December MAGAM Travel PJ's completed and a strange phenomenon in my sewing closet.....

December MAGAM Completed 

My December MAGAM challenge of some new travel pj's is complete - and in record time!  Using my favorite 2-hour turtleneck pattern for the top (minus the turtleneck portion) and McCall's 3017 for the bottoms, I sewed both of them almost entirely on the serger.   Aren't they cute!

The serger has since taken a trip to the sewing hospital as it was making a terrible squeeking noise towards the end - it didn't want anything to do with sewing on the elastic for the waistband.  I wonder if the color of the pj's caused it to become sick?  They are a similar shade to hospital gowns.....I didn't read anything in the owner's manual about the machine having an aversion to sewing certain colors.  Hmm, I'll never know.  Anyways, I'm not sure what the visiting hours are in the serger ward, but they tell me it should be back to normal in about a week or two.  Whew!

I used some bird print ribbon that I had in the stash to embellish the bottoms of the sleeves and the pant legs.  And, using the ribbon as a guide, I drew a bird to use to embellish the bottom of the top front.  Don't laugh at my bird - I'm not the best artist in the world, but I think it looks pretty close to the one on the ribbon.

Using some quilting scraps, I traced the bird onto some double sided fusible and fused him to the front and then used the blanket stitch on the sewing machine to stitch him down.  I found the perfect black ball button in the stash to use for the eyeball.

Here's a close-up of the ribbon on the sleeve.

Adding the 3 yards for these pj's to my stashbustin total for the year brings me to a grand total of:

106 yards for 2016!!

Since I started tracking my sewn yardage back in July of 2014, here's where I am so far:

2014 = 48.75 yards
2015 = 68.875 yards
2016 = 106 yards

For a grand total of 223.625 yards!  Holy Cow!  That's alot of stitchin!  Which now leads me onto....

The strange phenomenon in my sewing closet...

Can you see what has happened here?  I think that is actually some empty shelf space in my sewing room closet stash!!!!  Yes - there is a wall behind all of the fabric - I can verify it because I actually touched it to be sure!  After keeping track of the stash sewing over the last few years and trying to focus mainly on reducing it, I can actually see some progress starting to happen with the stash!  I no longer have pieces hidden in other rooms, or piled on the floor in my sewing room, or stacked up on my cutting board (well - there are two pieces at the moment waiting to be cut out).  There is actually some room in the closet!  Are you reading this DH? - That trip to New York is now a "very faint" light at the end of the stash tunnel!  It's faint, but I can see it!!!!

Now before I run out to the store and buy some more fabric thinking I have some extra space that needs to be filled, I'm going to move my 11 shoe boxes of zippers (yes, you read that correctly - 11 shoe boxes of zippers) from the guest room closet into the closet in the sewing room. And with the Sewing Garage Sale coming up in April, I will have to practice some self control there too knowing my goal of a shopping trip in New York is getting closer.  It's going to be tough, but by actually seeing a little progress (finally), I think it might actually happen now!  Whoop!  Whoop!

That's it for me now - I need to cut out those two things on the cutting board and start a new yardage total for 2017.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Sewing Year!

Star

December MAGAM project, a funky giraffeneck top finished, and my sewing finds from vacation

December MAGAM project

I am delayed in determining and posting my December MAGAM Challenge, but finally - here it is.  With a theme of "December Dreaming" I couldn't let this opportunity pass me up to make yet another pair of pajamas.  These however, will become my new traveling pajamas.  After our recent trip to the UK, I discovered that the pair of knit pajamas that I took with me took way, way too long to dry in the dryer.  I think it was because of the facings, collars, and pockets on my pj's that were adding extra fabric layers and causing them to take forever to dry.  So - I decided that a pair of travel pajamas were in my future and with only a few days left to cut out and finish the project, this should fit quite nicely into the last few days of December.

I'll be using this really crappy knit that has been in my stash for quite awhile.  I really can't remember where I purchased the knit, but it has no spandex or lycra in it, so I'm sure my pj's will stretch out while I'm wearing them, but I really don't care.  The "hospital tunic color" might cause me to add some embellishments to the front somehow so I am not accidentally mistaken for a patient in case I'm seen taking out the trash or something.

I'll be using my usual McCall's 3017 for the pj bottoms, but I'm going to use my 2-hour turtleneck pattern (minus the turtleneck portion and the cuffs) to make the top.  Remember, I'm aiming for as few of layers as possible in order to speed up the drying time - so that means no pockets, no facings, no cuffs - actually, this is going to really be quite a boring garment for me!  With that said, I'll show you a recent top I made from the same 2-hour turtleneck pattern that is far from boring!

How do you like my Giraffe impression??

Yes, if I were really cold, the turtleneck portion of this top could double as a balaclava - if only I had put eyeholes in it!  Does this shirt make my neck look long?

Both of the fabrics in this top were leftover from other projects.  The turtleneck and sleeve portions of the top are cut from a nubby knit and the polka dot portion for the front and back are polar fleece. Rather than doubling the turtleneck piece, I only sewed one side to the neckline, leaving the other side to drape nicely around the neckline.  I added some beaded trim to the neckline as well that was left in my stash from yet another project.

Much better here when I'm not trying to impersonate a giraffe.

Back view.  Nothing to exciting here. 

As you can tell, most of these pics were snapped while I was still on vacation in the UK.  Oh - how I miss being there!  

While on vacation, I seek out fabric store and magazines too.  Here I am at Truro Fabrics.

And look at the goodies I purchased:

A black and gray knit, two viscose prints and a new Christmas stocking panel.....completed just in time for Santa to fill it with - of all things - an inversion table!  Just how Santa fit that in the stocking, I will never know - but it's being delivered on Thursday!  Stay tuned for posts while I'm hanging upside down practicing to be a bat!  

I also picked up 6 sewing/crafting magazines.  Why is it that UK craft magazines always come packaged with an extra goodie inside like a free pattern or kit?  Do other countries do that too?  Our US magazines don't have goodies in them!  Who can I complain to about that? 

I collected 4 free patterns and two kits in these magazines.  I make a point of not opening the magazine packages until I get home so as to try to "prolong" the vacation feel a little bit longer.  And, these are fun to curl up next to the fire and have a read.  

Time to add to the stashbustin total. 

Yardage for the Giraffeneck top = 1.5 yards

Yardage for the lining of the stocking = .75 yards (notice, I'm not including the outside of the stocking, just the lining fabric that was from the stash.

Total for both projects = 2.25 yards

Total YTD = 103 yards!  

That's it for now!

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

July MAGAM - Finally finished - Vogue 8757

It's a few weeks late, but I'm finally finished!  My July MAGAM "Opposites" Challenge was to make something from the opposite season.  We are currently in the middle of a very hot summer, so my opposite was to make a quilted winter vest.  Since the theme for July was my idea, I feel kinda guilty for being so late in posting, but I have some good reasons:

• I ordered a custom color-matched zipper for the front closure.  After waiting for it to come in, I realized that I forgot to add the height of the collar in the length calculation and had ordered the wrong length!  It was too short!  (Math never was my best subject!)
• My lining was too short (which I knew it would be from the start) and I was trying to come up with a creative finish for the inside bottom but my mind was just blank (until yesterday - finally!)
• Our refrigerator decided it had had enough on the last day of an 8 day, 100 degree+ heat wave and it quit working.  So after living out of ice chests and doing some creative cooking for the last few weeks, I'm hoping it is finally repaired and working properly again.   

This vest really wasn't a hard project - but as usual, I tend to complicate things with extra embellishments and stitching.  I wanted to highlight some of the seam lines and used the tan satin fabric to make piping.  After sewing the piping into the seams, I then trimmed the seams and spread the seams and topstitched each seamline.

Here's a view of the inside after the seam has been cut, the piping spread apart and topstitched.  

The original armholes on the vest were very, very snug.  I like my armholes a little on the looser side so I lowered them by 2 inches at the bottom of the armhole and tapered that up about 1/2" on the shoulder seam.  The pic below shows before, after trimming, and after applying bias tape to finish.

After the zipper length disaster, I decided I didn't like the look of the zipper anyways on the front and thought that if I ever wore the vest open with the collar flopped down, the brass teeth on the zipper might catch on the quilted stitches and cause a bunch of snags, so it was probably a good thing that I ordered the wrong length!  Instead, I found a vintage covered button kit in my stash.  These buttons were passed down to me from my Nannie and they are probably from the 1950's (I'm guessing here) and I'm glad I was finally able to use them.  As you can see, they come in three sections - the outside brass ring, the inside section that gets covered with fabric and then the bottom piece that snaps everything together.  After cutting and hand sewing and small circle of fabric to the middle sections, they snapped together beautifully.

Views of the front.  Each covered button has a large snap behind it - those took forever to sew on by hand!!

The old blouse that I used for the lining looks quite sharp!  I didn't have enough material to match up the design lines on the print, but I think it looks ok.  I mentioned earlier that I was trying to come up with something creative for the inside bottom hem.  Because the length of my lining was about 1 inch too short, I needed something at least 2 inches wide for the bottom.  I ended up using the ties from the blouse to make a band that is sewn into the bottom hem and then hand stitched to the lining pieces above it.  Not my usual flashing finish for the bottom, but a more subtle look, which doesn't take away from the busy lining fabric.  

And here it is on me!  A bit grumpy looking in this picture, but it was hot again today and after putting on the jeans and standing in front of a fan for awhile, I managed to snap a few photos before I started sweating to death!  This will be a nice and cozy vest in the wintertime!

I managed to stick to two of my original "opposite" ideas for this project.

- Opposite Season - making something for Winter when my current season is Summer. - Yes!!

- Old versus New - turning something old into something new again by reusing the old top for the lining. - Yes!!

- Zipper versus Snap - Change the closure from snaps to a zipper.  - Nope - went back to the snap idea.

Here are the numbers for those interested:
Vest yardage = 2.25 yards
YTD Stashbustin total = 65.125 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star