April MAGAM Challenge Completed!

Vogue 1382 - It's a split personality on this dress.

It's total Rockstar on the outside....

With an innocent cherry print on the inside....

If you remember in my layout picture, I had included some snap tape along the front lines just as a "maybe" feature.  Well, when I had completed the front panel, it definitely needed something so I started playing with the snap tape.

I pinned the female side of the snap tape to the long sections on the middle front and the male side of the tape across the front and across the same section on the back.  After standing back and starring at it for awhile, and asking the DH's opinion (as if that really mattered!), I decided to go for it.

And here it is sewn in place.  I was careful to make sure that a bump on the snap tape didn't hit at the highpoint of the bust - as that would have looked, well, just wrong if you get my drift!  Also - aligning the tape so one of the snaps didn't fall on a seam line took a bit of fidgeting.

I cut out pockets from each of my different fabrics because I wasn't sure exactly which one I wanted to use.  I finally settled on the black and white plaid ones.  

The armhole is quite low and it makes a sort of oval shape towards the front as you can see below while on the dress form.  

 The darts I added to the front and back helped out with the fit.

My invisible zipper is a little visible at the snap tape line, otherwise, it just wouldn't zip with the extra bulk.

The lining is comprised of a striped linen on top and a polyester cherry print on the bottom.  I used some green rick rack to separate the two.

Out of my starting 6 fabrics, I managed to use a piece from each of them to make up this dress.  I'm pretty impressed with myself!

This dress = 3.75 yards (for the the outside fabrics and the lining fabrics)
YTD yardage = 42 yards

Until next time - Happy sewing everyone!
Star

April MAGAM Progress

Progress has been made on my April MAGAM Challenge!

Starting with the muslin fitting...

I traced a size 12 at the bust and hips tapering to an 8 at the waist. 

The pic on the left is the dress with no changes.   It was close, but there was just too much room around the middle for my liking so I started adding darts on the dress form.  After adding 2 darts in the front and 2 in the back along with taking in the hips a little, I think the final fit is much more flattering. Still a little on the loose side since this is supposed to be a loose fitting sheath dress, but not so much that it will be puddling at my waist when I sit down.  

More pics.  Back before, during and after.  

And finally the hips before, during and after.

The theme for this month is to use the oldest piece of fabric from your stash and these are the lucky pieces - a selection of silks, linens and cotton.  I want to highlight the middle fabric - the one with the checks and squares somehow so I thought I'd do some pencil drawings again.

Below is the line drawing from the back of the pattern envelope - Vogue 1382 - an Anne Klein dress.

And here are my penciled drawings trying to determine the layout I prefer.  The highlight fabric placement is just too much in this location.

I like the placement at the top neckline and maybe the pockets.  The stripes on the sides will be the black linen with white stripes.  This is the placement I finally decided on - but I'll throw in the other designs as well so you can see the differences.  

Check on the bottom here was just way, way too much!

I was close on this one too.  It was my second choice.

Here's a trial-run of the fabric in the #2 placement shown above.  I've added some snap tape between the two middle front sections - not sure if I'll do this in the final product or not - I'm thinking it looks a little "Rockstarish" here.  

That's it for now.  Time to cut out the actual pieces and start sewing!

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

Two Vogue patterns - 9114 and 9153

The blouse is Vogue 9153 - a Marcy Tilton pattern.
The bottom is Vogue 9114 - a Kathryn Brenne pattern.

Both patterns have a "gathered area" on them that is out of the norm.  The blouse has a gathered section on the right hand side and the pants have gathered panels near the knees.

A little out of my comfort zone here by making something so baggy.  The blouse is fitted thru the shoulders and bust - which I like - and from the there on down, it is quite baggy.  I made a size XS and it was still very roomy.  The arms were a little snug for me so I ended up letting them out 1/4" from the armhole to the hemline.  

Here is the blouse on the dress form.  The front pieces are supposed to have separate facings sewn to them.  Instead, I altered the pattern to include the facings.  This made it much easier to match the plaid lines on the center front.

The gathered section on the right hand side sorta looks like a pocket, but it's not.  I wanted to highlight this area so I used the contrasting green from the pants as an accent piece.  Also - I added a buttonhole to the top plaid layer for the button.  The pattern only calls for a buttonhole on the bottom layer (the green layer), but this caused the top plaid layer to fold over and I thought it looked odd, so I added the extra buttonhole.

And can you believe I had these buttons in my stash that are the perfect match!  I purchased these buttons at a quilt shop in Montreal a few years ago.  I believe the shop has now closed but I paid $21.00 Canadian form them at the time.  Who knew they would later match this piece of cotton plaid purchased from the Robert Talbott outlet in Carmel, CA that was in my stash.

 Back view here.  You can see how it is nicely fitted thru the shoulder and armhole area.  

The sleeves have a cuff that I opted to use the contrasting green fabric on to highlight them.

The left side of the blouse has two darts that are sewn on the outside of the blouse.  To me, this looks like a mistake, but I'll go with the flow for awhile.  I may change this later so the darts are on the inside if it ends up bugging me too much.

Looks kinda cute here!

One day, I will figure out how to take a straight photo from the back.....

For the pants, I did make a practice pair out of some black linen I had in the stash.  I discovered two things with the practice pair.
First - I couldn't figure out how to tie just the one tie that is called for in the pattern so I opted for two ties on the green pair.
Second - I didn't like the way the small casing is sewn in the pattern because the raw edge ended up poking thru on my practice pair so I've made a simple tutorial below.
Oh - and I shortened the waist by 1 inch and the length by 1 inch too.

Simple tutorial for finishing the casing edge on the inset piece near the knee:
Here are pattern piece #7 (the facing - the plaid piece) and # (the inset - the green piece), sewn together, trimmed and topstitched.

On the straight side of the pieces, there are two small notches - kinda hard to see in this photo.

Sew a staystitching line 1/2" before and after the notch marking and then clip to the staystitching line.

Turn this small piece in twice, using the staystitching line as a guide for the finished edge and sew in place.

Next, with right sides together, sew the rest of the side seam, clip, press and turn.

And voila!  You have a nicely finished little edge so when the drawstrings are threaded thru the casing and pulled, the raw edge of the fabric doesn't slip thru to the outside.

Here's the bottom of the pants with two drawstrings in the panel.  Now I can pull them both and tie a bow.

So how are my yearly stashbustin stats coming along?  The blue plaid was from the stash but I purchased the green fabric to match it so I'm not going to include it in my total; however, the black practice pair of pants was fabric from the stash so it's going into the total!

Top = 2.75 yards
Bottoms = 2.375 yards
YTD yardage sewn:38.25 yards!

Happy sewing everyone!
Star

Me Made May 2016

Just a quick post for today.....

I've signed up again to participate in the Me Made May Challenge for 2016 hosted by Zoe of www.sozowhatdoyouknow.blogspot.com.  If you would like to participate this year, just click on this link to go to Zoe's website so sign-up.

Here is my pledge for this year:

Stars Threads said...

I, Star of www.starsthreads.blogspot.com, sign up as a participant of the Me-Made-May 2016. I will endeavor to wear at least one me-made item each workday and one me-made item on the weekends. I had a great time last year and look forward to the challenge this year! Thanks Zoe!

1 April 2016 at 15:47 

Happy sewing everyone!
Star

2016 ASG Garage Sale

Yesterday was the ASG Sewing Garage Sale.  To say it was the perfect day, well, would just be fibbing - more on that later.  On to the fabulous fabrics I purchased at the sale!

Just look at this varied selection!

 
From the top, left to right:

- An old world graphic print knit - only 2 yards and 24 inches wide so not alot to work with here, but I'm hoping to squeeze Katherine Tilton's Butterick 5925 out of this one - hopefully.  If not, another t-shirt will work.
- A black and white rayon print - maybe a dress out of this one?
- A turquoise poly with a small print on it - this will make a nice lining for something.
- A blue poly small print - 5 yards of this one!  Maybe a long dress with ruffles or something?

Bottom row, left to right:
- A nice rayon print with pink, purple, green and tan squares on it.  I'm thinking Vogue 9077 with the longer skirt for this one.  Mimi G recently made a version of this that I really like with the placket extended in the front.
- A silky (probably poly) turquoise circle print - only 1/2 yard of this one but it will make a nice accent to something
- And lastly a purple knit - only 1 yard of this, but, I have some other purples I've been pulling together for a skirt and this just happened to match perfectly for a t-shirt top.

A total of 16.75 yards added to the stash yesterday at a cost of only $28.62.  That works out to $1.70 per yard.  Whoop!  Whoop!  I hadn't planned on buying alot of fabric and with the day not starting out ideal - this was easy for me to achieve.

So what happened to make a day of fabric shopping not perfect?

I arrived at my scheduled volunteer time of 8:00 a.m. to find about 10 shoppers already in line and the rest of the ASG staff waiting outside the building in the rain.  What were we waiting for - Someone from the North Highlands Community Center to arrive with the keys to open the building for us!!!!  We were supposed to open at 8:00 a.m. for the ASG staff to get to our stations and prep the area for the public and then open for the public shoppers at 9:00 a.m.  After several phone calls to anyone we could think of that could help (The Community Center refused to give us the number of a direct contact mind you), finally, someone arrived at 9:40 to open the building!  That's almost 2 hours late!!!

Thank you to all of our dedicated shoppers who stood outside in the rain, patiently waiting with us for the building to open.  I know several people gave up and left and I can't blame them, but thank you to those who stayed and there were a plenty!!

The Guild will be looking for a new venue next year to hold this event.  If you have any ideas for a location in the Sacramento, California area that could accommodate such an event, please leave your suggestion in a comment below.  It would be greatly appreciated!

Until next time - Happy sewing everyone!
Star

New Notion - Seam Fix Tool

I recently purchased this new sewing notion called "Seam fix".  It's a seam ripper with a rubbery thing-a-ma-bob on the top that is quite handy!  

Here's how it works.  First - rip out your hem (or seam) as you normally would and you are left with threads everywhere.

Using the purple rubber end, rub that end back and forth over the threads....

And voila!  You are left with a small pile of threads and none to pick out by hand!

Using this new notion also brought to my attention just how dull my old seam ripper was.  This one cut thru those threads like butter!  If you haven't purchased a new seam ripper in a number of years, I'd highly recommend buying one of these.

Happy sewing everyone!
Star

More pajamas!!

Once again, here is my favorite pajama pattern - McCalls 3017.  This flannel fabric I purchased at a local quilting guild sale a few weeks ago.  It actually didn't have enough time to make it into the stash stack as I cut out the pajamas in record time!

Pairing the flannel with some blue cotton striped fabric I had in the stash already and purchasing some polka dot piping at my local fabric store, this new set of pj's came together fairly quickly.

For the buttons, I used my stacking button technique with a large blue button on the bottom, followed by a smaller red button on top of that, followed by an even smaller green button on top of the red one.  Because I'm not a stomach sleeper, I can use this technique quite easily on pajamas.

For the pocket I used a little more of the blue fabric with the piping in between.  Pockets in pajamas are a must for me!!

Just a quick post today as I've used this pattern multiple times it seems redundant to keep reiterating the same thing about this pattern over and over.

I'm not sure if I should actually count the flannel fabric as part of my stashbustin' quest, but, I'm going to throw abandon to the wind and go ahead and count it - mainly because by using the flannel, I was able to incorporate the blue cotton that was in the stash so really, without the flannel fabric, the blue fabric will still be in the stash so I'm countin it!

Total yardage for pajamas = 5.25 yards
YTD stashbustin' total = 33.125 yards

I'm nearing the halfway point of my 70 yard total from last year.  So far, I am right on track to beat that this year! Whoop!  Whoop!

Happy sewing everyone!
Star