Happy To Sew!

Last weekend DD#2 had to go shopping to buy an outfit for her Field Hockey banquet. It's at a somewhat fancy restaurant at a major tourist attraction in our area. She spent 1 1/2 hours (long sigh) trying on around 15 dresses/top and finally settled on a black duro-style halter top with a banded hem. It was about $30 and made out of a thin black lycra knit.

Get home. She didn't like the banded hem and asked me to take it off! I did that last night. Found out the front "skirt" portion of the top is actually two pieces of fabric. It has a slit right down the middle. That's fine for an 18-year old, but not a 14-year old. So I butted the fabric edges together and zigzaged with a matching thread. Looks fine.

Can't find a skirt. My mom gave me a long, velvet tube skirt about 3 or 4 years ago. She tried it on--snug at the hips for her. Too long anyway and it has a sparkly applique on the front of the skirt near the bottom hem. So I cut the skirt to an above-the-knee length and cut the applique in strips. I asked her if she would like me unstitch the side seams and add the sparkly applique sections going down both side seams, kind of like a tuxedo effect. She liked that idea and it will give her extra hip room. Today she'll try on the top with skirt so I can figure out the exact hemline for her.

After all this, I'm happy to sew. She is hard to please and has a hard to fit/flatter figure. I have one daughter who has a perfect, lean model hourglass figure and another who has a fuller, athletic rectangular figure with a short waist and long legs. The latter is VERY hard to fit at times. Did I mention she doesn't like anything itchy or tight? That complicates things even more. If she would have given me ample time, I would have made a dress just for her.

I'll have to post the revamped outfit later today when I can take pics.

On to my projects...Susan asked:

"Ooops...I forgot to ask you something. What are you using on top of your fleece when you embroider your design"

Susan, I don't know yet ;) . I do have some toppers for embroidery in my stabilizer section and will read my book for what I will use. Last time I embroidered on fleece was over a year ago and I think I used the water-soluble stabilizer. Will let you know when I get to that point. I have to finish my fleece quilt for the softball Chinese Auction basket. I'm about halfway done at this point and will be embroidering on this quilt so actually, I'll be embroidering on fleece even before the Christmas-gift scarves. I really have to get my thoughts together on this.

Today I will go back and check my to-do list from a week or two ago. The totes, purple top, and rice warmers are done. The quilt is being worked on, but I still must get going with the interlining for my coat. I bought the Vogue Patterns magazine at the grocery store last month because it specifically talked about coats, interlinings, linings, and appropriate interfacings. Sure wish I would have Thinsulate for this coat, but I'm just using some flannel as the interlining. Perhaps I'll have time to pull the black flannel out of my stash today and give it a good pressing (at least it got washed!). But it IS Halloween and the kids have been disappointed that the Fall decorations are still not up yet. It's not very motivating when the house is a mess and my sewing projects are everywhere you look.

So much to do, so little time!

A Finished Top and Other Things

Today I finished the wrap top for Simplicity 4074. Hmmm...a few things about this top. The fabric...it sucks! Rarely do I use that word, but I hate the purple polyester matte jersey from Joann's purchased about 2 years ago. It doesn't hold a press, don't know why I bought it (it's not a particularly attractive color on me as it is too dark), and it just doesn't feel that nice. Kind of a flimsy feel. I like my knits to feel "substantial" for lack of a better word. It's flimsy enough to show wrinkles where there might not be in another type of knit fabric.


Here's the finished front which still needs another pressing. I'm kind of at a why-bother stage with that because it won't hold a press.



Here's a pic of the back. It doesn't look too bad on my dress form but...


...when it's on me I get the dreaded "X" draglines that look like this on a muslin suit I made a while back shown here:


I know why this happens. A CB seam doesn't work for me at all. My spine is fairly straight. My curves are my chicken bone shoulder blades going into my small curvy back. I would do just fine without a CB seam BUT WITH princess seams. Or a CB seam AND princess seams. Just not a CB seam alone. The more I curve a CB seam to the small of my back, the more pronounced the X draglines become. I see a bit of this on my purple top. So when I make this again (will likely be a dress), I will create princess seams for the back and possibly eliminate the CB seam.


Another thing about this top. I did my usual alterations and used a 10 (neck/shoulders) morphing to a 14 from upper bust down. Surprise, surprise! This dress runs large IMO. I had a lot of excess fabric from the front princess seam at the upper bust area to my full bust and had to take the princess seams in 3/4" on both sides. This has never happened to me before! I will even need to remove some fabric from the front armhole area on the bodice too. There's just way too much--another first for me. Even the model in the solid color dress appears to have a little too much. The model in the print fabric doesn't seam to have it but she's not standing straight. The arm is up which is pulling the fabric up and back. At least I'm getting the same wrinkles as she is on the dress front though. No more, no less.


Thankfully this is just a muslin top in crummy polyester. It's just "okay".


Here's some good news. I received my Wazoodle order of blue and grey microfleece. This fabric will become monogrammed scarves for my daughters' friends for Christmas presents. Last year it was monogrammed pillowcases, this year the scarves.



The fleece feels so good today! The upper tier of the Poconos received up to 18" of snow! We received nothing. Just wet flakes with no accumulation. Days like this make me want to pull out my Green Pepper pullover pattern and whip up some cozy fleece tops.


Okay, I'm being bumped from the computer now. Anyway, I have to fix a RTW top for DD#2 for a Field Hockey banquet on Sunday.

Picture Window Quilt

Today I completed the picture squares for my "Picture Window Quilt". Don't know what else to call it so that is how I labeled it. Those squares were the most time-consuming element of the project so now it should be smooth sailing. Here are the completed pics on the right:

Tomorrow I will cut the red and white quilt squares and work on stitching everything together.

Also working on a purple wrap top. It's a Simplicity Wrap dress pattern, but I only have enough fabric for the top. I have to go to a Field Hockey banquet with my daughter this Sunday and am thinking about wearing the purple top with my black leather mini skirt. I cut out the pattern pieces, marked them, and pinned the tucks and any other seams that could be pinned before actual sewing. I hope my preliminary tissue fitting works out fine. This is the altered pattern that was held by a magnet on the side of my fridge for months waiting to be pulled off and whipped up.

I was supposed to get my sewing lesson paperwork done, but didn't do any of it! Will work on that tomorrow as well.

The baseball team mom that got hit by the baseball should be fine! That is good news. No brain injury, but she is having plastic surgery tomorrow for the broken facial bones. Lots of pain and swelling, but no severe, nor life-threatening head trauma .

Unfortunate Events

I had a baseball game to go to for my sons tonight. 8:00 p.m under the lights in a neighboring town. I don't like to drive late on Friday and Saturday nights as I'm always thinking about drunk drivers, especially since a prominent local person was killed in a head-on collision last week very close to where we live. We don't know if the other driver was "impaired", however, he does have history of reckless driving and public drunkenness.

So I'm thinking of these things, get to the game and everything is fine. Until a foul ball goes up over the fence, over the net above it, into the stands, and slams right into the eye/temple area of a mom on our team. She was bending over to protect her child from the ball. She took one of the worse hits you can imagine and had to be taken away in an ambulance. She appeared to be having a seizure while laying on the bench and was in terrible, terrible pain. She passed out briefly, the came to, but was bleeding from her nose. She wasn't hit in the nose so this is very troubling.

During moments like this, it always seem like the ambulance takes forever. They took her by stretcher to the ambulance, and about 15 minutes later we were told she was going into shock as she was being taken to the hospital. Her kids were terribly distraught, and it seemed like her dad was just trying to be calm to hold things together for the kids.

Please pray for this lady. She is a very nice person, and this was a terrible thing that happened. It's is the type of hit that moms always worry will happen to their kids and it happened to her, in front of her family.

Beginning a New Endeavor

One of the things I'm currently working on is developing my projects for my first module of Beginning Sewing. Today I will try to visit Ursula at her store to go over my projects. I have the projects done from the first module and have the first project of the second module almost finished. Ursula has a setup in her store with tables and is perfect for sewing classes. I'm really excited to be starting this endeavor.

This weekend and into next week I will work on my lesson plans and paperwork for the class. I hope to have this as a go by mid-November or the first week in December. Saturday's forecast is rain, so I might get home early from the softball tournament to work on this.

Have a good weekend and Happy Sewing!

Project Update

The rice warmers are done. The canvas totes are a almost done. Here is one finished canvas tote showing the backside. The front has the organization name with a softball right in the center. The canvas tote has a zippered top, and the tote bag/instructions are from the Volume 10, Sew Simple magazine. Guess that's the Fall issue.

The tote just needs a good pressing right now. The two other totes are almost done. I stitched the photo on last night to both. Originally, I ironed the photo transfer right to the tote but the photo quality on the cavas fabric was poor. It produced a much better pic on the white cotton flannel, so I turned under the edges and topstitched it over the originally tote photo. The two other totes I worked on yesterday are the same--flannel photo transfer stitched to the canvas back.

Here's the preliminary work on the softball memory quilt for the Chinese Auction. I created all the photo transfers yesterday and transferred them to the cotton flannel. What a chore! It reminds me of block fusing which I loathe. The photo transfers have to be ironed on a piece of wood, not an ironing board with a soft surface. The luan board that's been in my hall for a homeowner's project (found out it cannot be used for it :( ...) now has new life as a pressing aid for photo transfers. Today I will finish the totes and begin cutting my quilt squares. This should be interesting. I'm SO not a quilter, but like all things warm. The project will be done from instructions right off the top of my head! Isn't that scary!! However, I've been mulling over this project and think my plans are solid.

BTW, I've decided to keep the green flannel. I'm sure my DH could tell you that I desparately need a new nightie robe. And DD#2's pajama pants I made last month that turned out to be mine? She'll get new pajama pants from this material. It's so darn soft and that quality alone makes it a keeper.

On second thought, those quilt squares may have to wait another day. I'm being badgered by at least one child to make more rice warmers. He's frequently trying to abscond with mine. I have to make mini ones for coat and jacket pockets too. That's a good way to use up the smaller scraps.

I have to catch up on blog reading too. Kim has a slew of new reviews I haven'ted checked out yet, Cennetta has at least one new review and a few blog posts, and Robin has 13 (yeah, 13!!!) new blog posts I have to check out!

Annoying mail order surprises.

Yesterday I finished DS#2's jacket so he could wear it today. It has been getting pretty chilly so getting it done was a must.

Here it is on the couch just finished:



And here it is on the happy, but sleepy-looking boy. He did NOT want to pose for the picture this morning!


I thought the jacket looked much better with the elastic sleeve hems, but he wanted NOTHING to do with them. I know better--if he doesn't like it, he will not wear it. Ever. Last May I seam-ripped the embroidery off the jeans I made for him over a year ago because he fought me tooth and nail on it. He didn't want any embroidery anywhere on his jeans, and he did not wear them all year. Now he's happy to wear them since I "fixed" them. And he's only 9! DD#2 is picky like that too. Heaven forbid if her clothes are too tight, are a little itchy, etc. This is my little guy that has to have every label cut off his shirts. I'm learning to respect his clothing wishes. He kept pushing down the collar too--doesn't want it sticking up near his chin.


Back to the post topic...today I received my fleece order from fabric.com. I am making the photo memory quilt for the softball fundraiser Chinese Auction basket and received some nice red, black, and white fleece which will be very suitable for this project. Here are the fleeces:




HOWEVER, I also purchased 5.5 yards of "curly-sided" fleece which I thought would be okay for 2 jackets and a pair of pants. It is not. It's not as stiff as a regular 200-weight Malden Mills fleece, it's thinner, and has much more drape than a MM fleece would have. It would actually make a good top, or a neck gator though as it is VERY soft on the inside. I'm mulling over what to do with it. Send it back? Or keep it. This was supposed to be fleece for DS#2's jacket and DD#2's softball pitching pants for winter in the cold garage. Decisions, decisions! It is absolutely not what I expected and was not a good surprise. It does have potential, though, for other projects, and I love the color.

Now it's time for me to get of my comfy chair and do some housework. I'll think about this dilemna while doing it.