Lace inserts

I found these two lace inserts on Etsy... I've been thinking about the neckline at the front of my dress, and I might try the white one as an overlay on the bodice. The last dress on this blog post has a cute little bit of lace peeking out from the neckline, and it's super cute.


The navy applique would be for a flower girl dress or my sister's dress.


Another adorable bridal pattern made it's way here... this is McCall 8527



And a dress pattern with a nice back pleat:


I'll have to think about how to incorporate the back pleat with my empire waist, like doing the pleat entirely below the band of the empire waist.

happy veteran's day

That's my sailor, back when we first started dating, with a real, live penguin. In antarctica. Happy veteran's day, sweetie. I miss you when you're underway, but it's all bearable when you find cute surprises like this in your email inbox! ;-)

lunchtime sketching

lunchtime sketching
Originally uploaded by wck

Working on christmas card designs at lunch. If you've never played with them, watercolor markers are So Much Fun.

Comment Catch Up and 2 small dresses

Here's Ana's dress from the other day. My apologies for the bad photo, I had a terrible time photographing a white & black dress. I was hoping for a photo of her modeling it but we didn't get a chance for that.



Top has a sweetheart neckline. The skirt is bemberg ambiance with a stretchy net double layer overskirt which was 2 inches longer than the underskirt. I pinned the skirt up in places and stitched it there with little red ribbon roses. I absolutely don't want a wedding dress with pickups like this on the skirt, or a tulle dress, but I've been looking at so much of both the last 2 weeks that they kind of worked their way into my system. So here we are, I worked them out on a little holiday dress for Ana. :-D

Next up, a dress for Kate from a vintage 1950s girls pattern. I love that it came with a circular petticoat pattern! The material is a white swiss dot with real thread dots. I have Karen to thank for that purchase- she was looking for some 'real' swiss dot, so I've been paying attention to swiss dot fabrics the last 2 weeks, and this sort of jumped into my cart.





The pattern is adorable and very 50s. My mom pointed out the gloves and hat and said that's what she always wore when she was growing up. It has kimono sleeves with little cuffs


And a full circle skirt that took just under 4 yards of lace



Here is a picture of the sweet little elastic waist petticoat


So, comment catchup!

Antoinette wanted to know what my timeline was for choosing a dress pattern. That's a good question... we're hearing where he will be deployed next in March, so we'll pick a date then. We were originally planning to scramble and do the wedding in May before his next report date, but that looked like it was going to be very difficult to pull off. So right now we're in a wait and see mode. I will probably make some muslins over Christmas break, but otherwise not do too much until we have a date. This could all change... the one thing you learn quickly when dating someone in the military is that everything is subject to change at the last minute. ;-)

meredithp asked if my pink skirt was cut on the bias- nope, this pattern is for the straight of grain, both front and back are cut on the fold.

Toby commented on the sleeves on the vintage wedding dress patterns- yes, this is what I really like about them. Every wedding I've been to in the last few years, the bride spent the whole reception tugging her strapless dress and bra into position, which just doesn't look like fun, so I'd like to sidestep that whole thing.


And finally, a small wedding dress inspiration photo from a wedding blog. I LOVE the dress back in the upper left, and I'm thinking of trying that, but with a single inverted back pleat.


That dress is by Sarah Arnett.

Hydrangeas

OK, I confess. I've been buying far too many vintage wedding dress patterns. WAY too many. It's too much fun, and most of these were in the $6-$12 range, so it's too easy to justify buying them. Sigh. (You can click on them to go to flickr, then click "all sizes" to see a larger photo)




















When I was at the grocery store a few days ago I noticed that they had some pale blue and white hydrangeas, so I bought a few stems. I've had an idea for the wedding centerpieces floating around in my head for a few days, and I got a chance to try it out. The milk glass bowl was given to me by our nieghbor's children after she died- I was always fairly "eh" about milk glass before, but this piece made me realize that some of it is really pretty. I used a florists frog inside, and inserted 3 hydrangea stems, and- viola. I'm thinking I'll get some more cheap milk glass pieces from ebay & the thrift stores around here, and use florist foam (cheaper than frogs, it seems) to hold some hydrangeas. Probably with a candle on the table as well- shouldn't be *too* expensive, although it will depend on how hard hydrangeas are to track down. I might do another trial run with carnations or something else that I'm a little more sure of being able to buy come the week of the wedding.





There are tons of wonderful photos of centerpieces like that around on the web. If you'd like to lose a bit of time browsing, here are two. One here on The Knot, and a DIY milk glass centerpiece. Someday I should do a list of all the wedding blogs I've found and been sucked into reading. There are quite a few really fantastic ones with gorgeous photos.

And thanks to Carolyn for catching that my prom dress photo was set to private. Ooops. It should be fixed now.

Say Cheese!

That's Kate with my new reproduction diana camera. She had a grand time photographing everyone at our halloween brunch (pumpkin waffles, quince juice, and almond muffins! mmm yum) with it. Once she got over the lack of a view screen to see her picture, of course. It takes medium format film, so she won't see her portraits for a week or so.

Here's a sneak peek of what I spent the afternoon working on. Lots of handsewing, for a precious 3 year old niece with red curls... ;-) The bodice of this dress is actually made out of a scrap of fabric that I found in my mom's stash. It's a left over from my senior year prom dress! (That's me last year trying it on to check it out again.) It's an ivory moire taffetta, lining is some pink flannel backed satin left over from another project.

Sunny october day

I've bookmarked a few sites online which talk about 1960s wedding fashions. This one is about a 1965 dress and this is a general 1960s overview. Both are fun reading.

The sun was out all day today so I ran into the garment district at lunch. I had lots of fun tracking down a few trims...

I don't know what I'll do with these exactly, but they're very pretty.



MJ Trim, if you haven't been, is VERY dangerous. See that blue tulle trim? I carried it around the store for half an hour before breaking down and deciding to buy some. It's $24/yard. Yikes. On the other hand, it's most likely going to be used on the coat I'm making to wear over my wedding dress... and it's beautiful... however if I keep buying $24/yard trim, I'm going to save absolutely no money whatsoever making my own dress. Well, If it doesn't get used on the coat I'll just use it for Kate or Ana's dresses, so it will get put to good use somehow. I bought some silk thread in the same blue as the tulle since it's pretty much going to have to be hand sewn on if it's not done in the style of a lace insert.




And these are laces for the nieces' christmas dresses.



Here's the coat fabric... a gorgeous blue silk duchess satin from Paron's. I pulled out a navy blue silk and asked if they had anything like that but stiffer, and this was a shelf over. Soooo beautiful... it's hard to photograph, it's a deep navy blue. I have to find a silk to line it (possibly a bright turquoise blue? That contrast could be really pretty), and think about whether it needs a silk organza underlining or if the satin is stiff enough to hold that neckline on its own. This coat is kind of funny, I doubt anyone but my family will ever see it, but I think it will be a nice project and my one chance to wear a satin coat. My sister, by the way, had claimed dibs on the dress in the coat pattern for her first choice for her bridesmaid dress. It's a pretty column dress that I could never wear, but will look wonderful on her.







I also finished up my niece Ana's halloween dress. It's very similar to her big sister's dress, but without the stomacher and point at the front. Instead of a ruffle at the top of a pretend stomacher, there's a just a bit of lace around the neckline. The lace on the cuffs and at the hem is from my grandma- we had to wash and then iron it because it just spent the last 50 years rolled up in a drawer in her sewing room.

my Carolyn skirt

Did you see Carolyn's fantastic 1950s inspired dress? Wow. I love the collar! I got to inspect some of her dresses and jackets very up close and personal and oh my, she sews beautiful pieces. So I left her sewing get together with a yard of the gorgeous berry fabric she used for the dress, and made it up into a little work skirt. I've been thinking of it as "my carolyn skirt".

Unfortunately, the camera timer and I had some issues. (I just bought a new plastic Diana film camera... so perhaps my digital is acting like a sulky child because it's not getting all the love right now??)



Of course, my dog was also contributing to the camera woes. Can you seriously pose for a sewing fashion shoot when your BOY dog is doing this? Geesh- get some manners, Declan!



The ribbon at the hem was left over from last year's christmas sewing- I believe it's from Joyce Trim in NYC, but my memory is a little fuzzy on that front. It's lined in bemberg (which I still detest sewing with, but I suffered through) and has a zipper at the center back. In honor of Carolyn, I used my TNT skirt pattern, an a-line skirt pattern 122 from BWOF March 2008. This is my kind of sloppy hem:



And a ribbon waistband:



I also finished up Kate's halloween costume. This is what she requested- the cream print dress in the photo. It's a page from an American Girl book about Felicity, who lives in Colonial Williamsburg:



And what she got:







Eh. Sort of close. It's a Halloween costume, so good enough. The point on the bodice is completely wonky, but it's done and Kate doesn't seem to mind.

Finally- anyone have any opinions on wedding dresses with tiny buttons over invisible zippers? I think it looks a bit odd. Seriously, I'm rather leaning towards a size zip and plain back... or just dealing with it and doing the buttons and making my mom button them up.

cake stand

When your grandmother gives you a new cake stand to match your dishes, there's really only one thing to do with it. You have to spend an afternoon flipping through cookbooks to find a nice cake to try it out with. The Chocolate Snowball is one of my favorite dessert cookbooks, and it has a nice, light carrot cake that I'd never gotten around to making before. Any cake that starts with whipping eggs and sugar for 5 minutes is going to be airy and light, even if you then add in 4 cups of shredded carrots.
While it chilled for the frosting step, I cut out the material for Kate's Halloween costume. She wants to go as an american girl (whichever one is in Williamsburg- Felicity maybe?), so we bought some calico and I'm using the same dress pattern (from a Patrones carneval costume issue) I used last year for her princess dress.

Simplicity has a very cute colonial times girl costume, but I couldn't see buying another pattern when the princess dress still fits her and I have all the pattern pieces cut out already. So if you're looking for one, the Simplicity costume pattern is S3725, with 4 dress variations. Very cute. :-)

Here's the carrot cake with some apricot jam on it, chilling down enough to be frosted:



On the wedding topic, The Martha Stewart Weddings Blog has been wonderful reading all weekend. There are apparently a bunch of wedding fashion shows & some wedding trade show going on in NYC this weekend, and they are posting TONS of beautiful wedding dress photos to their blog. Lots of eye candy!

New Look 6802 - Knit dress with twist front

As Carolyn posted last weekend, I had one of the greatest treats of my sewing life on Sunday- a small get together with other sewing bloggers at her place! Here's Cindy with Carolyn-



Isn't this a great group of ladies to talk fashion with?





We got to dig through her button collection, too. Thank you Carolyn for such a fantastic Sunday afternoon!! :-D



I knew I had to wear something I'd made, so I stayed up late on Saturday finishing up New Look 6802. It's a basic knit dress with a gathered front skirt. One option has a front twist piece that's sewn over the front of the dress, making the front essentially two pieces. This overlay is only joined a the shoulder, armhole, and side seam. It's actually kind of nice, because you don't have to worry about getting too-plunging of a neckline, or attaching a skirt to it.



There are several reviews of it on Pattern Review, praising how versatile it is. I think I'll be making it up again soon with sleeves. It comes with neck and armhole binding pieces, but as usual I just cut strips with my rotary cutter and used them as binding. For the skirt hem, I used a twin needle with turquoise thread. It's a nice pattern and went together very easily!

<


I got to leave with a gorgeous piece of pink tweed from her sewing closet that's on its way to being made into a pencil skirt. We talked about how crazy J.Crew's pencil skirt prices were- I immediately thought of their versions when I saw it. So hopefully this weekend I'll sneak in sewing it up in BWOF 08-2009-110.

More wedding dress pattern choices

My mom (resident wedding dress/formal wear sewing expert who I guess I have to listen to if I want help (; ) pointed out this evening that vintage vogue patterns fit me the best after my beloved BWOF patterns. Soo.. we found a few vintage vogue wedding dress patterns. Voting is open, so if you have an opinion please go ahead and voice it! And don't worry, there will be no puffy sleeves walking down the aisle.

I'm not a fan of the high neckline here, but my mom points out that redrafting the neckline is easy if the rest fits well. This one is her favorite by far since she really likes how the skirt hangs in the photo. (Better photo and view of the back available on vintage patterns wiki.) I don't like the 3/4 bell sleeves, but those could be shortened.




How cute is the hippie bride in her kerchief? ;) (Don't worry, there will be no kerchiefs but I'm sure my birkenstock wearing farm girl hippyness is going to come out in this wedding somewhere)


V 2192- the lace overlay is interesting, but I'm not overly sold on the look.


I'm going to apparently have a good sized collection of vintage wedding dress patterns before this is done!

Dress patterns and a veil

Well, my mom is in full mother-of-the-bride mode here. ;-) We decided to start with a veil and dress patterns, and ended up buying the veil this morning.

You can see the one I picked out here... I tried on all the chapel and cathedral length veils in the store, and we liked this one the best. The loooong piece comes off with velcro, which means that you can keep the shorter part on for the reception and photos. I was a little iffy about the rhinestones, but they're very tiny and scattered pretty widely.

Veil shopping was a nice reminder why I'm making my dress- I asked to look at any short sleeved dresses the store had, and they didn't have a single one. Seriously. Good grief. Thankfully there are a whole slew of 1960s patterns of exactly the type of dress I want! Here are some of the patterns that I bought... I'm going to make muslins of a few and probably end up creating a franken-pattern.

october at the beach

I've been on a short sewing hiatus the last two weeks- work has been crazy, and then I got to escape down to Virginia Beach. Aaaah. You can't possibly be stressed out at the beach- even though it's October, it's fantastic down here. The ocean never fails to make me feel happy and centered.




And I got the surprise of my life the other day. Apparently the trip we took to see Master Chief up in Maryland was full of plotting, which I managed to entirely miss in favor of hanging out on the sand there with a few books. The other night we went out to one of our favorite restaurants here at Virginia Beach- and at the end of the meal, my sailor proposed. I was caught completely off guard, and made him repeat the question, because I was sure I wasn't possibly hearing that right. Oh geesh. So- we're engaged. No date, since that's pending what ship he goes to next. Wow.

I already have a gazillion thoughts on the dress I want to make. Silk eyelet, definitely. And obviously empire line. And short sleeves. I REALLY want to make my own cake, which might be a terrible idea, but I've been my family's cake baker for years. ;-) We're thinking small, just a party for our close friends and family. So here's a fancy wedding cake photo- this is from my best friend's wedding out in Seattle 3 years ago.

An Autumn Table Runner

This is what I did this weekend. The quilt block design is from the Jelly Roll Quilts book.





It's for my mom. Lots of autumn-y colors to go with the gourds she picked at our farm. Last year's decorative gourds got tossed next to fence by a compost pile (We're insanely well organized, you see) and they kind of decomposed, and dropped their seeds, and grew these. Of course we got tons of these inedible gourds while the zucchini were attacked by borers, the eggplants hated the cold, and so on.




And a teensy peek at a christmas present that I finished- I know I'm going to have NO sewing time this November, so I've started christmas sewing already. I'm being a realist... rather unlike my usual method.



Finally, I had to share this site that I found through another blog.

Lula Lu

A whole site devoted to A cup bras. Oooooh. You have no idea how hard it is to find cute bras that actually fit! Seriously, I have to go to the kids department in stores to buy bras usually, unless I want to spend $$$ at Nordstrom- and even there the selection is rather iffy. This site carries non-underwire styles (and underwired too, although I still can't fathom why you need one in a true A or smaller bra!), in really, really gorgeous styles. I bought two, and they came this week, and I love them. Sigh. I've kept myself so far from ordering more, but it's hard. ;-)

On Point

Remember the quilt I'd started back in the spring with the Amy Karol fat quarter pack? It's finally finished. It's about twin sized, and I used Kona premium muslin for the back. Ooooh... that stuff is so soft and yummy! This is the first quilt I've made that's set on point.

It's kind of hard to photograph a quilt this big.


Here's Declan to show that it's a nice sheltie size ;-)


And from the staircase:



I quilted it with a combination of curvy lines and free motion swirls.

A book review and a pillow

I bought Jelly Roll Quilts this weekend on a whim, because it had some cute designs in it. One of them is a neat star design that you make using strip pieced 45 degree diamonds. I'd never sewn diamonds before, so I had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into. ;-) I thought I'd try one out as a pillow, failing to notice that the whole quilt that they show has only 4 stars on it- so they're pretty big (30" x 30" without a border in the end!).

A diamond section from the back:


You piece 3 rows of diamonds and then 2 filler triangles to make 1/8 of the star, and then put sections together. This is the back once all the pieces are put together:


It was pretty fiddly going- I figured I knew how to handle bias stretching from garment sewing, but there was quite a bit of yelling at the fabric anyway. ;-) This is a not very centered star center:




Here's my huge pillow. I made a couple mistakes putting it together, so I'm glad I just tried a single star pillow instead of a whole quilt.





And the back is just extra strips pieced together




The book has some very nice designs, but doesn't really offer hints on how to deal with things like matching seams at an angle, dealing with stretching, or any extras. The directions are clear enough, but they seem to assume you have a general idea of how to put patchwork designs together.

It's also very light on quilting/binding/finishing. I was initially attracted to it because of the fabrics featured- I have so many quilt books that seem to use screamingly ugly fabric in the designs. I know that doesn't really matter, but this one is really nice to look at and the quilts seemed a lot more attractive to make because they used fabrics I would really use.

It features 15 quilts, starting from super easy up to more difficult. My star was 3rd from the end, and pretty much as tricky as it got. Most of the sections on the quilts are only 4 pages long- they have good diagrams but refer you back to previous steps a lot saying "now do steps 4 to 12 but with X instead of Y" so it can be a little bit confusing. Overall I like it though, mostly for the pretty quilt designs and the clear diagrams.

simple

That one is for Tom









For Ana

Quilting with straight lines is about all my overloaded brain can deal with at the moment.

in which a nap is not taken

First we tell some stories


Then we make a toddler containment zone with lots of quilts (quilts! sewing related material in post!)


Then we try on all our aunt's shoes


Then we think about napping but no eyes are closed


And repeat until your aunt gives up and takes you outside to play.

It's a good thing he's so cute or I'd be going completely insane. ;-)

two links

Two quick links for a Friday night before I crash and fall fast asleep. (Work has been kicking my butt the last few weeks, which it will continue to do so until Dec 23. At least I knew what I was getting back into when I returned! (; ) Beebee, I can't send you any time to make up the Stretch & Sew patterns- I need it to try the HUGE pile of ones I have here!

*a fantastic slideshow of Michelle Obama's outfits. I LOVE this... I got lost for a looong time flicking through these pictures. I can't believe how wonderfully she dresses! It's 126 photos, so be careful this will suck you in!

* Make zine on poorly made cheap products. This could apply to most clothes that people buy as well. And, well, I say that as someone who does have stuff from H&M/Old Navy/etc in her closet (although I should note that one of my favorite coats is a 4 year old H&M coat that wears like iron! So they sometimes make good stuff).


The bunny, by the way, is my sister's pet rabbit, Lucy. I don't like photo-less posts, so here she is. ;-)

bwof 09-2009-127 photos

It's insanely hard to photograph black, but you all knew that. Here's some pictures of my jacket.

Front. The faille is a bit wrinkled from running around after dog on a walk. Since it's lined with silk it's pretty warm.



Inside. You can sort of see how the armhole comes in. There's a seam at the top of the arm that curves over your shoulder.


Back, with the collar folded weirdly. It hits right at the top of my hips.

PJ detox

I finished up 2 more pairs of PJs -matching ones for my nephew and brother in law- and then needed something, um... more challenging than flannel PJ pants. ;-) Thankfully my September BWOF arrived Saturday afternoon and I fell in love with jacket #127. Look how cute it is!



I used my black faille from the Vera Lavendar collection and made a size 36. Fits perfectly, hooray! BWOF always fits so well I never make muslins when I use a 36 anymore. Someday I'm going to wake up and find out that they're using different blocks or my body has changed and trash a gorgeous piece of fabric making something unwearable.

Inside out:


The faille is pretty water resistant (nice in our rainy summer) but that means it also kind of repels pins... sewing needles...etc. I used a "sharp" needle for my machine and had a horrible time handsewing the sleeve hems. I bagged the jacket & left an opening at the hem, so that was also a royal pain to stitch shut.

Lining is some yellow duopini silk from Paron's annex. I was going to use some Bemberg rayon lining, but I couldn't deal with the slipperyness. This silk isn't terribly slippery because it's nice and nubby so it was much easier to sew.

I don't have any great photos since I only sewed the buttons on early this morning, but here's a quick view on me running out the door to the train:

The PJ factory, part IV

I haven't sewn anything much other than more little girl PJs since we came back from vacation. My sister needed more pairs so that a late load of laundry didn't throw bedtime in more chaos than it is already.... Here's a pair for Ana, pre-hemming.



And another pair of pants for Ana. Both of these are made with interlock from JoAnn.


Here's a pair of Winnie the Pooh flannel ones for Ana.



A pair for Kate... flannel and knit are from JoAnns. She picked out the Ariel print even though she's never seen The Little Mermaid.



And Kate modelling her Ariel PJs



And you know what happens when you sew up stuff for your sister? You come home with another sewing request.... ;-) This is going to be interesting, it takes something like 20 yards of fabric. If you can't read her hand writing, she has "white with pink trim, for Ana's room" written over one of the views. Oh boy.

waves

waves
Originally uploaded by wck

This is what happens when work gets a little crazy... vacation gets split into a bunch of 3 day weekends. ;-) We're off to the shore in virginia, although I don't think they call it the shore down here.....

transportation we'll be taking:


what's waiting on the other end:


Aaaah, summer- have a wonderful weekend everyone! Post some fantastic sewing projects so I have something to drool over when I'm trying to get my sewing fix by reading blogs!!

zebra stripes

Where did that weekend go? Actually, I know where mine disappeared to, but it seemed like it flew by far too quickly. First, this is a skirt I made my sister for her birthday present and never posted here. I was going for SCHNAZZY. The fabric is some weird fuzzy knit horrendous stuff from Joanns that burnt if you ironed it without a press cloth. Nasty stuff. I wasn't taking this skirt too seriously though, so it was OK. I'm also making her a wrap dress from V8379 but that's not even cut out yet.



I joined the Go Chanel or Go Home Sew along and so... you can read about where my weekend disappeared over there. ;-)

Stretch & Sew patterns: free giveaway

My aunt, who LOVES garage sale-ing, gifted me the motherlode of all Stretch and Sew pattern stashes that she found at a garage sale. Literally, I had no idea they'd ever published so many patterns. I went through and pulled out the ones that I didn't think that I'd ever use, and loosely grouped them into 4 sets to give away. You can read about Stretch & Sew patterns here: Stretch & Sew on the vintage pattern wiki. They're all multi size, and the idea is that you'd trace them (like Kwik Sew patterns) although they don't overlap so you certainly could cut up the pattern.

A few of these envelopes already include tracings of some sizes. All of the envelopes have some wear on them, but the pattern sheets themselves seem to be in OK shape.

If you'd like one of the sets, please leave me a comment with which one you're interested in and I'll mail them off. I'll be happy to mail anywhere in the US or Canada. If you're in EU or Australia & would like one, let me know & I'll look into how much shipping is- it's been a while since I mailed anything overseas. I'd feel terrible about throwing these out, so I'd like to see them in the hands of other sewing bloggers!

Set 1- kids patterns. There's a pretty big size range for each.


Set 2- mostly pants patterns



Set 3 - mostly top patterns



Set 4 - mostly skirt patterns


Enjoy! ;-)

blue and brown yarn

This is some super soft yarn that I bought for my sister from Windsor Button in downtown crossing. I know nothing about yarn other than some skeins have to be specially wound before you can knit it (the sales lady said these are a shape that doesn't need that). And I think they come in different sizes, but I'm not so up on what those sizes are. These ones are very soft and snuggly- I figured she could make scarves for the kids out of them. If they're good scarf knitting yarn! No idea on that front either! ;-) But they feel nice and the colors are pretty.


While I was there I bought a bit of cute whale ribbon and some neat pink buttons.




I've been eating lots of good food here. Delicious pepperoni pizza, cannoli, ice cream. And some nice morning coffee:



Yesterday I bought a new sketchbook in Pearl Art, which reminded me of a story from when my sister and I were in college. She was a first year when I was a senior, and I desperately needed more mat board for one of my photography classes in November. She was going into Boston for something and I asked her to stop at Pearl to pick up some. She bought about 3 boards- huge ones, like 3 feet by 4 feet or something very large and stepped out the door to walk to the T stop. It was a REALLY blustery day and the way she tells it, she had to wrestle the mat board- which wanted to turn into a sail- up the street and into the T, and then out to Wellesley. The experience nearly killed her, almost blew her out to the Atlantic Ocean, and made her determined to major in something that didn't involve wrestling huge pieces of cardboard on a regular basis. I'm sure she got me back for it somehow. ;-)

lobster roll

lobster roll
Originally uploaded by wck

Rainy vacation!

Dan and I have looooong history in Rhode Island (he went to grad school at URI, but he picked it because we'd both been here many many times before) and we're still very attached to the state. He actually used to spend summers here with his mom.

Me, getting rained on, at the beach he used to go to as a kid.


The ocean


Sweet little cottages


Tomorrow I'm off to Boston by myself... here's what I'm planning to do:
* visit MIT (I miss it to pieces. IHTFP and all that when you're there, but then you get tossed into the adult world and realize how fantastic it really is (; )
* go to Mike's Pastry in the North End
* walk along the esplanade
* go to the MFA and the Gardener
* wish I still lived in Central Sq ;-)

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Isn't this pattern adorable? It's from the 1960s, but I think it looks pretty modern with the midriff band.


I spent pretty much the whole day making it up... this is a bit of a trial version to see if I liked how it fit, so I just used a quilting cotton. It's a bit *blue* now that it's done so I think when I make it for real I'll use at least two different colors. I feel like Grover wearing this version!


The ribbons on the top & bottom of the midriff band are some light blue velvet ribbon I had left over from outfits for Kate & Ana- I was hoping they would break up the blue a little bit.

I lined it in navy blue silk organza


I left off the neck facings & just understitched the neck seam. The armhole facings are handstitched down to the organza. I forgot how nice dresses feel when you use organza in the bodice... it just has a "weight" to it, even though it's very light and airy. One problem, though, is at the waist. I just turned up the organza at the bottom... so I think it twists around and flips out or something when I'm wearing it, and it can get very itchy. Argh! I'm going to have to figure out what's causing it, or my sister is going to be receiving a blue dress very soon. ;-)


Pattern envelope back. I like how they used to print the pattern shapes on the back with the line drawing!


Here's the hem... I first stitched 5/8" from the raw edge, and pressed it up, then stitched about an inch from the turned up edge and pressed up again, then hand stitched the part turned up. Quick and easy.



I wish the weekend was longer, as I bought some great fabrics in the garment district on Thursday & they're folded on the ironing board waiting to be sewn up. Elizabeth got a great "burnout" knit (not sure if it's really a burn out, but it's gorgeous in real life), which I was tempted by- but since I'd already bought several yards of black over at Spandex House I didn't get any. Anyway, if you read her post, I had to explain why I was buying trims with no swatches when we stopped at Pacific Trim. My mom has wonderful "color memory" and I either inherited it from her or she trained me well enough at the fabric store as a kid. ;-) I remembered that I'd written about it on my non-sewing blog a few years ago. The trim I was looking for when I wrote that post was for the little green and blue silk dresses I made for my nieces for their brother's christening. This is Ana in her dress:


And finally... I'm waiting for the grapes to ripen over at the farm. No purple ones yet.


Here's the grape arbor- my grandfather built it when my mom was a kid. The stray screens leaning against the fence in the back are waiting to be deployed to patch fence holes. The bunnies have been going crazy in the gardens this summer.

another round of the PJ factory

Warm and cozy pair


The pants are flannel and the button front top is a doubleknit.


Summer pair. Tshirt is from the March BWOF although I used a knit, then modified the neckline to use picot edge elastic instead of a placket and an elastic casing.






And another refashion dress- the skirt was from an old Simplicity dress I tried making for myself a few years ago and never finished.

berries

Short post, because I'm exhausted. I was out in the hot sun most of the day picking raspberries at the farm... we have hundreds and hundreds of them. I always pick them in sleeveless tops because between I can't stand getting long sleeves caught in the thorns. Unfortunately, then that means that my arms get all scratched up- you get to pick one or the other. The berries are so worth it though! I came home with a bunch beets, spearmint for tea, more rhubarb and some squash as well. Yum!

My sister asked for a couple new pairs of PJs for Kate. First pair, from cotton interlock print from JoAnns.





And here she is with Tom

Hazelnut cake recipe

Apparently I was a bit sneaky with the hazelnut cake recipe. ;-) It's the same yogurt cake that I always make, from Orangette. If you read to the bottom of the recipe, you'll see the recommendation to swap in a half cup of almond flour. For the hazelnut cake, you just use hazelnut flour there. It's super simple to make and a really flexible recipe.

I've gotten sucked in by all the underpinnings sewing going on in blogland and I spent pretty much the whole afternoon today wrangling Simplicty 5549 (from 1982!) into fitting me, and having a back band. I had to draft my own back pattern piece since it wanted you to use just elastic for the band. And then the A-cup pattern pieces were- surprise- huge, so I had to take it in quite a bit. But here we are- it fits! It's made out of some silk and stretch lace.



Here's the pattern envelope. I want to make the full slip sometime.



I also picked up Jalie 2568 recently and made a floral PJ top for myself and a purple and white one for my sister. It's a really simple pattern, so it takes all of about 30 minutes to make.





And finally, Declan in his furry PJs the other night. I tried getting a picture of him with his eyes closed, but he opened them every time I picked up the camera.

two midweek BWOFs!!

You know something crazy is happening when I'm sewing in midweek. In this instance, "something" == a transformer explosion in downtown Newark that knocked out the power to our building on Tuesday. There was a huge fire as well. This was the view from our office before the oodles of firetrucks raced in:



This was somewhat inconvenient as I'd had BeeBee's BWOF pants pattern sitting in an envelope on my desk all last week and I was determined to make it to the post office that day. Well... Newarks' post office is directly behind the building spewing black smoke there. You can guess how that went- I ended up bringing it home and stopping off at the post office in my town instead!

So since we left the office early I didn't have my usual late commute home and I sewed myself up a skirt from BWOF 12-2007-118. I'd stumbled over this pattern making a copy of the pants instructions for BeeBee and thought it looked kind of cute. I did a slapdash job on it- no lining, just a ribbon waistband, and I think a few of the buttonholes are in wonky. Thankfully I chose a busy print and black buttons... no one is particularly going to notice my wonky buttons. ;-)



And... last night, I made up a pair of shorts for Kate, from BWOF 05-2009-137. She's wearing them in the photo above, here's a closeup. The fabric is a stretch ripstop remnant that I got for $1.50 at JoAnns. I left off the front fly and just made the whole waistband an elastic waist. And I used the selvedge as the leg hem. Midweek sewing is always slapdash for me. The ribbon trim is from Pacific Trim in NYC.







And here is our dessert tonight... hazelnut cake with creme fraiche. Yum!

happy birthday kate

happy birthday kate
Originally uploaded by wck

My niece is turning 6, so here's her birthday cake. It's the same cake I made for my birthday (made with yogurt so it's sooo easy!) with strawberry jam between the layers.

She loves to look in my falling-apart Baking at Home cookbook by the Culinary Institute of America. It has a cake frosted with buttercream with perfect little puffs of frosting around the edges. A few months ago she requested that exact cake for her birthday. I'm not much of a cake decorator, so I told her I'd try. Well, 4 hours later, here we go!

I've also been busy taking apart an old silk dress that my mom had from the 1980s. I want use the top (sans poufy 80s sleeves) as a dress bodice, although I haven't quite figured out what to do for the skirt. It's sitting on my dressform while I think about it some more.



I also went to the Isabel Toledo exhibit at the FIT Museum this morning- it was sooo wonderful! I brought my notebook and pencils and sketched a bunch of details. One thing that I really loved was a seam she used on a few jersey dresses- the pieces didn't quite meet at the seam, and she ran a very fine mesh through the space between the pieces that were being joined. (Is that called a strap seam? I feel like it is.) I couldn't believe how smooth and perfect the pieces all were even with that seam curving all over. Wow.

If you get a chance to go see the exhibit, it's well worth the visit. (And it's free, which is awesome.) I got there about 10:45 AM, and was sitting in the lobby when... Bill Cunningham walked by! Oh my goodness. I almost wanted to run up and tell him that he was one of my favorite photographers EVER, but he was talking to someone. I love him to pieces, can't believe I've actually seen him in person now! He had on the blue smock he always wears to work, and was carrying his camera... I wonder if he got special permission to photograph the exhibit?

lavender fabrics

Carolyn had a few posts about the vera wang lavender collection fabrics in the last few days, and I wanted to add some photos and notes of the ones I bought. I was really happy that she'd pointed out the sale on these, as the prices were great. I really like the pieces that I got. Lets start with my favorite here, a black and white wool blend boucle. I bought a yard to make a pencil skirt, but the fabric is really wide so I might make something more than just a pencil skirt. We'll see. It's got a very nice hand to it. I opened all these with my mom and she said "that's a great skirt material" as soon as I'd pulled it out. So I'll line it with silk or some ambiance and make a skirt for fall.


Lavender and white poly and rayon brocade- I wasn't sure what to do with this when I ordered it, but I liked the print. My mom really liked it when I opened the box, and she's much more willing to wear prints than I am, so I offered to make her something from it. It has a stiff hand for how thin it is and is a bit shiny, so we discussed a skirt but she doesn't like large scale prints for skirts. So it will be a cropped jacket- I'll find a BWOF pattern for one (there have been a bunch recently that are really cute).


Black Cotton/Poly faille - really, really, really like this! I recently bought a khaki colored faille jacket from J Crew and I've been wearing it almost nonstop for the past month. The weave is so tight that it's almost waterproof... nice in all the rain we've been getting. So I'll make a similar black jacket from this. This one was hard to photograph so that you can see the stiff drape- it's really black, but I had to play around in photoshop.

Silk/wool twill -another one I love. It has a very light hand and drapes very easily. I'll probably make a skirt from this for fall.

Stretch wool flannel - I was thinking of making pants from this, but it's a bit heavy for that. So now I think I might make a fitted dress or a coat. The face is really soft!

Charcol wool jersey - I was hoping this would be light enough to make a wrap dress for winter, but it's a very beefy wool jersey. Not a bad thing, just not going to work well for a wrap dress. So I think I'll make a zip front hoodie from it, using the jalie hoodie pattern. That will leave me with some extra, so I might make a skirt or something as well.


Silk and Rayon blend - has a hand almost like a duchesse satin. Very stiff drape. Not sure what to make out of it... probably it will end up being a fitted dress or something. We'll see- the color is really pretty so I'll figure something out!

So anyway... these are mostly fall fabrics so I might not sew anything with them until September or later. They'll be sitting on the bookshelf waiting for cooler weather sewing to start!

Knit ruffles!

This is the Jalie tshirt pattern I always use, in size 6. The pants are a "vintage" (aka inherited from my aunt) Butterick pattern in size 5. Just your basic elastic waist kids pull on pants.



And this is the "I just had a chocolate cupcake with mocha frosting with real espresso in it!!!!!" look.


Here's another one. There's a reason why I don't have my own kids (Kate is my niece, I get to return her to her mommy at the end of each weekend). I don't know better than to feed kids cupcakes with coffee and oodles of sugar in them. I've been teaching Kate to bake, just like my grandma taught me, and I'm wondering now how she dealt with all the inevitable sugar fits.



I think the house survived post-chocolate-cupcakes, but it was a close call. Anyway, the shirt fabric is this neat stuff with ruffles sort of knit into it. I bought it because of a thread on Artisans Square. Someone linked to Marcy Tilton's site with that fabric, and I found the botanical print linen there also, and... well... they turned up on my doorstep. I'm planning on making myself a skirt from the linen, and a tank top from the knit fabric. My sister has an order in for a camisole from it, so good thing I have almost 3 yards! The fabric is really awesome- the ruffles are the same type of thread as the underlayer, just knit a little denser.

After Kate had calmed down, I made up another pintuck skirt from Stitch Magazine. You might recall that last month I tried making myself this in denim, and came up with a skirt that was too tight. This is 3% lycra denim, and it fits much better!



Here's a better view of the pintuck detail


I used a pintuck foot and a denim twin needle with topstitching thread from Guttermann. The pintuck lines were transferred from the pattern with chalk paper and a tracing wheel- it actually went pretty quickly, and then making the skirt up went much better this time. I put an invisible side zipper in, and ye olde grosgrain ribbon waistband. I like fast. ;-)

PJs and a new chair cover

What to do when it's pouring outside? How about pulling out your trusty seam ripper and taking apart an Ikea chair cover? I have an 8 year old Poang Ikea armchair that had a plain ivory cover that had gotten a kind of grungy from all the spilled coffee and 8 years of use. I thought this home dec leaf print was kind of cute, so I took the old one apart and re did it with the print. I finished it, but it was a good reminder why I prefer to sew clothes and not home dec projects.

First unzipped it and took out the foam cushions, then ripped off the old binding around the outer edges. Next I ripped out the stitching where the back met the seat at the bend of the cushion. That separated the front of the cushion cover from the back. The front is a piece of fabric quilted to a layer of batting, which I wanted to re-use so I soaked the front cover in some oxyclean and washed it gently. While that was going on, I took apart the back which was in three pieces, joined by zippers. I kept the middle most tiny rectangle and used the other two pieces as pattern pieces to cut the new back. Then I stitched the zippers into the new cover. When the front was dry, I cut a new front using the old one as a pattern piece, and quilted the new fabric right over the old fabric. Then I basted the front and back together and put on a new binding, and voila- new chair cover! Putting the binding on was actually a beast. It was really stiff and kind of hard to maneuver... it's not perfect, but no one is going to be carefully inspecting the binding on it, so it will do.



Then I was feeling a bit jealous of my sister's comfy new flannel PJs so I made myself a pair -also from Farmer's Market flannel. This is the vintage cherries print. Sooooo soft!



BeeBee, your copy of the pattern is an envelope ready to go up to the mailbox! I actually thought some more about how to better organize my BWOF traced off patterns, since I end up with multiple traced copies of the good patterns when I lose the original tracing... I'm really resisting getting a filing cabinet but I might have to break down and go with that.

One last important item. cutest corgi puppies ever on cute overload this morning. Awwwwwwww.

lacy birthday dress

Shhh, it's not her birthday yet, but here's Kate trying on her unfinished dress. She spied it in my sewing room and wanted to test drive it- and she was very good about putting it back away when she had tried it on so that it can be wrapped up for the party! She looks very serious, but she was busy "being a model" for these photos. ;-)

The lace insert hand sewn in place to the neck:


You can see the bright blue lining in the sleeve:


A full shot:


I put an invisible zipper into the back, but in these photos it was just hand basted in place. I've sewn it in now, and finished sewing the last inch of the fabric to the lining at the neck, trapping the top of the zipper in that seam. I find it easiest to leave that inch open and finish it up after the zipper is in. The lining is then slip stitched to the zipper tape down the back on the inside.

And here is the owl dress. I'm wearing a BWOF top from the November 2008 issue- one of my favorite shirts now.


I looked through my drawers here and I found two more dresses that I never finished for myself that I will see if I can refashion into dresses for Kate. It hasn't been too much work yet to rip out the old zippers and take off the bodices, so it's nice to see the skirts at least get a new life!

a birthday present

Rainy afternoon hand sewing. I bought this lace for $1/yard in the garment district and it's been floating around my sewing loft for a few weeks. My mom is showing me how to hand sew it to a garment. This is actually another refashion of a dress that didn't work for me to a dress for Kate, and it will be a birthday present for her. I started a peachy silk dress for myself a few years ago, but messed up the bodice and stuffed it into a trunk. After last week's successful refashion, I remembered this one and pulled it out and took off the bodice. So I had a nice silk skirt, and was able to cut a bodice using BWOF 02-2009-139, in size 6X. So it will be a bit big on Kate, but she'll grow into it.

Here's the dress, still mostly pinned together. The fabric is some peach colored dupioni silk that frays like crazy, unfortunately.



I'm going to put in a back zipper, even though the instructions say it doesn't need one. They cut it REALLY low in the front- typical BWOF, but this is a little kids dress!!! So we're going to try to fix it with a lace insert behind the neckline, which would mean that it needs a zipper to go over her head. The insert will be hand sewn in, and then the zipper inserted and the neckline seam finished. Then I'll hand sew down the bodice lining over the waist seam. After that it will be finished!

And here is Declan, enjoying a rainy day nap.

flannel PJ pants

I came home from vacation to find my sister a little sick- no fun if you're the mom of 3 little kids. I felt a little bad that I was lounging around poolside in Florida while she was feeling so lousy and chasing the little monsters around, so I made her some "feel better" PJs. These are from the December 2007 BWOF pajama pants pattern, made from flannel from Sandi Henderson's Farmers Market fabric line. The binding on the bottom of the pants is also farmers market, "Henna Garden" print. This flannel is sooooooo soft. OMG. I've never felt such cuddly flannel before!

I tried them on to get a picture:


I have about a yard of the flannel left, and I think I'll make it into the quilt backing of a baby quilt. It's too cuddly so it will make a nice soft quilt!

no sewing

florida
Originally uploaded by wck

gone swimming


(Actually, I also had to share this picture. I love traveling with Dan, but I have to laugh at how silly we are sometimes. Get off plane, make beeline to starbucks, pull out blackberries. (; )