Weekend crafting

A pair of pants is on the sewing table right now...

2012-02-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

and I might have temporarily misplaced my sewing mo-jo. I know exactly why - cutting lining. I hate and loathe cutting lining. The damn thing is slippery and it moves, and I'm very annoyed with it. And - I made a mistake cutting it out as well. It's fixable, but I'm annoyed by the whole thing.

So, my dad called me an hour ago, asking if I'm going to be at home tomorrow evening, because he's coming to pick up my sewing machine to take it to be serviced. Aargh. I whined a little - despite the lack of mo-jo, I'm not ready to give up my sewing machine for the weekend. Especially because it's a long weekend here. He's now picking it up (as a result of the whining) on Friday, and I should hopefully get it back Sunday evening. Which is not bad at all.

Which also means, I have a couple of hours tonight, and a couple of hours tomorrow night to finish my pants before my sewing machine leaves for the weekend. I wonder if I can get it done.

McCalls 6078 - Another easy t-shirt

2012-02-11T20:15:00.000-08:00

Dear readers, according to the SWAP plan, I was supposed to either catch up by finishing another pair of pants, or start my raincoat.

Yet, somehow, after the red t-shirt was done, I reached for this printed knit fabric I'd bought in October in France (I like buying a piece of fabric on vacation - it's a nice reminder of the vacation, plus, I get to go fabric shopping in a foreign country.)

I'm happy to say that when I bought the fabric, a cowl-neck t-shirt was exactly what I wanted to make. Looking through the pattern stash, I even discovered the perfect pattern - McCalls 6078, view B. It was a quick couple of hours of work to cut out the pattern, cut the t-shirt and sew it up. Easy-peasy!

Not sure what else to say about the pattern that would qualify for a review. Let's see - I made a small, and took ~4 inches off the hem. In retrospect, and for the next time around, I think I'll only take off 3 inches, to get an extra inch in length. The length is fine, but I sometimes tug at the t-shirt, which is a little silly.

I really like this kind of top for work - I layer it under a cardigan, and I'm neither too hot nor too cold. Plus, as I mentioned, it was really, really easy to sew. I must explore my stash to see how many more I can make!

I did spend a bit of time starting to cut out another pair of pants for the SWAP, and hopefully, that'll translate into me sewing the pants this week. Ideally, I'd like to get in production-mode, and cut out and sew 4 pairs of pants at the same time, but I recognize that this is unlikely to happen... I quite like production sewing, but the cutting? The idea of cutting 4 pairs of pants, and then 4 pairs of lining is quite horrifying, really.

Oh, and I do need t-shirts for the SWAP, and so both this t-shirt and the previous red one could qualify, so I'm not too terribly off-plan. Though I did say I needed a black t-shirt, and I still do...

Simplicity 2933 Red t-shirt

2012-02-07T17:19:00.000-08:00

What a fun, easy t-shirt this was. A few hours of work, some leftover fabric, and voila! - I have a t-shirt.

I've made this pattern before. I've worn the dress countless times, which makes me extremely optimistic that this red t-shirt will get the same amount of use.

Pattern notes - I cut a size 8 - there's a lot of ease in this pattern! - and shortened the top about 4 inches. It's the perfect length now.

Pants! I have them!

2012-02-06T18:02:00.000-08:00

I'm rather delighted with these pants, dear readers.

They aren't perfect. But, compared to my many previous versions, this is the best pair yet. (The one that came closest, before this, was this green version.)

(As an aside, I tried them on, and spent a ridiculous time staring at my crotch, making sure the pants fit without wrinkling. Sewists are funny people, aren't they? I've been staring at people's pants as I walk around the city, checking for fit. It's a bit strange.)

The pants look a bit wrinkled in these pictures, but that's cause I'd been wearing them for a few hours - they stood the test of an all-you-can-eat lunch, and still fit. Score!

The back - I'm not sure if these lines are normal, or if I did something wrong (cut off grain?) I'm going to try the pattern again, and see. (It could be that my original pattern was unlined, with a different heavier weight than the fabric I used for these pants.)

The fabric was a thrift store find - $3? I think they are wool, or some kind of wool blend. ($3 fabric is perfect for a trial set of pants!) Inside, the pants are fully lined (I need to work on that though, it's definitely wrong, the way I'm doing it) with some lining fabric I got as a gift from a friend.

Oh yeah, this is a complete SWAP outfit. My blouse is part of the SWAP too - sweet!

So, the SWAP. I'm now a full week and a pair of pants behind. Instead of (a) starting on my raincoat or (b) catching up with another set of pants, I've decided to sew a quick fun project, a red t-shirt. I'm hoping to use the t-shirt for my SWAP though - but I'm definitely doing it out of order.

Yet more picture-less rambling from me

2012-01-31T07:12:00.000-08:00

I finally got to start on my pants, and it's going rather well, I think.

So far, I've done the following:

- Cut the pants and the lining out. Incidentally, could a step be more tedious? I used to think sewing darts was my least favorite sewing thing. But I've now decided - nothing is more painful than cutting. And cutting lining? Ugh, ugh, ugh.
- Sew the back darts on both the fashion fabric and the lining.
- Get the side-front pockets in. (I skipped back welt pockets, since this iteration is mostly a trial, and also because I'm a little tiny scared of welt pockets.)
- Get the fly front done, and attach the lining at the fly front. (The lining w/fly front bit I've mostly figured out by trial and error, looking at all my RTW pants for clues on how it's done. I've yet to see a tutorial for this - dear readers, does one exist?)
- Sew the outside leg seams of the pants.

Basically, I think I have the following steps left:

- Sew inside leg seams
- Sew center seam
- Attach waistband (thankfully, already cut out and interfaced)
- Attach inside waistband (cut out, but I need to add bias binding to the bottom bit)
- Hem pants
- Hem lining

Looking at that, I'd say I'm about 66% done? The bit about attaching the center seam around the fly front area is always tricky to me - and I always get a wrinkle there. Which is always lovely - everyone wants a wrinkle right at their crotch, no? But the rest is relatively simple.

I own David Coffin's pants book, and I've looked through it in bits and pieces at various times. For this version, I took one critical bit of advice from him - I skipped trying to figure out which Vogue/Simplicity/Burda size would fit me (the answer, from previous iterations seems to be - (d) none of the above), and just ripped apart an old RTW pair that fits me pretty well.

Ripping apart an existing (serged) pair of pants was a bit of a pain in the ass, but you learn so much from the process. So far, in my RTW pants, I've discovered:

- 1/4 inch seams throughout
- no side seams on the waistband - there's a join at the center back, and obviously the center front is buttoned/fastened, but the left and right waistbands are cut as one piece. No extra bulk at the side as a result.
- different patterns for fashion fabric right and left waistbands, and different patterns for the lining right and left waistbands.
- to minimize bulk at the center front, the waistband is folded back on itself, and the lining join happens at a spot that isn't the center front. (I reread that sentence - ridiculously unclear. I'll take a construction photo to illustrate when I'm at that step.)

As a tangential aside - there seems to be a bit of prevailing wisdom on some 'sewing expert' blogs that RTW is crap, and hand-sewing hems, hand-basting and hand-anything else is the way to go. I couldn't disagree more. I would love to get the kind of consistency and efficiency in my sewing that RTW produces on a regular basis.

Anyway. I've bravely not tried on my pants so far, since I used a pattern that 'should' work. Tonight - I should get far enough with sewing this that I can try it on, and let's see? I'll either throw another tantrum, or be over-the-moon happy.

In which I throw a tantrum

2012-01-27T12:29:00.000-08:00

Ok, I didn't actually throw a tantrum, but wow, did I come close.

So, last night - I'm all ready to sew. I serge my lining seams, I fully construct the lining, and I'm at that final bit, where I attach the lining and the dress together, and voila! I'd be done. I couldn't have had, at that time, much more than 1.5 hours of work.

Before I did that final step though, I decided to try it on - hadn't done that since the zipper was properly inserted, and figured I needed a quick sanity-check fitting.

And of course, my zipper stuck.

It's hopelessly stuck. For no reason whatsoever, as far as I can tell. In the process of tugging at it in sheer annoyance, I've broken bits of it as well. My only recourse right now is to rip the zipper out and replace it. (Of course, I didn't have a zipper in stash for this. Because that would have been easy, wouldn't it?)

If I had remembered to breathe deeply and strive for perspective, I would have noted that this has never happened to me in 4 years of sewing - and I was overdue for a stuck zipper.

I didn't get quite that zen - but I did refrain from flinging things across the room. And then I promptly packed up the project into a little bag, and I'm now going to hide this till I can bear to look at it again. Let's try maybe the middle of February.

I needed two episodes of Doctor Who to help me calm down. Once that had happened, I was able to work on my pants pattern. More on this soon...

I'm late, I'm late...

2012-01-26T07:43:00.000-08:00

Stalled before I even started, dear Readers.

Let me explain. (You know you are going to hear an excuse when a post starts out that way, don't you?)

I went out Monday night for my mom's birthday, Tuesday night for trivia (a weekly thing) and a friend was over for dinner last night. Which means that I haven't really had very much time to sew.

And then there's my sewing table. It is covered in stupid crap from the stupid lined dress I've been making since December. If I put the unfinished bits of that dress away, I might never, ever finish it.

So, I decided that I'd finish the dress first, and then make pants. Which might have worked in a regular week, but not so this week, I just am not at home enough.

Tonight - I have a free night. I'm going to try to finish the dress. It'll probably take the full evening, but it'll be worth it.

Friday, I'm out again. If I wake up early Saturday, I'll have a few hours to sew, but I have plans again from 3pm for the rest of the evening. Sunday, I might get 3 hours to sew, but that will be all.

Overwhelming conclusion? No pants this week.

Unless, of course, a miracle happens, and I magically find more time than I think I have. Let's hope for that, shall we?

A black & tan shirt (modified BWOF 02-2011-114) & deorphaning a skirt

2012-01-23T20:26:00.000-08:00

I finished this little shirt a while back - cut it out over Christmas, finished it in early January, but I kept postponing taking a photo - I was hoping for daylight, outside photos. Finally, in the end, I just gave up - inside photos are boring, but I'm not going outside in short sleeves for the sake of my art...

This shirt was made with a modified BWOF 02-2011-114 pattern. Basically, I eliminated the horizontal seam in the front and back, and and cut both front pieces as one piece, and both back pieces as one piece. I also eliminated the short sleeves, and just hemmed out the cut-on sleeve instead.

I love this fabric. I bought it when shopping with Connie, Claire and Sue over the summer. This was exactly what I'd envisioned when I bought the fabric - but, such is the backlog of projects that it took 6 months for me to make a 1-dot BWOF pattern. Sigh.

Now - the de-orphaning. I've had this cream skirt in my wardrobe for a few years - but I've never worn it very much - mostly because the only top that suggests itself is a cream, which I'm afraid I'll spill things on, or a black, which is super-boring. As I was standing in front of my closet though, I had a bit of a brain-wave - what if I pair the stripes with the plaid?

Dear readers, I'm a pretty safe and boring dresser - this was almost crazy-talk for me. But, oddly enough, it works. And a co-worker even mentioned she really liked my outfit, so, bonus all around. Perhaps the skirt will get worn more often now.

SWAP 2012 - a plan to get it done

2012-01-19T13:26:00.000-08:00

Dear readers, as you saw in my post yesterday, I'm easily distracted. If I'm to complete my 2012 SWAP (and I do! I need wardrobe basics!), I needed a PLAN.

So, I pulled out Excel, filled in the weeks, and made a plan. I'm already done with my two blouses (I think...), so up next would be two pairs of pants.

I've allocated the entire month of February to work on my raincoat - simply because I think it will be the most challenging thing I've made - both in terms of complexity, and in terms of sheer fuss. In addition, I don't have a pattern for this. Any suggestions? I've 4 years of past Burda issues to look through, and I could snoop shop RTW for this as well.

In March, my feeling is that I'm going to be sick of major projects, so March is about the easy quick wins. Skirts, t-shirts and a hoodie.

And I'll finish with another complex project, a lined suit jacket in April.

Which is, on paper, a good mix between long meaningful projects (which I should do more of) and quick instant-gratification projects (which I do all the time.)

In general, I'm a great planner but am terrible at follow-through. I'm counting on you, dear Readers. If you see me talk about some sewing that isn't on the plan - call me out, will you?

January goals, a WIP, and more...

2012-01-18T10:52:00.000-08:00

At the start of the month, I wrote down two sewing goals, along with how long it would take to complete these goals.

1. Sew a pair of pants (5 hours)
2. Finish (10 hours)

- Cream t-shirt,
- ~~Lace t-shirt~~
- ~~Grey and pink blouse,~~
- ~~Orange dress,~~
- ~~Black t-shirt~~

I'm actually doing pretty ok on the goals - I've finished a few of the projects I cut out over the holidays, and I've identified fabric for pants.

The problem though, is while I'm trying to stay focused on the goals, there's a zillion little voices in my head, trying to distract me. Some of these:

- A woolen black dress would be such a wardrobe basic - I'd wear it every single week.

- If I make my cream suede skirt, I'd be able to match my grey and pink blouse to it. And then I'd actually have a finished SWAP outfit.

- Look how cute Robin's hoodie is - I want to make myself one!

- My niece just had a baby boy. Should I make a baby quilt?

- What about this half-finished black and white dress that's taking up all the space on the dining table? I should finish it before I cut out a new project, no? But then again, it doesn't fit, and I need to lose weight. Yuck*.

- Atleast in 2012, I should make something from each Burda.

- How do I not have cute sleeping clothes when I know how to sew? I should fix this!

- Should I participate in the Sew Weekly sewing challenge?

Anyway, as you can see, there are a billion thoughts swirling around, preventing me from getting anything done.

Last night, one of those deviant thoughts took center stage.

- What about this half-finished black and white dress that'staking up all the space on the dining table? I should finish it beforeI cut out a new project, no? But then again, it doesn't fit, and I needto lose weight. Yuck*.

This dress has been sitting on my table ~~forever~~ for the last 6 weeks. I've been procrastinating on this for multiple reasons - (1)The fabric is very, very ravelly, and it needed serger involvement, which in turn required getting the serger out of the box, (2) it's a lined woolen-ish dress, and therefore has a lot of steps, and (3) at first try-on, it is sausage-in-a-casing tight. Ugh. Anyway - just because of the room it's taking up, I'd like to get it done this month, even if I'll have to wait a while to wear it.

Last night, I worked on setting in the sleeves. In the main dress, I still have to get the zipper in. The lining isn't constructed at all, and then of course, I'll have to integrate the two. I really just need to get it done - I use my dining table both to sew on and to cut on, and with the serger out and the sewing machine out, I haven't been able to get anything cut out. (And eating - forget about it. I eat on the couch in front of the TV. Bad Reethi.)

*Which is a good lead-in to a rant. I went to my gym last night after a few months of not going. My gym used to be a nice independent gym - but sometime in November, it got taken over by a big-box gym. I've a bit of an irrational dislike for this big-box gym, and added onto my natural avoidance of the gym anyway, I just haven't made it in. Still, last evening, I gave myself a stern lecture and headed there - but it was a zoo! None of the machines were free - it was super crowded, and I'd have to stand next to someone working out to stake my place out for a machine. Yuck.

So, I don't know how I'm going to handle this. Evidently, this is the new normal - the gym is a zoo between 5pm and 7.45pm. I'll have to either wake up and go in the morning (who am I kidding?) or work out at 10pm (assuming I haven't been out in the evening.) The most obvious time to work out - when I get out of work - seems to be the most obvious time for everyone else to work out as well. Maybe I should work out at lunch instead. (I'm lucky, both work and the gym are 5 minutes away from home, making this option possible.)

A third version of BWOF 06-2011-106

2012-01-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

Dear readers, it's cold in Toronto. As a result, there will be boring indoor pictures on the blog until further notice. Sigh. I guess a trip to the Allen Conservatory is in order.

I cut this shirt out on vacation in Myrtle Beach, but needed the serger to finish edges, so it didn't get finished until last night. I could have sworn I was being careful cutting it out, but somehow, I've managed to place a flower on my breast. Ah well, atleast it wasn't a pink flower.

I bought this fabric in April with a gift certificate my friend Anna gave me for my birthday. (What a fun gift!) The last top I made with Anna's gift certificate, I've worn constantly - I'm hoping the same will be the case for this top.

Previous versions of this pattern are here and here. 3 versions in the last month? Why, yes. It's a great pattern, and really easy. Highly recommend.

Parting shot - cooking:

There's a new eatery in my neighborhood that specializes in grilled cheese sandwiches. $7-$10 for a grilled cheese sandwich. Yikes! I love grilled cheese sandwiches, but that's ridiculous.

I had some leftover grated radish mixed with masala and green chili (a paratha stuffing), and as a grilled cheese experiment, I added it to my grilled cheese sandwich. Along with some onion and tomato slices. It was delicious. But then again, is there anything you can add to a grilled cheese sandwich that will make it less tasty? I think not.

Two very spoiled cats

2012-01-11T16:15:00.000-08:00

Dear readers, I think I've stated it before, but my mother ~~is a little crazy~~ loves her children's pets very much. Little Biscuit is very, very spoiled, for example.

Well, it isn't just Biscuit. For Christmas, she decided to make the three cats (my one cat, and my brother's two cats) quilts for Christmas. Ahem. The two boys got blue quilts, my little bear gets a pink one.

Of course, my mother is ambitious, but also crazy busy. So, the tops got done, but that's it. Quilting was delegated to me. Sigh. Not exactly fun sewing, but I put my dutiful daughter face on, and did it. (Also, slightly self-centered reason - I've found that practice is actually useful when machine quilting. This was low-pressure practice - the cats don't actually care how good the quilting is.)

Keshav's cats are better behaved than my little devil. In my house, a quilt has just to be laid out, and Biscuit is lying on it in a matter of instants. Keshav's cats though needed treats to be convinced these were for them.

I'm not sure if they decided which quilt belonged to which cat though. They might be still fighting over it.

Winter Orange Dress

2012-01-08T14:20:00.001-08:00

How many patterns does one really need, dear Readers? I took about 4 patterns to Myrtle Beach, and it seemed plenty enough. I must rethink the 4 boxes of patterns I have, not to mention the many back issues of BWOF.

This dress was very simple - it is my BWOF boatneck top, 02-2009-108 on top, with a simple pleated rectangle as a skirt.

After sewing it, I tried it on - it was way too long, and it looked a little Amish-ish, - not quite the look I was going for. I shortened - rather ruthlessly. Right now, I think it's a bit too short, but since it's a winter dress, designed to be worn with tights, no real harm done, I guess.

The fabric is something I found in a Myrtle Beach WalMart (one of those few WalMarts that still has fabric) - it's a sweater knit. It was super-cheap, I think I paid $2.00 a yard for it, which makes this a $4 dress. (I'm happy about the $4, but happier still that I've already used both of the pieces of fabric I bought at Myrtle Beach.)

The results of half-assed packing

2012-01-01T14:38:00.000-08:00

Dear readers, you might ask - "Why are you wearing a half-finished shirt on the beach?"

Ahem. When you live in Toronto, and decide to head south for the Christmas holidays, there's a certain insouciance associated with the packing. You pack a couple of pants, a sweater, and a couple of tops, and then you are done.

And so, when I had to go to the beach, I looked among my clothes, and realized I had no layering clothes. And I *needed* layers. Hence, I pulled out my half-finished shirt, layered it over a navy blue henley, tossed a jacket over, and consented to leave the warmth of the car. :)

Shirt details - A nice basic - BWOF 02-2009-108, previously made here. I've still to finish the neck, arms and hem the thing. Either tonight, or when I get back home.

2011 Year End Tally

2011-12-27T20:02:00.000-08:00

Of course, I still have 4 days, and sewing *will* happen - I already cut out a t-shirt for myself tonight.

But, here's the projects I did this year, in numbers...

Quilts/quilt tops:
1. Moda Sanctuary top - December 27.
2. Woolen scrap quilt top - completed sometime in December.
3. T-shirt quilt - completed sometime in December.
4. The Very, very Red quilt top
5. Pink and yellow baby quilt top
6. Black & white quilt-along quilt top (collaboration with my mother)
7. Gender-neutral baby quilt
8. Pink zig-zag baby quilt

Random other sewing: (I probably did a lot more in this category, but I don't generally bother blogging about it...)
1. Two tote-bags

Tops:
1. Flowered shirt - BWOF 06-2011-106
2. White top - BWOF 06-2011-106
3. Jason Wu-inspired grey t-shirt (variation of Simplicity 4020)
4. My beer t-shirt refashion (BWOF 02-2011-114)
5. Plaid shirt (McCalls 6035)
6. Camouflage top (McCalls 6400)
7. White shirt with McCalls 6035
8. Brown dotted top (Simplicity 2594)
9. Mustard t-shirt (McCalls 5105)
10. Purple turtleneck t-shirt (BWOF 09-2010-121)
11. Blue flowered knit top (BWOF 12-2008-113/114)
12. Black solid knit top (McCalls 5890)

Toppers:
1. Blue cardigan (BWOF 08-2011-117)
2. Grey cardigan (McCalls 5890)
3. Black cardigan (McCalls 5890)

Skirts:
1. Black skirt - McCalls 5817
2. Graphic black and white skirt (Simplicity 4047)
3. Woolen mustard skirt (Simplicity 4047) (Or could this have been finished in 2010?)
4. Brown plaid with side pleats (BWOF 08-2010-135)
5. Green plaid skirt (Simplicity 4047)

Pants:
1. Dark green Simplicity 2700 pants
2. BWOF 04-2010-120 jeans (utter failure!)
3. Black knit pants (McCalls 5890)

Dresses:
1. White, black & blue knit dress (McCalls 6112)
2. Blue swirl version of Vogue 1250
3. Red Vogue 1250
4. Blue stripes version of Vogue 1250
5. Wide blue stripes knit dress (BWOF 11-2008-118)
6. Pink tie-dye knit dress (BWOF 11-2008-118)
7. Cream and blue batik dress (Simplicity 3803)
8. The How I Met Your Mother/Santa Claus dress (utter failure) (McCalls 6200)
9. Black knit dress (McCalls 6243)
10. Pink ruffled dress (BWOF 04-2010-112)
11. Light blue dress (Simplicity 2963)
12. Yellow and red plaid summer dress (Simplicity 2444)
13. Cream, blue and brown flowered summer dress (Butterick 4443)
14. Deep pink Vogue 8110 sheath dress
15. Blue knit birthday dress (BWOF 09-2010-122)
16. Printed blue knit dress (McCalls 6200)
17. Black and white print knit dress (BWOF 12-2008-113/114)
18. Inspired by Proenza Schouler dress
19. Rust knit dress - McCalls 5890
20. Black and white gingham frankenpattern dress

That's 52 things! Apart from this, I know there's atleast another dress that I made and never blogged about, and also a skirt (same thing...) That's a lot of sewing!

In 2012, I'd like to increase the pants-sewing, increase the lined winter dress sewing (I have very few winter-suitable dresses) and sew as few summer dresses as possible. (I have a ton of summer dresses, I really, really don't need any more!) Let's see how that plays out!

Sewing on the go means more quilting

2011-12-27T15:44:00.000-08:00

I've brought a couple of clothing projects to sew in Mrytle Beach, but it's amazing how much equipment I take for granted when sewing at home - large cutting mat, weights, pins, etc.

An easier sewing-on-the-go project was at hand, a Moda Sanctuary pre-cut pack. My mom had bought this early spring at the Creativ festival. Before we headed out, I quickly cut up strips of sashing. I asked my mother if she wanted to sew it, but she was too busy being in 'vacation-mode' - and so I got to work. (I don't get this kind of gift of time in Toronto, what a perfectly lovely vacation - plenty of time to sew!)

I'm hoping to actually be able to quilt it up on vacation. My brother's two cats are weirded out by the sewing machine though. They aren't used to the noise - and spend a lot of time just staring at me. Plotting to take over the world, I'm certain. Either that, or eating me when I'm asleep.

In use, two quilts

2011-12-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I'm sure you are tired of reading about these quilts, dear Readers, I'm certainly a little tired of writing about them. But, I don't think I showed a completed picture of the t-shirt quilt, plus, I like my blog to be a record of all the projects that I do.

And so, pictures.

My brother Madhav, readying himself for a post-meal nap.

The t-shirt quilt, held up by my brother Keshav.

Keshav's pretending to be Yoda?

Another version of BWOF 06-2011-106

2011-12-22T18:02:00.000-08:00

So easy to make, another version had to happen.

This top was inspired by an Anthropologie top that I can't find on their site anymore. Basically, the fabric is a white print with a coloured border. I cut the front on the bias using the border, and the back is the printed white, cut on grain.

Dear readers, this is the top for which I actually bothered to sit and learn how to thread my serger - this fabric is very ravely, and I was too lazy to mess with French seams.

Other things - I changed the neckline from a V to a rounded neck and stitched the side seams all the way down.

I'm off for the next few days to Myrtle Beach to visit my brother. Sewing will happen though - we are driving down, and I'm taking my machine. (Most of my family, afraid of what would happen when I get bored, vehemently came out in favour of the machine going along. I make a very bad bored person.)

Toys...

2011-12-21T14:10:00.000-08:00

In shocking news, dear Readers, I've finally taken my serger out of the box. I've spent a large period of time trying to thread it, I finally think I have the hang of it, and yes, eating at the dining table doesn't really seem to be an option any more.

Oh, and since I took a picture, here's the woolen quilt, all quilted up. I actually did my best quilting job ever on this, (not good by a quilter's standard, but I'm no quilter, really).

And I've made another shirt! I'll try to wear it out tonight, and get a friend to take a photo...

BWOF 06-2011-106

2011-12-18T19:16:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers, after all the selflessness I've been displaying, surely I was overdue for some me-sewing? I decided that yes, it was indeed time to make something for me. And thankfully, I had a blessedly unscheduled weekend, which actually left me time to sew - love!

I was looking for a low-commitment quickie project to get me back in the swing of things, and so I traced out BWOF 06-2011-106 (a one-dot pattern) and got to work.

My fabric was a bit of thrift-store cotton I've had lying around for over three years in my stash. (I bought it when I still lived in Michigan; I paid 50c for 1.5 yards of fabric.)

I did most of the work yesterday, with some hem finishing things today. What a simple top! Less than 30 minutes of sewing, I did it in 5 minute chunks - I kept getting distracted. Still, super simple. I should have finished yesterday, but didn't... This evening, my parents came over for dinner (my mom cooked, score!) and I should have got one of them to take my photo. Unfortunately, the top still needed hemming at that point, my allergies had been insane all day. Hence, self-taken photos of me, which I hate, really, but ah well.

I was aiming for a feel that was a sort of a cross between artist smock and peasant blouse. I'm not sure if that's the look I got, or if instead I got scrubs. I'm sticking to the former.

That's quite a v-neck, no? Ah, Burda - my breasts actually don't need to be on display when I make a shirt. Next version around, I'll raise the neck an inch or so.

This might be a contender for my SWAP. It certainly fits the 'Sew the Basics' theme.

And now I'm off to cut the next version...

Torn! And other random mumblings...

2011-12-14T12:01:00.000-08:00

I'm rather torn at the moment, dear Readers. The last few weeks, I've been using my precious sewing time to finish crafting and quilting UFOs. On the one hand, I miss garment sewing so much! and that makes me slightly cranky. But on the other hand, I'm getting the super-satisfying feeling of striking things off a To-Do list, which is nice.

As in everything, the secret is balance. Which is why, when I finish with the current quilting project on my table, I will get back to my own sewing and make something for me.

--------------------------------

A couple of weeks back, my overflowing crafting closet was getting rather stressful, and I decided to make a UFO-project list, with the intention of working on one UFO each week.

Ahem.

I divided my excel spreadsheet into three tabs - one for quilting, one for general-purpose crafting, and one for garment sewing. I starting listing UFOs, along with how many hours it would take to finish the project. And gulp! my quilting UFO list would take 188 hours to finish.

I think I spend maybe 10 hours sewing each week, which suggests that I'd be spending a good third of 2012 finishing up quilting UFOs. I don't think so. I'm going to hide all my quilting UFOs in my parents' basement instead.

--------------------------------------------

All kidding aside, writing the UFO list was really good for me. I've already crossed off two items off the list - attaching the binding for this red quilt, and quilting my brother's t-shirt quilt.

Right now, I'm quilting this woolen scrap quilt for my other brother.

My thought is that I'll give them these quilts for Christmas (though of course, none of these quilts were actually intended as Christmas presents, it's just an artificial deadline to help me get them done and out of my apartment.)

--------------------------------------------

Back in the fall, I'd gone to Creativ (a big crafting/sewing/quilting festival in these parts). I was a bit disappointed by the sewing stuff on display, honestly. (I didn't sign up for the classes though, so maybe that was my problem?) But there was a ton of quilts on display, and they all served as pretty wonderful quilting inspiration.

While inspired, I didn't actually *want* to make a quilt top. Instead, I decided that my mother should make one of the quilt tops I'd seen at Creativ.

(Outsourcing the work? Check.)

So, I pulled fabric for a quilt, started cutting it out, and laid it out all over the floor of my parents' family room, thus forcing my mother to work on the quilt if she wanted to get her floor back and be able to walk around in that room. It worked like a charm! I don't think she's ever sewn a quilt top together as quickly as this one went together.

Pretty, right? I wonder what she should work on/I should cut out next?

What I'm working on...

2011-12-07T20:34:00.000-08:00

I'm quilting (badly) my brother's t-shirt quilt.

I will say that quilting is not easier if a cat refuses to move out of the way.

Cat cuteness

2011-12-07T13:43:00.001-08:00

Ok, I've no actual blog content (UFO finishing + boring projects + camera batteries dead.) Instead, I give you pictures of the little bear.

Seriously, how cute is that? Right?

Jason Wu-inspired grey t-shirt

2011-11-28T18:10:00.001-08:00

Two separate stories come together to make this t-shirt...

The first bit: I think it was Carolyn's lace dress that first made me aware of the Jason Wu lace thing. It led me to look at the rest of the collection, which then led me to this sweatshirt, which got filed away as inspiration.

The second bit: I've a bit of a bad habit. Sometimes, when I hang out at my parents, I just have to sew. And so I'll start cutting random things out, and before you know it, I've created a UFO.

And so it was with this grey t-shirt, which was basically a variation of Simplicity 4020.

I cut it out a couple of months ago at their place, and sewed up the sides and shoulders. At which time, I tried it out, decided I looked fat in it. In the middle of all that, I also proceeded to burn a big hole near the neck (iron malfunction) and so, I buried it in the UFO basket, and tried to forget all about it.

Cue to now. I'm trying to finish the UFOs. This was a pretty easy fix - I just needed to deepen the neckline to trim away the burned bit, and hem. I did both those things last night, but then decided the shirt needed something extra. Rummaging through the notions boxes, I found some midnight blue lace trim I'd bought forever ago, thought of the Jason Wu shirt, and got to work. And here you have it - the Jason Wu-inspired grey t-shirt.

Unlike the inspiration picture, I sewed my lace on the front of the shoulder seam, so that the lace is visible from the front. I thought about sewing lace on the back shoulder as well, but I hand-sewed the lace (my machine didn't do too well with the lace, for whatever reason), and honestly, just ran out of patience. The front works well enough.

Ah, the satisfaction of finishing these pesky UFO's! Now, back to the UFO basket, to see what else I can finish.

A T-shirt refashion

2011-11-27T15:27:00.000-08:00

At this stage, after I've been sewing for a few years, one of the hardest bits of sewing for me is just figuring out what styles look good on my body. One thing I do know though, and have known for a while - regular crew-neck t-shirts look horrible on me.

So, when I got this t-shirt during some St.Patrick Day outing in Toronto, it sat in my refashion pile for ages, while I looked for a good pattern to use to refashion it. And when I saw the 02-2011-114 Burda pattern - I knew I'd hit paydirt, this was the perfect pattern.

Sometime in mid-September, I cut out my XL t-shirt, positioning the lettering carefully, etc. - and sewed it up. And then I thought it was a bit too short (not enough fabric) and it sat on the UFO project pile, waiting for hemming.

Now, I've been a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of projects I have in progress, and over the weekend, I decided to try to finish up at least one. This was the easiest project - all it needed was hemming - and so, I picked it up, ironed some interfacing to stabilize the hem, added some elastic, and finished it up.

Significantly better than a crewneck t-shirt, no? I'm not sure how much wear I'll really get out of it, but it's good for running to the grocery store, and stuff like that.

The Stitcher's Guild 2012 SWAP

2011-11-23T07:19:00.000-08:00

I haven't done a SWAP in ages, but intellectually, I love them. (Reality check - I'm fantastic at making plans, significantly less so when it comes to following through.)

The full set of rules are here.

Basically, I need to make 11 garments - here's what I'm thinking of making.

- 2 t-shirts. I'll probably make that long-sleeved black t-shirt that my wardrobe has been screaming out for, and a cream t-shirt. This is all about basics for me.
- 2 pairs of pants. Black for sure, and probably a brown. (Have to look in the stash to see what I have.)
- 2 blouses. This is where I'll incorporate the prints - I'll make a couple of blouses that will go with the pants.
- 1 suit coat. Probably something that goes with the black pants, as difficult as that will be to photograph.
- 2 skirt. For the first one, I'm thinking cream. I have some cream faux-suede that's been screaming to be made for ages. I've been procrastinating, since it would involve lapped seams, which I've never done before, but it's time to put on the big-girl-pants, and get to it. The second one? Well, I still need a black A-line skirt, and even a black woolen pencil skirt (I have a black cotton pencil skirt, but I can't really wear it in winter, I'd die!)
- Raincoat. Every single time it rains, I resolve to make a raincoat. I even have fabric - navy blue. This SWAP is a perfect impetus to make it up.
- Hoodie. Much more casual - but I need something to just grab and go. I'm thinking something fun and asymmetrical.

As I review the plan, I'm thinking - wow, that's boring. My colours are blacks, browns, greys, blues and creams.

And guess what? That's exactly what I need. Right now, I'm wearing a black t-shirt, a black cardigan, and a pair of peach-ish pants. Yesterday, I wore grey pants and a coloured sweater, with a black t-shirt underneath. This is how I dress to work, and I might as well sew the things I need for it.

Two tote bags

2011-11-21T15:55:00.000-08:00

I feel like I should have a more interesting 500th blog post - but this is it. Still, I actually have a couple of free evenings this week, and real sewing will happen soon.

In the meanwhile, I spent a few minutes yesterday evening finishing up my tote bags, using assorted scraps that were lying around in my fabric closet.

My mom has already claimed one bag, which works fine for me, I like to use up my scraps, but don't need a million tote bags. (Although, oddly enough, tote bags tend to disappear. They probably live in the mysterious black hole where my socks go.)

Sometimes, you just have to sew...

2011-11-16T08:11:00.000-08:00

Dear readers, my life has been hellishly busy the last week or so.

My social life is always a little crazy (it's genetic - my mother is the same way - entirely too busy for her own good), but my work is usually nice and steady, to balance it out. Except the last week and so far this week - which has been insane!

After the Big-Important-Work-Meeting yesterday (the cause of all the extra work), I came back home, mentally wiped out, and sat on my couch mindlessly for a couple hours. And then, the itch to sew took over, but I was still wiped out. What to sew? Certainly not my fully lined dress, which is waiting for me - that would involve thinking, and I had nothing left in the tank.

And so, I reached into my closet, found some random scrap, and starting joining pieces of fabric together rather randomly.

Here are the results...

Two tote-bag shells, one finished little zippered pouch, and the fabric for another zippered pouch laid out.

Will these totes ever get finished? Will the other zippered pouch ever get made? Who knows? They served their purpose - sometimes, mindless sewing is pretty necessary.

A beer to call my own - photo!

2011-11-14T06:44:00.000-08:00

They even named it after me! Ooh, the excitement.

Let's just say there was a fair bit of bragging going on.

A beer to call my own!

2011-11-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

If you know me at all in real life, you'll know that apart from being crazy about sewing, I'm also crazy about beer. (Sewing + beer, still not a good idea.)

And so, you can imagine the squeal of excitement when I saw this on Facebook:

My beer recipe - actually being made. It doesn't show up on the Facebook feed - but the beer I'd suggested was a play on a classic Mexican 'mole' sauce - with chocolate, hazelnut extract and dried ancho chillies.

So excited! I'm positively giddy with delight. (I'm not going to actually put it on my resume - but I'm totally going to brag about this forever!)

Why I quilt...

2011-11-07T19:05:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth asked an interesting question in the comments (I love both comments and questions - keep them coming!):

Can I ask why you keep making quilts when you don't like to? Why threaten your mojo and joy with things you don't want to do?

That's a great question, and one I actually think I have an answer to. Basically, I quilt for 4 reasons.

1. I quilt to finish up old UFOs.

The red quilt belonged to this category. This black-and-white quilt I did with my mother is the same - it sat in the UFO pile for more than 3 years. These projects tend to be fairly involved, left over from the days when I used to make quilt tops all the time. These are really grudging, with very little inherent reward. Why I do it? I do enjoy the satisfaction of checking something off a to-do list though, and that's basically what keeps me going.

2. I quilt to use up left-over fabric.

I can't stand fabric waste, and I'd much rather piece a quilt top than throw away scrap fabric. This is my most frequent type of quilting. My favorite quilts in this category are the woolen one shown above, and this crazy quilt. Examples of this kind of quilt top abound through my blog, and actually, of all the kinds of quilts I make, I have the most fun with these. Why I do it? It gives me immense satisfaction to make something useful out of scrap.

3. I quilt as a gift for other people.

I don't often sew for other people, but there are times when a quick little baby quilt is the perfect special present... The t-shirt quilt made for my brother falls in this category as well. And the photo quilt top pictured above was a very special present for my grandmother's 90th birthday. Why I do it? I might grumble about the process of making these quilts, but I'm actually all warm and fuzzy when they receive it and really enjoy it. (I've made one quilt for someone who wasn't super appreciative, I won't be repeating that. Most people love being given a hand-made quilt.)

A subset of this category is when my mom needs me to quilt her something (she's a quilter herself, so I only get asked when she's seriously short of time.) I might grumble (a lot) but my parents spoil the heck out of me, and it's the least I can do in return. (Damn! My mom reads my blog. Does this mean she'll pile more projects onto me? Kidding!)

4. Very rarely, I'll quilt because I have nothing else to do.

This is pretty rare though, but this will occur when I'm spending the day at my parents, or something like that, where I can spend some time sewing a quilt, but don't have any garment patterns at my disposal. (Also, my mother's sewing machine is the machine from hell - I'm not ruining a nice garment by using that thing.) The quilt above was similar - I was on vacation in Madras, my hometown. The internet access wasn't great, so in the spaces of time between visiting family, I made a quilt top. (Incidentally, this is the quilt that's on my bed right now. I do use them!)

So, though I whine each and every quilting project (and trust me, I whine!) - I actually get some satisfaction out of it (even if it is to just cross it off a list.) What I've become very good at nowadays is not starting a new quilting project (unless it is to use up scrap). And eventually, I'll be all caught up with the UFOs (ha!), and then, no more quilts. Until that day, I'll grumble away...

Calling for help! (Especially the Australian kind...)

2011-11-07T12:14:00.001-08:00

Months ago, I was at some bookstore (in Montreal, I think?) and was flipping through their sewing magazines, and came across this one - the Stitches magazine, published in Australia. I was attracted by the idea of a no-sew draped top, but there wasn't enough in the rest of the magazine to justify buying it... or so I thought.

Months later, this is driving me insane, because in the article about the no-sew top, they referenced a book that is all about the draped clothing of cultures all around the world. (This is what I remember, at any rate.)

Does anyone have this magazine? If so, would you do me the world's biggest favour, please? Would you look up the article and tell me what the book they refer to is? That book, I think I would buy. Or atleast try to get my library to find. I'm trying to avoid spending $10 on a magazine just to find out one little book reference.

Pretty please? Sugar on top?

Plaid shirt - McCalls 6035

2011-11-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

I did indeed get some time to sew buttons, and therefore, voila! Plaid shirt photos.

This is my third iteration of McCalls 6035. (Previous versions here and here.) This time, I cut the fabric in a single layer, to line up the plaid as best as I could. I did a reasonable job - not perfect, but at a level of imperfection that I can live with.

In this version, I thought I'd make the fun puffy sleeves. I was afraid I was going to look like a pirate or something, in super billowy sleeves, but I actually really like the result - it looks interesting, but not crazy.

I think the next time I make a shirt, I'm actually going to try to take out my David Coffin Shirtmaking book and try to apply some lessons from that book. I've got the mechanics of shirt-making down, I now need to up my game.

T-shirt quilt for my brother (plus the giveaway winner!)

2011-11-05T09:24:00.001-07:00

I'm not going to pretend that I sewed this entire thing with a smile on my face, dear Readers. Rather, it was a lot of mumbling and cursing about the necessity of sewing for other people, some angst about why I volunteered to do this for my brother, etc, etc.

But hey, it was an easy project, and it's done.

In case you were wondering about this two-quilting-projects-in-a-row thing, nope. I did (mostly) finish my plaid shirt. I still need to sew buttons on it, and then, find someone to take a photo of me. Hopefully, both of these tasks can be completed this weekend.

Given the large number of UFOs and projects-waiting-in-the-queue, I've decided that I'm going to alternate - one fun project, followed by one grudging project. Up next - fun project! Yay!!!!!!!

Oh, and the giveaway. I didn't really put an end date on it, but that post has been up for a week? so I think it's been open long enough, and it's time to announce a winner. I put all the comment #s in Excel, and used the random number generator to generate a winning number.

Which is...

AllisonC!

Sorry, everyone else! Blame excel. Or, since I'm sure I'll do this buy-the-same-pattern-twice again, keep an eye out for the next giveaway.

Red Quilt all quilted up - sneak peek

2011-11-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

Dear readers, I hate quilting.

Let's face it, while I can suck it up and finish piecing a top, the process of actually quilting it? Loathe it. (Additionally, I'm really bad at it too, so after doing something super-grudgingly, I don't even enjoy the finished results.)

In the past, I've saved all my quilt tops and have sent them to India to be quilted, but the work on the last few quilts have just been terrible. The guy who does them clearly doesn't want to do them any more, but doesn't know how to say no. (Kind of like me, basically.)

So, with the Very, Very Red Quilt top, I thought I'd try something different. I've always seen quilting services for auction on eBay, so I looked, found a listing, and sent my top off to her. Since she only ships to the US, I made my cousin pay for the auction, and the seller was going to send the finished quilt to my cousin.

My cousin received it yesterday, and sent me the following sneak peek pictures, and I thought I'd share these with you. I haven't seen the entire quilt yet, but so far, based on these initial pictures, I'm super-stoked.

Nice, right? I'm now plotting. If I can get the same lady to finish this woolen top, and this soon-to-be-finished quilt top, then I'd actually get some of these projects finished and out the door! Oh, the sweetness.

The "I am an idiot" Giveaway

2011-10-30T09:19:00.000-07:00

This giveaway is now closed.

Dear Readers, I've been doing a lot of stupid things lately.

For starters, when in Lyon recently, I booked a hotel room for the wrong day. Through Expedia. Only abject grovelling - in French - to the nice lady at the hotel front desk got me out of that situation. (It is amazing how nice people are to you when you admit you are (a) an idiot, (b) wrong and (c) will they help you anyway?)

Yesterday, I went to see Fela. Almost didn't make it, because when I was buying tickets online, I bought tickets for Friday night, not Saturday night. Again, the nice guy on the phone bailed me out. I told him I was an idiot, he laughed and exchanged my tickets for the right date. Sweet!

But the most recent sign of idiocy? I'm doing a spot of (rare) cleaning. I have sewing patterns strewn all over my apartment, and when I went to put them away, I found that I had bought, in two separate occasions, two identical versions of Simplicity 2053 (sizes 6-14).

Sigh. There's probably some reflection here about mindless consumption here, and also another reflection that I have entirely too many patterns. However, instead of actually using this as a 'teachable moment', I'm going to get rid of the evidence by offering up my duplicate to anyone who wants it. If more than one person is interested, I'll do a drawing. (Please enter your email address so I can contact you for your address?) Oh, I'll ship world-wide...

Almost new - McCalls 6112 (view B)

2011-10-26T19:39:00.000-07:00

It is Diwali today, and one of our Diwali traditions is wearing new clothes.

On the phone with my mom, I was trying to figure out what was new in my wardrobe. Nothing came to mind. I didn't have any time to hastily sew myself something new, and buying something when you have a fabric stash the size of mine - well, that isn't really an option.

So, I settled for almost new - this version of McCalls 6112 (view B), that I've worn out only once before. I started this mid-September, finished it early October right after I came back from France, and wore it out to a friend's for Thanksgiving lunch. Almost new was going to have to be good enough.

Let's see - this is pretty simple construction. I looked over the instructions, they looked fine. What I did differently? Interface the edges of the hem, neck arm-holes and shoulder openings, for extra stability. Though painful, this extra step is definitely worth it - my dress feels well-constructed.

In retrospect, I wish I had bothered to make view C - the version with pockets. Or added in-seam pockets to my version. However, at the time, I was ridiculously busy, and was looking for instant gratification, so no pockets it is.

(Showing off the crazy sleeves...)

Note to self: get a better black belt, this one is pretty pathetic. Or alter this one by cutting off the excess length.

Funny/random story: My parents drove into the city (they live in the suburbs) and my brother, my parents and me went out for Diwali dinner. To a Chinese restaurant. Eating Chinese for Diwali is definitely not a tradition (although our food was delicious - maybe it should become a tradition!) But it cracked us up, eating Chinese on the biggest Indian festival of the year.

Crazy Camouflage

2011-10-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

Most posting catch-up here...

It was back in September, I think, that Faye had asked about McCalls 6400.

As it happened, I'd just recently bought the pattern, and was curious enough to try it out. I pulled out an impulse fabric purchase (promptly regretted...) - a bright green camouflage, and got to work. I made view B.

While this t-shirt feels current - due to the asymmetry, the dolman sleeve and the ruching, at the end of the day, I just don't know. I'm not feeling this t-shirt.

For starters, my fabric doesn't have enough stretch.

But there's something about the shape that just doesn't work very well for me. (Incidentally, after looking at these pictures, I thought they had come out way better than the t-shirt looks in real life?) In addition, it just isn't very wearable - the t-shirt keeps getting twisted out of shape (grain issues, perhaps?) when I try to do any actual work wearing it.

Really simple sewing though. One pattern piece - join the side and shoulder seams, and you are done.

I will say I want to try it again in a fabric I like better. Like a solid black? We'll see. The queue is long, and the days are short...

How to create multiple UFOs - a step by step guide

2011-10-23T07:25:00.000-07:00

Step 1: Announce your intention to cut a shirt out by Friday, and then spend Friday evening watching a movie and grabbing drinks with a friend instead. (Ides of March, btw - and I highly recommend it.)

Step 2: Find out Saturday morning, that during the night, your sweet little cat has dragged your plaid fabric on the floor, and then proceed to throw up on it. Clean cat throw-up off the floor. Wash your fabric in the bathtub. Wait for fabric to drip dry.

(No pictures of this step, thankfully.)

Step 3: Create probable UFO 1 by starting another project while waiting for fabric to dry. Start a bit of a grudging project, making a t-shirt quilt for my brother. (Promised for 3 years, been waiting in the queue for that long. I thought I might finish it up for Christmas, since we'll be visiting him then.)

Step 4: Start t-shirt quilt project by cutting lots of t-shirts up. Make huge mess.

Step 5: Proceed through the mind-numbing boredom of cutting out 12.5 inch blocks of crappy interfacing to fuse on to the t-shirts to stabilize it. Fuse blocks. Start cutting them out.

Step 6: After cutting 3 blocks out, decide that this is the most boring project in the world. Get bored, decide to grab coffee/play with cat/listen to music/write a blog post/clean apartment instead. But wait, the fabric should be dry, no? Perhaps I'll do that instead?

Step 7: Cat decides in favour of the t-shirt quilt by sitting on the plaid shirt's pattern pieces. One does not mess with a cat. Ever. Especially one who likely threw up on your fabric deliberately because she's annoyed you had a friend over for drinks. ;)

Another quilting project. Why do the sewing gods hate me so? Sigh. I like my brother, but this is very, very grudging. I want to sew for me, damn it.

When life gives you tomatoes...

2011-10-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

you make tomato sauce, of course...

A while back (August?), I was chatting with a friend of mine, who was basically complaining about the yield of his garden - he had too many tomatoes, and was wondering aloud what he was going to do with it all. Now, this is a pretty nice problem to have, right? So, I proposed a trade - I would trade him a six-pack of beer for some tomatoes - I let him figure out the exchange rate. He gave me two big baskets - like 10-12 pounds? (Well, it was very good beer.)

A perfect trade - we were both happy with what we got.

Now, I knew I wanted to make an Indian-style tomato sauce. I had visions of making a whole load of sauce, ladling them into bottles and freezing them. Then, when I was feeling too lazy to cook something from scratch, I could just pull out a bottle, thaw it, add a vegetable to it, and be done! A good vision!

So I spent the better part of an evening in the kitchen. I chopped onions, peppers, ginger and garlic and sauteed them...

Then, I added chopped tomatoes and let them all simmer (I threw in some Indian spices too - mostly cumin, but also some curry powder.)

And lo and behold, I had sauce.

(I would be in very good shape for winter, if it weren't for my unfortunate habit of being lazy quite a lot. I've already pulled out and used two jars - and I think I have about 8 bottles left...)

Oh, a sewing update? I've started cutting out a shirt. It's a kind of plaid, so the cutting is very slow going (cutting in a single layer, aligning the plaid, etc.) I hope to be done with the cutting tonight, which means that I should have time to finish the shirt this weekend.

And done! The Very Very Red Quilt top

2011-10-19T17:56:00.001-07:00

Dear readers - it was fairly obvious during this project that I was approaching this quilt rather grudgingly. "Finish the damn UFO," I kept saying to myself.

But what do you know? It was worth it. Look how pretty! (Lots of pictures, since I'm rather proud of it...)

Also, cats have magic powers! My cat can detect the moment a quilt top is spread out anywhere. And will be there instantly to sit on it.

This quilt top was made from assorted left-over pieces from many quilting projects. No new fabric (well, my mother has a basement of quilting fabric, why would I ever need to buy any? I simply raided her stash for border fabric.) There's remnant pieces here from projects that are over 10 years old. Totally impressive UFO-busting, if I say so myself. :)

A faint stirring of hope

2011-10-16T16:19:00.000-07:00

The blocks are done - all 56 of them. Now, I have to add the sashing, and piece them together. Still, hope. This should be done by Thursday (it would be done earlier, but I've social commitments Monday and Tuesday).

Not soon enough, I'm so ready for some garment sewing.

Parting shot (shamelessly copying Summerset here):

I drove up to Honeywood today for Foodstock. It was a cold and overcast day, but the food was delicious, and it was nice to see the community rallied around a cause. (Also, some farmers gave me some free brussels sprouts, yay!) Here's the line of people waiting to get in...

Catching up on posting old projects - a pink & yellow baby quilt top

2011-10-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

What do you do with your scraps?

As a by-product of sewing, I have a ridiculous amount of scrap fabric. Like, bags and bags and bags of scrap. The kind that could/should get me on Hoarders.

Every once a while, in a somewhat futile effort to do something with it, I make a quilt top for no reason at all. This one was made sometime this year, as far as I can remember. I think my cousin needed a present for a baby, so I gave it to her, and she quilted it up? I can't remember... (maybe I gave her this quilt top instead?)

Some of the fabric in the top come from leftovers from clothing - remnants from this dress, this skirt, and the rest is quilting scrap.

My favorite efforts to make quilt tops from scrap - this woolen one and this bed-size one (complete insanity, by the way, dating back to days where I clearly had more time than I do right now.)

White shirt, black skirt.

2011-10-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

Finally, some pictures of garments.

The white shirt I've talked about here and here. I think it's been complete since about July. I know I finished it before I went to Copenhagen, since I took it with me. The pattern is McCall 6035, which I've made before. Although I screwed up this project one hundred different ways (mostly, I cut one sleeve wrong, which means it was set in rather half-assedly), I love the end result. I think this shirt fits me well, it's super useful, and since I used like 8 buttons on the shirt front, doesn't gape at all. Love it!

The skirt has a mini-story associated with it. I've been eying this fabric all summer long at Fabricland. But I've reminded myself that I have too much fabric, blah blah. Ok, sometime in September, I was having a seriously crazy week, and I took refuge by taking a day off work, and heading to Fabricland. This fabric came home with me, and I immediately started cutting into it to make this skirt. I made it in one afternoon (2-3 hours of work, but there's no zipper, since it's a knit, so it wasn't that hard.) The pattern is McCall 5817, which I like since there are no darts on the back, rather the back is made up of 3 pieces - a center back and two side back pieces... Although you'd think the fake animal look would reduce the wear on this skirt, I've already worn it twice since I made it - once to a party, with a plain black t-shirt, and once to work (which is when this picture was taken.)

And yeah, I need to get a haircut. This evening, I think.

Catching up on posting old projects - Diya's apron

2011-10-13T05:13:00.000-07:00

Since I'm still working on the stupid quilt top (I should come up with a better name for it, no?), I thought I'd blog about an old quick project instead.

I think it was last year - my friend Anu invited me to her daughter's third birthday. Now, I was a bit stumped for present ideas (Diya really doesn't need any more clothes or toys), so my parents and me decided to be sensible and give her cash. But cash, while useful, is really not cute. And so I decided to augment the gift with a tiny, 3-year-old-size apron.

We augmented the apron with some Dollar-store tiny dishes and cooking utensils...

Et voila! Instant present!

The state of the sewing table

2011-10-12T06:32:00.000-07:00

In a bid to finish up some of those annoying, lingering UFOs I have so many of, I've resolved not to work on anything else until I finish this silly quilt top. Sigh. Boring.

Back from vacation...

2011-10-11T14:06:00.000-07:00

I got back from vacation Sunday evening. France was lovely...

In the end, I had time to sew practically nothing. But it was fine - the weather was a lot hotter that I'd anticipated (a very pleasant surprise!), and so I wore the same two dresses - both self-sewn - over and over again.

A couple of travel photos...

At the Canal du Midi in Agde

The Roman Amphitheatre in Nimes

At the Pont Du Gard

At the Roman Theatre in Orange

While I loved being away, I'm happy to be back. My summer was a bit crazy and hectic (though in a good way) and I'm looking forward to a more laid back fall.

A Quilt-a-long completed, 4 years too late

2011-09-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers, I have a lot of unfinished projects. But I'm thrilled to finally finish this one - a quilt top that I've been dithering on for 4 years.

The story goes like this. 4 years ago, my mom started this quilt-a-long hosted by Amanda. She industriously made a set of blocks, set in white, but then, upon completion of the blocks, wasn't sure if she wanted to set them the same way Amanda had. You see, Amanda's quilt finished in a lap quilt size, and neither me nor my mom are very big on lap quilts. We much rather have bed-sized quilts.

So, I offered, in a moment of complete idiocy to make some blocks set in black, and then we could combine these blocks to make a larger size quilt. I started the project with enthusiasm, made a few blocks, and then got bored and promptly abandoned this project.

I think at some point, I did finish up the blocks, but then I dithered around with the setting, and so on and so forth. In the intervening years, I'd pull the pieces out, work on it for an hour or so, and then get bored and start a more interesting garment instead.

When my mom was going to India earlier this year, I was determined to finish this quilt top, so I could get it quilted in India. But then, alas, I ran out of fabric. And so the project sat in the background, yet again.

Well, it's finally done, and I couldn't be happier. The quilt's ok, but the real joy is in the finishing - I'm delighted to finish a UFO.

Blue Cardigan - BWOF 08-2011-117

2011-09-08T20:01:00.001-07:00

It's been a long while, dear Readers, that I've actually sewn a BWOF pattern in the same month the magazine came out. But when I spotted this blue fabric in Toronto (out shopping with Connie, Claire and Sue), I knew exactly what I wanted to make - BWOF 08-2011-117.

And so I did. This is a really simple cardigan - 4 pieces, sews up in a couple hours, tops. I did make a muslin, only because I wanted to see what the style would look like on me, before I sacrificed this pretty blue fabric.

The result? I like but not love this cardigan. I'm not entirely convinced that this is my cardigan - I think I look both older and fatter than I'd like to believe I am. But - hey - did I mention it sews up in 2 hours? (I have 3 versions of Vogue 1250 - sewn for exactly the same reason. What can I say? Some mistakes - I like to make over, and over, and over again.)

The best kind of packing

2011-09-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

I'm going away to Cleveland and the surrounding areas for Labour Day.

I didn't really intend to, but evidently, I'm taking a cat.

I am a wimp

2011-08-31T07:49:00.001-07:00

It's Self-Stitched time, dear Readers, and I'm feeling a wee bit of regret about not participating.

A while back, randomly clicking on blog links, I found the uber-awesome Karen at Did You Make That. Her blog was interesting, her pictures were pretty, but the part that totally blew me away? That she took photos with random strangers during Me-Made-June. And she looked like she was having a ton of fun with it.

How cool was that? It seemed like a perfect way to get past the most painful part of the challenge - the taking of the photos.

Anyway. Yesterday, I wore my white shirt to work. As I put it on, I realized that I'd never taken a photo of the completed shirt for my blog. I was going to meet some friends in the evening, and I resolved to take my camera with me, and get one of them to take my picture. (Tuesday is trivia night, where a group of us gather at a local bar and do trivia. It's fun and I learn random things.)

Now, all/most of these friends know I sew. So, it totally would not have been weird for me to say - hey, would you take my picture? I want a picture of my shirt for my blog. Not weird at all.

And yet, I couldn't do it. These are friends I hang out with *every single week*, people. They would have been happy to take a photo. But it would have (a) felt strange asking someone to take your photo in the city you live in, (b) go through all the fuss about going outside, taking a photo, making sure it looked fine, etc and (c) ask someone to stop drinking/socializing long enough to take my photo.

And so, dear Readers, twinge of regret about Self-Stitched September or not, I know me. I'm a wimp. I really hate asking people to take my photo. (Family is the exception to this rule, I have no issues asking my mom/brother to take my photo.) No Self-Stitched-September* for me.

*Though I might still participate silently, with no photos at all. Maybe.

Simplicity 2594 - View E

2011-08-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

Unexpectedly, I had a photographer this morning. My brother, me, my new shirt and my camera were all in the same location at the same time. Hence, photos not taken on my tripod. Nice! So much less effort!

Anyhoo, this is Simplicity 2594, View E. It isn't a complicated pattern, but I complicated it a bit by using French seams (the fabric looked like it would unravel.) The fabric is a synthetic, courtesy of my friend Anna, who was uber-thoughtful, and gave me a fabric gift certificate for my birthday. (How awesome!) I went a little overboard during the subsequent shopping trip, and bought a ton of fabric.

Up next, blue cardigan, I think.

Fall Travel Wardrobe - Planning

2011-08-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

Thank you all most particularly for your very nice comments on my three Vogue dresses. Wouldn't it be great to carry some fellow sewing bloggers in your pocket, so you could pull them out when you had body issues, and they'd tell you how nice your dresses were? You guys are the sweetest, seriously.

Thanks as well for the comments on my musings on what to sew next. A couple of you suggested rolling the three - Fall PAC, travel & tops all into one set of clothes, which is a really good idea - I should do that!

As it happened, I ended up following Clio's (and others as well) advice to make a top while I was pondering. I cut a version of Simplicity 2594. I've made a different variation of this pattern before, but this time, I cut a simple v-neck (thankfully, not on the bias) in a drapey synthetic. I have a tiny bit of finishing work to do on it - hemming the sleeves and the top. Hopefully, by tomorrow night. (Narrow hems on slippery fabrics are a bit of a PIA, no?)

Also in the meanwhile, I wrote a list of what I called "Essential Wardrobe Pieces" that I needed to sew. Here's what I think I need for my fall wardrobe.

Bottoms:
- Grey flannel pants. I'm thinking straight legged and cuffed.
- Black woolen pants. I actually own the fabric - bought early this summer.
- Cream skirt. I'm thinking of BWOF 08-2010-127 for the pattern.
- Black woolen A-line skirt. I do own a RTW version, but it is unfortunately entirely too tight. I'm not going to magically lose 20 lb by the start of fall, so I might as well sew myself a replacement skirt.

Toppers:
- A navy blue cardigan. I'm envisioning the cardigan in BWOF's August issue - which I recently bought the fabric for, while shopping with Connie, Sue & Claire.
- A cream cardigan. I need to scout around for fabric for this...
- A biker jacket. I've wanted to make one similar to Christina's jacket forever. Perhaps this fall?

In addition to the above basics, I went over to ModCloth, and pinned a ton of tops (and a few dresses and other garments) onto my Fall Travel Wardrobe board.

So, that's a lot of ambition, and I know I won't get even a fraction of these done before I go on vacation. But it's good to have goals, and I'd find it incredibly useful if I even get one or two pieces done before I head off.

At an impasse - what should I sew next?

2011-08-17T13:07:00.000-07:00

I'm in the rare position, dear Readers, of not having a project in the pipeline. Usually, when I'm posting about a garment, the next garment is already cut out, and I've started work on it. But right now, there's nothing on the sewing table. (Though, of course, there's no shortage of fabric in my closet.)

My problem is that I'm torn between several long projects:

- Make several tops. There's a serious lack of tops in my wardrobe. I've skirts I can't wear because there's no matching top. My oft-worn black t-shirt, bought way back in 2006 is finally too ratty to wear. I need tops!

- Do the Fall 6-PAC. I blame Carolyn for this, really. However, sewing with a plan, while difficult to stick to, always produces those wardrobe basics without which I could never get dressed in the morning.

- Early October, I head off to the south of France for 10 days. I'd dearly like to sew myself a proper travel wardrobe. The French are intimidating dressers, and I crave that Je-ne-sais-quoi! that the French do so well. Perhaps if I sewed a travel wardrobe?

- Or should I forget about all of this, and continue my current pattern of sewing whatever strikes my fancy? There's merits to this approach. Sewing is, after all, my hobby, and sewing randomly is quite fun. However, I tend to randomly sew dresses, not separates, and I do desperately need separates.

So, dear Readers, what should I do? Personally, I'm leaning towards the travel wardrobe, but we'll see.

Three versions of Vogue 1250

2011-08-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

Am I perhaps the last person in the world to have made this dress? I guess I made up by making three versions of it.

Now, this is where you can call me stupid. I thought the first version emphasized my tummy in a way I definitely didn't like. What do I therefore do? Make 2 more versions. Call me stupid, people.

I guess I'll wear it when I've lost weight. In other words, when pigs fly. (Ok, I have worn the first dress out, but I ended up being self-conscious about my tummy the entire evening.)

Fabric - both the blue-green print and the red solid are from Fabricland - ~$3-4 a yard, part of the most recent Fabricland binge. The black & white narrow stripe was from Montreal, I paid ~$8? a yard for it.

Sewing updates...

2011-08-02T09:43:00.001-07:00

Thanks for all the nice words about my easy jersey dresses. These have already become wardrobe staples - they look professional enough (especially the navy one), but are as comfortable to wear as PJs. I love them!

Other sewing updates:

Summer sewing: A few months ago, in a desperate attempt to clean my apartment, I took all my fabric and gave it to my parents to store in their basement. The stated goal was that I would keep with me only the next 2-3 projects. Of course, that just wasn't feasible. 2-3 projects turned to 20-ish, but it still helped organize my sewing.

Last week, in addition to the pink jersey dress, I also cut out a graphic black & white skirt, and a mustard t-shirt, 2 projects in the to-sew-this-summer pile. These are both pretty simple projects to sew (especially since I decided the skirt didn't need to be lined), and so in the bits and pieces of time I had available, I actually managed to sew them up.

The top is McCalls 5105 view C, the bottom is Simplicity 4047, which I've made before here and here.

Fabric buying: I haven't been to a Fabricland in ages. This is a good thing, since I have no restraint when it comes to buying fabric. Fabric is relatively cheap, and even if I go overboard on fabric, it seldom costs much more money than a night out in Toronto. The only way to control the fabric buying is to never enter the stores.
But alas! Fabricland was having a sale on Vogue patterns, and I really wanted to make the cowl-neck dress that everyone in Blogland has been making with fabulous results. I went to a Fabricland Friday evening, and I'm sad to say I lost my head a little bit. I bought 7(!) pieces of fabric. Bad Reethi! It was all on sale, and so very irresistible.

I cut one of them out last night though - I'm making the Vogue dress.

Upcoming fabric buying: Of course, it was tremendously stupid of me to buy a ton of fabric last week, since on Thursday, I'm meeting Connie, Sue and Claire for an afternoon of sewing talk and fabric shopping! I'm incredibly excited. I love talking about sewing!

Two versions of BWOF 11-2008-118

2011-07-28T17:03:00.000-07:00

When in Montreal in early June, I bought a ton of fabric ($80 of damage, ouch.) But... I was at least a bit mindful to buy fabric that I would theoretically use this summer - mostly fabric to make easy knit dresses. It was some of this fabric I pulled out to make these two knit dresses.

This easy knit dress pattern has been on my radar since December 2008. (In fact, I've some other fabric sitting in my parents' basement that I bought specifically to make this dress. I should do that, no?) It is super easy - 4 pattern pieces (front, back, front sleeve & back sleeve). Goes together in less than a couple of hours... Love!

So, here are the two versions, made these last two weeks.

Back from vacation!

2011-07-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

Usually, I don't blog or sew because I'm too busy. This time though, I was also on vacation (yay!), which is the best reason for blog silence, no?

I went to Copenhagen and Amsterdam. I loved Copenhagen. Amsterdam was filled with tourists and rainy, but I think I'd enjoy it a lot in spring or fall.

Of course, I bought fabric on vacation. Just one piece in each city though.

Copenhagen, Amsterdam (July 8-18, 2011)

So, I came back Monday afternoon from vacation, all refreshed and renewed, and almost immediately started on a dress. I've been slightly jet-lagged and waking up early, so I used the time well, traced out a BWOF dress from 2008(!), and made it up yesterday. I'm actually wearing it today, so will get a photo this evening. It is an easy jersey dress - 4 pieces, minimal fitting, and perfect in the heatwave that Toronto is going through.

The fiasco that is Me-Made-June

2011-06-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

What can I say about Me-Made-June? Sigh. I haven't had time to take photos of myself, and I haven't had time to check the flickr group out at all.

About the only thing I've had time to do is wear me-made clothes, which I've been doing pretty faithfully. (Though, I've technically cheated a couple of times by wearing a store-bought tank top underneath super-low cut garments that require it. Whatever.)

But I think that my month's experience has perhaps indicated that the Me-Made-Months and me should part ways.

Don't get me wrong, I love the whole idea of it. I haven't bought any RTW clothes in over a year, maybe even two. (Don't see the point, have too much fabric.) Eventually, I'll shift to being all me-made, just because my store-bought stuff wears out, and I don't buy RTW any more. (In daily life, I'm already at ~30-35% me-made.)

It's the execution I find incredibly cumbersome - I hate taking photos. Since I live by myself, taking photos involves setting up the tripod, carrying it to the balcony, wondering if my neighbours think I'm an idiot, taking photos, uploading photos, editing photos - and so on, and so forth, until I'm at the point of utter madness.

So, no. Unfortunately, the time has come for the sun to set on this little relationship. I am sad, but without regret.

Failure

2011-06-21T11:35:00.001-07:00

My plan on Sunday was to have lunch with my parents. I wore this red dress.

My mother took one look, and called me Santa Claus. And she proceeded to laugh the entire time we were at lunch. Even my normally-diplomatic dad looked and sounded a bit aghast at this dress. And at the end of lunch, my parents drove me back home, my mom made me change out of the dress, and she promptly and immediately took it to the thrift store. Where it will undoubtedly be used as a Santa Claus costume.

Ahem. That's failure, dear Readers. Dramatic, utter, total failure.

"Never been worn" is the fate of this Proenza-Shouler dress.

And this dress has also not left the closet to see daylight (although this is more about needing to lose weight.)

Now, I'm not an advanced sewer, I do fail quite a bit. But these three projects have one thing in common - trying to replicate an existing RTW look. Evidently, I don't know how to do this. I wonder why. Thoughts?

In the meanwhile, I'm soon re-opening myself up to failure. I want to make this ModCloth dress.

Colour me intimidated

2011-06-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've been on the library waitlist for the Pattern Magic book forever. It finally came in yesterday, I spent some time flipping through it, and wow, colour me intimidated! Creating my own sloper. Making the pattern manipulations to it myself. Lots of marking, slashing, spreading.

Hmm. I've been avoiding buying this book, on the fear that it would just sit in my bookshelf, unused. (Burda magazines, anyone?) However, I do think this might be one of those books that I should buy, and then set myself a goal of creating one piece every 3 months or something like that. I would learn so much that way!

My white shirt is a f***ing disaster. Because of the subtle stripes, I cut the fabric in one layer. Yesterday, when I was going to set in the sleeves, I realized I cut two identical sleeves. And I don't have enough fabric to cut another one. So, I'm going to go ahead and set my sleeve in backwards. Can you say disaster? Sigh. I just gave up and went to sleep last night.

Yikes!

2011-06-17T08:01:00.000-07:00

What a crazy couple of weeks it has been! I got back super-late Sunday night from Montreal, and have had social engagements every single day this week. A few nights, I've been getting back home past midnight. So, no time to sew. My white shirt is languishing, half-sewn.

Biscuit is super annoyed with me, due to all the neglect. When I was in Montreal, my mother took care of her, and she was doted on and treated like the little princess she is. Then she returns home, and I'm flying in and out of the house? Serious cat crankiness. Yesterday, when I was leaving for work in the morning, she bit my ankles every time I went near the front door. Poor little bear! I felt really bad for her (and also for my ankles, a little.) To make amends, I went home for lunch and sat with her for a half-hour.

Ah, little cranky cats, the things we do for you!

I did have time to sew yesterday evening, but I didn't. Hmm. Anyway, I hope to get back to my white shirt tonight. Sure, it's a bit boring to sew, but I really actually *need* a white shirt.

A Final Word on the Work Wardrobe

2011-06-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

Adelaide B left a very thought-provoking comment on my last post...

It seems to me that a lot of things that you describe as being not appropriate for work (even though they do not violate HR guidelines) are things that could be considered "only for women." Girl colors, loud colors, prints, and full shapes are all things that read feminine. I'm not stating anything new by commenting that professional clothes for women must mimic menswear in order to be taken seriously. (Muted colors and shapes. This was especially exaggerated in the 80's. Ugh.) I get that you gotta do what you gotta do, but it's a shame. You've made some lovely things.

I thought about that for a bit, and while there's some truth to that, it isn't quite perfectly true. At my workplace, while the senior echelon is predominantly male (an unfortunate reality that persists to this day in corporate North America), at the low-level rung I sit, there are just as many women as there are men. And these women dress in a variety of colors and styles.

As do I. The pink dress is - well - pink. It doesn't get more feminine than hot pink, I don't think.

I think the dress that set me thinking about all this was more girly than feminine, and that's an important distinction. I'm entirely too old to look girly at work. And it is hard to be girly and to be taken seriously.

Additionally, what was important was my personal discomfort with the way I was dressed. At the heart of it, I prefer to dress in a relatively conformist manner. (Hopefully, with style as well.) And at the end of the day, it is all about being comfortable in my own skin.

And that's my final word on the wardrobe (not yours though! talk to me!). I leave for Montreal in 4 hours. I won't be back till late on Sunday night. I will try not to buy too much fabric, but I'm not entirely sure how much restraint will be displayed. Thankfully, I won't have too much time to shop for fabric, I'm going to Montreal's beer festival, and will be otherwise distracted.

More wardrobe ramblings - being taken seriously at work

2011-06-07T10:34:00.001-07:00

Just as I predicted, no sewing last night. And not much sewing for the rest of the week either. I leave tomorrow night to Montreal for the rest of the week. A mini-vacation, just what the doctor ordered.

I've had a lot of really interesting comments on my thoughts on a work wardrobe. Thanks, everyone! Your thoughts have helped me think through what kind of clothing will help me be taken seriously at work.

Being taken seriously is a higher bar than "acceptable by the strict HR standards". I think it encompasses dressing in a relatively understated manner, so that your message is the focus, not your clothing. Hence, dressing as similarly as possible to your co-workers. If people are routinely complimenting my clothes, I'm actually a tiny bit concerned that the focus is on my clothing. (This is also why practically no one at my workplace knows I sew. I don't want the conversation at work to be about sewing.)

SewOm wrote:

I have to agree with you on shape. I read a lot of blogs where people create a lot of vintage dresses. Thing is, those shapes are typically from an era when women were rarer in the workforce than they are now. A very full, gathered skirt does not convey authority or power - it conveys "pretty", or, "50's housewife."

I do think a cardigan would have helped that dress. I also think that the colors in that dress are neutral enough that with a slimmer, sleeker skirt, you would have felt better.

I could not agree more with this comment - SewOm articulated exactly what I was feeling about my dress. And a cardigan would have toned it down. And both authority and power are synonyms for being taken seriously, I think.

Kid, MD wrote:

YES! That grey dress is fabulous!!
I need to comment on your blog more. I love all the dresses you've made lately, and your post about color has really had me thinking. And noticing! I wonder if it is color or prints that feel less work appropriate. Do you think a nice saturated purple or blue would feel professional and chic, but still satisfy the need for color?

Well, I wore the above pink shift dress to work yesterday - I think it is border-line acceptable.

On the shape/color thing - it is a very bright color, but the shift-dress shape is very professional. I think a saturated blue or purple would be better than this pink. Instinctively, though I can't really explain why, the following colors are a bit of a not-quite-ok for work.

- Pink
- Yellow
- White
- Orange

But I can't explain why. (Especially the white. A cream seems ok to me, but a white seems too summery, if that makes any sense.)

Conclusions so far: (All of this just applies to my workplace. There's a ton and variety in workplaces, your experience might be totally different from mine.)

- Full skirts in a color are not ok for work. (The jury's still out on full skirts in a neutral.)
- Really bright colors are probably out as well. (Though I don't care, I'm going to keep wearing the pink dress.)
- Prints in bright colors are definitely out. Prints in neutrals are ok, as long as they are a work-appropriate shape.

I know this might seem to be pretty obvious to a lot of people. But, with me? When buying RTW clothes, I was appropriately dressed, mostly by instinct. However, when sewing my clothes, I need to articulate why something works/doesn't work, so I'll remember that at the start of a project.

The problem with sewing for work...

2011-06-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

is that it is a wee-bit boring. Still, I told my inner child to grow up, and cut out fabric for a white shirt last night.

I'm a tiny bit concerned about the fabric. It has self-embossed stripes on it (I'm sure this is the wrong technical term), and these stripes are quite sheer. Sewing an unwearable white shirt would be very, very annoying. (Though I could always use it as a summer-weight jacket, I guess...)

This evening promises to be busy. My parents just got back today from a trip to India, and they are dropping by in the evening. (Parents, if you are reading, bring fabric.) I've been meaning to catch up with a friend as well, and this catching up will take place over beer. I'd really like to get the white shirt done tonight, but realistically, it's just not going to happen.

Tomorrow morning, I have a meeting with some pretty senior people, and I must look grown-up and professional. Since I'm doing Me-Made-June, this limits my options somewhat. I will perhaps pull out my grey dress. Grey = work-appropriate, right?

The Mini-Miracle Dress - Simplicity 3803

2011-06-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

So, I realized I`d never shown a picture of the dress I made early May. I referred to it in this post.

It came together easily, I sewed it in 15-minute chunks, and it was done in a few days. Sewing in 15-minute chunks, balancing the rest of the stuff I have to do - this kind of balanced sewing is something I frequently aspire to do, but rarely achieve. Perhaps because of that, I`m extra-fond of this dress.

I`m not going to bother with a full-blown review, but the bodice is Simplicity 3803, the skirt is just a rectangle with tucks. The fabric is a thrift store find, I paid $3 for it, which I remember thinking was expensive, since I didn`t actually have a use for this fabric. In retrospect though, I`m very glad I bought it.

The instructions on this pattern are actually pretty good. They have a hand-sewing-free method of attaching the lining to the fabric.

I like hand-sewing-free methods. I see a lot of sewists that talk lovingly of careful hand-sewing - I will confess to not understanding this at all. I like machine sewing, and detest hand-sewing. If I resort to hand-sewing, it`s because I don`t know how to do something by machine, and I should learn.

So, today. I have done no sewing, and am likely to do no sewing. It is a gloriously beautiful day, I think I will spend some time on my balcony instead.

Making it Mine: My version of Lily`s dress in How I Met Your Mother

2011-06-04T15:31:00.001-07:00

Here it is, my version of Lily's dress.

The entire story:

I'm a huge fan of How I Met Your Mother. Recently, I spent some time at my laptop, catching up on episodes I haven't seen, and I stumbled upon this red dress that Lily wore in an episode at the end of Season 3.

The instant I saw this dress, I wanted to recreate it. I tried to find an image of this dress so I could zoom in to see details, but this was tough! This is a 2008 dress, and I could not find a store that had it in stock. (I`m assuming stores don`t carry 5 year inventory.)

This meant I had to be content with recreating a similar feel - vs. copying the dress exactly. This was fine by me, I wasn't looking for a complicated project. Simplicity (the concept, not the pattern company) is good.

The sleeves in the inspiration dress reminded me of McCalls 6200 - a dress I`ve made recently (though without sleeves.) I went shopping for a red knit fabric, pulled out some leftover white knit, and got to work.

I cut the neck band and the sleeve band in white. I shortened the hem by 4 inches, and added a 4 inch strip in white. I cut a top red piece and a bottom red piece, splitting where the waistline was, and added a strip of white for the waist. Beyond that, I pretty much constructed this dress as indicated in the pattern (except, I stitched the neck bands together at the neck edge, based together and treated as one piece where it attaches to the dress.)

This should have been an easy dress to make, but the waistband took 2 iterations to get right. First iteration, too low on my waist. Second iteration, too loose. Aargh. Lots of seam-ripping and cursing happened.

Apart from that, this is a really easy dress to make...

I need to sew practical work things now, so readers, if I make another non-work-appropriate dress, please feel free to kick me.

More work wardrobe reflections

2011-06-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

(Sorry about the blurry pictures. If you click through on them, it takes you to a better resolution one.)

I've been thinking about this work wardrobe thing.

As I said in my previous post, I wore the red dress on the left to work on Wednesday, and felt slightly out-of-place all day.

On Friday, I wore the black printed dress on the right. This is one of the simplest dresses I've made, but I reach for it near-constantly. It is loose enough that I can hide all body issues under it, but still flattering. I love this dress.

I was trying to think of why I thought one dress was more work appropriate than the other. After all, they are both prints. They are both about the same length. Both have sleeves.

Here are my theories.

- Color: Color seems to be a no-no at workplaces. A splash of color, in a blouse, for example, worn under a jacket is ok. Head-to-toe color, in the form of a dress? Out of place. Had I worn a neutral khaki jacket over my dress, I dare say I'd have felt less out-of-place. Sally at Already Pretty had a post about this a few days ago, it clearly stuck with me.

- Shape: The red dress has a vintage-feeling, flared shape. The black dress has a more contemporary straighter silhouette. As much as I love my vintage patterns (and trust me, I have a boatload of them), I don't think the vintage silhouette works for the workplace. It feels costumey. There are people that can rock vintage dressing, and I love their blogs and photos, and covet their clothes. But... mostly, these people work in non-corporate North America. My work place isn't banker-corporate, but it is corporate enough.

As I think through sewing a more work-appropriate wardrobe - I need to remember - color and shape.

(Crap! My stash is all cheerful prints. Super crap!)

Dressing for work during summer

2011-06-02T10:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was gorgeous. It was the kind of early summer day that Toronto gives you to make up for the crap-tacular winter that we are subjected to. I wore this dress to work. And I felt out of place all day.

On the face of it, this dress doesn't violate any corporate dressing rules. (The rules that HR carefully reminds us of at the start of every summer, for fear that we might transform into an army of tank-top wearing drones, I suspect.) It has sleeves. It is of the right length. It does not have any corporate logos on it.

However... As I've become increasingly self-stitched in the last couple of years, my wardrobe has diverged more and more from my colleagues. They wear black pants, I wear skirts. They wear separates, I wear dresses. They wear jackets, I wear cardigans.

The thing is, I don't like to stand out. I like the idea of being stylish, not fashionable. I want my clothes to have an understated chic-ness. I want to be well-dressed, but not out-there.

In many settings, my dress works perfectly. Summer BBQ? Perfect dress. Beer with friends? The dress didn't attract a single comment. But, this is not the right dress for work.

Though I try to avoid the tough projects (pants, jackets, anything with button-holes), I think it is time I started exploring the idea of a work-appropriate summer wardrobe.

Sigh. This is a bit of a pity, I love my summer dresses.

Sewing Goals - 1st week of June

2011-06-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

After the adventure that was (the inaccurately named) 7-Dresses-in-7-Days, I'm assuming I'll spend some time picking up the crap that's all around the house, but I thought - hey, it's the beginning of the month - let me make some actual sewing goals.

With that in mind, here's what I'd like to do by next Wednesday:

1. Finish my red dress. My inspiration dress is this red dress that Lily was wearing on season 3 of How I Met Your Mother. It's cut out, and sewn together, but a quick try-on last night revealed I needed to take an inch off the bodice length, and possibly an inch or two off the skirt length, so some seam-ripping awaits.

2. Make a white shirt. It isn't just for Me-Made-June, I don't actually own a white shirt, self-sewn or otherwise. I have fabric, I probably even have buttons. This shouldn't take that long, I should just get to it.

3. Cut out some lining for a UFO that's been in the pile since about this time last year. (Waiting for lining to be cut out.) If I can get everything ready, I'll be in good shape to work on this next week.

4. This isn't a sewing thing precisely, but I need to do the winter-summer clothes transfer in my closet. I still have woolen skirts on hangers. It's time to pull the summer dresses out, and put away the heavy winter gear.

5. If I have time after all that, I'd like to trace something out from a BWOF magazine. There's a simple knit dress I've had in mind for a long time now (with corresponding fabric in stash.) I'd really love to get this going.

That's it! Readers, do you have sewing goals this week?

Punishment? Why yes, I would like more punishment, please.

2011-05-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

Ahem. I'm convinced after last week that I'm definitely insane. Why else would I do this?

I, Reethi from http://weekendcrafting.blogspot.com sign up as a participant of Me-Made-June '11. With the exception of outerwear, sleepwear, underwear and shoes, I endeavour to wear all handmade or re-fashioned items each day for the duration of June 2011.

(Oh wait, I know. I like participating and seeing what other people are up to.)

7 Dresses in 7 Days - Learnings

2011-05-31T08:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know Learnings isn't actually a real word. But, as a former consultant, trust me when I say we used this not-word daily.

In the end, even if there weren't 7 dresses, I was pretty pleased with what I accomplished. 5 dresses from stash, 5 never-used patterns from stash, and 5 new mostly-wearable dresses.

I was most excited about using the patterns. I've accumulated 3 boxes of patterns, not counting the Burda magazines, and I'm pretty stoked that I used a few of them in this exercise.

The other thing I liked about this challenge is that it got me to sew daily. I can accomplish a lot if I just sew in 15-minute increments.

Of course, when you are in the midst of self-imposed craziness, things like cooking and cleaning fall by the wayside. Balance is the thing I struggle with on a daily basis. I still need to find time to sew, clean, cook, read, play-with-Biscuit, work-out, practice-my-French, go-out, entertain, drink-beer, all on a consistent, regular basis. This is significantly harder than it seems, but if only I manage to figure this balance thing out, I will attain nirvana. (Figuratively, of course.)

My biggest sewing related learning: I don't sew as much as I think I should because I'm vacillating on what project to work on next. Note to self - vacillate less.

Sewing Pattern Review - McCalls 6243

2011-05-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

Fabric: A cotton lycra blend. I bought this in Toronto - about $6 a yard?

Pattern: McCalls 6243, view C.

Construction: So easy! I left out all the zippers, mostly to speed it up. Since it is a knit, it didn't need a back zipper. Start to finish, this was 2 hours, tops. A really great dress for a beginner.

I finished the neck, arm edges and hem with a simple fold back and stitch down with a stretch stitch on my machine. First time I'm trying this, and it worked great! I will definitely try this again.

Likes/Dislikes: Like, with qualifiers. It's a tight dress, I need to lose weight. I wore this with Spanx, and I still kept checking the mirror. It isn't that bad, clearly, but I think that I'm supposed to be at ease in what I wear, so in that sense, this is a bit of a fail. I'll get over myself eventually...

Oh - this was dress 4.

Sewing Pattern Review - BWOF 04-2010-112

2011-05-30T18:21:00.000-07:00

Pattern: BWOF 04-2010-112. A one-dot, super-easy Burda pattern.

Fabric: A gift from my cousin, I think. Or my aunt. It is a cotton fabric, and the black dots are sort of embossed. I really like this color on me!

Construction: This was a one-dot pattern, and it actually was really, really easy. In fact, I should have been finished with it in two hours, until I hit one tiny snag. My casing for the elastic - not wide enough. (Silly Burda directions!) Make your life easier - sew a half-inch casing, not a 3/8 inch casing like the pattern suggests. After much painful trying to push the elastic through, I finally ripped and redid the casing.

Also worth noting - the elastic length they suggest is for a falling-off-the-shoulders look. I wasn't really interested in this, so I shortened the elastic till it stayed on my shoulders.

Likes/Dislikes: Really like. I wore this dress out Friday night, I got looks! Looks are fun.

Oh, this was actually dress 6. I sort of skipped past dress 5 since I wanted to wear this dress out Friday night.

Sewing Pattern Review - Simplicity 2963

2011-05-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

Pattern: Simplicity 2963. I've had this pattern for a really long time, I've never used it.

Fabric: A gift from my aunt. I think this is a silk-cotton mix? Or a really nice kind of cotton. When I first saw this fabric, I thought the color looked kind of like hospital scrubs. After reflection, I've come to like the color on me, I just sadly really don't like the pattern very much... Sigh.

Construction notes: They were fine. I made a size 10 all the way through, and made it shorter so it would hit above my knee. This is a pattern that's pretty good for beginners - apart from the pleating in the bib, there's nothing else that's complicated at all.

Likes/Dislikes: Meh. Perhaps I'll try it with a different belt. I just think that these loose unstructured pieces don't really work well on my body. I'm short and I'm carrying around a few extra pounds. Loose just makes me look huge and shapeless.

This was dress 3, btw.

Some pictures while I write reviews...

2011-05-30T17:23:00.000-07:00

I have chores to do, so I'll get these reviews up over the next day or two, but here are some pictures.

McCalls 6243

BWOF 04-2010-112

Simplicity 2963

Of all the dresses, I like this one the least. Ah well.

7 Dresses in 7 Days: In the end, there were 5

2011-05-30T08:46:00.001-07:00

What can I say, dear Readers? Thursday night and Friday night involved copious amounts of beer.

I had a blissfully lazy weekend, and finally ended up finishing Dress 6 this morning. Unfortunately, trying it on, it needs some tweaking... (yes, I am aware that normal people try on a dress during the sewing process, not after the zipper is in and the hem is done.) I'm going to try tweaking without touching the zipper, and if that fails, I've some serious ripping in store for me. Entirely my own fault, of course, I should know better. But sometimes, I just get in a sewing groove, what can I say?

I will do photos tonight. (Saturday, the day I was supposed to take pictures? I spent most of it being very, very, very lazy, refusing to get out of my pjs. Good times!)

7 Dresses in 7 Days - Slightly hopeful

2011-05-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't set out to sew and blog about 7 dresses in 7 days. It's all I can do to sew these puppies up. Pictures and reviews will have to wait till Saturday.

So - let's summarize the state of the challenge.

Saturday (Day 1) - Dress 1 sewn.
Sunday (Day 2) - Dress 2 half-sewn.
Monday* (Day 3) - Dress 2. Dress 3 started..
Tuesday (Day 4) - Dress 3 finished. I am now a dress behind.
Wednesday (Day 5) - Dress 4 finished. Dress 5 cut out. Dress 6 traced out. I'm still a dress behind.

Wednesday - yesterday - was actually super productive. The dress I chose (McCall 6423) was a knit - very easy, no fitting - especially when I left off the details that made this distinctive - the exposed zippers. I left them off for two reasons. The most important was that I didn't have a suitable zipper in stash, had no time to shop, and really, didn't have much time to fiddle with exposed zippers.

Also, really, exposed zippers are a trend. They will soon be behind us, and I'd rather have a classic dress with interesting seaming. (I made it in black too, so really, short tight little black dress? That thing will kick around in my wardrobe for years.)

I also cut out the next dress, which is a vintage Advance pattern. And I traced a BWOF dress (a one-dot dress - I'm all about making this easy.) So hopefully, tonight I'll finish the Advance dress (dress 5), cut out the BWOF dress, which will leave me finishing the BWOF dress and making another dress tomorrow. Difficult, but not actually impossible. (Especially if I pick another easy knit dress!)

As I was thinking about this challenge, I asked myself - if it came down to it, would I rather use new-to-me patterns, or would I rather finish on time? Because there's plenty of knit patterns I've made before that I can finish in a couple of hours.

But really, I'm incredibly excited that I'm using up these patterns that I buy with the best of intentions, and never end up using. In the end, that's much more important.

* Monday was a holiday for Canada - and I had the day off.

7 Dresses in 7 Days - Punting?

2011-05-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

Ahem.

Monday's dress isn't done, since I did very little work on it yesterday. (I just lazed around all day instead, blissful!)

And I realized - apart from social engagements today and Thursday, I also have a French class I signed up for tomorrow. (My French is barely passable and getting rusty with lack of use, and I've a trip to Paris planned in the fall. French class seemed necessary.)

Part of the 7 Dresses in 7 Days thing - I'm trying to use patterns I haven't used in the past. If it were a familiar pattern, I could maybe just whip it up. For example, I could probably make 7 versions of the Butterick dress without too much trouble. But that wouldn't be as interesting, would it? Plus, I want to use these patterns I buy and never use.

5 dresses to make. 4 days to make them in. 1 full-time job. 3 evening engagements.

I'm not giving up yet. But, this is starting to look like a long shot.

The Second Dress: Simplicity 2444

2011-05-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, this dress technically took a day and a half. I started at 9pm, sewed for a few hours, then spent about an hour finishing it up today. Moral of the story? Start sewing earlier than 9pm.

Of course, if you have a day job, I challenge you to start sewing before 9pm. I'm not sure how Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are going to play out. I have to work, of course, and on Tuesday and Thursday, I have social engagements that involve beer. I'll have, at best, two hours to sew, but post-beer. And this is what happened the last time I sewed after drinking beer. :)

Now, the dress, and a review.

Pattern: Simplicity 2444. A recent pattern acquisition, bought when Simplicity patterns were $2.22 at Fabricland. This is as low as it gets in Canada, and I splurged and bought 7 patterns. I should at least try to use them, right? Instead of shamelessly hoarding?

Fabric: Cotton, bought in WalMart when I visited my brother in South Carolina. I paid $2 a yard for it. This fabric has been aging in my stash for a year and a half now, so I'm quite pleased to pull it out and use it.

Construction notes: I actually pulled the instructions out for this one. They were fine.

Here's what I should have done differently.

- After cutting a size 8 bodice, grading to a size 12 at waist and down, I read the pattern sheet, and noticed the bodice size 8 had a finished measurement of 34.5 inches. Major oops, leaving me a half-inch of ease. I therefore took my seam allowances down to a quarter inch, but this bodice is still quite snug. Next time, I'll read before cutting. (Or try to.)

- I should have taken a half-inch off the width of the shoulder. Now, I know I need to do this in almost every pattern. Why I constantly forget, I have no idea. The sleeve is falling off a tiny bit, but it isn't a major oops.

Here the alterations I made. They worked out well.

- I took an inch off the bodice length to petite-size it. No lines on the pattern, but straightforward nonetheless.
- I took 4 inches off the skirt length as well.

Likes/Dislikes: I love this dress! I love the color on me, and I love the skirt, it feels full, but still flattering. Also, pockets? Super-useful.

Post-script:

I need to scramble to finish a dress today. have intervening dinner plans, and honestly, my house looks like a tornado touched down right in the middle. Still, 7 in 7 is still on, I haven't yet given up.

Dress in a day: Butterick 4443

2011-05-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wake up in the morning, decide you have nothing to wear for an evening BBQ, and spend the day making yourself a new dress? Because, dear Readers, that was me yesterday.

This is a really easy dress. My pattern was still in factory folds. I started at 1.00pm, I was done at 5.30pm. In between, I stressed about how messy my house was, played with Biscuit, ate lunch, and wasted some time on the Internet. That's an easy dress.

I've been really bad at posting pattern reviews, so let's reverse this trend.

Sewing review:

Pattern: Butterick 4443. I cut a size 8 for the top, grading to a size 12 for the waist and hips. I petite-sized by using the provided petite-sizing lines (so useful!)

Fabric: A cotton with a bit of stretch to it. I bought this fabric in New York's garment district a year ago. I think I paid about $6 a yard for it? Wasn't more than $6, but it could have been $4. It was a while back, I don't remember.

For lining (the bodice of this dress is lined, the skirt is unlined), I used a cotton voile. I bought this when I was in India in Feb 2010, and have used it to line all my cotton projects. The voile tends to distort pretty easily, which is a pain to work with. On the other hand, when summer kicks in, I don't want a synthetic lining against my skin. Hence, I sucked it up and used the voile.

Construction notes:

- Rather than use the pattern's suggested method for attaching the bodice to the lining, I used Trena's method of attaching the bodice to the lining. Much easier.
- If I were to do this again, I'd shorten the bodice another inch. The waist seam is below my natural waist, and I don't really care for this look. (I don't hate it though, I still wore the dress out.)
- Entirely my own fault - but I should have interfaced the edges of the neckline and armscye. This fabric has a bit of stretch, and I think it stretched out a little.
- Even cutting a size 8, there's a bit too much fabric in the back neck. Next time around, I'll redraw the center back seam to remove this excess.

None of the above quibbles prevents me from wearing this dress though. It's just that after 4 years of sewing, I now look at everything with a sewist's ridiculously picky eye. I I can do a better job fitting.

Conclusion: I'm wondering if it's crazy that I'm thinking of sewing 7 dresses in 7 days? I'm still on the fence about this, but if I do see this through, this is dress 1.

A couple of mini-miracles

2011-05-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

Were you wondering if I was floating around in a raft of crankiness? Because the last post was extra, extra cranky.

But no, things have been pretty good!

So, as you know, my sewing machine was making alarming noises, and I was afraid the whole thing was going to fall apart. It was still stitching ok, but it was loud! Anyway, I was sewing a pretty thin fabric, and the stitches were pulling, so I thought I'd rethread and try again. So, I re-threaded, re-inserted my bobbin, changed the tension and tried again.

While I was looking at my bobbin though, I noticed how disgusting my whole bobbin area was, filled with lint and gunk and yuckiness. So - miracle 1 - I decided to clean it out. I took my bobbin cage out, cleaned all the lint out, and put everything back together. And the alarming noise disappeared! (I don't think lint makes machines noisy, I'm guessing that the bobbin cage was loose or something?)

Anyhoo, I'm delighted that my machine is better.

It's a cheap machine, so I hate getting it serviced, since the servicing in Toronto costs as much as the machine. My brother was going to India, so I was going to send it with him to get it fixed there. However, he's going for two weeks, so I would have been without machine for two weeks, and I didn't think I could survive that. Now, I don't have to, yay!

The other miracle, I've been sewing. I went through about a week of sewing-slump, in which every project I touched briefly seemed to fail, and nothing seemed very fun. But on Sunday evening, I gave myself a stern talking-to, and started cutting fabric. I've been working on it in bits and pieces all week, and it's now done! (It helps that I haven't been out much all week and it's a really easy dress.)

Pictures to follow soon, I promise. I would have taken pictures this morning, but I woke up entirely too late. It'll still be daylight when I get home tonight, so I'll take a few pictures then...

Gah.

2011-05-12T09:13:00.000-07:00

I've had a string of sewing failures, and these make me cranky.

The first one was a quilt top. My mom had originally made 12 blocks with white backgrounds as part of a quilt-along. But, she wanted a full-size quilt, not a lap quilt, so I told her I'd make the same blocks, but with black backgrounds, and then we could combine the two to make a black and white quilt.

I made three of the easiest blocks, and then got bored by the project. So, I set it aside... This was back in 2007. (Oops.)

Last week, I helped my mom arrange some fabric on newly-installed shelves, and found these blocks. I thought it might be time to get this project done, once and for all. So, I grabbed fabric from my mom, and got to work.

All of last week, I pieced blocks together. (Apologies to all the quilters out there, but wow, quilting is so boring, and takes so long!)

And then, when I was almost done, I ran out of border fabric. I'm short 1 yard, which I'll have to go to the States for... Aaargh. And aargh again.

So, nothing to show there.

I was cranky about that for a couple of days, but last night, I cleaned my sewing/dining table, got all the crap off it, and decided to start another project. I thought I'd start quilting my woolen quilt top.

I had two packets of quilt binding, so I started sewing it on. Get to the end, and of course, I'd run out of binding, with a half-side left.

In all of this, my machine is making some seriously horrible noises, so I'm going to have to part with it for a bit and get it serviced.

And so, gah. And gah again.

A fuzzy picture of a really crumpled dress

2011-05-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

I got my mother to take pictures of my Vogue dress over the weekend. Unfortunately, this didn't work out well at all. My camera batteries were dead, so my mother used her camera, which is evidently set to take the lowest resolution pictures possible. So, no ability to zoom in and see details.

The wrinkling, that's my fault. Evidently, this dress wrinkles. I wore it to work on Friday, and wore it again for photos on Sunday, without ironing in-between. And with this fabric, I clearly need to iron it after every single wearing. More sighing.

But, for reader amusement, here is a really fuzzy picture of a really crumpled dress. Unfuzzy, uncrumpled pictures coming soon.

That's my fabric!!!!

2011-04-29T11:22:00.001-07:00

Look!!!

Found this dress on Modcloth.

That's the same skirt I just finished. The fabric is Michael Miller - I bought some in New York - I paid roughly $6-8 per yard for it.

I have a tiny bit left over. I was going to use it for a baby blanket or something, but now I wonder, should I make a top instead? Hmm.

I hate hand-sewing!

2011-04-29T07:55:00.000-07:00

There is a tiny flaw in my new dress (I did finish the Vogue last night, and Mom, that's why I didn't pick up the phone.)

The neckline isn't symmetrical. I wore it to work today, and stared at myself in the mirror - nope. One end of it is much more curved than the other. Argh. (So I tossed a cardigan over, which hides it.)

I finish my sleeveless lined dresses the BWOF way (the one they illustrate with a dowel - leave shoulder seams and a bit unsewn, join lining & fabric at neck and arms, and then turn right side and sew shoulders). This leaves a tiny bit of hand-stitching at the shoulders, which I'm generally not content doing, but still manage to anyway. Unless it is on a neckline such as this, where the boat-neck really shows every single flaw. In this case, I've turned down a seam allowance while hand-stitching a bit further than the other side.

(Is anything I'm saying making sense? It might not, I've only had one cup of coffee.)

Anyhoo. When I get home tonight, I evidently need to rip out the stupid hand-stitching, and fix this.

But you know, apart from that, I' pretty happy with this new dress. In fact, I'm off to the washroom, to stare at the dress in the large mirror there.

Weird sewing dream/nightmare

2011-04-27T07:15:00.000-07:00

I had the weirdest dream last night.

The setting is Madurai, a hot and dusty South-Indian town that I've only been to once in my life. My family and me are in a car, driving towards the airport so I can catch a flight. There is plenty of time, we are going to be 3 hours early.

For no reason at all, my grandfather decides to change shirts, and switch to a black shirt. But the shirt placket has a tear in it, and so my grandfather asks me if I'd fix it.

Sure, I say. After all, I have my sewing machine in the car. (Of course.)

The thread in the sewing machine is white. I look around in the sewing machine storage compartment, and find a black bobbin and green thread on a spool. So I start unwinding the bobbin a bit, to cut off a length of thread, to wind it over the green thread, so I'd be using the right color thread.

Clearly, this is a dream, I am nowhere this meticulous in real-life.

I then look for an outlet, and the one on the car will serve. I can run my sewing machine right in the car.

We pull up in the parking lot, right next to a tree. I start winding the thread.

Suddenly, my sewing machine starts running. At furious, full speed. The needle is going up and down, except there's no thread, no bobbin, and no cloth. It is hitting the throat plate, I can see needle marks on the plate.

I check the foot pedal, to see if it is stuck - nope. That isn't it. So I panic, and pull the wire, disconnecting the machine.

It doesn't help. Electricity or not, the machine is still running. The din is staggering. My mother is shrieking, asking me what's wrong. I'm pulling and pushing at everything I can think of, trying to stop the machine. Nothing helps...

And then I woke up, thankfully. Sewing machine nightmares are scary. (And no, I didn't actually go and check on the machine, that would have been too insane. Right?)

In actual sewing news, I finished a skirt since my last post, but I'm waiting for a nice day and an obliging photographer so I can take pictures outside. I'm sick of my It's-winter-I'm-not-going-outside photos.

I've also cut out, in an effort to sew practical things, a cotton sheath dress. The fabric is a beautiful dark-pink silk/cotton mix (it might even be silk - my mother bought it for me, so she'll know.) I've had it in my stash for approximately 3 years. I'm using Vogue 8110 (just realized it has never been reviewed on PR, hmm...), which has also been in my stash for 3 years, an acquaintance who was moving out of Toronto gave it to me. It looks like a pretty simple dress, and I'm hoping to complete it by tomorrow.

Fabricland is having a $2.20 Simplicity pattern sale, so I went to take a look at lunch yesterday. 7 patterns came home with me, sigh. The pattern boxes I have are already overflowing... One of them, Simplicity 2936 was bought only because of its resemblance to the new Collette pattern (Violet). I'm entirely unsure if the loose fit will look good on me, and I rather prefer to find out at $2.20 than $16.

And that's my no-picture, sewing roundup of the day...

UFO Watch - One off the list

2011-04-20T18:33:00.001-07:00

Remember this dress?

Well, it's been sitting in the wadder pile for about 3 years. I don't throw away anything, and I've been meaning to fix it for 3 years.

Well, today I realized that I won't fit into this dress until pigs fly. I tried basting in a zipper, and it wasn't pretty. Some strategic chopping and seam ripping later, it is a skirt. I won't get a ton of wear out of it, though I do think it'll be an interesting thing to wear on a patio during the summer, with a white shirt and a black jacket.

I used my narrow hem foot to do the hem, reasoning that I might as well get some practice here. Still need more practice, the hem is pretty crappy. However, I've decided only a sewist would notice, and I've made my peace with it.

The Woolen Fabric Scrap Quilt Top

2011-04-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

I haven't traced or cut anything out after the birthday dress, but over the weekend, I did cut and sew up this quilt top.

I made it with leftover scraps from the various woolen garments I've been sewing. This skirt, this skirt, this skirt, and a whole lot more. In the upcoming days/weeks, I'll quilt it up (super simple lines, of course) and it'll make a great cold-weather blanket to snuggle under. (And since it still appears to be winter in Toronto, I'll be able to use it this season as well! Bah!)

Of course, the instant a quilt is laid out, anywhere in the world, little Biscuit is there to check it out and sit on it. So adorable!

The 2011 Birthday Dress - Part 3

2011-04-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

All done, Dear Readers. How very awesome.

At some point, I'll take better pictures outdoors. But, this will give you a quick view. I love this dress!!!!

The 2011 Birthday Dress - Part 2

2011-04-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

Of course, I went out last night.

In my defense, it was a lovely day. It was 20 degrees and windy. The air was crisp, and I decided I *must* leave my cave of an apartment and go for a walk. Walking in Toronto is always interesting, there's stores that provide good sewing inspiration, and good cooking inspiration too. (Which I need pretty desperately, I haven't entered my kitchen for a month and a half.)

There's no good reason this walk turned into a 'call a friend and meet for a couple of pints' night - but it did, of course - I had a groupon to use that was going to expire soon, and I hate to let them go unused.

So, I got back home at 11.00pm.

I'm so, so glad I got the fabric all cut out. I like sewing, I hate cutting. I didn't have many seams to sew to get the dress to a try-on stage, so I got to work and got going. At this point, the only things left to do on the dress are (1) to hand-tack the neck facings to the shoulder seam, (2) to finish the armhole seams and (3) to decide what length I want the dress, and hem it.

That's just a couple of hours of work, yay.

Good news - I *love* this dress. It is (exactly as Carolyn said) sexy in an incredibly understated way. I was afraid I'd have to wear Spanx under it, but no - it skims rather than clings (an advantage when you actually make your own pattern size, instead of the optimistic lower size.)

I'll see if I can get photos up soon! On Saturday, I'm going to be too busy partying to actually worry about things like photos for the blog.

Incidentally, this is an incredibly easy pattern to sew, I have no idea what the 2.5 dot rating is all about, unless it is to do with the arm flaps (which I'm leaving out) or with the incredible amount of cutting. I agree with the cutting, but once you are past that bit, really simple!

(Or could it be that in the last 4-5 years of sewing, I've secretly been advancing my skills, and am now ready to try a 2.5 dot pattern? I don't really think that's the case though - must experiment.)

The 2011 Birthday Dress - Part 1

2011-04-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

There are a few bloggers (Trena and Melissa come to mind immediately, but I'm sure they aren't the only ones) who always make themselves something fabulous for their birthday. I've wanted to copy this idea for a few years. A couple of years ago, I failed miserably at making this BWOF dress. Last year, I thought of it, but just didn't get around to it. But this year? This year *will* be the year, dear Readers. A birthday dress *will* be made this year.

The dress needs to be ready by Saturday evening, since that's the big birthday drinking day (my actual birthday is on a week day, but a majority of my friends are incredibly lame about going out on weeknights, so the weekend it will be.)

Originally, I wanted to knock off the Lanvin dress that Helen Mirren is wearing here. I even went out to Toronto's Fashion District and bought some gorgeous blue knit fabric. But then, I started wondering - would this dress flatter me? Did I have enough time to make this dress, since I'd have to franken-pattern it? And so, I mentally went to Plan B.

Plan B is BWOF 09-2010-122.

I cut everything out last night, and constructed some of the skirt. Hopefully, tonight, I'll be able to finish it off. I'm going out Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evenings, so I really only have 2 evenings to get this done.

Honey, I lost my sleeves!

2011-04-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

One of my most recent pattern acquisitions was McCalls 6200. Yesterday evening, I was looking for an instant-gratification project, so I pulled out this pattern, some fabric I'd recently bought at Fabricland (it was a remnant, I can never resist those), and started cutting.

Of course, it was only after I cut out the front that I realized I didn't have enough fabric. (Yes, I know I should have measured, but I was also setting up my new laptop at the time, and I was cutting on the floor, while trying to prevent Biscuit from walking on my fabric. I just wasn't paying attention.)

And so, the dress has no sleeves. I had to do a little tweaking to get it to work (the sleeve opening was too low, so I sewed that seam higher to get it to not be quite as revealing.)

Despite the oops! - I like this dress a lot. I love the fabric, it feels nice to the touch, and I'm currently drawn towards shades of blues and purples (see this shirt as evidence). It'll work well for summer, and I can wear it in spring and fall with tights and a jacket.

Oh - definitely worth mentioning - check the amount of ease in this dress. I typically cut a 10 on top, and a 12 on the bottom. I went down a size for this, 8 on top, 10 on the bottom, and I think it turned out perfect.

First quilting success - a tiny baby quilt

2011-04-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers, this is the first time I'm actually happy with a quilting effort. (Not the top, the actual quilting process, which I usually fail horribly at.)

My mom needed a baby quilt in a hurry, for the baby shower for a gender-yet-to-be-determined baby. This pink quilt top was therefore not going to cut it.

I flipped through flickr for inspiration, and found this photo, with its lovely colour palette. I wasn't about to piece together a lot of triangles to copy it precisely, but I did copy the general layout and color scheme. I made this (all from scrap, yay!), and actually managed to do a decent job quilting it. Yay for me.

And the back. Notice the lack of horrible ripples. I'm pretty pleased with myself.

I think this quilt makes up for the fact that I never sew for my mom, don't you?

Me-Made-March - a summary

2011-04-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

Here it is, a look at everything I wore through the month.

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
Day 6	Day 7	Day 8	Day 9	Day 10
Day 11 No picture.	Day 12	Day 13	Day 14	Day 15
Day 16	Day 17	Day 18	Day 19 No picture.	Day 20 No picture.
Day 21	Day 22	Day 23	Day 24	Day 25
Day 26	Day 27 No picture.	Day 28	Day 29	Day 30 No picture.
Day 31

Me-Made thoughts.
1. I hate taking photos every day. I'm busy, I'm running in and out. Stopping to take photos frequently just doesn't happen. Last year, during Self-Stitched September, I pretty much gave up taking photos about halfway through the month. This time, I didn't pretend I was going to catch-up by 'staging' photos, I just took a photo as much as possible. This helped keep the challenge sane.

2. As you noticed, I wore the same two cardigans a lot. Why? I have a ton of RTW cardigans, and never feel that compelled to sew my own versions. The same logic applies to pants, jackets, etc. If I have true wardrobe holes, I should fill them with sewn components, of course. But if I don't? Sewing a cardigan for Me-Made months seemed a bit pointless - cardigans are not a wardrobe hole. So I wore the same things again and again a lot, and got quite tired of it.

3. At the same time, I found this go-around of the Me-Made a lot more fun than the previous round. (September.) This was primarily due to the changes Zoe made to the flickr group, I think. She limited photos to 2 per outfit, which was brilliant. Last time, the sheer volume of photos meant no one had time to review and comment. This time around, I actually got feedback and compliments on my clothes. As with the blog, feedback from other sewers makes things fun, and no feedback makes things boring.

So, what did I wear today, after all me-made restrictions were over?

Newly sewn top, but store bought jeans and jacket. This kind of outfit is pretty typical for me, I wear my self-sewn clothes ~25-30% of the time. This number that keeps increasing as my RTW items get older, I don't think I've done any RTW shopping in at-least a year.

I've reached the 25-30% level in ~3-4 years and I anticipate that 5 years from now, I'll be pretty close to 100%.

Me-Made-March - Days 29-31

2011-04-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

Day 29 (Tuesday): Pants! This fabric is insane, it attracts lint like you would not believe. I de-linted before I left home, and was covered in fluff by the time I got to work (a 10 minute walk.) Ugh.
Top: Selfish-Seamstress-inspired minimalist cowl. I did wear my McCalls 5890 black cardigan over it, but I'm sick of photos with the black cardigan, so I took it off for the photo.
Pants: Simplicity 2700

Day 30 (Wednesday):
No photos, but I wore this grey BWOF 10_2009_115 dress with a purple scarf. I like this dress a lot standing up, but whenever I sit down, the dress rides up, and the neck is just too revealing. I need to either tighten or loosen something, but I've no idea what. The potential for wardrobe malfunction is the reason this dress hasn't been worn so far this month. (And until I fix something, won't get worn again. I'm afraid to bend over my desk. Crazy! I work, I generally am sitting down at meetings all day. Constantly tugging at my dress to get it to behave is very unprofessional.)

Day 31 - Thursday:
I had all day work meetings today, and I needed to look super-professional. I really should have been wearing a suit, but since I have no self-sewn ones, and I didn't want to blow off Me-Made-March on the last day, I wore this outfit instead. A total repeat of day 9. It would have been fine if I had a grey jacket, but the cardigan was probably a bit too informal for work meetings. Sigh.

I do own a couple of jackets, of course, and while I could sew one - I have traditionally not bothered since (a) I rarely use them, (b) my RTW wardrobe will suffice and (c) until my RTW wardrobe wears out, I see no point of sewing something to replace something that doesn't need replacing. (This is also the reason why I don't tend to sew pants, except now, my RTW pants are a bit worse for wear, and do need to be replaced.)

White t-shirt: Simplicity 4076
Mustard skirt: Simplicity 4047
Grey cardigan: McCalls 5890.

A trio of easy knit pieces

2011-03-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

A couple of evenings, three easy knit pieces. All from stash. Yay stash sew-down!

This is difficult to see, but this is a purple t-shirt. I need to start taking pictures in better light. The t-shirt is BWOF 09-2010-121. Three pattern pieces, easiest pattern ever.

A top and a dress from BWOF 12-2008-113/114. I've made this pattern a ton of times (here, here and here.)

Me-Made-March Days 23-28

2011-03-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

Another week, more catch-up photos. I've decided it's a lot easier doing this in chunks vs. daily, in any case.

Day 23 (Wednesday):
I got a ton of compliments on this shirt. The silk cotton fabric is really pretty!
Shirt: McCalls 6035
Skirt: BWOF 12-2009-112

Day 24 (Thursday):
Lazy dressing. This feels as comfortable as sweatpants, but is a slight upgrade.
Black pants - McCalls 5890
Red flowered t-shirt - BWOF 02-2008-123.

Day 25 (Friday):
Talk about low-effort. Pull out pants from yesterday, add twinset to it. Be dressed in less than 5 minutes. It was Friday, what can I say?
Flowered twinset - the inner shell is McCalls 4923 (now OOP, I never reviewed the inner shell on the blog, only because I still need to put buttons on the cardigan.)
Cardigan, some basic t-shirt pattern, can't remember which one.
Black pants - McCalls 5890
With a purple scarf, to make it different from the almost-identical outfit I wore in Day 15.

Day 26 (Saturday):
One of the rules about de-cluttering is to pack things away, and then never open the boxes again, right? Yeah, I failed that rule. Way back during a rather ruthless closet purge, I'd packed a box filled with clothes. I never did drop them off at a reuse center, and on Saturday, I opened the box to find this dress. I promptly pulled it out and wore it. De-cluttering fail.
Dress: McCalls 5699

Day 27 (Sunday):
I spent most of my day in my nightclothes. Bad Reethi. I did get out of them in order to go to a local bar to swap beer with a fellow beer geek, and I wore this green dress for that. It has become a bit snug (yes, the gym, I hear it exists), and I was pretty happy to get out of it post-beer-swap. No pictures though.

Day 28 (Monday):
The skirt was a super-easy project from a thrift-store fabric find. I think I made it in Dec 2010? Jan 2011? Not long ago. The fabric was all pleated, and the directions had me either add elastic or a waistband to it. I opted for a waistband and an invisible zipper, but it still was a super quick project. The length is a bit longer than my usual skirt length, only because the hem was pre-serged, and if I want to shorten it, I'll have to hem it, and I'm just too lazy, let's be honest here.
Grey t-shirt: Simplicity 4076.
Skirt: No pattern used, as described above.

Pants update

2011-03-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

Now with pictures!

From my last pants post, you guys might have figured that I was determined to sew a pair of pants that would fit. And I was. The day before I left on vacation, I pulled out some fabric, and Simplicity 2700 (the Amazing fit pants) and got to work.

Informal analysis of my previous version of these pants revealed that the crotch was way too low on the pants, even though I cut my standard size 12 (average). Plus, it was just loose and baggy all around, not a look I was going for.

This pattern has slim, average and curvy pieces, and so I thought I'd try the slim next. (Side note: I am many nice things, but I am not slim. Simplicity, you are smoking crack.) At the waist and hip, I cut my usual size 12 out. I transitioned to the crotch curve of the size 8, and transitioned to the upper leg size of 10, tapering down to an 8 (or was it 10? I'll pull the pattern sheets out again and look.)

I had learned my lesson about pant muslins, so the fabric I pulled out was completely something I was willing to waste. I cut out just the leg pieces, and did a quick baste. Trying it on showed - it actually fit! Woo hoo.

(And then I went to San Francisco.)

When I came back, I decided to actually finish the pants. Also, I decided I needed to learn how to line pants (I won't buy unlined woolen pants, so why would I sew one?), so I cut out the rest of the pattern pieces, and lining, and got to work.

Progress has been slow, but last night, I got it almost finished. All that remains is to make a buttonhole and sew a button, and hem pants and lining.

But alas, when I tried it on last night, once the lining and waistband was in, the pants were just a trace too tight. Now, this could have been because of the incredible amount of yummy dumplings I ate for dinner, but since eating incredible amounts of yummy food is a pretty standard part of my life, I think I'll make the next set just a tiny bit larger. In particular, I might use the size 10 crotch, and sew the lining with slightly narrower seams so that the lining is a tiny bit larger than the pants.

Or perhaps I should just crack open David Coffin's book on pants (which I own) and see what he says.

Anyway, after that long, picture-less ramble, I'm reasonably pleased. These pants do fit, so they will become part of my wardrobe. Jeans, especially with stretch denim are trickier, but for the moment, I'll settle for trousers that fit well.

Here's the front (images artificially brightened to show you what's going on)

And here's the back:

While there appears to be a fair bit of wrinkling in the front, part of it is the way I'm standing, and the other part is the slightly too-tight bit. Trust me, these pants are a lot better than any version yet. Yay.

Me-Made-March Days 16-22

2011-03-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

This time, I have an excuse, I was in San Francisco on vacation for half of last week. Vacations are quite awesome. The photo was taken at the Japanese Tea Garden at the Golden Gate park.

Day 16 (Wednesday):
It was all about comfort here - I was going to spend a few hours on the plane. This dress was perfect for that. Picture taken in my hotel room, I'm terribly shy about asking people to take my picture.
Dress: BWOF 12-2008-113/114
Black Cardigan:McCalls 5890

Day 17 (Thursday):
Sigh, no green for St. Patrick's Day. I was packing a capsule wardrobe, and had I owned a green self-made t-shirt, I would have worn it. As it was, I wore this outfit instead.
Grey cardigan: McCalls 5890
Black pants: McCalls 5890
Red printed t-shirt: BWOF 11-2008-103 B

Day 18 (Friday):
Dressed for a day of roaming in San Francisco. The photo was taken at the SFMOMA.
Grey cardigan: McCalls 5890
Black pants: McCalls 5890
Blue t-shirt (which you can barely see in the photo): BWOF 09-2007-101.

Day 19 (Saturday):
I forgot to take a picture (it was pouring rain, and I was too busy being wet), but I wore my McCalls 5890 black pants, my white t-shirt and my grey cardigan (McCalls 5890). (Packing light when traveling means you wear the same outfit a lot.)

Day 20 (Sunday):
Again, I didn't take a photo, but I wore the exact outfit I did on Day 16 (see above), since I was flying back home. Being comfortable is pretty awesome, especially on a long flight.

Day 21 (Monday):
Ah, my pants. I really need more self-sewn pants, it was so easy and mindless pulling on a pair of pants and a t-shirt and being ready.
Navy-blue McCalls 5817 pants, never blogged about. (Pertinent details - it is lined, and I left off the waistband.)
Long-sleeve black t-shirt: BWOF 10-2007-115
And a scarf for colour.

Day 22 (Tuesday):
This is the first time I'm wearing this skirt since I made it, it has some wrinkling that suggests I didn't cut it on grain. I should just get over myself - I'm sure no-one other than a uber-picky seamstress is going to notice or care.
Skirt: BWOF 08-2010-135
Inner top - Selfish-Seamstress-inspired minimalist cowl.
And a black shawl, since the top is sleeveless, and I'm utterly sick of the two cardigans I've been wearing all month.

All caught up! Now to go do the same thing on Flickr.