Always prewash your fabric!!

 I have no idea where I got this stretch denim or when I got it. I made a pair of love Notions Duet pants with said fabric. I worked out the fit, worked out a way to change the closure, etc. In other words spent precious sewing time on them. When I finished them, I decided they were giving off a little dye so I washed them before wearing them. When I pulled them out of the washer I couldn’t believe my eyes…they disintegrated in several places. I have never had anything like this happen before. Lots of wasted time. Lesson learned.

Love Notions Presto Tunic

 I finished this top. I made a few alterations. I lowered the bust dart and blended between sizes. I think if I make this again I will take a little fullness out of the front. If it were made with a stiffer fabric it would look terrible.

Buster photo bombing.

Attempting to insert photos

 Well, I watched a video for this so hopefully I can keep this going. 

I made this top years ago. It’s a simple dolman sleeve that I hand embroidered on the side. This photo was taken at Sturbridge Village with my sister-in-law a month or so ago.

Long, long time away.

 Of course there has been sewing, but no documentation. I am still not proficient in using this system. As I write this I realize I don’t have a clue how to save it, edit it, add a photo or anything else. I received a email from Blogger about another blog I guess I tried to start and never deleted. I really would like to start keeping a record of what I sew so that I can remember. I saw a note in my diary that said I finished a repair on my friend’s husband’s pants that I don’t have any remembrance of doing. I very rarely do alterations or repairs and it surprised me to read it. It’s time for coffee and to get out of bed now.

For once I have followed through with an online sewing challenge or maybe it's not a challenge but rather a theme. I think theme is a better description of Jungle January. I made my dress using Simplicity 3775 view A (out of print now and I think I picked it up at Goodwill.) I wanted the scrunched band in the middle but there was not enough fabric. The pattern was very easy to put together (as many people noted on Pattern Review.) I think I will make another one of the views with this pattern.

   

Pattern drafting class project

This is my muslin that I made for my pattern drafting class. The fabric was a bear because it raveled terribly. I had to finish the inside seams just to keep it from falling apart. A pain for a muslin.

I like the dress, but the pattern needs some work. I think the beginning step will be to work on my basic bodice pattern. The fit was not as good as it should have been. I wanted to fix it but I just ran out of available time to do that. So I pushed forward. 

The errors are: the shoulder seams are too far forward, I should have turned the pleats the other direction and it could have used a little tiny bit more shaping at the waist or had a lining put in it.  I hope when I correct the shoulder seams that will help it hang straighter. I think the back has some issues, but I have to get better photos. I was just learning to use the remote control on the camera and I think I skewed the position, or it is maybe just a bad fit. I will check later.  Once again time was the big issue with this project.

It seems that I  sign up for classes long in advance and when class time arrives something extra is going on in my life. I started The Little Black Dress class last Thursday evening and so far things are all right, but there are 7 more weeks.....tonight we discuss pattern choices and fabrics, underlining, lining, etc. Last week we took photos and made croquis of ourselves. How enlightening that was. Time for more exercise and an overhaul of my eating. Hopefully Spring will come to the Northeast sometime soon.  Please let it be so!

I'm trying to learn how to post to this website using my I-Pad, because I am rarely on the computer anymore. It's a learning curve though. I need to take the laptop and have it cleaned up because it is exceeding slow, to the point of making me grit my teeth the entire time I am on it. Typing on the I pad is slow without a wireless keyboard.

Well, I made this little dress for a baby shower this past weekend. I think the mother to be liked it, or at least I hope so. It turned out to be really nice with little bloomers to match.

We are off to a Jack and Jill shower tonight. I wish it wasn't rainy though oh well.

I think there will be sewing time this weekend. I hope so, I received two Style Arc patterns and I would love to try one of them out soon.

More later and by that I hope I mean sooner rather than later.

New sewing space

Blogging finally. I am enjoying a week of vacation at home. This is day 4, wow, it really goes quick. I started my time off on Thursday. My husband, myself and a young helper began the process of moving my sewing area out of the basement and up into my new sewing studio. Getting everything together is a process that is going to take a little while to complete, but once it is finished it will be fantastic.

My husband purchased  cabinets at auction a year or so ago. They are from some kind of lab, so they are heavy duty metal with drawers. Right now they are an ugly grey, but eventually they will be a beautiful light blue with black countertops. We set up the cabinets in an "L" shape that is 9 feet by 14 feet with  four workstations, one of which is double wide. I will probably put the embroidery machine in the double wide space. On the back wall, I have the Neechi (in cabinet) that I purchased last year and I have my mother's old Kenmore (in cabinet) that I brought to my house after my father passed away last year. I need to take it in to the shop for service, but I sewed quite a bit on that machine when I was in high school and my mother made a lot of clothes for us on it.

Our home is an old warehouse that we are almost finished converting into a home. It has been a couple long years of lots of construction, but in the end it will be worth it. There are old wooden beams that we left in place. (Actually Thursday started out with my husband giving the wooden beams one last sanding because they had some sheet rock mud on them.)

This is my attempt at taking a panoramic photo with my I-phone. The room is straight in reality, but I had a difficult time keeping the camera level as I moved. But you can get the idea of what it looks like.

Here is a straight shot into the room. You can see the wooden beams. I really like them. All of the little dark spots along the wall are for electrical outlets. The boxes are the blinds waiting to be hung.

These are my cabinets before we put them together. They now have the wood on top of them and the drawers are not standing or laying down on the floor, but are bolted into place. I lined all of the drawers with cork. I have to work on getting the tags off of them tomorrow and putting more things away.

Tomorrow after I do some more straightening up and finish a sewing project, I will take some more photos to post.

I have been away from the blog for so long...I have done some sewing, but no blogging. With the house under construction, it seems hard to stay organized or on some kind of schedule. I keep trying, but it doesn't seem to work. I must admit I am tired of the construction and want to be in my new sewing studio. It will be nice not to be in the basement anymore.

I can hardly believe that I haven't posted anything in a month. I will try to get some things posted this weekend. Sunday I have my last Jeans class with Jennifer Stern. This means that my jeans should be finished Sunday. I will post some photos. I went away to the sewing expo in Worcester, MA the middle of April. I took several classes with Cynthia Guffey, she is an excellent seamstress and she is entertaining on top of it. I bought some new fabric from the Vogue store at the expo. I have a dress cut out from some of it and hope to put it together tomorrow. It is a very simple Vogue pattern. I also went away this month because I won an award with my TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) group and they were having a State recognition event. Over the past year + I have lost about 100 pounds.

My dress is finished and I will post a photo tomorrow. Yippee. Tomorrow is also working on jeans for class.

I have a dress started and I put together another muslin of my jeans for class this Saturday. We made lots of fitting changes at the last class so I wanted to be sure I transferred all of the changes to the pattern from the muslin. The new muslin fitspretty well except for right around the waist. I am pretty sure I know what I did wrong, which is always a step in the right direction. :) The dress is coming together nicely, but it is a very simple pattern. I wanted to try out using my dress form for pattern fitting and altering. I have posted a photo of it with some progress. I hope tomorrow evening to be able to finish fixing the back darts and sew up the side seams.  Yesterday, I needed a project I could complete, so I made a Barbie doll dress. It looks lovely, as you can see.....although I still have to sew on the snap for the back of it. Oh well, just a little thing.

I forgot to get a photo of my son and his girlfriend with the sewing machine. It is now back in West Virginia with them. I asked him to send a photo when he gets a chance, but only time will tell with that request. I also realized that I forgot to take any photos of my son or Jackie while they were visiting, but I did take some photos of their dogs. Here are Manny and Jerome. Manny is a Toy Poodle and Jerome is a Goldendoodle. 

No sewing today or tomorrow. My son is visiting from West Virginia and we are having a family gathering for dinner tomorrow night. Tonight was prep night.

Wednesday night I hope to have a little time with him and his girlfriend to show them the sewing machine I found for them on Craig's list. It was an excellent buy and I think it will be a great machine for them. (I almost hate to give it away, it is so nice.) I also found a basic "how to begin sewing" book for them. Neither one of them have ever used a machine so it will be an adventure. I will try to take some photos of them and the machine for posting later.

Self Drafted Skirt

Finally I am getting the photo of my skirt up here. I wore it to class yesterday and everyone liked it.

Photo by Clifford P.

I put together my skirt that I draped the pattern for and when I tried it on, I realized it was too big. So I needed to figure out what went wrong since SueEllen is supposed to be the same size as me. When I went back to the drawing board, I discovered that I had put the waistline tape too low. The clue was that the skirt fit if I wanted to wear it as a hip hugger skirt. That is not what I wanted to do. I moved the waistline tape up to where it should be and took the skirt apart and made the necessary alterations. I got up this morning and finished putting it back together and it fits. I have one little thing left to do and it will be completely done. I am planning to wear it to Form Draping class tomorrow morning.Yeah!! After I finish it, I will take a photo and post it on here.

I made my jeans muslin for Jeans class with Jennifer Stern. They will need adjustments, they gap at the back waist, sag some under my rear end, puff out on the sides and the knees are a little snug. I am posting a couple photos.  I also felted a wool sweater yesterday to make a pair of mittens for myself. I made the mittens from a pattern I found on Burda Style. They turned out nice.



















I'm surprised I was able to sew this evening. My skin is very dry and four of my fingers are cracked at the corners of my nails. It is very painful. So painful that I am trying my husband's unique cure that he swears by. It is certainly unorthodox, as you can see from the photo.....

I'm hoping the wool mittens will help my hands so I don't have to do this again. :)

Our construction project here at home took the lead tonight, but I managed to get a little bit of sewing in. I put the invisible zipper in my skirt and got the facing ready to sew on. I didn't manage to get a photo taken, there were just too many things happening here at our house. During one part of our construction we had to move our bedroom downstairs to the basement and tonight we moved back upstairs. Our room is not totally finished, but it feels good to be back on the main floor.

I doubt I will get any sewing done tomorrow evening, since my wonderful husband is taking me out to dinner for my birthday. We have had some snowy weather this evening, but I think it will be fine for going out tomorrow evening. I'm looking forward to the evening.

Too busy

I really wanted to sew tonight, but I was busy with other things. So as to not be too disappointed in myself and my evening, I managed to sew up two seams on a skirt that I am drafting. I tried it on Sue Ellen (my body double) and I will have to take the back seam in. The front fits fine and the side seams line up with the sides of Sue Ellen. I think I must have cut something incorrectly or else my muslin is wrong. Hopefully tomorrow I can figure that out. I will also try to post a picture of what I have done so far. I really want to have it finished before Friday, so I can wear it to Form Draping class!

Classes with Jennifer Stern

Today we had our first Jeans class with Jennifer Stern from J Stern Designs and it was great. Jennifer is a wonderful teacher and lots of fun. We tried on muslins today to figure out which size to make in the jeans pattern. Then we traced our patterns, made alterations as necessary (Jennifer did the fittings for all of us) and then cut out our own muslins. It is two weeks before the next class, so we will sew our muslins before then and take them into class for a fitting and continue working on them in class. I am really looking forward to our next class.