Finished Sewing Projects!

Here are two of the four that I have to post about. Both of these were done last week pre-accident so all I had to do was model them. I left off my head. I'm in a grumpy, dumpy mood. (You don't need to see it, nor would you want to.) Medical issues still plague me and that's why.

Anyway, first project is my leopard print skirt. It's just a simple, self-drafted pattern. You know the routine: measure your hips, add preferential ease, cut the width of the fabric to that amount, cut the length adding the hem and waist allowances and bam! You have the "pattern". I wore this outfit to church this morning. I was going to wear it with some fabulous heels I bought, but those will wait. Worry about tripping is one thing when you're healthy, but when you're not, it's a no go. Flat boots are a must.

The leopard print fabric is a mesh woven. The skirt is lined with a Bemberg-type of lining. The two layers sandwich the elastic at the top of the skirt. The black lining is about 3-4" shorter than the skirt for a "peekaboo" effect. I tried to show it in the pic below but don't know how evident it is. In the sunlight, the effect is more evident. I was actually ambitious enough to change the threads on my serger to do a rolled hem on the lining and the woven mesh fabric.

Here is the non-fancy, simple dimple, elastic waistband:

And here is the easy peasy rolled hem.

On to my elusive "perfect" pair of pants. They're not perfect yet, but they're getting there. The pants draft was from a Threads issue a couple of years ago. The pattern was self drafted from those instructions with tweaks from another Thread's article by Joyce Murphy on body space.

Before Christmas I ordered Marian Lewis' pants fitting book. The method she uses is not much different than what I did in Jean Haas' Darting Below the Beltline class, however, she does add some new info for the crotch area. I did NOT use the info in her book yet. At this point I just wanted to develop a basic custom block. Believe me, it actually looks like a Franken block 'cuz I have such a weird shaped body.

My plan now is to shave off another 1/2" from the back under the butt via a fisheye dart alteration since there is still a bit of baggy-ness in that area. I think my fuller right side is taking up more of the fabric than the left too. My posture isn't perfect in the pic for this post so I need to examine more of my back pics. Once that is done, then I'll create a separate right and left front and right and left back. This is a necessity for me. My right side of my body is both wider and fuller than my left with a bit of hip height discrepancy as well. This is partly what Marian discusses in her book. Ideally, for a great pair of pants I'd do well with a vertical seam down the middle of the back leg too. I'm trying to get a tradeoff at this point.

Another thing is I like my pants snug. There is almost no way I'm going to eliminate front wrinkles at the crotch with the fit I want, especially in the fabric I used. I could make the pants looser and the wrinkles would go away, but the baggy fit would bother me more than the wrinkles. Ah...the old tradeoff again. It is what is. I'm not going to obsess about these things, but ridding myself of most of the baggy butt wrinkles with my custom drafted pattern is my goal. Most, I say, because that fabric in the back also is ease. That doesn't make things easy. So I'll keep taking a smidge out of my draft, no more than a 1/2" each time. Give me another two or three pairs of pants and I think I have the almost perfect pair.

Here are the pants front:

Here's the pants back. Not perfect, getting there, but definitely better than RTW.

Next up are the shirts I finished two months ago. They need to be pressed before being modeled. Maybe tonight they'll at least get hit with the iron.

See ya tomorrow, hopefully!

Sewing and the Spine

Thank you, everyone, for your comments and good wishes. My aches, soreness, and occasional dull pains still plague me in the neck and shoulder area with mild intermittent headaches and slight sinus pressure. Yes, the other lady was insured by the same company as me. I've discussed options with an attorney. Still waiting to hear about my van. If you saw the crumpled front of her car, you'd get an idea with the amount of force that hit my van. Let me tell you, this stuff is really a pain in the a$$. One thing the attorney brought up was massage therapy in addition to the chiropractor. I never thought about that. My chiro is not a fan of muscle relaxants and neither am I. As she says, "The heart is also a muscle." I don't want to be relaxing all my muscles, just my neck and shoulders, so the muscle relaxant prescription still sits on my counter, and I don't plan on filling it. There is a massage therapy place near me so I will check that out today.

DD#1 had X-rays two weeks ago at the chiro. Then she had another set the day of the accident. I'll let the chiro check out both sets. As she was adjusting my daughter, she said her current back pain is definitely the result of the accident.

Off the topic of the stupid car accident, good news! I finished my khaki pants from my "elusive" perfect pants patterns. This was my custom, self drafted pattern I worked on last year. (Yes, I did say last year...). I'll take pics soon. Made great progress on DH's jacket. Traced off the pattern for my Vogue retro jacket, and finished cutting out the fabric and interfacing for my Burda blouse. Which reminded me as I was cutting it out--only work with great fabric. Life is too short for crappy stuff. I hope I don't regret using this brown, crinkly cotton for the Burda blouse. Pics are coming!

More later.

Its Been Awhile: Finished Sewing Projects!

Yeah, it feels like forever since I've actually posted about finished projects. Really, I'd like them to be garments because my garment sewing has been so sporadic lately, but any finished projects are good.

The first project is an embarrassing UFO. DD#2 and I discussed the idea of a Birthday Memory Quilt for one of her close friends. Her friend's parents took the girls to the 9/20/09 Mets game (which they won!), and I asked the mom to take pics for the quilt. DD#2's friend still doesn't know what her birthday present is, but my daughter has been telling her that it has been coming along. For an entire 4 months! It seemed like every time I tried to work on it, I'd get to a point then stop for some reason. I was planning on finishing it the last week of November, but my tension disk went wonky on my embroidery machine. It had to be serviced, and it took 3 long weeks to get it back. At that point, I was pressed for time with 20 headbands for Christmas presents for my daughters' friends.

Here are some of the headbands with their Christmas tags. The school name and mascot were also embroidered on them in addition with each girls' names. I used some great 100 weight fleece ordered from http://www.wazoodle.com/ (royal blue on the front/grey on the back and terrific fleece BTW). I made several changes from a book's design so it's essentially my own at this point and enjoyed using my Coverstitch for the topstitching around the headband edges.

The downside to these headbands? DD#1 came home and said several people were mad at her because they didn't get one LOL. I may have several orders come spring time when Track and Softball starts. Truly, these headbands were a big hit with their friends. These headbands were designed to perfectly match the embroidered scarves I made for their friends for Christmas 2008

Back to the Memory Quilt! Here is the quilt front:

DD#2 picked the pictures to use for the quilt and I embroidered the front with the Mets lineup from the 9/20/09 game. Baseball graphics and text were added for a customized Birthday Memory Quilt. It was great that the game date was also the exact date of her friend's birthday.

The quilt is double sided with orange fleece on the back. That side is plain because I wanted it to feel soft against her skin. The top and bottom edges are fringed and knotted, the sides are just fringed. I used the iron-on transfer sheets for the pics and ironed the pics to cotton flannel. For the edges of the pics, I used pinking shears, then stitched around the inside of the pinked edges to attach the photo blocks to the quilt.

Here's a closeup of the upper front of the quilt:

Here's a closeup of the lower quilt:

The one disappointment? The girls couldn't get a pic of themselves with David Wright ;) . But at least our darn Mets won that game. I was very happy for Danielle. She's a big Mets fan and we're a family of Mets fans although sometimes we wonder why.

Next up, finishing my leopard print skirt.

ETA, I'll leave you with a pics of Jake in my sewing room.

Cats Play Fetch!

This was supposed to be a sewing post, but I wanted to share what comes naturally to many Devon Rex cats: Playing Fetch!

No cat I ever had (pre Jake) played fetch. I think most don't. Jake didn't need any training, he simply went right to it. He played fetch with my husband at the beginning of December, then kind of stopped. We think we found out why. He has a preference for his toy mice. We have small mice which are too hard and big soft fat mice that don't fit in his mouth. He likes our little soft medium-sized one and will play fetch for the longest time with it.

Today I took a little video clip of what Jake does best :) . Skeptics take note: Cats do indeed play fetch. Enjoy! (Just don't look at my walls or woodwork...painting and new moulding comes after I make my curtains from the fabric I bought before Christmas.)

Headbands, Skirt, and Other Things

Other things first :) . I love writing about Jake. I realize not everyone is a cat lover so I'll make it quick.

Here's the cat tree Rich made for Jake. He LOVES it too :) .

Jake fooling around.

What a showoff he is! Proudly displaying that short, wavy coat of fur. If only my hair could be as wavy as his fur.

On to the headbands. They're Christmas presents for my daughters' friends. I just couldn't finish them in time with my embroidery machine in the shop so long so they'll get them when the girls go back to school. I finished 7 today, and will finish the other 8 tomorrow.


Here are the finished headbands:

And here are the ones that will be finished up tomorrow. I need more 1" elastic so that is what's holding me up.



And you see this skirt below? I started it about a month ago. An easy, no pattern necessary simple pull-on elastic waist skirt. What is it waiting for? Me to set up my serger for a rolled hem. I have to change from my off-white thread to black thread. This is the time when I long for a jet-air threaded Babylock, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. The leopard print fabric is a woven mesh purchased locally, and the lining is a black, polyester lining fabric purchased somewhere in NYC. Paron's I think? My sister purchased 10 yards for me way back when.


It's above the knee with the lining about 3" shorter than the woven mesh. That's the way I wanted it. I can wear it with my brown suede boots or my black leather ones.


Still no reviews as of yet. I really wanted to get some done, maybe tomorrow night? I don't know--the headbands still need to be finished for Monday. We'll see...we'll see.


And BTW, HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!!! Sure hope 2010 is better than 2009. Thanks for the encouraging comments in my previous blog post :) .

The Most Inspirational Blogger of 2009

Merry Christmas Everyone! And a Happy Belated Hanukkah to my Jewish friends. My blogging has been very sporadic lately, and it seems the holidays come and go so quickly. On my end, this has been the Christmas that wasn't. It simply hasn't felt like the Christmas season, nor did it feel like Christmas today.

I can't pinpoint exactly why. Maybe it's partly the news. The economy, so many people losing their jobs--it leads to a general feeling of not being in the holiday mood. It could also be my friend fighting cancer and getting denied disability for the second time, while I know another person out of work since summertime who is enjoying year-long unemployment checks while gambling in Atlantic City, not necessarily even looking for a job.

It has been a year of friendship disappointment. There's nothing like lending a long-term friend a high degree of support, yet having their dishonesty and half truths cause people to question my credibility. I promptly terminated the friendship and all association with that person. While another person acted as if they wanted to renew a friendship after blowing me off last year, I simply refused to go there. It caused me to wonder why it was happening and what they wanted from me. I felt they were only doing it because of my connections with other people. Sorry, I'm not going to be used. So, a good riddance to 2009.

Except for one bright spot! That would be who I consider to be the most inspirational blogger of 2009. She's the one person who made me want to consider an aspect of sewing I have never had an interest in. That is, until January or February of this year. She is the person who sews absolutely beautiful bras! I was continually amazed by her better-than-Victoria's Secret bras. Her exquisite detail and beautifully selected fabrics and laces were incredibly inspiring, and I even asked her if she would consider offering a class on PR on bra construction. Instead, she opted to create a lingerie sew along for interested sewers on bra construction. This busy lady graciously offered her expertise and time (of which we know there is so little of) and helped out all of us in creating beautiful bras, sharing ideas, and learning about fitting bra patterns.

If you don't know already who is, what I consider to be, THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL BLOGGER OF 2009, I'll tell you :) . It is...Sigrid.

Before this year, I never had any desire to sew up a pair of panties, nor a bra. But it is her work that provided me with the inspiration to sew up beautiful panties and a bra. I've sewed up two pairs of pretty lacy panties and one bra. The bra was a muslin, but I'm going to make the same bra as a back closure instead of a front closure one. On a side note, my days of front closure bras came to an end the day I was in the middle of teaching a high school class, and my bra became unhooked as I was writing on the chalkboard LOL. It was made worse by the fact that I had on a dress that was close-fitting from the waist up. Not a good experience as a C-Cup woman as one can imagine.

Anyway, I made plenty of little mistakes and ended up with little holes on the back band from seam ripping. Not to worry. I will make my beautiful bra in early 2010. However, it wouldn't have happened without Sigrid. Therefore, she gets my admiration for providing inspiration in an area of sewing I have never had an interest in before. And to accomplish that, one must produce outstanding work to the point that it creates a desire to do the same in another person. To never have an interest in lingerie sewing to have a strong desire to make beautiful bras and panties because of one person's work is a testament to her outstanding work.

Way to go, Sigrid!

Christmas 2009

Well, it's been an interesting past two weeks. I still haven't finished most of the sports headbands, just one completed one. It's what I'm going to be working on during Christmas vacation. Here is one of the headbands for DD#2's friend who absolutely loved it. We gave it to her Wednesday evening, and her father found her wearing it in bed on Thursday morning. So I guess she truly was pleased. It's my original design, although not much thinking required for it ;) .

Front:

Back:

Hayley's quilt is finished, and I'm just waiting for pics at this point. I asked her to take pics of it before giving it to her grandparents. We have been working on it for about three weeks, but she had to finish it up on her own. Hayley is my 13-year old sewing student, and I can't wait to see the finished project.

Now, on to my Christmas present :) . My little, lovable Jake who is really growing. The little guy gets neutered on Monday so that is his unlucky day. But we want to keep our little kitten permanently loving and as the breeder said, "Do NOT let him become a man!" LOL. Here is my wonderful little boy. Check out his adult fur growing in. It's short and wavy--so cute!

Snuggling with DD#2:

The handsome guy showing off his short, wavy coat (soft as velvet!):

Right now, I'm off to bed! I'm in normal body rythm mode of going to bed at 11:30 and getting up around 7:30 a.m. If only it could be like this every day...