim jacket muslin and trimmed some pieces, recut others.  It's back in the queue to be sewn up; hoping I have solved the shoulder issues and can cut out the fabric.

But I moved on to the second version of the McCall's 6436 shirt; this one in the white.  I moved down the bust dart, cut the collar about 1/4" back away from the center front on the band, added a pinch to the back hip and reworked the 'painless placket' to be a little more useful.  Hoping that works on that one as well.  If it turns out, it's a SWAP item done.

One of the things I kinda went crazy on in the last sales was fabric for scarves.  I bought two pieces of silk chiffon/charmeuse burnout...two yards, split in half lengthwise, will make two oblong scarves.

So that's four scarves...two for me, two to give away.

I also bought two pieces of cotton voile, with the same thing in mind.

One of the pieces of cotton voile I've put back for later...I may make scarves, or I may do something else.

The silk has been cut into rectangles and is slowly getting fed through the narrow rolled hem foot on the sewing machine.  I'm very glad these are not going to be closely inspected.  There is a knack to that rolled hem foot...maybe I'll get it by the time I get all four of those made.

The other piece of voile I cut first...it was a bit longer than 2 yards, and it was 54" wide so I'm thinking I might actually squeeze a camp shirt out of the piece that didn't turn into the scarf.

But...it was kind of a border print.  Ziz zags running the length of the fabric; broad on one side and narrower on the other.  I cut the scarf from the narrower side, and the campshirt...or whatever...is going to have to be cut on the crossgrain, I think, to keep the pattern balanced.

Thank you, Patrick Grant.  I've learned the importance of pattern balance... ;-)

I did that scarf first and the rolled hem foot finished it off quite nicely.  The silk is another story...

Anyway, whilst I was cutting I pulled out a remnant of some poly shirting that I had to give a go at  the cut-on-cap-sleeve shell  from New Look 6273.  I'm auditioning it for the silk charmeuse  tops that I need for the SWAP plan...if it works, I'm a happy camper.

And, Lucite green (or mint green or seafoam green, as it has gone by in years past) being a color for choir, I managed to get one piece in that color in the new acquisitions as well. It's a bit thin, so I'll have to wear a cami under the Hot Patterns LaStrada top I squeezed out of my slightly more than one yard.  I'm not sure I have thread the right color for that, though...I've still got to check.

Finally, since I was auditioning new patterns, I finally cut Katherine Tilton's Vogue 8691 from some marbelized blue-on-white cotton jersey.  I left off the little floucy things, because the reverse of my fabric is just white and I didn't want the backside showing.  I'm not sure I had enough fabric for the flouces anyway.  We'll see how it looks with the little peaks on the regular hem.

And a tablecloth, just because the fabric was in the way and it'll be a quick rolled edge on the serger. (yes, it was upholstery cotton intended for a tablecloth...).

So I've got somewhere close to 10 yards in the queue.  And I'm making myself do those fiddly scarves first, whilst the rolled edge foot is on the machine...

A bit of cutting...

Company coming this weekend means that the spare room that has morphed into the cutting room has to be cleaned up and turned back into a bedroom.

So I decided to cut several projects out...so I won't have to turn it back into a cutting room in the near future...and I have some projects that I can work on in small increments.

A Jacket muslin.  A first go at a button-front shirt.  Three t shirts and a novelty top.

And I have another mongo promo shirt that I've whacked down that just needs to be sewn back up.

That was about all my complaining back would allow at one go.  But now I've got a small bin of projects all ready to sew up.

'Course...company coming this weekend means I won't have much time for sewing this week, but, well, it'll be ready when I am. 

Next Up: Tan Jacket

Ok, well, khaki, but it'll pass for tan.

We've had a number of months in which 'tan/beige' has been one of the choir colors and I've kind of danced around the edges of it because, really, it's not one of my more flattering colors.

But, well, having a tan jacket would certainly go a long way towards improving my choices.  And I realized this week that I had a large piece of khaki stretch sateen from which I could probably squeeze a jacket AND a pair of pants...so I decided to use it to test out a jacket pattern that's been in the 'on deck' box for about 2 years now (and, I just discovered, is listed as 'Out of Print' - boo!), McCall's 5860.  So, yesterday I pulled it out, traced it off, and made the following alterations:

1) added 1/2" to all vertical seams except center back and center front.  High bust size is 14, the largest size in the envelope, but as I've said before, I'm, um, over that size everywhere below my high bust measurement. ;-)

2) made a 3/8" square shoulder adjustment

3)Lowered the bust shaping 1 1/2 inches and added a 1/2" FBA

4) Shortened the sleeves 2"

All of those are pretty much standard adjustments for me; however, when I cut out the cuff for the jacket and checked how much circumference it had, I found that it would be a whopping 12 1/4", buttoned up.  So I whacked THREE INCHES off the cuff side seams, and then narrowed the lower edges of the sleeve (on the graded seam) to match.  Yeesh.  The sleeves on the envelope photos do not look nearly that floppy. Sigh.

Oh, I also did the Louise Cutting modification to the collar AND the collar band...trace the pattern, split it on the center back, tape the front edges together, overlapping the seams, and add a seam allowance to one of the cut  center back edges.  The other CB edge goes on a fold.  That'll eliminate a bunch of bulk at the front edge...I may even tape the facing to the jacket front to eliminate that seam as well.  

I'm debating adding side seam pockets, and I have just about convinced myself that it would be a good idea.  Small ones, you know, just to hold a kleenex, 'cause you never know when you'll need one during worship...

We have a wedding to attend today, so I don' t know if I'll actually get any fabric cutting out done.  My project for next week...if I have time. 

Standard rant:  this is a P/P Perfect Pattern, which means it does have things like the bust point marked, waistline marked, etc, BUT...those markings are only on some of the pieces.  Would it be too much to ask for the waistline and bust point level to be marked on ALL body pieces?  That would make alterations SO much easier...sigh...

Almost there...

I am within spitting distance of having all the non-wardrobe sewing caught up...do you suppose I might actually get to spend a little of the holiday weekend doing a little personal sewing?  Maybe?

Finished...all the costume pieces I have had assigned to me so far.  There may be a few more before the kids go to camp...after all, camp is pretty much the epic high point of the summer theme...but at the moment, I'm done.

Finished...a little sewing room organization project that's been languishing for about 2 years.  I had some remnants from sewing a table cloth, and I got the brilliant idea of making a long skinny sack with a pocket on it to store my rulers.  Ignoring the still out-of-place-due-to-home-renovations clutter around my little cart, and you can see the finished product:

The cording is a remnant piece, and is probably just a little too long; the bottom of the bag is on the floor, but it is sufficient for the task of keeping my rulers handy.  I didn't make a pattern, and I didn't even really make a plan...just made it up as I went.  But those pieces have been cut to size and floating around my sewing room for a LONG time while my rulers wandered about on their own.  So glad to have that finally put together and put to use!

The other long-languishing project is a salvage job on a mattress pad.

I've talked before about the difficulties of finding good bed linens for our waterbed; I've made the last 4 or 5 sets of sheets, just because I can't find them ANYWHERE.  The mattress pad is a similar story.

We bought a pad when we bought the bed back in 1980; after a number of years it began to get thin so we replaced it.  Now, the original pad was just a flat piece of quilting with strips across the corners; you lay the pad on the mattress, reach between the pad and the corner strips and grab the corner of the mattress, pull it through, then flip the strip under the corner.  Easy and anchored.  But the new pad that we bought was not made that way.  No, the head and foot edges were elasticized, and there was a tricot knit side piece, all of which was supposed to be wrapped around the mattress.  It wasn't easy, it wasn't secure, and after a ridiculously short amount of time the tricot side panels began to split.  So we went back to using the nearly worn out older one.  But, I had the brilliant idea of using the old pad as a pattern and cutting the new pad to size, using the remnants for strips and...ta da...new pad that actually worked.

But, well, I never really got motivated to do it.  Until I laundered the old pad for the last time and the worn spots just became large gappy holes.  So.  Last week, I pulled out the newer, useless pad, cut off the tricot, unpicked all the elastic, and laid it out under the old, shredded pad and did some whacking.

It was fortunate that the newer version was meant to wrap around the mattress somewhat; I had plenty left over for those corner anchor pieces that you can see on the old pad on top.  I have now serged all around the cut-down pad and corner strips and sewn the corner strips on.  All that remains is some bias tape binding just to make sure it's not going to fall apart on me too soon.  Not sure what I'll do if this one shreds...but, in all honesty, at this point it ought to do us until we decide that things like acid reflux will have made the waterbed a thing of the past...

But tonight, I hemmed a dress for a friend to wear in, um, let's just say a special event coming up very soon.  My only request for compensation will be that she doesn't tell ANYONE who hemmed her dress.

So...I'm breathing just a bit easier now that I'm nearly to the end of this tunnel...trying to decide what I'm going to sew next.  Choir clothes, I'm sure...I got no Tangerine for next month... ;-)

Blue thread up

I finally finished the gray Jalie cardigan; no pictures yet because it is soaked with starch and looks all waterstained. So it went from the sewing machine into the laundry.

That fabric was not at all cooperative in sewing, but at least I know how to more-or-less tame it now. Good thing; I've still got three more pieces of that knit, in other colors, to turn into garments.

And I finished up the tablecloths; just set the serger for a rolled edge and whipped 'em through.

Then I put blue thread on the serger. I brought home the baptism robes that have been sitting under my desk needing side seams and hems since...gee, I don't remember when. They really do need to be finished, if just to get the guilt off my shoulders for taking so long ;-). I have a Burda pattern cut out ready to go, too...it's a top, but the pattern is one of those 'top or dress' deals, depending upon how much length is added. I actually want a dress from it, but figured the top would be a good test of the fit. Think I'm gonna take a quick break from sewing choir-related stuff and do a test; I'll be wanting that dress before long, I think.

On the Wedding Front, The Princess has just decided that it will be simpler all around if each girl just goes and purchases a dress she likes in the prescribed color. So she will be mailing color swatches off to them soon and I am not going to be making any dresses.

'Cept mine and the Flute Player's. But I'm not even going to do the muslin until after we get back from Girls' camp in a couple of weeks. Then I'm actually going to start working on my dress.

Hm. Maybe I should order the underlining silk organza one of these days soon...

Even in a blackout, the stash grows...

This is from Fabric Mart's Easter Egg Sale...y'know, the one that started at 20% and incremented its way up to 30% as you bought more.

I really struggled with that. Had the cart filled up to the 30% line more than once, then went back and culled it down. This is what I decided I couldn't live without.

It arrived a week ago, while the power was still out. Couldn't even prewash it. (note: I did that today...)


One of their Trendy Jersey knits...for the Flute Player, actually. I plan to remake that orange Madison Avenue dress a size bigger so it doesn't fit quite so snugly. I also got some of the Trendy Stretch Rayon...the fuschia/purple watercolor floral. I'm thinking this is going to be a Kwik Sew 3521. We'll see.

The purple is one of their bamboo jerseys. Oh. What. Yumminess! I've got about 3.5 yds; I'm actually toying with the idea of making a Madison Avenue dress for ME, with a matching Jalie cardigan...if I do that, I'll make 3/4 length sleeves.

But right now I'm cutting out jackets. I finished the sparkly Simplicity 2603 top, which I'm planning to wear for choir tomorrow, and am progressing to the gray denim Jalie Jeans jacket (whilst I have gray thread on the machines, you know). But I've also cut a turquoise light weight wool gabardine jacket from Vogue 1100; I've got the fabric and the lining cut; all I have left is the interfacing and that one'll be in the queue. I expect us to wear turquoise for choir sometime this summer; we've worn it for the past 2 or 3 years...maybe this time I'll be ready ;)

Check the Queue

I did some pretty major cutting over the weekend; I managed to get 3 Jalie tank tops, a black rayon matte jersey Simp. 4076 wrap top (inspired by the Cold Water Creek perusal), the currently popular Vogue cardi-wrap from a soft and semi-sheer black jersey, a pair of wool-lycra blend Oxford pants and a linen Stars in Heaven tunic cut out for me, and a couple of knit tops cut out for The Flute Player. I expect to do some costume work for the drama magnet competition one-act, The Compleat Works of William Shakespear (Abridged (abridged)) and I've got to clear all of my sewing/cutting paraphernalia out of the sunroom for some repair work, so I wanted to have a few things cut and ready to sew when I can catch a few minutes. I hoped to get the muslin cut out for the Burda jacket, but I didn't get that far.

However, all of those are 4-hours or less projects, so I *think* I can get through them fairly quickly...even if it's just fifteen minutes at a time.

I just have to re-evaluate my personal conception of the meaning of 'quickly'.

More Fabric In...

Well, despite my reluctance to add fabric to the collection, I found myself fabric shopping in Hancock's yesterday, looking for 'bright dark green' fabric for a top...or blouse...or quick jacket...

Our 'choir colors' for March have been reassigned to April, and now March's colors are the afore-mentioned green and bright yellow, with black. I don't have either of those colors in the closet, hence the shopping trip.

Yellow is not an option for me; I can't even go there. But that's a blue-based green, so it's ok...I just didn't have any. I did some perusing online, and found a couple of green things...a knit print that bordered on being too big/loud for choir and some green silk charmeuse... that would do, but there wasn't a prayer of getting mail-order stuff in time to have a shirt by Sunday. So I went to Hancock's.

And came home with three yards of silk duppioni. The quality is not nearly as nice as the duppioni I got from Textile Fabrics, but I washed it and it did soften up considerably. I purchased it thinking I'd make another Tribeca Shirt, but I'm also considering a stripped-down version of Vogue 1017 (without the assymetric frou-frou on the front). But Sharon's Simplicity 3684 blouse caught my eye, too...and I have that pattern in the stash as well.

I guess it just depends on whether I end up with time to work up a new pattern or not. I still have to do Pastor N's linen shirt...which isn't even cut out yet...

I still may be in all black *this* Sunday, but at least I have a shot at a green shirt...

New projects

I've slowly been cutting a few things out amongst the harriedness that has been life this week...today I'm home w/o a car, so I'll surely get something done!

I cut two pairs of black pants out of some beeyoutiful cotton/lycra sateen I got from Gorgeous Fabrics: one for me, and one for The Flute Player, who needs 'em for concert band. I've still got to cut interfacing for the waistband on her pants and lining for the pockets on mine,but otherwise they are ready to sew.

And, I've cut a Weekender bag from some stashed upholstery fabric for a silent auction benefit this Saturday; that's probably going to be at the top of the list for sewing. I'm *hoping* I've got a zipper in the stash that will work for the inside pocket...like I said, I've no car today.

Unless I swipe the vehicle that The Princess drives and make a quick Hancock's run before she goes to work. Hm. It'd have to be really quick.

Maybe I'd better go dig through that drawer....

Queue Busting

I've pulled out the pink jacket fabric, the lining, the pattern, the tracing paper...and I just don't have the oomph to make it. We have two Sundays left in September; I could push it through but my heart's not in it.

To my surprise, what I *want* to do more than anything else is sew the stuff in the queue. Most of those projects have been in the WIP pile for a year or better; it's getting depressing. I can't enjoy cutting new stuff until I clean that out.

So, even if I wear the same pink stuff I've already worn this month, I'm giving myself permission to go back and finish. I'm putting the pink jacket stuff away for now.

After I've cleaned the queue, I won't have that 'unfinished work!' song playing in my head and I can have some fun with something new!

So, back to the half done Kwik Sew white blouse which is still missing the (sewn) cuffs. They gotta be there someplace.