Choir Wardrobe 10/30/11

I really am not crazy about how quickly the year is winding down, but I have to admit I'm somewhat relieved to be at the end of the brown/orange/oatmeal month!    Hopefully I can get a couple of things made before it rolls around next year...

But I did manage to scrape by.  Since the temps have dropped into the fallish range, I pulled out a brown rayon/lycra turtleneck that I made so long ago I can't remember where the fabric came from or what pattern I used.  I *think* it's a modified Loes Hinse Cowl Top, but it might be a Christine Jonson Basewear 2 top.  I'm gonna say it's the Cowl Top, frankenpatterned w/an oop Kwik Sew turtleneck.

The jacket is from Coldwater Creek (and yes, someone asked if I made it!).  It's a great jacket, but it lacks pockets.  I pondered it pretty hard before I bought it last year, but I was in urgent need of a brown jacket to wear for choir and I just didn't have time to get one made.  So it has filled in the same role this fall.  But I still miss the pockets.

The jeans are also CWC bootcuts; I actually bought these a couple of years ago during one of their serious online sales; I was losing weight and so I bought the size below what I was wearing so I'd have something when the current ones got too loose.  Well, about that time the mid-life hormone shift hit and the scale reversed itself and hasn't come back down.  But I discovered to my dismay today that among the loads of laundry I *didn't* get done this week were my 'machine wash cold' jeans...i.e, all the jeans I wear for choir.  I found these hanging in the back of the closet, and pulled them out mostly just to convince myself they didn't work.

Let me tell you, they are not pretty around the midsection (hence the cover-it-up top and jacket), but the lycra in them was sufficient for the purpose and I wore them.  And now I'm going to go change into sweat pants.

I will be doing 'wash cold' blue jeans ASAP.

Bring on the Burgundy and Grey next month...LOL...

Burda 2/09 108 and the Animal Not Found in Nature Print

Can't remember the last time I actually sewed up a piece of fabric in the same month it came through the door.  This is one of the 'trendy' knits that a couple of online vendors were selling like hotcakes this summer; I grabbed this from one of the final clearances.  Not something I'd usually go for, but the color suits me much better than the usual gold/brown leopard/cheetah/other big cat print so I thought I'd make something fun.  The vest is from May '08 Burda (I think); that has been a true wardrobe staple that is not shown at its best angle here. 

I need to make more vests.

I've got the sleeves pushed up; they really do cover my wristbones.  And I still need to tweak the neckline a bit; it *still* wants to buckle a bit.

But it'll do, it'll do.  It was kinda fun to wear today...

Choir Wardrobe 10/23/11

October colors are burnt orange, brown and oatmeal, and with one Sunday left to go in the month, I finished the second top for our 'burnt orange' color.  This is not something I would ever have chosen, had it not been for our choir colors, but I guess it worked; I got several compliments on it today.

It's my second go at Simplicity 3624; this time in a very thin and drapey rayon/lycra jersey.  I used the long sleeves this time; I think they worked better for me than the weird cap sleeves I used the first go-round, for all that these turned out to be full-length instead of the 7/8 length shown on the pattern.  It's over the brown Jalie 965 tank, both for color and for, um, church suitability.  Actually, church or not, I doubt I'd wear this without something under it...it's pretty low and wide.

Lee bootcuts this week...someday I WILL make myself a pair of jeans... ;-)

Choir Wardrobe 10/16/11

So. Despite a really busy week (including an all-nighter at our Girl's Ministry Sleepover on Friday)  I managed to complete ONE of the three tops I cut out on Thursday, so I at least had something burnt orange to wear today.  Add one more Jalie 965 Tank Top , this one from burnt orange rayon/lycra jersey, (I've lost count...that makes somewhere between 12 and 15 of those tops in my closet) to my wardrobe.  I've matched it up with an oblong scarf made from the remnants of the Threads scarf I wore last week, and my heathery brown Jalie 2566 Cardigan, all with the CWC knit jeans I keep raving about.

I actually have another top cut from that same orange fabric; maybe I'll get that one put together this week...

The Fabric that Haunted Me

Been meaning to post this for a week or so now...

A year or two ago, I purchased a bundle from Fabric Mart that had some fabulous tattersal tropical wool in it.    I marked it 'gorgeous' and added it to the stash, sending it off to the bin w/a fond memory of how lovely the colors were ... and particularly thinking of some golden hash-type marks that lit up the fabric.  I distinctly remember sitting on my sofa, holding the fabric just so the light hit it perfectly.  Such a nice fabric would require a special garment.

Sometime after that, this wool fabric showed up on Gorgeous Things.

I was SURE it was the same wool.  It was uncanny how similar it was.  I smiled, thinking how fortunate I was to already own such a lovely piece.

But...this winter I sorted and organized my fabric stash.  I thought I'd pull that piece and compare it to the photo on the website and see if they really were the same piece.

And I could NOT find the fabric I recalled so vividly.

I did find the piece of fabric that I'd gotten in the bundle from FM...and it was nothing like the piece I remembered or the piece on the GT website.  Not the same pattern, not the same colors.

I hunted through all my records of past fabric purchases.  I could find no record of purchasing any wool that I didn't have physically in front of me at that moment.  And I record EVERYTHING.

Weird, huh?

So from that moment, I was fascinated by the fabric on Ann's site.

And, at the last sale, I finally succumbed.  I bought 3 yards. It's in the 'fabric in' picture at the bottom of this post.

No, it's not a dead ringer for the fabric I must've dreamed about handling.  It's heavier and the pattern is larger.  But, yeah, it is still marvelous and will still make something great.

I just gotta quit hearing the Twilight Zone music every time I look at it...

Choir Wardrobe 10/9/11

This was a last minute throw-together; I couldn't seem to make *anything* work this morning...October colors (burnt orange, oatmeal and brown) are not plentiful in my wardrobe.

One of these days, I'm going to do that and realize as I'm walking out the door that I'm wearing all RTW.  I don't think I've sung in choir without wearing at least ONE garment (or scarf!) that I'd made in a long, long time.  Not that that would be a horrible thing, I suppose, but it would make for a rather sheepish 'Choir Wardrobe' post.

In this case, the one thing is the brown rayon/lycra jersey Jalie 2682  top, worn with  Coldwater Creek (jacket and knit jeans).

I have fabric in a burnt orange color, for at least one top, and some brown Zegna wool from Michael that needs to be used before the moths find it...if I can just get myself to the sewing nook this week, hopefully I'll do better next Sunday. ;-)

What's up, Doc?

I am heading back into the sewing room; but first, I had to take care of a few things that had accumulated.

We had used some random chunks of fabric from the decor room at church for the wedding reception.  They had obviously been used for other things, as there were chocolate spots on them when we pulled them out.  They also had not been cleaned because they were just cut yardage...and the poly-organza type fabric was raveling out like crazy.  So I brought them home, serged the ends and washed them. And, while I had a 3-thread configuration on the serger, I also took care of a couple of other things:

-- a friend had purchased a bit of silky poly print that she wanted to turn into a scarf.  A bit of ripping, a bit of cutting, and a little decorative thread roll-edging and it's done.

--The Princess purchased a lacey floor-length dress that she wore for her 'departure' from the wedding.  She'd wanted me to hem the bottom for her, but I wasn't sure the serger would feed it evenly, since it was a textured melange of lacey bits and managed to talk her into just wearing shoes w/ a bit of heel.  Well, there was an incident with the escalator in the hotel when they arrived and suddenly, well, you can see for yourself, as I'm in the process of trimming off the chewed up bottom:

Once it became a salvage job, I wasn't nearly so nervous about serging it.  I cut off about 7", so it is now a  lacey tea-length dress.  And the serger did just fine...

--And, we have more weddings coming up at church so I brought home a dress that will be worn by one of the other office staff young ladies who is a member of one bridal party; it needed to be shortened about 2".  Poly shantung, straight skirt, poly lining.  Took maybe an hour and a halfish.  And I was astonished to find 5/8" seam allowances used in that dress...I thought that was the mark of a home sewn garment...which this most pointedly was NOT.

Anyway, my chartitable sewing done for the time being, I can focus on my next project(s).

And I had a brainstorm for one of them.  I'm going to use the pattern I just adapted for the MOB dress and 1) change the neckline to bateau and 2) add 3/4 length sleeves.  It's a princess sheath...it's very close to ideally fitted...so, Carolyn, I'm heading over into your 'alter the TNT!' camp; we'll see how it works!

And, you know, there were sales last week.  And the second box of fabric just arrived, so I piled all the 'yardage in' onto the sofa and took a picture:

The two pieces on the right came earlier; the stripe is a cottony-feeling rayon/lycra blend, and  the taupey-looking piece is actually a multicolored houndstooth plaid.  The other four pieces came today (and my living room now has that lovely new-fabric smell...); the white, black and green are cotton/lycra poplins and the spotted piece is one of the 'trendy knits' that have been dispersing themselves around the country for some time now.  I know it's an Animal Not Found in Nature, but the normal print colors of yellow/brown/orange do NOTHING for me; this one is black/grey/red and I will wear it just for fun.  Might even turn it into that popular Burda Style funnel neck shirt really, really soon...

I had a scary moment today; I hit Hancock's Big Pattern sale and came home to enter my new acquisitions in my PatternReview Pattern Catalog; when I entered the Chado/Ralph Rucci dress (Vogue 1239) I was informed that it was already in my stash.  I couldn't believe I'd duplicated it...but it turns out I didn't.  I have a Vogue/ Perry Ellis skirt pattern from something like 1990 that has the same number.  So, yeah, you know you're a SERIOUS pattern stasher when the numbers start to repeat...

Shopped and Dropped

Since the school system is currently in a 3-days-surrounding a weekend version of Fall Break, I took the Flute Player up the road to the new discount/department store that opened a bare 4 miles from our house.  She has grown like nobody's business in the past six months and was in need of jeans and at least one pair of dressy pants that covered her ankles.  And I just haven't had time to get any patterns adjusted for her;  she's been growing faster than I could get the adjustments made so we were going for emergency rations.

She took up residence in a fitting room while I ran around the store bringing her various styles and sizes.

Which means I got a pretty good look at the merchandise in the juniors and misses sections of the store.

O.Mi. Gosh.  What a bunch of...dreck.  Cheap, thin, wonky, card-boardy and EXPENSIVE.  We did find two pairs of jeans, one pair of (thin) RPL pants (that will need to be hemmed up a couple of inches) and some loungy/sweat pants.  All on sale..and it still rang up at about $120. 


I want to clear my calendar, take two weeks off from work and just sew that child a wardrobe. Quick-like, before she grows more.  And then make one for myself.

At least our fabrics will feel nice.

On a more positive note, I found out a few weeks back that Louise Cutting will be teaching a one-day seminar for the Birmingham chapter of the American Sewing Guild on the first Saturday in November (and she will be bringing fabric!!).  Miss A and I are making plans to go; I sent in my registration today. 

I haven't done a sewing event in a really long time; it'll be nice to see Louise again and get some inspiration.

But I really, really want to spend some quality time with my sewing machine...unfortunately, I've some mending/alterations that need to be done before I can really get there.  Sigh.

There are no big events scheduled for this weekend; I think I can at least knock some of those out.  I hope.

Choir Wardrobe 10 02

I am totally laughing at this picture; all I need is a 10 gallon hat and I look ready to ride the range.  It didn't look that way in the mirror!  

Anyway, October's colors are brown, rust orange and oatmeal.

So, I've got on straight-legged Lee jeans (all my bootcuts are in the laundry. Still.  They were at the bottom of the mountain; I'm almost there...), a taupey Coldwater Creek sweater that might be considered oatmeal in some lighting, my brown rayon jersey 965 Jalie Tank Top and the made-for-choir orange/brown/taupe Threads smoke ring scarf, for which I have at least two more pieces of fabric earmarked only I canNOT find my pattern.  So I've got that issue of Threads pulled out so I can, at some point, re-create it.

Sigh.

Thursday this week was my FIRST day at home since the Wedding, and, while I intended to spend some time working on new sewing projects, pretty much all I did was laundry.  You'd think I coulda managed some tracing or cutting or something while the machines were running, but, alas, I seem to have done something else.

I just can't remember what. ;-)

But, I did promise a winner for the Galaxy dress pattern.  Since I only had two (count 'em ...two) folks identify themselves when they left comments since I announced the giveaway, I flipped a coin:  Heads would be my friend Felicia, Tales would be my friend Jess...and the coin landed on Heads.

So, I will be handing the pattern to Felicia on Wednesday night.  Hopefully it will inspire her to pull out her sewing machine and get reacquainted ;-)