Monday, January 19, 2009

Eeep!

I started tracing the pattern pieces for my next big project tonight, and I'm afraid! It's this Vogue dress, view A, and it's complicated. Plus I'm planning to make it sleeveless, so I have to kind of make that part up. And it's in satin-y fabric, which I've never really worked with. And I'm not at all certain the bodice is going to fit me without some alterations.

All in all, I'm suspecting there are going to be some phone calls to my mom before this thing is complete.

On the plus side, I have plenty of time before the wedding I want to wear it to, so if it doesn't work out, I can always go shopping. And my fabric is pretty. :)

I'm going to start on a muslin of it (or the bodice part, at any rate) tomorrow - wish me luck!

Well, that's better....

Okay, I tried again over the weekend to make the pin tucked skirt, and this one actually fits me - hooray! I totally forgot to take a picture of it, though. Oops! This time I used pink thread (although I kinda think I like the lime green from the first one better; oh well), and I did it the right size. Although I feel a little better about my mistake the first time, because I realized the actual waist of the first skirt fits; it's just that the rest of it doesn't! I guess I should pay attention to both sets of measurements....

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Bad Karma. Or something.

I don't know what I've done, but apparently I've angered the sewing gods somehow. Or maybe I'm just picking the wrong projects! The last few things I've tried to make really haven't been very successful. I haven't been doing a huge amount since I cleaned up my craft area, but the projects I've tried just haven't worked out.

I was working on the wrap top that I mentioned in my last post. I actually put it together without any major problems, but it was kind of funny looking. Partly I think the knit I used was too thick for the way they wrote the pattern, and partly I think I just don't like the pattern so much on my body. So, I tried to alter the pattern a bit. I put that one together, and it still looks funny. I think it can be rescued, but it needs some serious thought put into it. I just wasn't up for that last night (when I realized how much thought it needed), so I thought I'd do a quick skirt from my Stitch magazine.


Isn't it cute? Unfortunately, I must've measured wrong or something, because it's extremely (extremely, unattractively) tight. Argh! On the plus side, I think I have enough fabric to make it again, and I'm sure I'll do a better job with the pin tucks on a second attempt. (The horizontal ones are kinda crooked.) I just hope that my next big project (which I plan to wear to a wedding) is more successful!

Monday, January 5, 2009

Nice and neat

The past few days, I've been working on neatening up my sewing area. I worked very hard on my fabric stash, sorting, folding and organizing it all. Plus I rearranged my cutting table, with my new mat (yay!) and my recovered iron (yay!) to make it all a little cleaner. I also had plans to buy a little sewing caddy for my scissors and pencils etc, but I couldn't find anything I liked. So, instead, I made a couple of fabric boxes. So far I have one for my currently planned patterns and another for all the random stuff. I think I might make one more for the scissors so that they fit slightly better, but it's nice to have it all arranged. It's much more pleasant to sew when it's a little less chaotic. So here's a picture of it before I mess it up again!
I also spent time this weekend spending some money. ;) I visited Joann's, Hancock's, and my favorite local quilt shop, Intown Quilters. I used up all of my gift card money (and then some), and I have all kinds of interesting new projects to work on. In addition to all the old projects, of course! I picked up some of the fabrics from this line by Timeless Treasures - I have the birds in brown and yellow for shorts for the girls this summer, and a fat quarter of the Paris one for something for me. I haven't quite worked out what yet, but it was too cute to resist. I think my next project, though, is this wrap top by Vogue in a charcoal gray color. We'll see how that goes...