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.