Choir wardrobe 07 24 16 - 'You Can't Take Me Anywhere'

After third service today, at least two of the three of us who were traveling together were hungry.

So we opted to stop for lunch at Nothin' but Noodles, a chain that serves up various pastas in various styles.  I had alfredo with chicken and, for some reason, it was a little extra soupy today.

My hand placement on the black poly Loes Hinse Bistro jacket is to cover up, as much as possible, the resulting dribbly drippy spots on my classic (as in, purchased at the brick and mortar store before it was sold and converted to online only)  Coldwater Creek top.  It's a knit tank top with a poly chiffon overlayer on the front; I'm really, really hoping the spots will come out.  It's one of my favorite ' Hot pink month' garments.

The pants, which seem to have missed out on the sauce slopping, are also Loes Hinse designs...the Oxfords modified into something like boot cuts.

The necklace is vintage, having belonged to my grandmother.  You can't tell, but it's sparkly.

I'm still working on the project that was laying on the cutting table last week.  I managed to finish cutting it out last night, which is pretty sad as it should have been quite simple...just a handful of rectangles.  I originally intended to make scarves but it felt just a little too heavy for a scarf, so I decided to make a Plaza Jacket.  But the fabric I used...which is beautiful...was ghastly to cut.  It was a silk/rayon charmeuse burnout that I picked up in a sale earlier this year and I could NOT get an edge perpendicular to the selvage.  I tried tearing it first...it tore crossways for just a bit and then ripped down the length of the fabric; it probably tore 6 - 8 inches before I managed to hit the brakes on the ripping process.  I tried pulling a thread, but it would only pull through the chiffon, burnout bit and broke when it hit the unburnedout charmeuse bits. Plus, it angled severely to the selvedge, which made me look really closely at the fine weave and determine that it was actually twilled.  Oy.   I tried laying it carefully and cutting it with a straightedge and a rotary cutter, and the edge that looked perfectly straight wavered as much as an inch along the cut edge when it was moved.  One of the most uncooperative fabrics I've ever cut.

I wasted a lot of fabric trying to get it square.  I finally laid it out as flat as I could manage and cut it with the ruler/rotary cutter and hoped for the best.   I carefully folded the pieces up and they're waiting for the trip through the machines.  So far, I've been afraid to look and see how off grain it might be....

I've been selected for jury duty starting tomorrow; I'm really hoping everything gets resolved and they'll release the pool on Tuesday...I've got some pretty important meetings on Thursday at work that would be very inconvenient to miss.  In any case, it's likely to cut into my sewing time this week.

Choir Wardrobe 07-17-16

As it usually happens...the photo that shows the garments the best is the one in which I was talking to the photographer...

So, despite the deer-in-the-headlights expression on my face,  this is a 'By George, I think she's got it!' rendition of Vogue 9057, view A, modified slightly into what is now going to be my go-to relaxed fit T.

The fabric is a roll end from EmmaOneSock; I'd meant to make one of the funkier views of that pattern from it but forgot I only had 1 3/8 yards...so view A it was.  I cut the sleeves down (well, traced a cut-down version) a bit more into a cap shape and skinnied the neck band by 1/4".

Bingo.

July colors are black, gray and hot pink...the black/gray print top is teamed up with black Lee jeans and my ubiquitous  waistcoat from the 05/09 issue of Burda World of Fashion (now Burda Style).  The hot pink is once more relegated to accessories.

Just because I wanted to wear the new top.

There's a wild pink fabric on the cutting table...if I can get it cut out and sewn up this week, it'll be on next week's choir post.  But plans are still fluid for this week and I don't know that it will happen...we'll see.

IN other news....today happens to be the day that this sweet thing actually turns 20.

We are officially done parenting teenagers.

I'm not sure how I feel about that...

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday began at church, with three excellent services.  July choir colors are black, gray and hot pink, so I wore my new favorite top, Louise Cutting's My Heart's a-Flutter top made up in hot pink Brussels Washer Linen.,  the Gray knit Pamela's Patterns Drape Front Cardigan  from this year's SWAP collection and gray Lee jeans.


Now, if you're interested... the Birthday Breather...




After 3rd service, we ate a nice lunch, loaded the car and headed out of town for a quick 24 hour celebration.

We drove over the new bridge at Scottsboro for the first time;  it was completed and the old bridge knocked down within the last couple of months.

 Our destination was our favorite getaway,  the Lodge at Gorham's Bluff.  It was a lovely evening to sit on the balcony and listen to the tree frogs.  The thunderstorms didn't come through until later...

 


 The Lodge has great breakfast; kind of a limited menu, but those carrot mini-muffins...oh, my....

We decided to do a little adventuring and wandered through parts of Alabama we had not visited before, cutting over and among the hills from Scottsboro  to Fayetteville, Tennessee, the home of Sirs Fabrics.

No photos from Sirs; I got some buttons at a 50% discount and a couple of discontinued patterns and another piece of the brown tropical wool that I used last year for my steam-punkish  family-crusade costume.  I have a bit more costuming I want to do...kind of on a hunch, actually...and I think with an extra three or so yards added to the remnant I had left from the steampunk suit I'll have enough of it.  It was only $3.99/yd.

But my Sweet Babboo bought several pieces of cotton calico to make frontiersman shirts. How cool is it to be married to a guy who actually likes going to fabric stores...thanks to the frontiersman involvement...  :-D

Headed back to Huntsville, we passed the building that is being renovated for the Fayetteville campus of our church.  It's *scheduled* to open in about 6 weeks; those folks have been setting up in a local school for services and children's ministry and then clearing it out  every week for several years...I know they're going to be glad to get a permanent facility!

We finished the adventure with dinner in a local steakhouse, using a gift card we'd been hanging onto for 3 or 4 years.   We'll have the official 'let's get together and celebrate mom's birthday' dinner later this week, when everyone's in town.

(Yep, I wore the crazy bright Kim's club dress to dinner.  What's a splashy fun dress for if not to wear on a date?)


Back to work tomorrow....

Choir Wardrobe 7/3/16

Well, a faulty light setting results in a kinda muted picture, but you can get the idea.

July colors are black, gray and hot pink. 

For some reason, I was suddenly seized with the need to sew up another new purchase and, at about 9 PM last night, I cut out the latest iteration of the Vogue 9057.  The changes on it so far were to use short sleeves and scoop out the neckline slightly...for this T, I folded 1 1/2" out of the length, and cut it out of some sparkly rayon/lurex/lycra jersey...and proceeded to sew it up.  Which, of course, meant I had to wear it today, even if it did mean  grayscale dressing with black Lee jeans and the black vest from the Burda 05/09 magazine.  Pink accessories brightened it up a little...

But I'm happy with the T.  It's  MUCH less sloppy than the longer length on the first two....whoda thought a teeny inch and a half would make such a difference?  This is really, really close to the relaxed fit T I'm looking for.  There's an unsewn dart in the armsceye, which creates a small pleat in the underarm area...but it's exactly  like a RTW T would fit so I'm not sure it's worth fiddling over.

The only other minor problem is that the neckline is really too curved for the width of the neckband; it buckles a bit in the front.  I need to either make the neckline a wider scoop ....more U ish and less V ish...or cut the neckband skinnier.  I think I  like the soft V shape, so a skinnier band will no doubt be the solution.

But those are minor tweaks.  I'm calling this a TNT and will probably make a bunch.