99.873% Finished!

Here she iiiisssss.....

.... I spent yesterday evening fitting the dress (...taking it in almost 2" in the hips!!) to give it a nice streamlined look... Now I just have to finish the inside.... I have a friend with a serger and I'm going to take it to her to get it as pretty on the inside as it is on the out!!





Holla!

You know what they say about 'the best laid plans..'

... SOMETIMES THEY WORK OUT JUST LIKE YOU WANTED THEM TOO!!!!

I decided to do pleats on the neck line of the s2925 this time... I wanted a more streamlined look than it had on the first version...

I took the neckline of a store bought shirt I got a few months ago and just kind of played around until I got the look I wanted and the dimensions I needed...

I think it worked out pretty well.

And I can proudly show off my 2nd successful invisible zipper installation...

((mmwwaahh))

Plus! The hem is coming together swimmingly on the s2925...
...lets just hope that my sides match as well as my two back pieces.

Holla!

I love it when a plan comes together!

So, I had this bright idea for saving time when cutting out the eyelet fabric and the underlining for the S2925 dress (....It's a little play on lsaspacey's tip about fusing the interfacing to the fabric BEFORE cutting the pattern pieces.)
I figured if I could adhere the eyelet fabric to the underlining before I cut it, I would save myself a lot of time. And it would save my having to sew 4 layers of fabric together (eyelet+lining+lining+fabric.) Instead, I would only have to wrangle 2 (eyelet/lining+eyelet/lining.)
Hence, I went on a hunt looking for air soluble fabric adhesive... of course, since I was actually LOOKING for it, I couldn't find it anywhere! But, I did luck up at the City Quilter where they had 505 Spray and Fix adhesive on sale... ... Its not air soluble, but that's probably better since I am notorious for my 'green light!/red light!!' sewing pace.

The trickiest part was figuring out how best to actually apply the two fabrics together... but I figured it out and it worked just like I like a charm!!!Now that I had both pieces stuck together, cutting out the pattern pieces was a snap.
I didn't.... exactly... obey the whole 'cut with the grain' technique on this one, because I wanted to take advantage of the scalloped edge along the selvage of the fabric as a natural hem.
Lucky for me, the fabric was JUST wide enough to fit the lengthwise pattern piece... SCORE!!

I took a break after that project to find my camera, that fell of the table at one point in the morning... AND DISAPPEARED!!.... Two hours later!! I found it.... UNDER the table, BESIDE the curtains, BEHIND the vase... I mean... REALLY?!?!..... now my head is out of the game... so I'm going to watch last week's 'Castle' and chill for a little while....

Holla!

SSSCCRREEECCHHH!!!.... Change of plans

Soooo.... We had another great Sewing MeetUp today... I got to meet some other friendly New York sewers and I picked up some very nice fabrics plus some extras... I hadn't initially PLANNED on spending 60+ bucks on fabrics today. But I consoled myself in saying that I would have paid more than 24$ if I saw the dresses in the store....

I have put the Butterick 5029 on hold, in favor of remaking the Simplicity 2925 again in a different fabric...

I found this black eyelet fabric at A&M Farbrics on 39th street. We ended up there just because they happened to be open on a Sunday!... The service was pretty good, and because we were the first customers they had all day, I got a pretty good discount... 8$ a yard, down from 15...


I really liked the scalloped detail on the selvage. I'm trying to figure out how to lay the pattern so I can get that detail for the hem of the dress...

I ended up going to P&S Fabrics in Chinatown to get a lightweight black lining (the black equivalent of the off white lining I found to use with B5029) It's not the same tone of black, but I think its a complimentary combination.

After we left the fabric district, we headed over to M&J Trimmings.

I ended up leaving with some feather embellishments for my Derby hat this year.
I wore the same hat last year, so I decided I needed to add a little something extra to jazz it up a bit... I picked out the fuchsia and black feathers above along with these peacock feathers...

I wasn't sure which I like better at first, but I think the pink/black combo will be the ultimate pick this year... (Special thanks to Elizabeth for all her critiques... great eye!!)

I also got this FFAABBUULLOOUUSS printed charemuse at A&M fabrics.. another deal at 8$ a yard....
I was thinking of making some derivation of these dresses...
I also like these two...
I know I have seen a pic of the exact dress that I'm thinking of, but I cant find it yet... But I'll keep you posted...




Holla!

...Back in the saddle!

So, it hit me that it really is Spring again and that means Derby season is upon me... and as I'd previously committed to making my Derby outfit this year, I figured it should snap to it.

That being said, I still haven't decided exactly what dress to go with, so I've decided to try to make two...

This Simplicity 2925, View B (the white dress)...

and Butterick 5029 ....

The first of which I made today... I decided to go with the 2925 1st as it seemed to be the, well, the simplest..

I used the gold-splashed printed cotton/linen that I got from the going out of business sale at Paron's East last year. I think it come out pretty much like the pic, but I still need to taper the skirt seams as its a bit wider at the hem than I'm wanting.

I'm also kind of proud that I installed my first working invisible zipper in an actual garment with this dress!! SUCCESS!!

For the B5029, I really want to use this this fabric I got at one of my fav cheap fabric resources, Fulton Fabrics, in downtown BK.

It's a really pretty light linen-ish (lol) fabric that was only 3$ a yard....However, it's wwaayyyy sheer!

So I'm trying to figure out how to get around that. I was thinking either cut it double, or maybe buy some really light weight linen to use as an underlining....

Since Kentucky Derby is the first weekend in May, the weather is usually pretty temperate. But sitting out in the sun for 8 hours on even the mildest of days can get a little uncomfortable in the wrong fabrics.

Anyway, since I have a little over a month, I think I should have enough time to piece this one out... pun intended.

Holla!!

Ooopss! Almost forgot!!

Many thanks to my favorite person in Austin TX, the uberClever Antoinette!

She nominated me for the Sisterhood award!!

Holla (.... and thanks!)

It's....IT'S AALLLIIIVVEEEEE!!!

... Yes it, I mean, I am alive.

I just have not been able to get myself together to get behind the machine for the last several weeks... largely due to the crazy cold weather we were having here in NYC and now due to the crazy warm-ish days that keep popping up here and there.... not warm enough to completely erase the chill in the air, mind you. But warm enough to get my allergies nice and flared up, nice and early for spring....sigh.

All that and the fact that the last handful of projects that I've started have all fizzled out like a half empty can of soda left out in the sun... double sigh.



But! In anticipation of getting things moving again, I signed up for my first quilting class yesterday!! YEA!!

The City Quilter is a one stop quilting shop literally a hop, skip and jump away from my office. After realizing that I was going to need a bit more hands on instruction than just the free tutorials that I was finding online, I went in yesterday and signed up for their next session of beginner quilting classes .... good news, I was only the 2nd person to enroll and didn't get shut out like I did for the last class... bad news, I have to wait till the end of May for the dadgum classes to start!!

Apparently, quilting instruction is a brisk business in NYC. Who knew?

My next thing is my intention to sew my Kentucky Derby dress this year... please note how I said it is my INTENTION!!.... seeing is I haven't exactly decided WHAT dress pattern to actually make, I'm already behind the 8ball... But more on that later.

Holla!

I bit the bullet….

…. I bought my first Burda magazine!!

I have been in a sewing rut the last few weeks after project after project got tossed into the Abyss aka the Closet of No Return… the place that all the projects that I either fall out of love with somewhere in the production process or finish and try on, only to immediately pull off with my face all twisted up like something stinks!

Since there is no store we can return bad sewing projects too for refunds, they get tucked away never to be seen again...

So, me being me, I say to myself "...Self, maybe what you need is a greater challenge. Maybe something completely different that will make you feel like you're really doing something new…."

Enter Burda.

Although I have been looking at these magazines for a while now, this is the first issue that actually had enough individual pieces that made we want to fork over a 10'er and bring it home.

I love this dress!! And this top too…Part of the appeal is definitely the fabrications that they are using to make these pieces look so fresh and on point for this season…

From all that I've read, there is a pretty steep learning curve with these patterns so I'm sure I'll be reaching out to sewing blogiverse asking for answers and tips…

I think I'll start small and maybe go for this skirt… I made a BurdaStyle skirt earlier this year and used my skirt sloper to refit it… it work out pretty well….

This is the same pattern as the one above, but I'm loveing knee length right now...

Something else that has been tickling my fancy latest is… ((inhale))……((exhale))…

Quilting.

Once upon a time I looked a quilting as something my Nana (grandmother) would do in the back room, tucked up in her comfort chair, glasses perched at the edge of her nose, splitting time watching the needle and the soaps on the TV…

It just wasn't something that I was ever really interested in. I felt like it was so… 'Old timey' and shabby (BEFORE it was chic.)

But! since I started sewing again and opening up to more and more craft arts, I have seen some really fantastic creations that I would love to be able to try…

I found a few new sites this weekend that totally had me entranced….

Lazy Gal Quilting

A Stitch in Dye

Quilt While Your Ahead

I guess its really about seeing shapes and color combinations differently than I had previously given a chance.

Holla!