Friday Fun Drawing

Ack! I completely overlooked the fact that yesterday was Friday and so I forgot to draw for the pattern freebie. Oops!

I rectified that this morning; My Sweet Baboo did the honors and MARY (Sewfast) won the pattern! Mary, if you'll email your snail mail addy to tig77lw (that's a lower case 'L', not a number one)at yahoo dot com, I'll get that off to you! Hope you make it and review it! :D


But I was busy sewing! I finished the BWOF black dress and had Number One Son take the photo, since DH was out of the house until late in the evening. He looked at the dress and said, 'Is that what you were cutting out last night?' When I replied that it was, he observed, 'That was fast!'

The next one will be faster...I had to, um, use the seam ripper a bit to get the fit passable, since I was chicken and sized up.

And trying it on about 4 times to get the fit adjusted totally disproved the 'little black dress friendly' claims on my anti-perspirant....

But I like the dress...now I just need an occasion to wear it ;) (The review's linked on the side bar)

I still want to get SOMETHING made from the orange ASAP, but I'm having difficulty hearing the fabric tell me what it wants to be. I'm afraid that's because it really, really wants to be something for DD, whose favorite color is orange... sigh.

I threw a party and no one came...

LOL that's happened more than once; sometimes it hurts but this one is just funny.

I guess there just aren't that many folks who want a size 4-6-8 pants pattern!

So, tell ya what...I'll leave it open for A WEEK.

If there's ANYONE who wants that a+o Vogue pattern I mentioned in yesterday's post, just leave a comment that you're willing to take it off my hands; if there's more than one, I'll draw NEXT Friday ;)

I'm off to sew more piratey stuff...

Summer Fun

1. Summer Fun Shoes
2. Summer Fun Giveaway


As promised, here's the 'new sandals w/ a little heel' that I got to make my 'wear with boots' jeans wearable in the summer. They came from Shoe Carnival, in one of the perpetual 'buy one, get one half price' sales. The grey ones are 2 1/2" heels, the brown ones measure 2 3/4". Not at all serious heels, in this day of six inch spikey instruments of foot agony, but, given my tendency to back trouble and the fact that these are worn for church choir...which can easily be standing for 45 minutes to an hour or better...they are my LIMIT for heels ;) Plus, they're both wedge/wide heeles, which is much more secure on the top riser than little spikes (says she who has more than once looked down to see half her heel hanging off the back of the platform...)

But I've worn both of them for choir now and, while my feet weren't in blissful comfort, they weren't in agony, either. They'll do.

The grey ones are even a bit of a fashion stretch for me; I'm not used to blingy feet ;).

But...there's another 'Summer Fun' item to post today. I started the idea of 'Fun First Fridays' back in April, then promptly took the hiatus and missed it in May, so to bring it back, I'm gonna do a giveaway.

Actually, it's just a way to make up for a goof on my part. Hancock's had Vogue patterns on sale last month for something like $3.88 each and I bought a bunch. But when I got home, I discovered I had purchased Vogue 2907 in the wrong size range. (4-6-8, hips 31 1/2" to 33 1/2"...approximately my WAIST measurement...). I thought about just hanging onto it and morphing the details onto the other Vogue alice + olivia pants pattern, which I was alert enough to purchase in the correct size range, but since I got back to Hancock's before the sale was over I decided to just get it in the right size and give the small one to someone who reads the blog.

So...if you're a thin little thing, or if you have a daughter who's a thin little thing, or if you're a whiz at grading patterns or if you'd just like to have the pattern as a collectible, just leave a comment on today's post: Tomorrow, for the Fun First Friday, I'll draw a name from today's comments and send this ridiculously small...er, um, very interesting pattern along with my blessings ;)

Fun First Friday: A Year of TNT

It struck me that it might be fun to do the 'what would you...' kind of thing on a regular basis, so I'm sort of playing around with the idea of doing this on the first Friday of each month...

But the question for this month is:

You have to move for one year to a very small space that does not have access to retail or internet pattern sources. You have only room to take 12 TNT patterns with you. So, what patterns would you take to meet any wardrobe needs in the next year?

I had to make my list twice; I lost it the first time! But here's what I came up with...

Pants:
La Fred's Daphne Pant; These are good pants for wearing under long floaty tops; they also make great capris. I modified them to have a waistband and pockets.
Vogue 7881; Claire Shaeffer's contour-waist pants (I added a pocket to these, too). Very good, very basic pants when an elastic waistband is NOT indicated.
Loes Hinse's Oxford Pants I've tweaked these to almost perfect, and I've done some modifications with them, too. I think I could (in fact, I'm planning on it) make a decent pull-on shorts pattern from them, and I *believe* I could, in an pinch, turn them into no-side-seam pants if I needed to for some reason.

Skirts
Straight skirt: Kwik Sew 2581. This has options for pleat variations in three lengths; I could get several very different skirts from this if I needed a serious skirt.

Flared skirt: Cutting Line Designs Farewell to Arms. This is a beautiful, easy-to-wear, easy-to-make skirt. I modified the pockets so that they were free (not stitched to the skirt front) just because that's my preference, but I love this skirt. Bonus: the envelope also contains patterns for an unstructured dress and a pull over top; I have used the skirt portion of the dress before as a straight skirt and it worked well, too.

Tops: This was a hard category to choose. I ended up with mostly knit tops; I don't have a good supply of TNTs for woven shirts at the moment. But I have:

Cutting Line Designs In the Trenches. That's a shirt that can be easily modified w/ sleeve length and trim details variations. It looks pretty, well, trenchy as illustrated, but if you look past the drawstring and the back shield, there's a very nice basic shirt underneath. Oh, and a bonus here...a pegged skirt, too.

Loes Hinse's City Dress; I know, I know, that's a dress pattern. But I've modified the bodice into a very nice little scoop-neck shell and made it a bazillion times. It's a good basic. And, the bonus is, I've got the unstructured dress as well.

Jalie 2005 Choice of T's; Of course.

Jalie 965 Camisole and T. This is the best knit tank I've found...it covers everything and looks great as a base layer under about anything.

Kwik Sew 2948 Twin Set; my favorite KS pattern. I love-love-love that set.

I've only really got one TNT Jacket:
Vogue Today's Fit 8043; I *think* I could modify it a bit for variation if need be (I already have one done...). But the boxy Chanel style is timeless, so it should fill a jacket need ok.

Finally, a dress with some shape:
Vogue 8379; the DVF knock-off wrap dress. I still need to make that up w/my tweaks, but I'm pretty confident they'll work.

There are other patterns that I wish I could take, but they're not TNT yet so they don't qualify. But I'm pretty sure I could get a year's wardrobe out of those...assuming I wouldn't need a MOB or MOG or other Special Occasion outfit.

But, hey, I bet if I got creative enough, I could maybe even pull that off with the little jacket and the shell top and a straight skirt...in killer fabrics... ;)

So! There's my picks! If you want to play, post your picks in your blog and leave a link in the comments and we'll all come look!

And if you're not ready today, you can list your picks tomorrow....