WIP Wednesday: Friday Edition

Tags

clothing, Jalie 2216, sewing, Vogue 9244, WIP Wednesday

(WIP = Work in Progress)

Hello, everybody!  I’ve missed you, and missed writing to you, but it has been GOGOGO here and I’ve found it hard to stop, think, and write.  Whew!  Let’s give it a try, though, because I have such pretty things to show you!

Early last week, in the midst of my sewing-planning-todoing frenzy, my partner reminded me that we were scheduled for a 2-day trip to Portland.  We’d booked this a couple of months ago around a work-related seminar that he wanted to attend, and I had completely forgotten about it.  Not an optimal time to be away from the sewing machine, but okay.  But then I checked where we were staying and discovered it was a walkable distance from SCRAP PDX!  Yep, let’s go!

So Friday morning, he went off to learn things, and I went off to find the Motherlode of Random, SCRAP PDX.  I didn’t remember to take pictures, but what a fun store!  Leather scraps!  Plastic glasses frames!  More buttons than you knew existed!

My haul:

I think the one on the left is rayon; then there’s eyelet, some quilting fabric, and another yard of green fleece (I already have two remnants of this fabric).

Plus this, which deserves its own picture:

It was labeled “Matisse panel,” so I immediately thought of quilt possibilities, but it’s actually a knit.  The selvage says “Matisse in Morocco” and if this isn’t summer captured in a fabric, I don’t know what is.

I also got a bag of black and white fabric scraps.  I know, I know, me BUYING scraps?!?  But I’ve had a hankering to make a black and white quilt for a while, and these were such cool fabrics I couldn’t resist.  (I don’t have a pattern in mind yet for these, but take a look at the first photo in this post; can’t you just see a skyline of Art Deco buildings all made with black and white fabrics with white sashing between the pieces?)

A small portion of the bag, all washed and ready to go.

So that’s all my future sewing.  Let’s see how I’m doing on my current sewing projects.

The cycling jersey is coming together.

I had hoped for a fitting session this morning, but the Resident Supermodel dashed off early . . . .

He wanted the pockets to be different sizes, and I honestly thought it wasn’t going to work, but I love this!  The blue one is just perfectly sized for his phone, and deep enough so that it won’t fall out.

I had all kinds of problems with the front zipper on this, all of them completely my fault.  I have this frankly terrible habit of coming up with an idea on how to do something, not thinking through the whole process, and just figuring I can make it work somehow.  On the one hand, it’s great that I’ve got some confidence in my own sewing skills (finally); on the other, every time I do it, I’m aware that one of these days I’m totally going to sew myself into a corner, probably using the world’s most expensive fabric.  That didn’t happen here, but I did spend a lot of time I didn’t have making that zipper installation work. 

All that’s left to do is side seams, hems, finishing the collar, and redoing the front pocket–I have been informed that it needs to be half an inch deeper.  There was some mention of how nice it would be if that pocket had a zipper, but I quickly shut that ALL THE WAY DOWN.  No adding items to my to-do list at this late date!

Also, the hoodie is ready to go!

I’ve been trying, but I haven’t been able to get a non-ghastly picture of the front, so here’s the back:

And the side:

Yes, I do look a little bit like an extra from “Lord of the Rings,” but I’m okay with that.

A bit of a fiddly project.  There’s some sort of problem with the pockets–the pieces don’t fit together the way they should.  I more or less forced them together, but it was another time-waster and a bit of a dispiriting way to start a new project.  And the instructions have you cut strips of your fabric, press under the long ends, and sew the strips over the seam edges on the hood, neckline, and front facing.  I do love me a nice, neat seam finish, but this kind of finish isn’t that easy to do on a knit that doesn’t press well; if I had it to do over, I would probably hunt down some wide braid and use that on the seams instead.  I suspect the lesson to be learned from this project is to not take on a Vogue pattern when time is short.

This was my first time working with ponte, and it was a lot less stable than I expected.  I keep hearing how easy ponte is to work with because it doesn’t stretch much, but this poly/rayon/Lycra ponte from Girl Charlee felt like a heavy, stretchy jersey (and had all the challenges associated with that).

Whining aside, I do love how this came out, though.  Instead of the sensible 3/4″-1″ buttons called for, I used these nifty 1 1/4″ buttons and put big snaps underneath.

The hoodie is very comfy and cozy to wear, and I’m sure I’ll get plenty of use out of it, so that’s the important thing.

Okay, that’s it for now.  We’re off on Monday and won’t be back until August 12th.  I’m going to see if I can post some pictures as we go along.  Either way, I’ll be back mid-August with more pictures of the UK than you ever wanted to see.

I hope you’re all planning some summer adventures of your own.  Take good care of yourselves, make something that you love, and go sit in the sun when you can.

STH

WIP Wednesday: Stops and Starts

Tags

Butterick 5456, quilting, sewing, WIP Wednesday

(WIP = Work in Progress)

I’ve been feeling a little stuck and overwhelmed thinking about all I need to do in the next couple of weeks, but some progress is still being made.  As Stephanie and I were discussing yesterday, slow and steady wins the race, so that’s what I’m focusing on right now.

Let’s take a look at the list:

1.  Quilt for my niece:  done!

Isn’t that spiral quilting fun?  I love all the movement in this!  I read several tutorials (best one here) about spiral quilting, then ignored most of what they told me to do.  I used a regular presser foot, regular thread (white on top, turquoise on bottom), and kept the left edge of the presser foot 1/4″-3/8″ from the last line of stitching.  The key thing is to draw the start of the spiral, sew very slowly around it, then go from there.  I don’t think I quite realized how dense the quilting would be, though, so it took a LOT longer than I anticipated.  A bit boring, frankly, but not hard at all.

Right now, this is my favorite of all the quilts I’ve made, but I tend to say that about everything.  😉  This will go out in the mail to my niece tomorrow, and I hope she loves it.

2.  Black hoodie:  cut out and waiting.  You know I love you, Marcy Tilton, but 12 pattern pieces for a hoodie?  Seriously?

3.  Sew-along dress:  Getting there.

Here’s the picture I was too lazy to take last week:

The pleats at the shoulders are just because those seams up there are only pinned.

I was grumpy about it, so I’ve set it aside to work on next week, which is appropriate as it will be the bodice week of the sew-along.  I’ll tackle the peek-a-boo problem with the back keyhole then.

The good news is, though, that I went back and looked at those shoulder seams I had hastily pinned and realized my seam allowance was too narrow.  When I corrected that, it was just enough to hide the bra on the sides.  So that’s one less problem I have to deal with.

3.  Pant hems and pockets–one set of pockets done, will finish second today.  You’ll recall these are the RTW pants I bought that had fake pockets and needed hemming.

I went looking for a tutorial on how to turn fake pockets into real ones, but was surprised to find there isn’t much out there (where are my fellow pocket people??)  I started with this very basic one, but then tried to improve on it.  I’ll see if I can’t get some better pictures and write up a quickie tutorial.

It’s not pretty, but I was determined to not have to disassemble these pants to get those pockets in.

Also–and I will have to try them on again and confirm this because I hardly believe it myself–the pants appear to have shrunk a solid 3-4 inches in length in the wash.  And not at all in width!  I may actually be able to wear pants that I don’t have to hem.  Independence Day miracle?  Sign of the apocalypse?  Who knows, but less hemming is a good thing.

4.  Mondrian-inspired cycling jersey for my honey–better than expected!

The company I ordered the fabric from is supposed to be closed until 7/10, but I received notification yesterday that the fabric had shipped.  Current tracking predicts Wednesday delivery, which would give me a week and a half to sew the jersey before we leave for London.  I can do that.

5.  Navy blouse–probably won’t happen, and that’s okay.

Okay, so my new goal is to get those pants and the hoodie done by early next week, then fix the dress and start on the jersey.

Have a great Thursday and, because I don’t say it enough, thank you so much for stopping by and reading about all my fretting, list-making, obsessions, and general goofiness.  I appreciate your company (and your comments) so very much!

STH