My favorite sewing glasses!

Not really sewing glasses but sewing related glasses.  How cute are these!  They are Karl Lagerfeld, yes the designer, glasses with zippers on the sides!

Front view

The right frame leg has just zipper teeth.  

Right side

But the left side has the zipper teeth and the zipper tab as well!  The zipper tab has "Karl Lagerfeld" imprinted on it.

Left side

These are sew cute!  I get tons of comments when wearing them to sewing related events as you can imagine.  I'm not sure if they are still in production, but the frame number is: KL704 in case you are interested.

Happy Sewing!

Simplicity 9669

Here is a lovely vintage pattern from 1971 - Simplicity 9669.  I seem to have a thing for patterns from 1971 lately - see my blue coat post here.  I don't recall how I ended up with this pattern, but it sure is a cute one!

Pattern front

I made View 2 - the shorter cape version with 4 buttons on the upper left of the front.  I had some cheap black/red/white woven plaid type material in my stash that I wanted to get rid of and thought this would be the perfect pattern to try it out on. The cape required a little more than 3 yards and that's about what I had so I was in luck! I already had some black rayon lining in my stash as well and with some buttons to suit on hand as well, this project didn't cost me anything!

I know what your thinking - "It had to cost something - where did you get the supplies from to start with?!". Well, here's my way of thinking - if the fabric, trim, button, etc. has been in your stash and adequately aged for more than 2 years (meaning, you can no longer remember the cost of it), then it's free!

Pattern Back

For a free garment, I think it turned out quite cute!  I had debated whether or not to add some 1" wide red ribbon near the bottom of the cape, but decided against it when I pinned on the ribbon as an experiment and the dear husband walked in and commented that he thought it made the cape "look cheap".

Here's the back view.  Kinda makes you feel like a superhero in a cape!

Until next time!
Happy Sewing!

February Garment a Month Challenge

Have you ever have one of those sewing days where everything you touch seems to go wrong?  Well, this was one of those times.  Thankfully, I was just working on the muslin for fitting purposes and not the actual garment.

So I'm making Vogue 1135 - a Chado Ralph Rucci designer dress with lots of pintucking and gussets, and bias pieces, etc. for my February garment.  Well, to start off with, I had the wrong size pattern and it looks a nightmare to try and size it down a few sizes.  Since it's now OOP and I bought it ages ago (probably not paying attention to the size and just grabbing it on sale), I knew it wouldn't fit.  Thankfully, ebay came to my rescue with a new, smaller pattern.  That was the first mistake (wrong size pattern).  Here's the pattern drawing below.  I had the DD size (12 - 18) and needed the AAX size (4 - 10).



Then, I decided to buy some cheapo knit fabric from Wal-Mart to make my muslin.  Now, I can't really blame the fabric for the sewing mistakes that I was about to make, all I can really do is blame it on my lack of concentration and trying to rush the muslin.

Once I traced the pattern and cut out the pieces, the errors began to multiply.  First, I sewed the wrong sides (or would that be right sides in this case?) of the top front and back together.  Well, I didn't notice at the time, but this caused me to sew the gussets under the arms in incorrectly as well - not just one time, but 3 times!  Holy cow!  I think that is a record for me.  Then, the midriff piece went in incorrectly as well.  Oh joy!

Front view of the muslin

Next came the skirt.  Somehow I managed to trace the correct "Cut Here for Lining" line on the front, but managed to trace a tuck line on the back - so now my side seams don't match either.  Aye, yi, yi!  I did, miraculously manage to sew these two pieces together correctly though.  Yippee - one piece is right (sort of)!

Back view

As you can see here, the bottom side seams don't match at all!  The dress looks really, really frumpy from this angle too!  It did fit me much better than my dress form buddy.

View of the other side isn't any prettier!  Just so you know, those little square dangly pieces at the underarms are meant to be there.  They are little stabilizer squares because the angle of the gusset is so sharp, it needs a little something extra there so the seam doesn't rip.

So now my muslin is sewn half right sides together and half wrong sides together. Lovely!  Oh well, at least it's the practice garment and not the real thing!  And, I know how it fits.  Maybe I could add some lace to it and wear it as a nightgown!  Ha! Ha!

All is not lost though - I did learn quite a few things from this:

1. I do not need to install the invisible zipper in the back.  I can pull it over my head just fine.

2. I do need to take it in at the back waist a little.  This will make it a little more fitted in the waist - and cause another problem in the process - the lining up of the pintucks.

3. Because I will need to take in the dress at the waist, I think I will wait to do the pintucks south of the midriff panel until the garment is almost finished.  I may even leave off the last pintuck on the top portion above the midriff panel as well because of the waist fitting.

4. I need to be more diligent and accurate in my markings.  There are alot of circles and squares and notches that need to line up in this dress so I need to take my time when cutting it out and be sure to mark every single one of them!

5. I will trace the pintuck lines onto the dress, but understand that they will need to be adjusted - probably freehand the final lines when the dress is near completion.  

6.  Lastly, give it a break for a few days!  I think I've been thinking about it too much and need to do something mindless for awhile!

Until next time!

Happy Sewing!

Vogue 8778

This jacket is a Katherine Tilton design for Vogue Patterns.  I made this awhile ago and have finally posted it.  This jacket adds to my collection of jackets that are members of the "Big Collar Brigade" - I seem to have quite a few members in my closet.

The jacket is made out of polar fleece and the day I took the pictures, it was about 80 degrees outside and I was roasting, so I tried to take some quick snaps.

The jacket is very loose-fitting with an asymmetrical front zipper closure.  I wanted to do a little something different with the zipper so I combined two different zippers in my stash.  As you can see below, one side of the zipper is white and the other side is black.  Also, after sewing in the zip, it seemed a little plain, so I added some polka dot ribbon to each side.

The black polar fleece was the packing material used in an e-bay purchase of a new sewing machine.  Of course I couldn't throw it away - for goodness sake - it was free fabric!  There was about 3 yards of the stuff and it had various holes and marks so I needed to work around them when cutting out the jacket pieces.

The striped knit sleeve material was leftover from a previous project.
The polka dot polar fleece was purchased at a local fabric store - I can't remember when exactly. Here's the back view - pretty simple from the back.

After completing the jacket, it seemed like it was missing something so I added the pocket to the front.

The pocket material is some cotton knit I had in my stash.  To make the pattern, I used a salad plate from the kitchen and traced around the outside of the plate and then added a seam allowance.  Using two pieces of knit, sew the circles together and turn.  When I added the pocket to the jacket, I decided how much of the circle I wanted to turn back to form the flap and just sewed around the edge of the rest of the pocket.  Add a button and ta-da!  Super easy pocket!  I think the round pocket pulls from the polka dots on the collar and my cute little polka dot button was the finishing touch.

The two collar pieces in front just meet - no hooks and eyes or anything.  I might add some hooks and eyes at a later date.

That's it for now!  Hope you like it!

Happy Sewing!