a big fat wadder...

Last weekend I made a skirt (I still need to photograph and post it) that was part of my original JCC plan (brown/aqua color scheme). I wanted to wear it to work earlier this week but needed some sort of top to go with it. Since I was short on time and even shorter on fabric, I decided to make a shrug. I used McCalls 5236


I made view E (lower right corner of the picture) without the ribbon tie. Well, let's just say I attempted. I'm not sure if I shifted something when I cut out the sleeve but there is way too much ease! I used a brown jersey and even with the strechiness of the fabric there was still too much ease in the cap!! I ended up having to gather the sleeve to fit it in and then it just looked silly. I'm not sure it's worth making a muslin for a basic shrug and since I have another 4 or 5 shrug patterns in my collection I think I'll go back to Hancock and pray they have more brown jersey (I used the fabric that was originally earmarked for trim on my Cosmo dress that has yet to be made) so I can make another one. Maybe this time I'll use one that is specifically designed for knits and not a "woven or knit". I am so disgusted I don't even want to take a picture...

JCC - baby cargo pants

These were originally intended to be cargo shorts (like hubby's), but I put the pocket on and then realized I didn't adjust it for shorts. At that point I didn't feel like taking out the two rows of topstitching and decided to keep them as pants.

Drew wore them to my mom's birthday dinner on Saturday and was positively adorable! I probably won't have pictures of him in the pants until I do final photos of his capsule for the JCC.

They are Simplicity 3765. I haven't done a PR review yet, but I will soon. I have a few more reviews to complete and will probably do them all at once.

Enjoy!

Great Coat Sew-Along

I decided early last week to join the Great Coat Sew-Along that Marji is hosting. Boy am I glad I signed up when I did - if it's not closed to new participants already, it will be very soon!! The response has been amazing and I feel honored to be a part of this project along with so many great sewists!

I had originally planned a post with my possibilities and was going to open up for suggestions. I wanted to use fabrics and patterns already in my collection so I started digging through boxes and drawers of fabric and found a bunch of possibilities. Patterns, however, I am lacking somewhat as I only had 4 coat patterns, including the Vogue Michael Kors that several of my counterparts are making. This was the coat I was most leaning towards, but (with some input from my husband) decided on this:


Wool blend purchased from Fashionista Fabrics. I'll be using McCalls 5247 View C (the version in red on the pattern envelope):


I also hope to make a coat for my hubby at the same time. I bought some charcoal melton almost 2 years ago with the intention of making him a dress coat for winter. It's still rolled up in the original package it was mailed in! I don't have a picture, but it's very dark - almost black - and heathered (good to hide dog hair). I plan to make Burda 8275 shortened to mid-thigh length:

operation wardrobe: episode 1

Although I got the Lucky Shopping Manual for Mother's Day, I didn't have a chance to really read it until today. I read it from cover to cover and it really got me to thinking. I'm an adult!! I realize that I've been an adult for quite some time, but now that I'm a mother, am working on turning my job into a career, preparing for graduate school and am *gasp* quickly approaching 30, I need to have a more adult-looking wardrobe (and I don't mean this in the Nevada brothel sense).

My husband has been getting on me to go through my closet with a fine tooth comb and purge at least half of it. At first I was put off by the idea of getting rid of the clothes in my closet (although 80% of them are "fat" clothes that probably look potato sack-ish if I were to wear them today). After reading the Lucky book, this no longer seems so much of a daunting task. In fact, I am now looking forward to purging everything that no longer fits and re-designing a wardrobe that works for every aspect of my life.

This is going to be a multi-part process.
1. I get rid of anything that is too big.
2. I go through the remaining and pull out those pieces that I just don't like or won't wear and get rid of those.
3. I set aside in one section of the closet the items that work. The remaining items will be put on the other side of my closet. I will get rid of these later, as I know I have very few items that work well for my new lifestyle, but I still need something to wear while I replace them!!
4. I will fill in the gaps with classic pieces first and then worry about trendier pieces after I have a good base wardrobe to work with.

I need dressy work clothes, casual work clothes, play clothes and going out clothes for winter and summer with transitional pieces for fall and spring. I also need a couple of coats in different styles. I know I have some workable pieces that will fit into these categories, but I definitely have a lot of holes. I'm in the process of compiling a list of the basic pieces I need in my wardrobe and a beginning plan of attack to accomplish it.

I need to finish the father/son capsule and then I'll get started. My next post on this topic I will have an update on the closet purge and a preliminary list of what I need to fill out my wardrobe. This is definitely going to take some time to complete the entire process, but I'm sure when I'm done I will never be able to say I have nothing to wear!

June capsule contest

I decided to officially enter the June capsule contest at Stitchers Guild. My plan is called "Like Father, Like Son" and will be a matching set of clothes for my husband and our infant son. A little bit of background: my husband and I are big fans of the TV show Two and a Half Men. Charlie Sheen's character wears these retro/bowling style shirts on the show (it's his trademark for anyone who hasn't seen the show). My husband loves that style of shirt and has a few, but has been asking me for quite some time to make him some more. I had been putting it off until this contest came along. Since hubby has been wonderful at taking care of the baby and letting me have some sewing time, I decided I should reward him by using some of that time to make something for him. When the contest was announced I made a plan for myself - which I will still make for the summer - but I changed my mind and decided to enter a wardrobe for him. Hubby came up with the idea of making a matching wardrobe for the baby.

Here is the storyboard for my plan:


Since the challenge for the contest is no black, I had to order new colors of fabric for the shirts. I'm going to make khaki cargo shorts and the colorblocked shirts will be in shades of brown/tan and blues. I'll also be putting my new embroidery machine to good use by doing some custom embroidery on the colorblocked panels. I will probably not do any embroidery on the baby's shirts, but the basic design will match. There is also an accessory requirement and I'm going to make hats from the same fabric as the shorts.

I'm very excited to be doing this for my boys. My "before June" item will probably be the cargo shorts to get them out of the way and then I can make the shirts assembly-line style. If I'm unable to get the hats done in time, those will be my purchased item and I'll just buy something that goes with the ensembles. I hope to get the fabric in the next week and by then I'll have the shirt patterns created with the different colorblock configurations. My hope is that on June 1st I can start cutting everything out and get started!

Wish me luck - I may have just gotten in over my head...again :)

happy Mother's Day to me!

This is what I got for Mother's Day:

The Lucky Shopping Manual. I have only skimmed through it briefly, but it contains a lot of great information on how to shop for everything and what looks best on certain body types. It has a lot of eye candy for inspiration as well.

I also put some of my personal sewing on hold temporarily to sew for my hubby. He has been requesting some retro/bowling style shirts for some time and that was part of the reason I got my embroidery machine for Christmas. The dog ate the Vogue pattern I usually use and I haven't replaced it yet (he was only a few months old, so it was over a year since I've even ATTEMPMTED to sew for hubby), so I'm trying out a now OOP Simplicity Threads pattern. I don't have the pattern numbers handy or else I'd post them, but I'll post all about it when I'm done with this first shirt.

ETA: I almost forgot!! Hubby and I went to Barnes and Noble after our early breakfast yesterday morning and they FINALLY have Burda WOF on their newsstand. Even though I have a subscription, it made me feel better to know that I won't miss out if I ever forget to rewnew on time! Reno is growing up...

another Simplicity 3881

I really love this pattern!! I have made this 3 times now and have a couple more planned. It's a very flattering style on me - slim up top and flared at the bottom. This fabric came from Gorgeous Fabrics. I don't remember what it's called, I bought it last summer, but I LOVE it! It's difficult to match up the flowers, so I did the best I could. It looked sort of strange at the seam where the top of the skirt meets the peplum, so I added a piece of 5/8" grosgrain ribbon that I had in my stash to break it up a little. I really love this.

On another note, today I purchased the Hot Patterns Weekender Jean Jeanius Trouser Jeans pattern. I've been eyeing this pattern for a while and on a recent trip to Joann's I found a couple of great pieces of medium-weight denim that I have in mind. I am going to attempt to recreate a pair of maternity jeans (only non-maternity) that I fell in love with.

Simplicity 4129 - military-style jacket

(it still needs a good pressing...it looks great on me, not so much on the dressform - I'll try to get a picture of me wearing it soon)

Pattern: Simplicity 4129, View D
Fabric: Tan faux suede-type fabric, chocolate brown Ambiance lining
Other: 10 antiqued gold buttons

This pattern is apparently no longer available even as an OOP from Simplicity's website. It comes in sizes 6-22, I made size 20 based on my high bust measurement and widened to a 22 at the hip.

Alterations:
- 1/2" FBA
- Lowered bust point 2"
- Lenghtened body by 1-3/4"
- Lengthened sleeves by 1-1/2"
- Raised armhole by 1/2"

Details:
As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I wanted a military-style jacket and after seeing EricaB's version I decided to use the combination of the Simplicity pattern and the faux suede that I had in my stash. I found 10 antique gold buttons that went well with the fabric (the only gold buttons that Joann's had 10 of!) and some chocolate brown lining and I was off! I was doubly inspired by this Dolce and Gabbana jacket and really wanted to incorporate some of the other design elements into my jacket. The problem was that I wasn't able to find enough buttons in the right sizes to really accomplish this, so I ended up just making it based off the pattern.

The instructions were marginal. This is definitely not a pattern for beginners - the jacket itself isn't especially difficult, but the instructions are not very user-friendly. They have you jump around from view to view and then leave out certain necessary steps such as inserting the sleeve and when to attach the buttons! Although if you are intuitive enough to know that at some point you need to insert the sleeve before you attach the lining, you'll be fine. Ann from Gorgeous Things has mentioned before her disappointment in Threads patterns not having enough notes from the editors of the magazine and I have to say I was especially disappointed at the quality of the instructions for this particular pattern considering it is a Threads design.

The pattern calls for interfacing the front and front facing. I decided to only interface the facing because my fabric was thick enough that it didn't need the extra stiffness - even with a thin interfacing. I used knit fusible ala Tany to just give it a little bit of soft shaping. Because it's a more casual style, I didn't want it to be TOO structured. It also calls to only line the peplum. If I were to make this again, I would add more structure to the peplum and cuffs by using a stiffer interfacing. It is definitely wearable and I love it, just something I would recommend to anyone wanting to make this.

The fabric was a bear to sew and I had a heck of a time taming it, despite using a Teflon foot, roller foot and even-feed foot. Pretty much nothing made it cooperate the way I had hoped. In the end everything worked out and what few puckers I couldn't get rid of are all hidden by the lining anyway. The pattern calls to bag the lining and because the fabric was so difficult I only machine stitched the fronts to the facings and then hand-stitched everything else. Personally, I like hand stitching and this way I get the control I wanted.

Would I make it again? Probably not. I think a girl only needs one of these in her wardrobe unless she is really into the military style. I toyed with making a slightly different style in a navy microfiber I have in my stash and using silver buttons, but I think I'll save that for another project.

All in all, a winner - you can read my review here.

capsule wardrobes

The military jacket is finished. As soon as I get some pictures of me wearing it I'll post a review.

In the meantime, I've been thinking a lot about capsule wardrobes. After failing (miserably) to even really get started on the Timmel SWAP, I started thinking about tackling it in smaller chunks. I realized, while trying to decide on 11 pieces for the SWAP, that I actually think in 4-5 piece chunks. I would always end up with one or two pieces that did not completely coordinate with the rest of the bunch, but broken into two separate mini-SWAPs they worked perfectly. I decided to focus my spring and summer sewing on this concept - especially now that I have time, space and motivation to actually plan some and have it come to fruition!

Right now, I have two mini-wardrobes planned. One revolves around two floral prints for skirts (one skirt is completed) with two coordinating tops (one completed). The second is a darkwash denim skirt, tan faux suede military-style jacket (both completed), a pair of darkwash denim trouser jeans and a top.

Yesterday, while reading Carolyn's blog I saw her mention the June capsule wardrobe contest at Stitchers Guild. They are doing a similar contest at Pattern Review, but during the month of May. Without sufficient time to plan for a contest that had already started, I decided not to worry about a May contest and figured I would enter the contest they are holding in August. Then, after reading Carolyn's post, decided that a June contest is perfect. Make four pieces with at least one top and one bottom, and one accessory. One can be made ahead of the June 1 start date and one can be purchased. I don't want to purchase anything, but I think I'll use my faux suede jacket as the pre-made item and expand my capsule to include one extra item (since I can't use the skirt I've already completed if I'm using the jacket I just completed). The biggest challenge is that there can be NO BLACK! This is the exciting part for me. I have a lot of black in my wardrobe and much of my stash is black, or contains black, so this is going to be a good challenge to get out of my comfort zone and create something entirely void of black.

I'm thinking I'll use the jacket, a pair of darkwash denim trouser jeans (using Hot Patterns Weekender Jean Jeanius pattern), a t-shirt type top and a blouse. For the accessory I'm thinking jewelry since I have a pretty extensive handbag collection that would already coordinate well with a neutral color palette. The June 1st start date gives me ample time to plan and perfect the fit of the patterns I'm thinking of using.

Tomorrow, (or tonight if I get a chance to take pictures) you'll see the military jacket and the skirt that I promised to post a week ago.

military jacket part 2 - some progress

I've made pretty good progress so far on the jacket. I don't have a picture right now, as my sewing room is being occupied by one of my best friends who is visiting from Phoenix. Because of this, I haven't done any work on it since Wednesday morning. Right now, I have the outer shell and lining both assembled and ready to attach. It looks great on my dress form with the denim skirt.

What is left to be done:
- Attach sleeve cuffs to sleeves. I also decided to forego sleeve bands because I thought it would make the jacket a little busier than I had wanted.

- Set in sleeves on outer shell. I had originally postponed this because I wanted to make sure I could find smaller matching buttons for epaulets (which are not yet cut out and sewn). As it turns out, the smallest buttons in the design I chose are the 7/8" buttons that I bought...and I bought them all. I asked when they would get more in, and nobody knew and would not order them for me. This means epaulets and pockets are also both out, since they just won't look right without buttons.

- Attach the peplum to the outer shell. Again, I was waiting on buttons to determine whether or not I would have pockets. Since pockets are out, peplum can be attached as-is.

- Attach the buttons to the front. The way this is designed, it looks like the buttons secure the front detail (I don't know what it's called off the top of my head). Right now, it's attached to the front piece at the center front, but hangs free everywhere else. I need to do this before the lining is completed.

- Insert shoulder pads. I usually don't need, nor do I like, shoulder pads. I tried on the muslin with and without shoulder pads, and the 1/4" shoulder pads look better. I'm also playing around with sleeve heads, but it might be too bulky - we'll see how it works out.

- Attach the lining to the outer shell. The instructions call to bag the lining, but I am going to attach the lining mostly by hand. I will machine-stitch the facing to the front, and then take it from there. Even with a roller foot and an even-feed foot, this fabric tends to shift and pucker and I'm afraid that bagging the lining will result in unwanted puckers and shifts.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I haven't been able to work on it since Wednesday morning. My friend leaves this afternoon and I'll probably be able to work on it tomorrow (Sunday) and then my father-in-law comes to visit for a few days. I also start back at work on Monday, so it might not be finished until next weekend. I was really hoping to have had it finished so I could wear it to work on Monday, but things don't always work out the way we plan.