Friday, December 31, 2010

2010 Sewing Synopsis

I've noticed that many bloggers give a summary of their year's sewing.  Since this blog is supposed to be both an encouragement to me as well as a log of what I've done, I thought I'd do that, too.

For me, I think this has been a more prolific sewing year than sometimes.  I've made 1 dress for oldest dd, 2 for youngest dd, and 3 for myself; a shirt for ds, 2 bias tops (love these!), pj bottoms galore, various and assorted cupcake pincushions, a couple of purses without a pattern, Christmas tree skirt, placemats, a few muslins (good thing for those since one was definitely a wadder!), a bra, and one pair of panties.  Yes, that's pretty good. 

Did I have favorites?  Oh yes.  Definitely.  I LOVE my purple silk dupionni dress.  I really like the floral dress--it is comfortable and cool.  The bra--wow.  So comfortable that more need to be a priority.  Prettier ones though.  Beige is boring!  haha.  I also love the Christmas dress for youngest dd. 

Did I have non-favorites?  After all the time and effort, it is hard to say that I hate them, but yes.  I HATED this Vogue dress!  It looks like I was wearing a sack (I don't think I ever posted a picture of me wearing this one.).  And the elastic at the top!  ICK!  Many others made it and loved it.  Oh well.  I may recycle the fabric for this one.  Surely I should be able to squeeze out a short sleeved or sleeveless top.

So, that is that!  For the most part, I sewed successes.  Plus, I learned quite a bit about fitting and zippers.  Many thanks for all the tutorials other sewists have put on their blogs--such a help to learn about techniques or get reassurance. 

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Christmas Dress 2010

In my last post, I forgot to add a link so you could see what a Mini Bow Tucks bag is.  Shannon, of the blog MushyWear, kindly drew my attention to that so I went back and added the link.  These purses are so much the rage in our area that I forgot that not everyone knows what they are!  Even so, I have not made one yet, I just have the pattern ;)

Posts have been few and far between this month.  I feel like a pharmacy--we have had so much illness I think all I've done is dispense medicines.

However, I did get the youngest dd's Christmas dress, McCall's 9534, which is out of print, completed. 




You must pardon the pose and the tights!  Apparently, she learned the pose from a fashion designer game.  The tights were such a struggle to get on the right way this morning to wear with another dress there was no way she was changing them for the picture!


This dress really needed something to break up the plain white corduroy and the holly embroidery on the fabric. Once I had sewn the bodice to the skirt, I thought it looked a lot more like a nightgown than a dress! So I added the green sash and the beads to break up the white. I think it was pretty successful, don't you?




Here is the bead work in progress. Tiger tape was quite useful to mark the spacing for the beads!







The only things I changed were lengthening the skirt and omitting the facings. I bought some red Christmas fabric and made bias binding for the neckline, sleeves and hem. Since I used corduroy, I serged all the edges.







Super easy dress to make, except when you decide to add beads! 

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Sundays Are Hobby Days

Not that long ago, we used to regularly spend our free time on Sundays engaged in hobbies.  Sadly, we had gotten out of the habit and except for church, it was pretty much a day like any other.  It's such a nice change of pace, a breather during the week, whatever you want to call it. 

It also gives me a reason to make myself go sew.  (Well, when everyone else doesn't decide to sew and hog the sewing room.  sigh.) 

This Sunday, oldest dd decided that she needed to sew.  Here she is cutting out a Mini Bow Tucks purse:



I think she was amazed at how long it took her to cut it out which meant that she ran out of time to do any sewing on it.  The blue, green and white fabric she chose is really pretty.  I hope she gets it sewn soon because I think she will love it!  It sure will look a lot better than the store bought ones that she has.

I have a couple of sets of fabric to make my own purse, maybe that will be my project for next Sunday!