Catching Up!

As you can see - I made this skirt and top back in May as part of the Me Made May Challenge, but am just now getting around to posting it! As the label says - the blouse is Simplicity 1716 - View E and the skirt is Anna Maria Horner's Study Hall skirt.

I love the drape of the neckline on this blouse.  It's a nice cowl neck, but it doesn't fall down to your bellybutton when you bend over.  It has two pleats on each side of the front near the shoulder that help enhance the draping effect.  

The top is a little on the long side, but it gathers nicely around the waistline.

There is a center back seam too, although it's hard to see in this picture.

It has small sleeves that overlap at the bottom.  The armhole is a little on the low side, but it does still manage to cover up my bra when wearing.

The skirt is made from 3 different quilting cottons - all from my stash believe it or not!

I added a trim that is edged with rick rack on both sides to the bottom piece.

The box pleats open nicely when walking too.

This skirt and top used up another 4 yards from the stash bringing the YTD total to = 57.625 yards!  Whoop!  Whoop!

Just a quick post today.  I'm working on a really cute Kwik Sew dress and hope to finish it this weekend.  And, my July MAGAM Challenge vest is coming along nicely - but I'm on a brief hold with this project as I'm waiting for my color matched brass zipper to be delivered!

That's it for me.  Happy sewing everyone!

Star

March MAGAM Done!

I love my March MAGAM outfit!

The skirt is Anna Maria Horner's Study Hall Skirt and it is my new favorite skirt pattern.  The top is Simplicity 1808.  I can see a few more of these tops in my wardrobe - along with a dress.  And remember in my announcement post about this top how I mentioned the printing of the Simplicity pattern was incomplete?  Well - I sent an e-mail to Simplicity explaining the problem and including a link to my blog page showing the picture and they sent me a brand new pattern - no questions ask!  What great customer service!

The skirt is fairly simple to make.  Here's the back view.  It's basically panels sewn together and then folded onto each other and sewn on the seamlines to make the box pleats.


I didn't have enough yardage for all of the pattern pieces so I ended up piecing the top portion of the side back pieces.


I added some fun double fold bias tape to the inside facings too.


And I thought my trim for the bottom looked a bit plain on it's own so I added Ric Rac to both sides while sewing it onto the bottom section.  I think the Ric Rac sort of looks like petals - don't you?  I did add 1 inch to the length of the bottom contrast fabric to get the length I prefer.



And the piece that ties it all together - my $4.97 necklace before....

Add some fingernail polish....

And voila!  A perfectly matched necklace and earrings.

I used 2 yards out of the stash to make the skirt so this brings my YTD stashbustin total up to 21 yards!  Yippee!  I can't count the blouse fabric because that was a recent purchase to match the skirt fabric and it hadn't truly aged long enough in my opinion to be considered a piece of stash fabric.

That's it for me today - Happy Sewing everyone!

Star

March MAGAM Determined

The theme for the Make a Garment a Month Challenge is "Mad March on March".  I"m going to use the "Mad" portion of the theme and make a new spring garment.  

I've selected the "Mad" portion of the theme for three reasons.

Reason #1 - my fabric selection looks a bit "Mad".  I'll be using the floral print and the blue/green polka dot with the crazy floral trim leftover from my last project to make Anna Maria's Study Hall Skirt.  The purple knit will be a t-shirt blouse out of Simplicity 1808.

Reason #2: I don't have enough of the floral print to easily cut out all of the pieces for the skirt so I'll have to piece a few of the pieces together.  That will be truly "Maddening"!

Reason #3:  Look at the Simplicity pattern print out below.  I mean really look at it.  What's missing?

It has the sizing lines but the "Front" and "Back" are not labeled on any of the pieces on this sheet along with all of the corresponding pattern numbers.  I'm sure it's just a printing error - but I wonder if all of these patterns were printed this way.  The second sheet to this pattern had all of the necessary information printed on the pieces but not this sheet.  If you have this pattern - be sure to pull it out and see if all of your information has been printed!

Wish me luck!

Happy Sewing!
Star