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 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

My Two Minutes of Fame and Some New Projects

Fame - the condition of being known or talked about by many people, especially on account of notable achievements!  Whoop!  Whoop! Hahahah!

The most recent Love to Sew Podcast Episode 17: How Big is your Pattern Stash? plays my voicemail that was almost 2 minutes long!  Yippee!  I encourage you to click on over to their website and listen to the episode (along with other episodes).  Episode 17 not only plays my tips for pattern organization (starting at 26:43), but the episode is almost 1.5 hours long and chock full of pattern organization ideas, Indie vs. Big 4 question (or I guess it's the Big 1 question  now), paper vs. pdf and Helen and Caroline comment on how many of their patterns they have actually sewn (something I dare not even think about!).  I think I'm more of a pattern collector rather than active pattern sewist - I would hate to think what percentage of my patterns I have actually sewn.  And if their opening jingle doesn't put you in a good mood - I really don't what what will!  It's just the cutest tune!  Also - here's a link to my blogpost a few years ago that talks about how I use Tap Forms for on-the-go pattern organization.  

Some New Projects

I must admit that I've been bitten by the "Clean Out" bug and the "Home DIY" bug recently and my sewing projects have been progressing along slower than normal.  But that's ok.  It feel great to get rid of stuff we no longer need and look at clean and organized closets and cupboards!  And I've had a can of paint for two years now that was bought to bring some new life to our master bath's cabinets and it has finally been opened and applied!  So in-between waiting for the paint to dry and piling stuff in the car to take to the charity shop - here's what I've been up to.

Some new pajamas!  Two pair to be exact - using my favorite pj pattern - McCall's 3017.

Both fabrics I recently purchased at Joann's when they were having a sale on flannel.  I'm a sucker for cute pj flannel prints!  This first one features VW vans with colorful banners.  I thought the overlapping rick rack on the collar mimicked the banners. 

And I used different colored buttons down the front to match the VW vans.  

The second print is so stinkin cute I can't stand it!  It features London icons!  I couldn't pass this print up at the sale!  

For the collar, I trimmed with some black piping I had in the stash. 

 I had to make room in my pj cupboard for these two new additions which meant getting rid of a few older pairs.  That's ok - they were pretty worn out and let's face it - if I'm not going anywhere on the weekend, I will stay in pj's all day long!  I just love them!

Next, I've been sewing on two new pairs of Jalie Cora's. Both of these crazy prints have been in the stash for awhile.

And I practiced more with the coverstitch machine and wooly nylon thread.

Here's the back view where you can see the mesh fabrics at the calf area.

Every seam except the inner leg seam (the last one sewn) is finished with the coverstitch machine.  That's a whole lotta wooly nylon on these!

So with these two latest projects - where am I with the Stashbustin stats?  I'm getting closer to the 100 yard goal.....

Pajamas = 5 yards each so that's a total of 10 yards
Jalie Cora workout pants = 1 yard each and that's a total of 2 yards
Adding 12 yards to my total brings me up to 87.41 yards to date!

What's Next?

My next project is going to be a lined dress - Vogue V1233 - a Pamella Roland design.  Both of these fabrics I've had in the stash for a long time and they were both purchased at the sewing guild's garage sale.  The one on the left is a polyester that I'll use for the lining and the one on the right is a wool blend for the outside.  I love working with wool, but my skin doesn't like it so we'll see how this one turns out.  I've already opted not to include the sleeves as they just look too tight to me so I'll either wear a long sleeve turtleneck underneath or a dickie to keep that neckline from itching me to death!  I may have to make a dickie because I'm not sure they even exist anymore!

Close-up of the fabric.  It's a blue/black weave that's hard to see, but it's there!

That's it for me today!  Back to organizing and sewing in between!

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

McCall's 7468 - a Nicole Miller blouse

Here is my newest blouse - McCall's 7468 - a Nicole Miller top.  I am very behind with the cold shoulder trend this year and I'm not really sure it's my style anyways.  I thought I would snap some pics outside and catch some of the fall color starting to happen.....but I didn't realize until I uploaded the pictures, just how wrong of a background this was.

With all of the colors going on in this blouse - my hair blends in with the Japanese Maple tree and the blouse blends in with the tree in the background....

Here's an example of a disappearing arm.... 

Ok, maybe you can see a little bit better here....

Here we go - some pics on the dress form so I can describe the top.  As I mentioned, this is a Nicole Miller design.  The main fabric, which is a knit of some sort, was purchased at this year's Sewing Garage Sale.  The black fabric for the contrasting pieces is a cotton that was in my stash. 

Here you can see the cold shoulder style better.

The front waistband is flat but the back waistband has two rows of elastic.  The closure on the upper back consists of two yellow buttons with black thread loops.

Here's a close-up of the back waistband.

I did have some major issues cutting out this blouse and trying to match up the prints.  I only had 2 yards of the print to deal with!  I ended up narrowing the sleeves by about 3 inches on each side and hemming it somewhere between View A and View B.  I did not have enough fabric to cut the contrasting pieces out of the same fabric so I opted to use the black instead.  I think it kinda works?!?!?  Maybe??!?

Here are the stashbustin' stats for this blouse:

2 yards of print from sewing garage sale = $6.00
.5 yard of black from stash = free!
Total yardage for this blouse = 2.5 yards

Total YTD =67.91 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star

McCall's 7410 tank top

Here is my latest summertime creation - this tank top is McCall's 7410.  I love this tank top!  It's kinda quirky with the flared hem, but the fit is great and it is super comfortable to wear.

You might recognize some of the fabrics in this top.

- The red/white/black circle print is a mesh that I underlined with a plain black fabric.  I used this mesh fabric, along with red/silver polka dot binding fabric in this jumper dress here.
- The black and white circle prints on the bottoms, I previously used in this skirt.

I embellished one of the plain black sides with red buttons.  Of course I thought it was looking a bit plain with just the black panels and it needed a little something extra.  To avoid embellishment overload, I opted to only put the buttons on the right side.

The back is a racerback style.  

I also added bindings to the neckline and armhole edges.  The pattern doesn't call for bindings along the edges - instead it just has you turn the edges under and stitch.  I like the look of the bindings better.

A simple way to do the math for adding bindings to an edge is to measure the seamlines of all pieces.  Add those numbers together and that is the total length you need.  By the time you sew your seam on the short edges of the binding pieces to make a circle, you will have automatically subtracted the amount you need (approximately 1 inch) to give the binding enough of a sizing difference so that it rolls properly.

The "Wings" on this top are quite big - but it does drape nicely.

And it twirls pretty good too!

One last view of the back and we are all done here!

For those interested in my stashbustin process - here are the latest statistics:

This blouse - 2 yards
YTD total - 42.41

Happy sewing everyone!
Star

McCall's 7405

It has been ages since my last post, but hey, I've been busy!  Though, not too busy to squeeze in a little simple sewing here and there and this dress was a super simple one to make.  Seeking some warmer weather so I could actually wear the new dress, we headed to beautiful San Diego for the weekend.

I bought this fabric last year from Joann's because I just LOVE how the colors blend together.  It has been sitting in the stash waiting for the perfect pattern to come along and low and behold, McCall's came up with the winning pattern. This is McCall's 7405 - a pattern designed for the beginning sewer. I made view D with a little elastic casing at the waist creating a blouson effect (I think that's the right word!).  It has a belt as well.

There is a casing around the front neck and the back neck pieces with a tie at the back neck - so no zippers or buttons in this dress!  There is supposed to be a slit in one of the side seams, but I decided to just sew both side seams to the hem.  Also - I made a size Medium and I think it's just a little bit too big.  An easy alteration to make it a little smaller though - just unpick the casings at the sides, sew up the sides and restitch the casing down.  Should be simple enough to fix.  

Here I am trying to blend in with the locals....

  Ahhhhh - don't you just love the ocean!

That's it for me today - just a quick post.  I'm not sure which took longer to do - the sewing of the dress, or the time it took me to write up the post today!

We're adding this puppy to the stashbustin total too!

Total for this dress = 3.5 yards
YTD Total = 15.625 yards

Happy sewing everyone!

Star