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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Mad Men Challenge

Julia over at Julia Bobbin is hosting a Mad Men Dress Challenge!

And I'm just crazy enough to throw my name in the hat!

I am obsessed with the 50's and 60's silhouette.

Poetry night at my house. Dress from H&M, several years ago.

Christmas Buche de Noel

You can sort of see the trend, here. I'm curvy enough that this silhouette works for my body type.

So, let's see my inspiration list, right?

Considering this Joanie Dress. I love the neck detail. It reminds me of the free Burda Coffee Date Dress from The Selfish Seamstress.



A plane-jane Peggy dress. It looks to be half button with a peter-pan collar, bow and a belt.


I also really LOVE Trudy's party dress from Season 2. The combination of velvet and giant scale plaid, LOVE.
Click for larger detail!


The front sash/tie detail is great. The neck line is great. I'll have to search through my patterns to see if I've got something that follows the basic lines.

And then there is this one. I love the lines. I love the color. But it looks technical in a way that quite frankly scares me.


I'm also having a hard time finding a collection of photos from the show, so I have started watching old episodes. I know, the things I do for the craft!

What dress did you select? Are you modifying a pattern or drafting your own?

Monday, February 27, 2012

A new way to follow my posts!

I've signed up for an account over at bloglovin! I hope you'll add me to your favorites!

bloglovin

Sailor Outfit

Dearest friends:

I have been horrible about blogging of late, or possibly historically. I originally started this blog about 4 years ago. Then I stopped sewing due to life, and picked it back up again. Just because I haven't been blogging, that doesn't mean I haven't been sewing! Hoo Boy! No! I've been so busy.

First, I'd like to share with all of you, the list that I made, which details the things I wanted to get done this weekend. I left the list on my desk on Friday. BOOOO!

 What started as a small list, turned into a two sided list. The first of which was simply a list of blog topics I had. The second was my spring wardrobe plan!

As you can see, I've got HUUUUGE aspirations.
Now. My goal is to post at least once a week, even if it is just a single photo of what I'm working on. 


Here is something I recently finished:
A pair of tiny pants for an upcoming tiny human!
Oliver + S Sailboat Pants!
The Oliver + S Sailboat Pants are amazing. They came together really well, after a short mishap with my sewing machine's automatic buttonhole feature. Yes, I did indeed make SEVENTEEN practice holes to finally figure out what was going wrong.

In the end, I garnered success and the pants are put together. I finished most of the seams with a red bias tape. I used baby whale navy blue corduroy. That stuff is extremely fuzzy. I pre-washed all my fabric, and Holy Fire Hazard in the lint trap! The fuzz all over my sewing table at this point is enough to card together to make another piece of fabric. 

Let's see more shots, shall we?
BAM! Buttons! Button Holes! Topstitching!
I love the shape of the "pocket" area.
Seat, cute elastic gathering only in the back.
Red Bias tape finish on the facings.
I didn't finish the crotch seam or the interior leg seam, as I wasn't sure about bulk and how to do this while allowing the seam to lay flat. Since these are sailor pants, I didn't want to do a flat felled seam down the center and detract from the button detail. And, these are pants for a 2 year old, so, yeah.

Interior rear.
I did not finish the elastic casing following the directions. What did I do instead? I slapped some bias tape on the raw edge and sewed it down. CASING DONE. Less pressing, less bulk this way. I love the way it turned out.

Interior front.
Unbuttoned, interior front. You can see i pinked some of the crotch seam, but mostly turned under and stitched, which doesn't give a very good clean finish. I will be making these pants again for my nephew and I will instead finish the raw edge with a zig zag PRIOR to stitching together. Easy peasy.

Why red bias finish, you ask?

Because I'm also making the sailor top to match in a really great red, white, and blue plaid.

Interior Sailor Shirt front on the left, Interior Sailor Shirt back on the right.

Basted together at the top, see the cute buttonholes!
I've also managed to attach the sleeves last night, but they're not sewn up yet. Coincidentally, the installation instructions were the exact same set that Sunni detailed in a post today. The shirt went together really quickly. The pattern also comes with a version for a skirt. My plan is to create the pants and shirt for my adorable nephew, and create the skirt and shirt version for my adorable niece. Those will be surprise spring gifts. I'm so lucky to have one of each!

In the interest of brevity, I'll end the post now. I will be updating again (hopefully sooner than later!) about the Mad Men Dress Challenge, and some of the other items I put on my list above!!

Friday, February 3, 2012

Featured!

I'm long overdue in posting about this, but the burger dress was featured on everythingburger.wordpress.com!



Click here for the full post!







In the meantime, I've joined Sewaholic's Minoru Sewalong! I'm a little behind, but so far, so good.

I ended up hand basting the main jacket pieces together, to ensure fit, and I'm so glad I did - it made piece of mind attainable, and kept my pieces from shifting when I finally sewed them together.

Hand basting!
I've made it to roughly the third post. I've sewed the raglan sleeves to the front and back pieces, pressed and done my topstitching. I used a triple stitch and preferred to do the topstitching before trimming the remaining allowance.


Last night I put the hood together, and set in a lining.
Hoods are funny!

I'm really excited to see this jacket come together. This is the first sewalong I've participated in, and I am enjoying it quite a bit. There have been many questions that have been easily answered - and even though I'm behind the posts are still there. If you're considering joining, do it!

I'll leave you with a parting shot: my hood plaid pieces match, but it was not through action I took. I need to figure out *how* to match plaids, if anybody has a tutorial, send it my way!

*edited*
To add: I found a tutorial by the Selfish Seamstress here, but I'm still not clear on matching pieces, for example, on the Peony dress. The bodice, waist, skirt and optional sleeves would all need to be matched. How can I ensure the plaid matches at those intersections as well?






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