My Other New Baby and Sewing Activities

The other day, DD#1, DD#2, and I took a 1 1/2 hour plus trip to visit our new baby. His name is Jake.

Here's a pic of baby Jake OR what baby Jake will look like:

Jake is either the middle kitten OR will look like the black one on the left from a new litter. I have to call the breeder tomorrow because she said we could have the champagne-colored one if the purchaser did not send in the deposit in a timely fashion. If not, we have picked out a little black boy kitten from the newest litter since the current 2-month olds are all technically sold. Either way, we will be so happy.

Our baby is a Devon Rex. We were looking into a cuddly, social cat that is low allergenic due to DS#1's asthma. We had 4 Persians at one time and he tolerated them well, but to be on the safe side we're going with a minimum fur coat that is supposedly well tolerated by cat allergic people and asthma sufferers. Do you know what the fur of a Devon Rex feels like? MINKY!!! I didn't know it at first, but I am embroidering a sample of Minky for my great nephew's embroidered blanket and it feels just like the Devons at the breeder. The adult Devon's fur is very short, a little wavy, and oh-so-soft!!! They are great little cuddlers and like to sleep with their owners :) . DD#2 is so excited about this.

So our "adoption" date is either the beginning of September or the beginning of November depending on which kitten. We are currently preparing for his arrival. I have to make sure my sewing supplies are stored well and my patterns are in a safe place. Cat lovers know how much cats love all things paper!

Back to sewing. As mentioned above, I'm working on sewing an embroidered blanket--Minky on one side, cotton flannel print on the other. It will be embroidered with my nephew's name, birthdate, length, weight, etc., the usual baby vital stats. Next up is working on a tree stand cover for this guy I know who is a hunter. He bought the fabric and I'm going to make it for him. I was going to have in pay me, but perhaps I'll barter and ask him to make me a tall cat stand. I'll buy the supplies and carpet, he's good at making things so maybe he could create a nice one for our new baby.

One quickie summer top is ready to be cut out, maybe shorten a previously made wrap skirt, perhaps make a simple elastic-waist skirt from a great EOS ITY-like print fabric. Then work on some summer capris that I was supposed to make last summer, and of course my bathing suit which will be finished in (probably) December! In between I keep working at my bra and panties. The panties are a quick project and I'm still working on a better fit. The bra takes a bit more time and I need a nice block to work on bra #2. Will bra #1 ever get done? Currently it is a no. I seam ripped enough that now I have little holes in the fabric here and there. It's okay, that's how we learn, from the mistakes we make.

I did have time to enter my Madison Avenue dress I made a while back in the PR Top 10 contest. Of course, I don't even expect to make the finalist stage, but it's nice just to enter. I've already been inspired by several who have posted the creations they have entered. Many of the patterns I wouldn't have even given a second look by the pattern covers/illustrations, but the work of PR members is, of course, amazing! I just loved MelissaB's, LonestarLady's and VeryPrairie's interpretations found in this thread. I'm hoping all will be posted soon.

That's it for now. Hope everyone got some sewing in this weekend!

My New Baby!!!

There she is! Isn't she a beauty?!?! My new Janome CP1000. I've been waiting...and waiting...and waiting to bring her home! Since last October in fact. She was on layaway at the dealer and they took care of her during that time.

She took her first baby steps today working on DS#2's travel baseball shirt. RTW sizing is so crazy. The Adult Small t-shirt I ordered for him for his tournament was just the right size, but all were on the smaller side of the range. The kids that got Youth Small or Medium looked like they had a baby's shirt, no kidding. So the new baseball jersey was an Adult Small and the sleeves were between the elbows and wrists, and the hemline of the shirt was between his crotch and knees, closer to his knees actually. So I pinned a new hemline and sleeve hemline to his liking. I took off 4" of length on the sleeves and 3 1/2" of length on the shirt hemline. I have to be careful not to take off too much because the shirt has to stay tucked into the baseball pants.

So here is the shirt:

It really looks much better on him. He was beaming when he put it on after coverstitching the new hems and felt great. My new baby did NOT disappoint!

Below is the closeup of the coverstitch on the sleeve hem. Isn't that exciting! Some pretty stitching indeed. I can't wait to look into the binders and fellers. I checked out Debbie Cook's tutorials on the accessories so maybe with some birthday or Christmas money I'll splurge and get some accessories. Sometime during the next 3 weeks I'm going to sit down and review Debbie's tutorials and try some things with my CP1000. The fact that it has narrow, wide, and triple stitch is just a super thing to me.

ETA...End result. A happy boy!

That's it for machines. Maybe I'll save up for a new serger at some point in time, but my current serger is doing it's job. Jet-air threading really appeals to me though. One thing about my new machine-- I was very surprised to find that the CP1000 has tiny screws for the needles like my serger. Hmmm...that's not my fave feature by far. Those screws are so tiny. Oh well, I'll get used to it.

Okay. Enough gushing. Back to housework but the break to post this so worthwhile! No longer do I have to lust over Karen's and Robin's coverstitching endeavors. I've joined the club :) .

ETA #2...All right. So what was I doing this evening? Geek stuff. I read the Coverpro manual for about a 1/2 hour and studied the pics and text. Good night type of reading for us sewing lovers :) .

The Mini "Maxi"--McCall's 5893

Here's my mini version of McCall's 5893. Previously I made the maxi dress--love, love, love it! I like the short mini version too. DH says it's kind of retro? Think 1960's.

I don't know about that. But it's cool. It's breezy. Feels like I'm wearing pajamas just like the maxi dress. My kind of outfit :) . If only all outfits could be like this! Here are two pics of the front and one of the back. Even picked up some little flats on clearance. Not the prettiest, but far better than what's in the shoe department in my closet. The fabric is an ITY print from Spandex World in NYC, and it's a dream to sew up.

Numbers!

52, 34, 33, 32, 22, 16, 14, 11, 10 !!!

Yes, that's right. Numbers! I've never liked them, never cared for math, Algebra, Geometry, etc. And at my age, they still bog me down. What is the significance of those numbers I have posted? They're the number of blog posts needing to be read in some of my blogfeeds!!! It's the same feeling like when you get behind on a project and feel like you'll never catch up. Or the thought of a delicious weekend, only to find you don't want to step on the scale and face the music. It's why I don't own a scale and haven't owned one in 20 years LOL.

At some point in time I'm going to catch up. Slowly but surely I've been reading and muddling my way through blog posts.

All while working on a second swimsuit muslin (this one might actually be wearable!). The first one was obscenely low. The inner bra is what bogs me down. I need it to be just right and I'm very particular about it.

Yesterday I wore my second pair of panties to assess my pattern modifications. They're a little loose in the back, that was after I tweaked the pattern. At first, I was thinking the back was just too big so I took out some length. Now what I think is that the front is simply too long at the crotch as I've examined some RTW panties for the front crotch seamline. It seems like it falls 1.5-2" farther back than it should. I think I'll add back the length I took off on the back and simply shorten that front crotch area. This will be for panty no. 3. If I find that it simply isn't too my liking, I'm going to drop down a size. I've found my measurement for my KS bathing suit points to a Medium, but there's no way this size worked on my figure and I dropped down to a Small which is much better. I'm thinking the panties might be the same way. I used a Small panty size but think an XSmall might work better. We'll see.

Three days ago I whipped up another dress from my McCall's maxi dress pattern. This is the mini dress version. Pics are forthcoming but my camera battery died :( . Must purchase a new one.

More later.

I have a question for you!

Do you think about sewing a lot? I know I do!

So many times I'll go to bed and think about patterns, fabric, future projects, techniques--you name it, I've probably thought of it. Then when I wake up, I wonder if I'll get in any sewing time, mull over what to wear that I've made, eat my breakfast while checking out sewing blogs or PR, maybe do a bit of sewing, then start my day. If I'm lucky, I'll do sewing at some time during the day, maybe at night too.

I get very excited when I think about going to Pocono Sew and Vac. So many machines, so much gadgetry, so many sewing notions...oh, I just want to sit at the machines and experiment! And then there are the fabric stores. Where am I going? Is there a fabric store nearby?

Yeah, I think about sewing. A lot! My Coverstitch machine is still in the box. I looked at it every time I was in my sewing room today thinking about those gorgeous coverstitched hems and feeling those stretchy professional-looking hem stitches. It will be another 10 days before I can take out my new toy and play with it. Can you imagine??? Why did I even pick it up when the box tortures me every day LOL? Oh well, after 10 months of layaway, what's another 10 days, right?!?! You know, I get SO happy thinking about my "family". The machine family that is. I want to see them all lined up on one table so I can take a picture--my sewing machine, serger, embroidery machine, and coverstitch. Such a handsome family of machines it will be!

Do you virtually eat, sleep, and breathe sewing? I've been like that since 7th or 8th grade. My summers in high school were spent in the basement making clothes, many times from 8 or 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. when I had to get ready to go to work. I will admit that my sewing went into a temporary hibernation state when my four kids were 7 and under. I think I slept through huge chunks of time in the 1990's or lived in a sleep-deprived daze for a few years. But other than that, sewing has been a major part of my life and who I am.

How about you? Just wondering how many of us have this *passionate* hobby. I'd like to know I'm not alone :) .

Friday night meandering thoughts.

It's 10:45 on a Friday night and I'm waiting for DD#1 to arrive home. So, I'm thinking about sewing things and will finish up the christening outfit tomorrow night. It just needs the buttons and buttonholes. I was going to do it tonight but cleaned a bit and had to get stuff ready for DD#2's softball tournament and DS#2's very first baseball tournament on a 10U team. What I don't like about this is I'll have to use all manual settings. The 1/4" buttons are too small for my buttonhole foot!

Also, I plan on adding a number of blogs to my blogroll and subscription feeds in Bloglines. That's one of the reasons I love my Sitemeter widget. Sometimes I check out my referrals and find some great blogs that way. It's kind of like if someone is interested in my work, I'll most likely be interested in theirs as well. And, of course, I find some great ones via comments. There's some mighty fine work going on the sewing blogsphere!

Which brings me to Bloglines--I dread looking at the feeds! I've been so busy and haven't had a chance to read any blogs the past two weeks. It will probably be three since I have to get ready to go to Virginia on Wednesday. And do you know who I'm going to see in Virginia??? JEF from Patternreview!!! I'll be there for the ASA Softball Nationals and we're going to meet up hopefully for both coffee/lunch and at G-Street Fabrics. This is really exciting! Although, I must admit, DD#2 is not all that thrilled about it. She'll survive though. I'll buy a new camera battery and be ready to go.

So maybe in another 10 days I'll be back to somewhat of a normal routine and can catch up on an immense amount of blog reading. Or maybe I'll start right after finishing this post :) !

Best Little Pattern of the Year!

Drum roll...it's from McCall's! This HAS to be one of *MY* top patterns of 2009! This McCall's pattern, 5893, an EASY 1-hour dress is superbly drafted and uniquely designed to fit and flatter.

I desparately wanted a maxi dress *this* summer. NOT next summer with my sewing being so slow which is typically the case. So when I saw Erica B's version (although a different pattern), then Adrienne's version from this same McCall's pattern, I knew it was "the" one and was sold on it. Every version I checked at Patternreview showed lovely results on various figures.

What is key here is that the horizontal bodice seamline is not only gathered, but the seam allowance on the inside is pressed toward the bodice and a casing is created from the skirt seam allowance (the bodice seam is trimmed). This provides a close, comfortable, yet snug fit right under the bust which is very slimming. That's really a crucial area with this kind of dress which can very easily look tent-like. And IMO, it absolutely does NOT look like a tent. I think it's actually quite flattering.

The best part? My quick muslin of the bodice resulted in only 4 very minor alterations.

1. I moved the entire shoulder seam forward a 1/2".

2. I added small darts in the back from the bodice horizontal seamline extending upward about
2". Too much extra fabric. I removed 1 1/2" via the darts.

3. Added the same type of darts (extending just down to the waist) on the skirt in the back to match the bodice. Yeah, I didn't have to do this, but I didn't want to add it as gathers. Too many gathers is not a good look on me.

4. Added 2.5" to the length of the skirt.

These are incredibly minor alterations. I used a size 10 at the neck and shoulders grading out to a 14 from mid-armhole down. I loved the fact that this was a multi-size pattern with the 10-14 sizes which made things so easy for me.

Get this! The vertical darts on the bodice were in the right location! My bust apex is 3.5" from the CF and these darts were 3.75" away from the apex. I left as is--that 1/4" won't really matter.

The fabric used? That lip-smacking ITY purchased from Spandex World in NYC. This fabric is perfect summer weight--not as heavy as the "buttermilks" I purchased from EOS but really the same type of fabric. The drape is heavenly. So much so that I bought two more Spandex World ITY's for a short summer dress from this pattern as well as a top. Here are two more beauties I bought for this pattern and will make a shorter dress out of this pink/black print and a long top maybe with the sleeves out of this green swirly print


And the shoes! I bought Candies flip flops at Kohl's that were a great match. DD#1 not only approved of the dress, she also liked the shoes. Too bad they're not her size ;) .

Here's a pic of the dress outside in daylight. The colors are so pretty! Truly everything about this dress is fabulous. DD#1 even commented, "It really makes you look tall!" And I'm not short either--about 5'7", but the long, column style really elongates the figure and adds height. And...when I wore this to my local Sew and Vac today to pick up my Coverstitch machine, one of the employees loved my dress so much she was going to head out to Joann's this weekend and pick up this pattern.

What is needed now? Better earrings, and a good chunky brownish/bluish bracelet. Oh, and a nice-looking handbag. That would really complete the ensemble. At this point, I really hope maxi dresses are not SO out of style that they can't be worn next year.

Yeah, IMO, McCall's Easy 1-hour 5893 gets my vote as one of the best patterns in 2009! It's a little early to make that call since the year is far from over, but this pattern deserves it! McCall's gets kudos for this one!!!