I'm still here...

Snapshots today.

First it was jury duty.  I was released on the 2nd day, but I went straight to work.

I had a lot to get done to take a week off.

A week of vacation.  Well, a week of visiting family. 

Which is wonderful and was wonderful but it's not a go-someplace-and-chill-out vacation, if you know what I mean.

Then we came back from a week out of town.  I think...as of last night...I've finally caught up the work that piled up while I was gone.

Now I have to deal with the work that piled up while I tended to the first pile.

I've actually had to bump my part-time hours up at work from 24/wk to 28/wk.

I've finished 4 out of 12 online classes that will eventually net a Master's Degree of sorts.

Can I just say...I've been busy?

I've actually taken choir wardrobe photos for the last 3 weeks but haven't managed to post them.

I've been wrangling pillows through the sewing machine for decor for the women's conference that kicks off two weeks from tomorrow. 

I only had 7 to cover; it's not that involved.

But life has been that crazy.

The silk Plaza jacket ...which I have decided to leave the sleeves off of...is still in progress.

Very beautiful, very frustrating fabric to work with all around.

But I wish I had decided to leave the sleeves off before I used up so much fabric trying to cut them out.

I could've had a kewler, longer vest.

Oh, well.

I have some beautiful fabrics I want  to sew but I am going get the crazy Plaza topper finished off before I cut anything else out.

And I have to finish the pillows before I can do that.

Maybe tonight.

Meanwhile...here's the choir photo from last Sunday, in this month's designated colors of black and white...





 Yeah.  Old stuff w/ a purchased T shirt.  I just have had no luck sourcing white T shirt knit that isn't sheer.







 
I wouldn't have time to make white T's now anyway.


 
Maybe I can get back to the sewing room...after the conference... :-)

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.

Workwear 33

So I had some fun.

The new tank dress, with an old denim jacket and black capri tights.

Outside of the comfort zone in one way...crazy comfy in another.

Had to wear the jacket, though...the only way I had pocketses.

Mayhap I shall find excuses to wear the dress a bit more often than I had expected....

One wearing note...I discovered that the shoulders really are set too wide for me, and the neckline kinda collapsed.  Not because it was stretched, but because the shoulders got pushed in due to it being drafted for wider shoulders than I have.  So a little tweaking is in order there, should I make it again.

The Fabric Won...

A tank dress it is.

Style Arc's Cruise Club Kim dress...I probably should've made it out of something cheap for the first go, but I compared the pattern to my McCall's 6559 maxi tank dress and decided a size 12 would probably be fine.  It's a knit dress...fitting is not that big a deal.

But I *assumed* the armhole/neckline bands were drafted correctly.  I think I'm going to take them off, shorten them a bit, and put them back on.  They're a little gappy.  Not bad...I could wear it as it is...but it could be better with a half hour's work.

Other than that, no real complaints.  It's just a long tank top, after all.  The construction order in the instructions is a little different than what I typically do...the neckband is inserted in the round, but the armhole bands are applied flat, before the side seams are sewn.  That's pretty much a matter of preference, but I think the end product looks nicer if they're inserted after the side seam...no awkward seams to deal with.

In a less stretchy knit I'd definitely want to size up everywhere but the shoulders.  By itself, it's not terribly flattering...but that's not the fault of the dress.  Under a topper, though, with the close fit somewhat camouflaged, it looks happy and cheerful.

I think once I tweak the binding bands, it'll do.

And I have nearly 1/2 a yard left for accents on some pieced Tilton top...lol...

Choir Wardrobe 6/26/16

Column dressing today!

Navy blue Sewing Workshop Plaza pants, in tropical wool,  Jalie 2566 T in rayon/lycra jersey and Jalie 2919 Pleated Front Cardi in a different rayon/lycra jersey, and a couple of random pieces of fushcia/hot pink fabric fashioned into oblong scarves (one has mylar dots...).

The reason I made the navy cardi is that I felt like the fabric was too sheerish for a T shirt, which was really what I intended to make (a replacement for the T I'm wearing, actually, as it is not a high-quality knit and is losing its shape somewhat).  But, making lemonade out of lemons, I decided to make the cardi instead...the sheerish-ness doesn't matter a whit in the top layer.

One of the best choices I've made in a while.  I've worn and worn that blue cardi, and it's only about 5 months old.

I'm actually glad it turned out too sheer for a T...

Something to mull...

My determination to sew what I buy has slipped a little...because a couple of my recent purchases were to replace basics that I'd sewn up from the stash (I always want to have some black ponte on hand, for instance). 

But, after finishing the SWAP I decided to treat myself  and caught a sale and three rayon/lycra blends have now been pre-washed and are ready to sew.

 The sparkly gray in the center will be a nice basic T to wear as a bottom layer for the choir wardrobe, but the other two...the black and white piece and the multicolor one, were roll ends that I splurged on.   

The black and white will definitely be a Tilton top...not sure which one yet.. but the colorful print (the photo doesn't do it justice...) has me stymied.  What it's telling me it wants to be is a knit tank dress, but I'm not sure how much rotation that could get in the wardrobe.  Maybe a swirly skirt...or maybe another Tilton top.

Hmmmm

Choir Wardrobe 6/19/16

June colors are hot pink, navy and gray.  The hot pink is a chiffon-over-knit top from Coldwater Creek on which I had to do a pinch of alteration;  navy blue rayon/lycra Jalie pleated front cardigan and the altered-up Oxford pants from this years SWAP wardrobe.

And a slightly shorter hairdo...which  not one person noticed today...lol.   Time for some cooler summer hair!

Choir Wardrobe 06 12 16

A trip to Indiana and back between Sundays...so nice to get a respite on the farm.  I should do it more often. ;-)

June's Choir Colors are Navy, Gray and Hot Pink. Today's choice was boot cut Levi's,  a hot pink rayon/lycra jersey Simplicity 2603 top, topped off by a poly burnout Sewing Workshop Plaza Jacket, which  annoyingly kept sliding around on my shoulders but garnered several compliments.  It's a fun thing to wear in theory, but, well, not too often. ;-)

Choir Wardrobe 6/5/17

 June colors:  Hot pink, gray and navy.  The jacket and the gray jeans are RTW (old skool Coldwater...and Lee), but the pink top is brand new.

I cut it out after supper last night and finished it whilst I waited for laundry to  run its course.

It's a modified Cutting Lines Designs 'My Heart's A-Flutter' shell, made from Brussels washer linen. 

This is the second top I've made from this pattern; I made some changes that I like and some that I need to tweak....I rotated the point of the dart downward a bit, and it is now throwing the dart bubble towards the, um, right place.  Happy.

I also lengthened the lower front/back piece 1 1/2".  The original top just feels a little short.  This feels better.  Another happy.

I changed the curve on the side seams..that is, I put a curve in it.  I morphed from a Medium + to a Large, and the first top looks a little, um, tent-y.   This one has a bump in the side now.  Maybe I don't need to go quite out to a size L.  More tweaking.

But the biggest tweak still needed is the finish for the neckline/armholes.  The original pattern has facings, but they're kind of narrow and want to flip up/out.  I thought I"d give bias bindings a try.

Well, I forgot to trim off the seam allowances for the wrap-around binding.  My bad.  But, it was probably a good thing I did, because I cut the bindings a bit short.  They probably wouldn't have fit if the the seam allowances were gone.  Anyway, the shoulders are kinda sloppy looking.  The neckline is ok...it does JUST barely go over my head.  And I probably could've used slightly narrower bindings.

But, overall, I like the top; the Brussels Washer Linen ( a rayon/linen blend that came from fabricdotcom) was very nice to sew and is very comfy to wear.

I think I will trace off another pattern and trim off the seamlines for binding, so I can have an easy option for binding or facings, as the mood strikes me.  And I will re-measure those edges to make sure I cut a correct length of bias next time.

Cause... I made it entirely in one evening (I confess... I kinda heard Claudia Winkleman in my head, 'Thirty minutes!  You have thirty minutes!'...only I heard that about 3 different times over an hour and a half.  The bias binding threw me back a bit...), so this is going to be worth tweaking more.

Meantime, this top is not bad, and it looks great under a jacket.  ; - )

Thursday Random

A few unrelated things tossed into a post...

The votes have been tallied and, for the first time, there was a tie for first place in the SWAP competition, with 2nd very close behind.  My collection scored somewhere below the top three, but that's really what I expected...theirs had months of planning and careful work putting together complex garments...mine was composed of knit garments thrown together in a couple of weeks.

But that's ok.  I'm glad the three ladies who won were recognized for their hard work, and I got a pile of new clothes that I'd been meaning to make for a LOONNGGG time but hadn't managed to clear the calendar and sew.  The SWAP contest provided me with the motivation to do something I needed to do.  And I wore my gray SWAP cardigan today and loved how comfy it was.

So, you know, a competition like that really isn't about winning...it's about getting inspired to sew.  I'm really glad I didn't just give up on it but pushed myself to do something I needed to do.


Debbie sent me her address a couple of days ago...the last of the 10 Year Giveaway packages went off in the US mail today.  So...the totals given away:  10 patterns, 5 books and 15 yards of fabric. (which I have added to the 'yards out' total).  Several of the ladies have replied that what I sent them was something they could particularly use, which just makes my day.   I will be honest and say that it wasn't easy to part with the goodies...but I knew that they could be put to better use than I was likely to do.  I'm hoping to see photos of finished projects sometime soon from the bloggers who won. ;-)

Season 4 of the Great British Sewing Bee is being broadcast...in Great Britain, and temporarily viewable on you-tube.  So far 3 episodes have aired, and already one contestant that I thought would be in the final has been sent home.  There has been discussion about the pretty obvious fact that the absolute best sewers in Britain were not selected for the show...in fact, I know of one blogger who's linked in my blogroll who auditioned and got quite far in the process but was not selected.  She has incredible sewing skills...ranging from leather jackets to Alabama Chanin' style hand stitched garments and she has at least been in the top three....maybe even won...more than one SWAP competition herself.  The general consensus on Stitcher's Guild was that she was too accomplished and would blow everyone else out of the water, which would not make for good TV.  So the folks on the show are not likely to be the best of Britain's home sewing community duking it out for the title.  But it's a cute pretense on which to hang some sewing entertainment, with a splash of inspiration and education thrown in.  On average, the folks are probably pretty close to my level, and it's fun to watch them handle the challenges in the no-time-for-a-boo-boo time frame.  I honestly don't think I'd do so well under those conditions....

A cover for the round table...

One of the furnishings I wanted to put on the newly remodeled porch was a round patio table...because I figured that would be an inexpensive table...with a glass or metal top, and a tablecloth, to hide the fact that it was a patio table.

We found a suitable table at Costco...not perfect, because it had legs on the perimeter instead of a pedestal/ legs in the center...but for the price, it will do quite nicely until I find exactly what I wanted. 

My standard tablecloth fabric is cotton upholstery fabric...it's 54 ish inches wide, and it's treated to be stain repellent.

I looked and looked and found ONE fabric that looked suitable on fabricdotcom's website.

I was delighted when it came in...the colors in it are dead perfect for the sunroom.

But, the table is 50" in diameter.  1" waste on each side for the selvedge meant my fabric was only about 52" wide. 

I didn't want a long drop...I hate it when the tablecloth gets tangled up in my knees and gets pulled askew...but 1" on either side just wasn't going to be enough.

So I pieced the  sides, cut a 60" diameter circle and serged the edges.

The pieced seam looks like a crease in this photo...can you find it?  :-) 

I have the pattern well balanced on the cross grain, but when I put it on I realized it really was not possible to balance it well on the lengthwise grain.. it's asymmetric and directional, which I didn't perceive until I put it on the table.

But the colors are so perfect I'm not gong to let that bother me.  It works.

Choir Wardrobe 5/29/16

May wardrobe colors:  navy, tan and coral.

Cross-woven linen...hot pink and yellow...that reads coral, made up in Vogue 1055  - one of their Adri collection patterns.  I really, really like it and have another piece of fabirc - a silk/linen blend - that I intend to make up into this but I just have not been able to bring myself to face the button loops and 12 teeny mitered corners again.  One of these days I'll steel my nerve and do it.

Navy rayon/lycra jersey Jalie 2566 t, and, well, boot cut Levis.

Next month:  Navy, gray and...hot pink...

And, my kinda-sorta-weekly shout out to Debbie-who-won-the-fabric...please resend your address to tig77LW at yahoo;  I had a bit of a dust up with my inbox and the original email got deleted.  The fabric is in the box...waiting for the address... ;-)

...and the drapey cream top....workwear thirty-three...

The ribbed rayon cowl neck top  slightly modified Vogue 8669...the last of the SWAP pieces to be worn in public.

With the original Hippy Earth Mother skirt and my old skool CWC denim jacket.

Yeah.  Kinda retro hippy.  But really comfy.

It's all officially broken in now.  Back to our regular hit-or-miss blogging schedule... :-D

Choir Wardrobe 05 22 16

May colors are Navy, Coral and Tan.

The only actual me-made item here is the Jalie 2919 pleated cardi that I've been wearing in the coral months since, well, ages ago.  The T is a tan w/gold linen t that doesn't look nearly as yellow in real life as it looks in the photo.  RTW jeans and a scarf I found at the Hallmark shop.

The scarf, which also looks more yellowy than it really is, makes it work, I think.

It has been a very, very busy weekend.  I need another Saturday tomorrow...lol... ;-)

How many ways can I complicate something simple?

Erm,  the ten year celebration giveaway goofs have surfaced again.

Firstly,  I still need Debbie to resend her mailing address to tig77LW at yahoo dotcom, because I had one day in which slow response time apparently resulted in me deleting way more emails than I meant to and I lost several addresses.  The other ladies have all re-emailed, but I haven't heard from you yet. :-)

Secondly, I just got an email from one of the fabric winners thanking me for the extra pattern.  She was happy to have it, as she used to and then it disappeared.  So I'm tickled that I wrote her address on it...but that means one of the pattern winners did not get a pattern.

So if you were supposed to receive a pattern and didn't, PLEASE email me at the above address and let me know.  I've heard from one or two that they've received theirs, but I don't know who was supposed to receive the one that went to the person who was obviously supposed to have it. :-)

Thanks for your patience!  I'll get it straight yet...

Workwear 32 and the black SWAP top

Yeah, it looks a little rumpled...And the collar is not arranged nicely...
But, y'all, I'd just helped The Flute Player move back home and we had about 15 minutes before we hopped back in the car for evening obligations.

So.  It is what it is.

And it is the Combo 1 top (Jalie 2682), black Lee jeans and a ten-years-plus old Silhouette Robin's Jacket; it was the first one I made from the pattern, before I whacked down the height of the shoulders for less Dynasty-looking shoulder pads.

This is a great black top.  Love, love the fabric; wish I could remember for sure where it came from. I have a bit more;  thinking of making a long cardi out of it.  If I have enough.

I think that's everything worn and photographed EXCEPT the cream cowl-neck shirt.

As the church offices are closed on Fridays, it'll be next week before I can get that last photo.

Workwear 31

The gray T from Pack 2 makes an appearance today...with the original altered Oxfords and my favorite Jalie Draped front cardi...the only one I've made w/the pleats turned to the outside as intended.  It was a boo-boo at first; I misread the directions.  But I honestly think they look better turned in.  Lots of vertical lines and no noticeable fluff.

But it's such a bright color (last April's choir blue)  that it kinda overrides the fluff.

I almost didn't post this;  I've been wearing the gray T since I made it and it's already shown up in several choir posts.  But, since I'm in a series...and, today being a 'visit the chiropractor' day stretchy comfy was the rule...why not.

It's Me-Made-May anyway, right? ;-)