The Liverpool Shirt by Amy Butler - My M-A-D March MAGAM Make

The theme for March's MAGAM challenge was "Make A Dress" something - or MAD March.  I opted to make a dress shirt and this could possibly be the best shirt pattern I have ever made.  It has an awesome armscye, perfectly placed darts, nicely fitted thru the torso yet roomy enough to not be restricting, and a nicely shaped collar befitting of a shirt named "The Liverpool".

I originally cut out the tunic length, but shortened it to 1 inch longer than the shirt length on the pattern.  Essentially, I cut off 5 inches from the tunic length - which was looking a bit "lab coatish" on me and I preferred the shirt length. 

The shirt has two darts in the front that are topstitched down:

A french seam on the center back adds to the detailing of the two back darts (which are topstitched down too).

My fabric is an abstract garden print quilting cotton from my stash, which I coordinated with a matching fabric I also had in the stash.  It was pure coincidence that the little ant on the coordinating fabric appears to be marching out of the radish row to his left.  The orange buttons were from my stash too.

I used the coordinating fabric on the inside of the collar stand, along with the sleeve cuffs.  Here you can see the unique shape of the collar too. 

 And the necklace that I recently painted orange seems to go quite well with my new blouse!

The "cuffs" are stitched to the inside of the sleeve and simply turned up to give the appearance of separate cuffs.

I love the shaping of the back too! I can see a few more of these blouses in my future.  The fit is fantastic!

What else is in the sewing queue?

As I tend to sew on multiple garments at one time - here's what else has been running under my presser foot lately. 

The green leaf print rayon will be Butterick 6168 - a Lisette dress pattern I've been wanting to make for a long time...

Matilda #1 will be getting a sister with this Robert Talbott cotton....

I found this Mariposa Top UFO in my sewing stash that needs to be completed....

And OMG - could this be jeans in my future!!!!!

Lots of sewing happening in my room lately!  I hope you have been stitching loads of garments too!

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for this shirt = 3 yards
YTD yards sewn = 26.25 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 73.75 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

Vogue 1233 - Round Two - the cross-eyed version!

I have been working on this dress for well over a month now.  I've only been able to work on this dress in short bursts as the weave makes my eyes go crossed after working with it for more than an hour at a time.  Cutting this puppy out was a big headache generator too!  I had worked out all of the fitting issues with my first version so I could just cut this out and sew.  But with all of the tediousness of cutting, lining up the lines and overall eye rubbing, I think it has paid off.  Just stare at this photo for awhile and see what happens to your eyeballs.....

The fabric is a cotton weave that I purchased at Robert Talbott's in Carmel Valley a number of years ago.  The buttons came from a neighborhood sewing store as I didn't have any in my stash that would work.

Here's the back.  I can barely type this as my eyes are getting crossed from just the photo below, but take a look at the center back seam.  That was an eye-bender!

I am very proud of my buttonholes!  I centered them on the intersecting line just perfectly!  Crossed eyeballs and all!

 The pockets are fully lined and feel wonderful when you put your hand in them. 

Here are some close-ups of the pockets:

The lining was left over from the Sewaholic Minoru jacket I made back in 2014.

I only had enough of the printed lining to place on the back.  The front pieces are just plain black.

Not bad for a long term sewing project!  

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for this dress (including lining) = 5.125 yards
YTD yards sewn = 23.25 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 76.75 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

My Electric Butterfly dress

I've nicknamed this dress "The Electric Butterfly".  Just check out this bright fabric!

This is McCall's 7429 - a knit dress with a twist at the front.  I purchased this lovely piece of knit at the sewing guild's spring event with Linda Lee last year.  There was only 2 yards of it and the pattern calls for 2 3/8 yards so I BARELY squeeked this dress out of the yardage I had.

My goal in laying out the pattern pieces was to have a green "butterfly line" be centered on the bodice front.  I achieved that pretty well, but there wasn't much fabric left for the back pieces.

 

So my backside has this "Butterfly stripe", going right across my tushy.  Oh well!

 I love the twist in the front.

Here's a side tushy view of that stripe placement.  It would fall across the fullest part of my backside too!

On Friday, I went to a sewing expo and found the perfect earrings for the dress.  These are made from butterfly wings!

The vendor assured me that no butterflies were harmed to make these earrings. They come from a zoo in South America.  When the butterflies die naturally, they are given to a local jewelry designer who then turns them into lovely pieces of jewelry.

As I was snapping my photos, the bee's in the neighboring rosemary bush were starting to take notice of either me, my dress or one of their insect cousins dangling from my ear lobes....

And that quickly ended the photo shoot!

That's it for me today.  I finally found the perfect buttons for my Vogue dress and it will be finished and posted next weekend and I've started The Liverpool Tunic by Amy Butler.  I'm gathering my supplies to finally start my first pair of jeans so stay tuned for those - I have high hopes for them! 

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for this dress = 2 yards
YTD yards sewn = 18.125 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 81.875 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

Matilda is gonna need a sister!!!!

I've finished the "Matilda" by Megan Nielsen and I absolutely love it!  She is gonna need a sister and soon!

I used some batik cotton purchased at a garage sale last year.  As I didn't spend much cash on the fabric, I thought this would be a good test run of the pattern.  I think it is perfect!

I originally cut out a size small thru the bust and shoulders and tapered to a medium at the waistline.  As it turns out, I ended up taking in the sides at the waistline to a size small so I have gone and recut the pattern to be just a size small entirely now.

I am really getting some use out of my green Dansko's too!  Who knew I had so many green garments in my wardrobe. 

The color looks different inside, but here's a close up of the patch pockets with flaps.  The buttons were from the stash and they match perfectly.  I used slightly smaller buttons on the pocket flaps.

Close-up of the patch pockets on the skirt portion.  A bit hard to see with my busy turtle print. 

And here's the back.....

That's it for today.  My next Vogue dress is coming along nicely but due to it's black/white herringbone weave that makes your eyes go crossed, I can only work on it for short time periods.  The "Electric Butterfly" dress is almost finished too.  I just need more hours on the weekends to finish everything!  Here are my latest stats for everyone that is following along on my stashbustin quest...

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for this dress = 4.375 yard
YTD yards sewn = 16.125 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 83.875 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

Boot stuffers!

Just a quick post today.  Here are some boot stuffers I made recently. 

I like to buy sewing magazines while vacationing in other countries to see what's happening in their sewing scene. This idea came from the Sewing World magazine, October 2017 Issue.  I purchased it while we were on holiday in England last year.  Using some scrap fabrics from the stash and some polyfil, you can see that they really work!  Left boot is sad and floppy while the boot on the right is standing tall!

I made three sets so now all of my boots are standing proud in the closet! 

That's it for today!  My Matilda dress is finished - just need to photograph it this weekend.  I found buttons for my new Vogue dress so it should be completed soon.  My Electric butterfly dress is half-done and I need to cut out the Liverpool Blouse this weekend.  Lots of things happening in my sewing room lately!  And here's the latest on the stashbustin' quest....

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for these boot stuffers = 1.5 yards
YTD yards sewn = 11.75 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 88.25 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

My fave top - Version ??

I have made this turtleneck top so many times, I've lost track.  So this is version ?? made from some leftover scraps from Vogue 8962.  I'd been holding onto these scraps since 2014 and it was time to sew them up into something so of course a turtleneck would do the trick quite nicely.

Just a quick post today.  I have lots of almost finished projects to share in the near future.  My stash sorting project is going quite nicely and I think it will be completed next weekend.  My Matilda dress by Megan Nielsen is finished (just needs to be photographed) and I'm trying to find buttons for my latest Vogue dress.

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for this top = 1 yard
YTD yards sewn = 10.25 yards
Remaining yardage to sew to reach 100 yard goal = 89.75 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star