My Sewing Space

When I thought through my spring sewing plans, I came up with five things I really wanted to make for myself. That was the short list and I'm not sure I will actually make it happen, so I thought I would start with the most involved project. If I left it for the end it certainly wouldn't have gotten done. This is McCall's 5525 in my very favorite color - sour apple green. The pictures don't really show the color accurately. It's pretty bright, but I love it. I should have noted the date when I actually started this project because it feels like it took me forever - partly because I just didn't have significant chunks of time to work on it and partly because I did some tailoring work on the lapels and the collar. That meant that I had hours invested before doing any assembly. I haven't done much classic tailoring work at all up until now. This book was a big help to me and I followed the machine method outlined in it. I also referred to this book an...

In the last two months, I have spent a lot of my sewing time making things for other people. Some of the items were for the two stores in town that I supply and others were just for individuals that wanted something specific. My natural tendency is to be selfish with my sewing time, but it's good to have a bit of money coming in to keep the sewing room stocked. Not much to say about all the things, but I did want to record them here... Bibs: Pillows: Angels: Pillows for charity auction: Vogue 8828 for a client (Really? Can I have a "client?" It sounds a bit more pretentious than I'm comfortable with, but I should probably own it and add a bit of professionalism to my work. And it's much more succinct than "a nice woman I know that wants me to sew things for her." I like succinct. But you'd never guess that from this long, rambling parenthetical comment). It's a very poor fit on my dress form, but was...

Crazy. And more crazy. I’m really happy with how these three outfits came together. I like the fabrics, I like the patterns, and I like these kids (even though they’re crazy).

The fabric for my older daughter’s dress was the inspiration for this coordination effort. I picked it up for a great price at the end of the summer last year. I had the fabrics for my son’s clothes already in my stash. I knew that I wanted to use some sort of bold stripe for my younger daughter’s dress (initially inspired by this one ) but it took me awhile to decide on exactly how to make it work. After some more searching and perusing, I came across this dress and thought it was perfect. Of course, I didn’t have a pattern exactly like that and looked for one that would get me close. Last year I was so happy with New Look 6089 so I decided to work with that one again. The biggest change to the pattern was the cut-away shoulders and it wasn’t as hard to do as I thought it would be. If I were to do it again, I would cut them away a little further - more like the inspiration photo. The stripes are made by sewing navy bands on top of the white skirt. I made pres...

About this time last year, I made a pair of pants for my son from an Ottobre pattern (1-2011-29). I had wondered if all the pieces and details were really worth it, but concluded that they were. I really liked those pants and felt inspired to try more similar patterns. And here we are, one year later, and I didn't do anything of the sort. Time flies. I considered using other Ottobre pants patterns for this project, but in light of the time crunch, I went with the same pattern. I did need to trace all the pieces again in a larger size, but the construction was familiar and I had the outgrown pair to reference as needed. I love this railroad engineer stripe fabric and couldn't resist playing with the stripes a bit. Sadly, most of that gets covered up by the shirt. The back pockets don't get used, but I really like how they're formed. I left off the belt loops and outer leg zippers in the name of simplification. The shirt is another Ottobre pattern (6/20...

Oh, this poor old neglected blog...so sad. Sometimes I think I should close it down rather than letting it sadly limp along like a wounded animal. I get close to pulling the trigger and then make something and find myself wanting to tell the blog about it. There is hope. The lack of posts are not for lack of sewing. There has been sewing. Much sewing. The lack of posts are more a reflection of a lack of quiet time and free energy. I do find I really appreciate having a record of my makes and perhaps some negotiating of the priorities could free up some blogging energy. For now, limp along with me, will you? I made clothes for each of my three kids for the Easter holiday last week. Time was tight, so I cut some time by using patterns that I had used before. In some cases, it helped to know the construction method. In others, it was very helpful to know that the fit was already tweaked. The three kids were coordinated in navy blue and white, but they each used different fabrics. We...