McCall 6469 and a Cork Question

About my corking-the-wall post, Anonymous asked, "I wonder, does this improve the acoustics in the room ?? I am planning doing the same in order to have good acoustic... anyone knows that ? Thanks."

Thanks very much for the question and I hope you'll be able to find my answer to you since I didn't have an email address to reply directly.  Anyway, I don't really know if the corks on the wall have improved the acoustics in my sewing room.  For starters, I don't think we have enough area completed.  The walls we've been doing are in the basement and the ceiling there is lower so the acoustics are already pretty good (i.e. we don't get echoes like you would in a large, empty room).  I hope that helps...


SO!  I have finally sewn something and completed it!  I started this project in January and it was literally work on one very small thing a day, with many days that I didn't have time or energy to work.  It was rather depressing.  Equally depressing, I finished this in April and have not had a chance to BLOG!

McCall 6469
I made View D, the top left corner pic.

My fabric--a polyester sheer with gold metallic from Joann's.  It's NOT as bright as this pic...

I guess most people post something about construction and I intended to but these pictures just leave a lot to be desired.  The fabric was really difficult to photograph (and work with...if I'm going to invest that much time and energy in a project, that fabric had best be SILK!!!).  I'll add a bit about the neckline elastic that creates the gathers in the front upper bodice.

The top went together pretty easily, but I didn't like the instructions for the elastic on either side of the neckline.  Rather than struggle through their finnicky method, I developed my own (also finnicky) method.  This would not have been nearly so difficult if I could've marked the fabric easily and well.  Between it being a very dark and a very busy print (and polyester), nothing I tried worked well in the marking department--various types of white/gray pencils, chalks, thread basting (the fabric kept moving...)

So, what I did was to stitch the elastic where it needed to go when I stitched the neckline seam.  I made sure to put a small safety pin at the other end of the elastic so I could work it through the casing later.  I had not stitched the two rows to form the casing at that point.  Next, I turned and pressed the entire upper bodice and stitched 1 row of the casing.  A little lumpy with the safety pin.

Then, I stitched the 2nd row of the casing and eased the elastic through, securing it in the armhole seam.  Nothing too exciting and I'm not sure that the pattern directions would not have been better...

Work on the casing beside the neckline.

The upper bodice with one side of the elastic all completed and the other side pinned and in progress...  And, this is the color of the fabric in real life, busy but not as bright as the other photos.

Wiggling the elastic through.  I don't know why, but when I went to buy elastic they didn't have any black.  This would've looked much better with black!

I raised the neckline by a good 1.5" and it still wasn't enough.  I need to shop for a cami to wear underneath it.  Additionally, the shoulder seam pulls forward quite a bit (is that why the model on the pattern has her shoulder positioned oddly?).  The front of the bodice needs to be longer to adjust this--wish I had been able to catch this sooner, but despite trying on during the process it was difficult to notice that it would be a problem.

No pictures on me because it just wasn't happenin'!

The back is longer than the front--should've taken a side view, too.  It's pretty neat.
And now that it's done, the weather is too warm for it!  Ha haha!  I'm not sure that I like it because of the sleeves and the volume of fabric.  I did want something different and floaty and this meets those requirements but...I'm still not sure it's "me".  That's okay, it was an interesting and engaging project and I know that I will wear it some when the weather cools down much later this year :)

More later--I have been sewing quite a bit, just not posting at all!

Sew Biz in Radford, VA

Okay, it's another fabric store review.  It's been a very busy and stressful couple of weeks and I figured that I needed (and deserved) the break!  Apparently, I felt like I needed (?) and deserved (?) more fabric, too.  Three pieces came home with me on this trip. 

Some members of our local guild will be making a trip to Sew Biz next month, but since I can't and I had to be down that way anyway (sort of), I figured I'd head over and check it out.  It's probably been 12 years, more or less, since I've been here.  It's changed some in that time, adding more quilting fabrics and carrying much less dress and heirloom fabrics.  Still, it's jam packed with fabric, really interesting patterns for small projects, notions, some very interesting threads including silk thread, and other assorted paraphernalia.  I enjoyed browsing and here's what I bought:

Cotton knit.  It's teal and aqua.  While it was being cut, I looked up and saw the beads hanging on the wall behind the cutting table and thought aha!  They match!  Must have!  I'm hoping for a quick and easy top embellished with time consuming beading so I can be slow making this....

I don't know why one of my spots decided to do this when I photographed these, but she did. I've been taking fabric pictures on the living room floor lately and she's never bothered them. But, this time, she thought she needed to. Between that and lots of licking of my face, it was rather difficult to take pics!

Zuzu helping with photographs.  Standing on the fabric is always useful and helpful.



Zuzu wears a harness rather than a collar because she had to have a biopsy on her neck earlier this year.  Thankfully, it was nothing serious!  And, it turned out we liked the harness for her.  Who knew?



Well, here are better photos of the fabrics.  These are rayon batiks.  Again.  I bought one when I was at Ragtime Fabrics.  I liked the color selection at Sew Biz a lot better, so I bought two because I really, really need new summer tops!  Sewing bias tops doesn't take much time at all--it's practically instant gratification except for hemming since it has to hang to do its bias stretch thing.  The prices at Sew Biz were pretty similar to Ragtime Fabrics, a little more for one piece and the same for the other.

Blue rayon batik.  There's not a lot of pattern going on here, but I liked that.  Variety is good.

Greeny/blue rayon batik.

And weird of weird, while I was driving home I glanced down and realized the background on the greeny one matches the blue one.   It's hard to tell that in the picture.   So perhaps this will become a casual outfit rather than 2 tops?  Time will tell.

In conclusion, Sew Biz was fun to browse because it has lots of things to see even though it's mostly quilting.  It has an upstairs which is where I found the rayon batiks.  That's also where they have a small selection of heirloom and smocking supplies which was very nice to see.  They offer a lot of classes (they gave me a schedule) which looked pretty good--I think it's on their web site, too.  It reminded me a lot of Ragtime Fabrics but with more quilting and no home dec.  Really, I think the little stretch of Virginia where I live does have some very nice fabric stores!  All the ones I've been to lately and posted about have been delightful to visit!

Anyhow...

So today and tomorrow, as a sigh of relief that the last two weeks are over, I plan to skip school (one of the beauties of homeschooling!), sew, plant, hike, and eat pizza and watch a movie.  Ever tried grilled pizza?  It's good weather for it, so we might have that tonight!  We mostly always make our own and the only hard part about grilled pizzas are that you have to move fast on the grilling!  Thankfully, I don't do that part!  haha!

(If you are interested in our methods for grilling  pizza, we don't really follow the sauce or topping suggestions at Fine Cooking.  Instead, we do our own and use the dough recipe (adding some whole wheat flour to the recipe) and the technique described in Issue #66.  Another tip, less is more on a grilled pizza!  Otherwise, you might have grilling issues.  Certainly, the flavor is more delicious with less on each pizza, too.  Obviously, I cook way more than I sew!)

The plants!  Some phlox for the deer to eat...or hopefully not.  They are deer resistant, so I really hope they pass these by.  They just seem to eat everything around here, even things they aren't supposed to like :(

My current sewing project.  It's McCall's 6469 and it's slow going with the elastic just below the shoulder seams, the floppy fabric, and the dark color--really hard to mark it so I can see so I've used painter's tape and thread markings, but that doesn't take care of everything :(

There we are!  If the above shirt pattern gives me too much more grief, I think I will set it aside and work on either my rayon or knit tops.  I need those whereas the McCall's pattern is long sleeved and in this weather, it's not something I need right now.