I'm thankful for...

Among my family, friends and healthy son, I'm thankful for UPS and Allbrands! My iron, which was supposed to arrive Monday, actually arrived on Wednesday evening!!!! I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I plan on pre-treating my wool crepe today and getting started on my Galaxy-inspired dress!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving celebration. Because it was just the three of us this year, we didn't make a traditional meal. Instead, I made pork adobo (my favorite spicy pork!) with tortillas, rice and beans. It was delicious!!!

blasted holiday!

Ok, I love Thanksgiving, but because UPS doesn't operate on Thanksgiving day or the day after, I won't get my iron until Monday. So much for working on the dress over the extended weekend. I guess I could have paid the additional $60+ to have it here today or tomorrow, but I really didn't *need* it so the justification would be difficult.

So now to call my dry cleaners and find out how much to have them do it for me - watch I'll find out it would have been worth paying for expedited shipping...I guess I can always borrow an iron.

Merry Unbirthday to me!

So I started the process of pretreating my wool crepe for the Galaxy-inspired dress. After several swatches, my chosen method was to wash on the gentle, low-spin cycle in baby shampoo and then steam press until dry. All but one of my four 6"x6" swatches shrunk by 1/2" in the length and width. The fourth one shrunk by only a tiny bit less - and that was the swatch that was machine washed and hung to dry.

The only problem is that the steam function on my home iron is on the fritz. There is no way I want to steam press a 4 yard piece of fabric with my old home iron. As an early Christmas/merry unbirthday gift to myself, I bought a Consew Gravity Feed iron. It should be here on Friday (leave it to me to make a purchase during a holiday week). Because I really wanted to work on the dress over the holiday weekend, I will probably pretreat this length with my existing iron. I may even forego the spin cycle altogether and let the fabric generate it's own steam. One of my swatches used the soaking wet method and shrunk as much as it did in the dryer without changing the appearance or hand of the fabric.

So it looks like I have a plan B after all! But I can't wait until my new iron arrives, I've been putting it off for far too long!!

off to a good start

Since I had decided on the Galaxy-inspired Vogue dress for my upcoming company holiday party, I needed to make sure that the style would suit me. Tuesday after work I made my first mock-up. I need to make a few tweaks to the length of the bodice and the flanges, I'm also going to raise the neckline by 1". I don't like the straight skirt on my figure, so I am going to play around with some other skirt options.

Next was the task of finding fabric. I knew I wanted a dark blue of some sort, but couldn't make up my mind as to the exact type of fabric I wanted. I went back and forth over several choices (tafetta, a satin microfiber, stretch satin, wool) and because I want something more versatile than a party dress typically is, I decided on this wool crepe from Vogue Fabrics


I ordered it late in the afternoon last Friday and it arrived yesterday. It is an even prettier color than the picture suggests - darker and with more of an aqua hue. It's stunning. Tonight I'm going to play around with pre-treatment options.

Tomorrow, my mom is coming to Reno for the day and I hope to get the rest of my fitting tweaks onto paper so I can get started. My goal is to have the dress completed over the 4-day Thanksgiving holiday.

For jewelry, I've enlisted the assistance of a coworker. While I love making jewelry, I just don't have the time with all of the other projects I have lined up for the holidays. My inspiration was this necklace from White House | Black Market:

There are going to be an assortment of black, dark grey, light grey and clear Swarovski and Czech crystals and glass pearls. So the necklace and earrings are taken care of.

Now for the remaining accessories...I still need to decide on shoes and a belt. I have time, the party isn't for 3 weeks and I have some black patent pumps that I could wear if all else fails.

my mojo is returning

It's been SO long since I've been in the sewing room. So long, in fact, that it has turned into a temporary storage room for my husband. Not for long!! He is in the process of returning my sewing room to me as I type this. My family and his parents are all going to be visiting this weekend, so we need the room, but it also happens to coincide with my mojo returning!!

I have been slowly starting to work on Christmas gifts for the family. This year I decided to make good use of the three new machines (embroidery, sewing and serger) that I have purchased in the past year and make most of the gifts we are giving to friends and family. I have been ramping up that, but I also need a dress for my company's upcoming holiday party. The party is December 12th and this is what I am leaning towards:



I'm going to start working on a muslin of view E and see if it works on me. I'm leaning towards a sapphire blue color, but I have no idea of the fabric yet.

OR I have several strapless "party dress" patterns with fuller skirts that may work, and for something like that I'd be looking for a cross-dyed sapphire/black with a black velvet or faux fur shrug.

Any other pattern ideas??? I definitely want something fun and I'm just not completely sold on the idea that the Roland Mouret knock-off will look as good on me as it does on so many others.

Next, I'll have some Christmas gifts to share and some possible SWAP ideas - the extended timeframe might actually make it possible for me to complete and I need some new work clothes.

nothing new to show

Since Drew is getting to the point where he can almost sit on his own, I've been spending all of my free sewing time working bits and pieces on a shopping cart cover for him. I wanted to make it from Alexander Henry's Tattoo fabric, but the only quilt shop in town that sells Alexander Henry no longer had it. Bless their hearts, the ladies that work at Windy Moon Quilts looked high and low to find it. It probably didn't help that it was smack in the middle of Hot August Nights when I was looking and most of their really cool fabrics were already depleted.

So I did manage to find an alternative tattoo fabric that was similar to the Alexander Henry print I wanted and bought some of that, a bright red batik and some lightweight black denim for the bottom of the cover. The denim is more of a chambray type of fabric but the whole thing looks really cool! I have to finish sewing on the pockets and toy tabs, add the elastic and the whole thing will be done. I should have it posted before the weekend.

In the meantime, enjoy a couple of pictures of the little one from our 4th of July celebration at the lake!

is this too matchy-matchy?

I was browsing Smart Bargains today and found this shoe:

I love it!! It's the same colorway and a very similar print to my geometric skirt from my last post.

I doubt I could really pull off such a matchy-matchy look, but with a solid brown or even an ivory Cosmo dress that aqua would really pop!

Thanks to everyone who enabled me to discover online shoe shopping...like I need another addiction/obsession/passion/money sink!