Thoughts on Spring Sewing and a Question

I realize that most sewists in the northern hemisphere are focused on cold weather sewing right now.  For some odd reason my mind had an image of this fabric from my stash pop up (and it wasn't wrinkled when I thought of it, but I guess that's what stashing in an antique trunk does):

  My sincere apologies for the way this thing photographed!  It is a bright pink pique with white daisies embroidered on it.  I originally bought it to make youngest dd a dress, but realized that I bought a lot.  Mother/daughter dresses???

For dd:

I just recently made this pattern into a Christmas dress for her.  Super quick and easy.  I think the short sleeved version with a white ribbon at the bodice and skirt seam would work for this pique.

For me there are 2 choices:

Butterick 5455, a Maggy London dress, that lists pique as a suggested fabric!  View A with white piping?  Or just plain as in View B?

I made this dress last summer.  It's McCall 6123 and all altered and ready to be used.

But should I?  Would this pique look terrible made up for an adult?  Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Check this out...

I have a  friend who is celebrating her first anniversary of blogging with a giveaway!  And her blog name, Homemade Pineapple Marshmallows, is too cute, don't you think?  She has a really nifty clutch and notecards that she's giving away.  I hope you stop by her blog and look over her projects--she's a fairly new sewist and has done some wonderful things over the past year.

Notebook Cover

My first project for 2011 is complete!  I cut this out in the fall, but wasn't able to go to the ASG neighborhood group meeting where this was demonstrated and sewn.  The notebook cover is quick and easy, designed to fit a standard sized 8 1/2" X 11" spiral notebook.  I didn't take a picture of the inside.  It has a little pocket for pens and such.  It would make a great gift, which is probably what I'll do with this one. 

The only 2011 sewing goal this project met was stash usage since the cover won't be for me--but that's okay.  It's a good feeling to get something done.

Many thanks for the very kind recent comments on the blog and via email!  I appreciate it!

Cute PJ Patterns

I started browsing the new patterns and saw some cute pj patterns...for me!  I really need some new ones.  I don't think these will get bought or sewn any time soon (our Joann's is depleting inventory since it's moving soon so I'm not sure how their pattern stock is), but it's fun to look!

Butterick 4406:

Not sure about the high neck on it although I like the look of it.

A Connie Crawford pattern, Butterick 5434:

This looks like something you would feel comfortable wearing to answer the door!

Butterick 5571:

This looks very versatile to me, except for the robe.  I can just imagine trying to cook all those wavy drapes  that are down the front of it one morning!

McCall 6249:

I like the versatility of this one, too.

And zero Simplicity patterns because I hate looking at patterns on their web site!

2011 Sewing Goals

Okay, I'll be brave and list my sewing goals for the new year.  A little scary since I truly don't to jinx myself into getting none of them done by writing about them!

The list is really rather short since I don't have specific patterns or fabrics I want to sew.  Well, that isn't entirely true!  First, I want to use up fabrics I already have.  Second, I want to see for me!!!  That includes not just clothing, but home dec, too.  The home dec stash takes up a lot of space and we really need draperies. 

That really is a short list so I should be able to do something on it!  Kinda wimpy, don't you think?

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. 

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! 

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!

Another PJ Set and a Proud Daughter!

My youngest dd finished her pajama pants!  I bought a plain, white t-shirt and she used some embroidery floss to weave through the picot edge at the top of the shirt to dress it up a little.  I had her do the front only so the neck opening would still stretch!  I'm not sure you can see the pink floss around the neck, but oh well!  It's there!

Here she is:

I think she's very proud of her accomplishment!  Since she's so young, we've tried to have very short sessions.  I did any pressing like turning up the hem and making the casing for the elastic.  Putting the elastic in the casing turned out to be difficult since the seams were pressed open, so I did that for her, too.  But, otherwise she did all the work!  She got a lot of practice maintaining the seam width while sewing and she got to use her 1/4" foot a bit.

PJ set complete!

Okay, here is one set of completed pj's!  The t-shirt is purchased and I added these bows that I had in the stash to the shirt and the pants.  The white eyelet at the bottom of the pants is also stash since youngest dd is taller than I estimated.  The pink polka dot fabric was a knit from my To Get Rid Of Pile at sewing guild (which obviously never happened) until it caught my eye for pj's! 

The only exciting thing about construction for these is that I serged the waist elastic to the edge of the fabric, then turned it under and topstitched.  It looks more RTW that way and it should keep the elastic from turning and twisting like it does when you make a casing. 

Based on the squeals I heard, these are a hit!

Where Have I Been??

Dear Readers,

Thank you to the people who still take the time to check this blog for posts!  I appreciate it and the comments on my last post.  Thank you!

When I started this blog, I wanted it as a record of what I sewed and as an incentive to sew more.  Well, I have definitely accomplished the first but not so much the second!  I'm sorry for the long break (saying that to myself, too!).  That includes all the sewing blogs that I have not read--I've missed doing that!

Have I accomplished anything in the sewing world?  Not a great deal personally, but rather a lot as a facilitator.  Several months ago, our local sewing guild began a local community sewing project which I posted about here and here .  I'm happy to report that we surpassed our goal of 500 blankets for the babies and children at our local hospital!  That was really cool--and I think we will continue to get more.  Those blankets have at various moments taken over my sewing room which thankfully didn't matter much due to the lack of sewing!

My youngest dd has sewed a small amount on her flannel pj bottoms.  I finished one pair of knit pj bottoms and started on another pair.  Not very exciting, but it is something.  I'll see about posting pictures next post--which will be soon! 

Future plans are to go slowly and finish sewing the last pair of pj pants.  Then, it will be on to youngest dd's Christmas dress and binding the edges of the Christmas tree skirt.  So much for the pink wool and the Dalmatian dress.  My sewing room also needs some cleaning up partly due to all the blankets and partly due to grabbing and running then not putting things away!  Oops!

So, what have I been doing since I haven't been sewing?  The usual things that most people w/ kids do and some extras--some fun and some not so much.  The girls participated in a fashion show (neat because the lady sews all the wedding and bridesmaids dresses herself--and designs them), toured a couple of colleges, watched lots of Lego robotics stuff, finished soccer season (yippee!), and gotten new stair treads (great now, not so great during the process since they can't be used for a day each time they get a coat of polyurethane!).  Plus the very time consuming process of having temper tantrums so my dd and dh would work on dd's transcript stuff and my own diligent work (or not very diligent at times) on course descriptions to supplement the transcript.  haha.  Just proofreading all that is quite a bit of work....and left my eyes too tired to even think about reading sewing blogs so you know it was bad!

Onto the relaxing holidays!  (Did I really say that???  Did I really mean that?  NO.)

Sorry for the lack of pictures!

Some Placemats

Life has been so busy lately (I know no one knows anything about such things, right?!  haha!), that these are all that I've gotten sewn and only because it was a guild sew-in!

A top view of them on the table so you get the fresh flowers, too!  I made black napkins with serged edges using glow-in-the-dark thread!