3rd Quarter Goals update

It's the end of September and therefore, time for an update on my goals for this year.  Third quarter was a tough one for me sewing wise, due to our big house project that took up most of the time on the weekends for the months of July and August.  However, I did manage to tick off a few more items from the list though:

Garments to tackle:
- Jeans - Done! Q2
- Pants - Done! Q3
- Bras
- Something reversible
- Sew more Burda patterns

Using up the stash:
- Sew 100 yards this year - In process! Currently at 85.05 yards sewn.
- Sort thru scraps - Done! Q1
- Sort thru all of my current stash.  Add all of the remaining pieces to the "Cora" app. - Done! Q1

Tracking:
- Track how much fabric I use/buy. - In process!
- Track spending. - In process!
- Track my pattern usage. - In process!

For fun:
- Redecorate the sewing room this year. - Done! Q3

So far so good!  I'm moving right along!

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

My newly decorated sewing room

Warning - lots of photos ahead!

One of the items on my list for this year was to redecorate my sewing room.  It's been about 15 years with the same look and it was time for a refresh.  One idea I wanted to try was to somehow glue patterns to one of my main walls.  When I was traveling in London a few years ago, I saw this on one of the walls inside the fabric department at Liberty Department store and I wanted to duplicate it. And low and behold, it worked!

To start my little pattern wall experiment, I needed to find a clear glaze.  After going to a few paint stores, I came across this one.  I described to the man behind the counter what I wanted to do and he thought this product would do the job.  At $50.00 a gallon, it was a bit pricey, but you never know until you try, right?

Next - find a scrap board to practice on.  Paint it white and start glazing....And low and behold, it worked!  First you roll on some glaze - it actually looks like milk, but it dries clear.  Then, carefully take one pattern piece and lay it onto the wall.  Then, roll over the pattern only one or two times with the roller full of glaze and move onto the next piece.

So now that I knew it worked, I could move onto the main wall.  First step, cut out way, way more patterns than you think you will need.  And for those concerned, no vintage patterns were sacrificed for this project.  These were mainly children's patterns, with some women's, from the 80's and 90's.

Then start glazing away!  I started in the bottom corner and just went from there.

And voila!  Before I knew it, the wall was done!

I found this fabric that kinda reminded me of pattern pieces, so my color scheme was now determined.

I made new curtains using the fabric and a back cushion for my chair.  I also purchased some lime green suede to make the tabs for the curtain and to reupholster my chair.  

I had two of these old sewing machine stands in storage.  By cleaning them up, spray painting and adding tops to them, they are now my serger and coverstitch stands.  It's great to have these two machines always out and available.  Here's the before pic for one of them.

And after.  My new coverstitch stand.

And my new serger stand.  

My computer desk is now clean and tidy and free of the extra serger I used to plop on here.  

I am over the moon with my new room!  And I absolutely love the pattern wall!  I hope you like it too! 

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for curtains = 2 yards
Yardage for chair = 1.5 yards
YTD yards sewn = 85.05 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 14.95 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

Vogue 1423 - My Cherry Red Dress

This Bellville Sassoon dress has been on my radar for a few years now - 4 to be exact because the pattern was released in 2014 and I quickly snapped it up.  The fabric I used is a cotton pique that I purchased at the Mill End Fabric store in Reno, Nevada a number of years ago.  I found some silk fabric for the lining at this year's sewing garage sale and it matched perfectly! 

This dress has alot of interest in the front.  Someone at work commented that it kinda looks like a Celtic cross on the front and I can see why - just look at all of those different lines!

The back is fairly simple with an invisible zipper down the center back and seam detailing which helps with the fitting. 

See how perfectly the lining matches!  I purchased 8 yards of the silk and I needed every bit of it.  After I washed the fabric, I noticed little holes had developed here and there and I needed to cut out every single piece of the lining separately to avoid the holes.  I still ended up with one hole on the center front, but I fused a piece of interfacing to it and I'm hoping that will work for awhile.  

This dress had quite a few fitting challenges for me.  The back fits quite nicely, but the front was a problem.  The bustline was just too low for me and the top of my strapless bra kept peeking out.  So, I opted to take up the shoulders by 1" total (1/2 in the back and 1/2 in the front) and that made the fit much, much better!

After raising up the shoulders, the armhole was way, way outta line so instead of trying to recut the armhole to get the small sleeves to fit, I just opted to skip the sleeves (I don't like small sleeves anyways) and do a sleeveless variation.  I used self made bias-tape to finish the armhole.  I didn't want to machine sew the bias tape to the inside, so I opted to sew it in by hand. 

All in all, I think this is a pretty nice dress!  I got quite a few compliments on it the first time I wore it to work. 

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for dress = 3 yards
Yardage for lining = 8 yards
YTD yards sewn = 81.55 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 18.45 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

Pants - Done!

Another item on my list of to-do's this year was Pants.  I can now check these off of the list too.

I started with McCalls 6361 - a Palmer Pletsch pattern.  This pattern includes 1" seam allowances on the side seams and the inseam.  After you tape the crotch curve with some clear tape, they have you pin the pattern pieces together and try them on.  This was a bit awkward in our hot weather, but it seemed to give a good trial fit.

For my practice fabric, I used some stretch cotton pique that I picked up at this year's ASG Garage Sale.  There was 3.25 yards for $9.00 so not a bad price for some practice pants.

Here are the changes I ended up making to the pants pattern:

• Took in the center back seam by 1" and tapered to the crotch curve
• Took in the side seams 1/2"
• Took 3/8" off the inside leg seam
• Subtracted 1" off of the center back waistband
• Let out the front inseam by 1/4" tapering for about 6 inches
• I didn't make this change on this pair, but I will on the next one - lower the waistline by 1/2"

When paired with my fav Kwik Sew t-shirt pattern, I think this outfit looks kinda cute! 

Look - no gapping at the center back and they fit my backside quite nicely I'd say.

There are a few wrinkles underneath the bottom, but I'm not too worried about those.  I'll see what happens with my next pair.

All in all - I think the pants came out pretty well!

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for capri pants = 2.675 yards
Yardage for t-shirt = 1.5 yards
YTD yards sewn = 70.55 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 29.45 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

My Paint swatch Dress!

This is my third version of the Frankenpattern of Butterick 5353, combined with New Look 6224 for the bottom.  Version one is here.  And version two you can find here.  This newest version didn't disappoint either.  I'm calling it my paint swatch dress because that's what it reminds me of - all of the paint samples you can get at the paint store.

The linen fabric was part of my haul from this year's ASG Sewing Garage Sale.  There were 3 yards, and I paid a whopping $6.00 for it.  The lining is just a plain white cotton I had in my stash.  I actually paid more for the piping and invisible zipper than I did for the main fabric!  

I really wanted to use purple for the piping instead of pink, but I couldn't find any that matched just right.  The pink actually matches perfectly.

Here are the latest stashbustin' stats!

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for this dress (including lining) = 5 yards
YTD yards sewn = 66.375 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 33.625 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

The perfected T-shirt pattern

With just a few changes to Kwik Sew 2900 pattern, I think I now have my perfect t-shirt pattern.
Here's a side by side comparison - new t-shirt on the left and first version on the right.

So what changes did I make?

• Shortened the sleeve length
• Shortened the hem length
• Narrowed the width of the neckband

And that's pretty much it! 

This was my second practice version using some knit I purchased from this year's garage sale and some black and white stripe on the neckband.  This one is a wearable muslin I think.  Super cute with the stripes at the neck!

Another quick post for me today as I'm still in catch-up mode.  Here are the latest stashbustin' stats!

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for this top = 1.5 yards
YTD yards sewn = 61.375 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 38.625 yards.  I'm getting closer!!

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

My eyeglass top - New Look 6628

My annual eye exam appointment was quickly approaching and I thought it would be funny to sew up a shirt for the occasion out of this cute eyeglass quilting cotton print I purchased at a quilt shop in Vancouver, Canada earlier this year.  I was hoping I could bribe the doc into not dilating my eyes by showing him the cute shirt I made for the occasion.  But you know what - he didn't even notice it!  The office staff did and they all loved it, but the eye doc didn't!  Oh well - it's still a cute shirt!

This is New Look 6628 - View B.  Like my different colored buttons down the front?  Cute huh!

I've made this shirt before, but never the sleeveless version.  I only bought 1.5 yards of the fabric so no room for sleeves!  And instead of finishing the armholes with the facing pieces, I just used bias tape instead.  

There are fitting darts in the back and front too.  And little vents on the sides - which you can't see here.

Just a quick post for me today as I'm still in catch-up mode.  Here are the latest stashbustin' stats!

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for this top = 1.5 yards
YTD yards sewn = 59.875 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 40.125 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

The Sparrow Top - Brown Bag Challenge Project

For the last two months, the DH and I have been working on a big house project and my weekends were pretty much consumed by that.  I did manage to squeeze in a few projects here and there, but the blog posting fell by the wayside.  Thankfully, the project is now finished (Hallelujah!) so I can catch up on some long overdue posts!

After the ASG's annual garage sale, the remaining unsold fabric is boxed up and then sorted at a later date to be donated to various charities.  Some of these unloved pieces of fabric, make their way into brown paper bags for our annual Brown Bag Challenge.

How's it work you ask?  During one of our monthly guild meetings, the sealed, brown bags are piled onto the center of a table.  Each member, then gets to select a bag with no peeking!  When it's your turn, you can either select a new bag, or steal one of the fabrics already selected.  You then have two months to make something out of your selection.

Of course I decided to steal for mine and here's what I got!  This lovely piece of clothing printed fabric.  I'm pretty sure it's a poly blend of some sort.  It has the drape of a rayon, yet there has to be some poly in it somewhere.

There was only a little over one yard of this fabric so a small project was in my future.  I had been eyeing the Sparrow Top by Liola Patterns for quite a while and when patterns went on sale on Indiesew, I decided to take the plunge and give this pdf pattern a try.  I'm not a great lover of pdf patterns, but since this was just a tank top, I thought it couldn't be to painful to tape everything together.

I really like this top!  It is sewn together using french seams and the way the collar flips around to the outside, leaves a nice finished edge around the neckline too. 

I made a size Medium and it's a little roomy, but not to big.  For my next one (which is already cut out), I'll be taking in the sides just a wee bit.

For the collar, I found some fabric in the stash that matched perfectly!  This is silk tie fabric that I purchased from the Robert Talbott outlet in Carmel Valley a few years ago.  I edged the collar with some yellow piping for a little more contrast.

That's it for me today but of course, I can't leave without the latest stashbustin' stats!

Latest Stashbustin' Stats:

Yardage for this top = 1.5 yards
YTD yards sewn = 58.375 yards
Remaining yardage to reach 100 yard goal = 41.625 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star