Sew Perfect for Every Body!

This is the patter n that I used to make my dress.  I am  not a very good model at this time i n my life.   As you ca n see  I cha nged the  neckli ne a nd made it a maxi dress.  Also I added width to the sides I wa nted full ness at the  bottom. I  need to  restitch the flowers some of them fell off! I did get some complime nts which felt good. Therefore I decided to stick with this patter n for the other dresses  I have 2 more dresses to make usi ng this patter n , not more Maxi's soo n it will the weather will tur n wet a nd sloppy.  Which I truly love!  Stra nge love I k now.  Mo nday I have to co nce ntrate o n fi nishi ng the sleep caps that are curre ntly listed as UFO status.  I should have fi nished them o n Friday  however  we we nt to first friday's a nd the relaxatio n was much  needed. 

I made this dress some week ago but I never gave the story. I have nothing new to show so here is the story behind this dress. I searched for 2 hours in my fabric closet because I as determine that I would not have a room that looked like the police has just searched it and left it for me to clean up . At the very bottom of the closet was this fabric that I knew that I had but forgotten. I decided this would be perfect for a graduation party that was semi-formal. It has been hot all that week and I wanted the dress to be comfortable. Butterick 3516 I love this pattern but this was my first time making it. I also changed my mind about making this dress because I knew the fitting this would be a challenge. I did not change my mind this time and fitting it was a challenge. The bodice was interfaced with a fusiable medium weight interfacing. Which was much to heavy for the lightweight cotton fabric. But it worked perfectly for the bust area. I got it to fit just right. The stiffness tu...

You know how when you are bored and you know you should be doing something. I just could not get started on anything productive so I decided to get on the computer. Then I remember what I was working on. As you can see I just took a square of muslin and hand sewed at lot of different fabrics on it. No design in mind just something to do while watching TV. I actually did a little beading. I decided to practice some hand stitching on this little project. It is really important that hand stitching is done correctly when you have to do it. But in time. This I gave up on this and decided to return to something that I had started so long ago but never finished. I was following instructions on the blog Nuts about Needlepoint. I wanted to use my own design and when I read that is what she was giving instructions to do I follow all the steps and read her blog daily. I bought the canvas and the waterproof color markers and drew my design on the canvas and then I became distracted by something c...

I am often asked when did I start sewing. I felt like I have been sewing forever so I really did not have an answer for them. Most times I would just say I was 14 years old. Turns out I was right. Sister Gladys O Christian was a close friend of my mother's. She was at least 20 to 25 years older than my mother so we treated her like a grandmother. She probably was the one who got my mother to teach me to sew. She visited us just about everyday. I remember making a yellow pant suit. When I finished I proudly show it to her and she inspected each and every seam and then she had me model it for her. It fit great and I really loved that suit. She told me that I did a very good job. The next day she came to the house with a book I was not at home at the time but she left it for me. Inside she wrote To Lavon From Sister Gladys O Christian November 21, 1976. I had completely forgot that until I found this book again. I remember going to her apartment in the senior building and ...

I need a winter coat. I have been talking about a winter jacket for a while and Last night during Project Runway I laid out my pattern for my coat. I chose this pattern because 1. it is easy and 2 the adjustment that needed to be made would be easy. This is what I did; to the jacket front and jacket back pattern pieces I added 1 inch to the bust line; 1.5 inches to the waistline;2.25 inches to the hip; finally 7 inches to the jacket length. Then I added 1 inch to the sleeve width. Add 3 inches to the sleeve length. If I need to make any additional adjustments as I go along I will just notate them in my project notebook. I have some other wool fabric that need to be used so this jacket pattern will work for those projects as well. Once this is completed I hope I love this jacket so I can make plenty more. The fabric is chocolate brown. The texture is like crepe fabric and it does feel pretty good for a coat. This is a wool Crepe fabric but I will have to put lining in it. Since the pa...

First let me apologize for not updating anyone who actually reads this blog with the exception of my self and Betty occasionally. The dress is completed. The wedding is over and she loved the dress. The final fitting was the week before the wedding and it looked beautiful. I am actually proud of the hem. It was the correct length. I was prepared for it to be off a little the sewing machine was up and read to go but when she put it on with the shoes she was to wear for the wedding you could see it float across the floor as she walked. I was very happy and extremely relieved. Hems can be scary things. I could tell you about the summer dress that was to be a Maxi that turn into a summer tunic to wear with leggings. Sounds laughable but believe me when I say the tunic hem was lopsided but at that point I just left it as it was just so I could wear it. I need something to show for my effort. My next project is a winter coat for me. Chocolate Brown! Yummy!

The deconstruction is over. AUGUST 1, 2009 The fitting went well. I really feel bad having to make people stand still for an hour but that is about how long it took. I pinned the pieces in place and she said it felt comfortable and there was enough room to grow into. I searched for my footstool. It is so much easier the pin the hemline while it is hanging off the floor. My footstool was gone and I know which sister took it. (She claims she is not short so I can imagine why she would take my footstool but I know she has it!) So I had to it pin the hemline off the floor. I am always never quite sure when I do it like this. After she was gone I put the dress on the dress form and put running stitching in it fabric by hand this will mark the seam allowances. Once that was done I pinned notes the left side and noted the front and back sides and did the same on the opposite side. Now I was able to unpin the pieces and know that I would be able to sew them in place with no major problems. AU...

While working on this crazy quilt I find myself sitting and remembering more and more. Some of the scrap fabrics that I have go way back to when I shared an apartment with my sister who now lives some 3 thousand miles away in Seattle. Each fabric scrap bring a memory. Dresses that were made for semi formals for my youngest sister. Her husband at the time worked for Time life and every year in the summer his company had a formal dinner on the Gateway Clipper line. The black one with sheer side panels, The silver short sequin one. There were others. I really wish I had kept pictures of them in a scrapbook. Scraps from dresses that were made for work. Usually these dresses were made because I was too lazy to do laundry. Here is an example. It would be 10:00 at night and I'm trying to figure out what to wear to work. "No not that I don' t really want to wear that. This needs to be washed, that is worn some much now people probably don't think I buy clothes. ...

My friend , S is have a crafting party. Well it was not her intention to have a crafting party it sort of happen when we found out she won a Cricut on ebay. In her excitement she explained the great deal she was able to get on the price and the additional cartridges. She has been tracking the location as it travels its way closer and closer to PA. Expected arrival Monday. When she mention on her blog about making magnetic paper dolls for her niece. I thought great I want to do that also. And then I found out her sister was coming to her house on Monday Jan 19, 2009 which happens to be a day off for us I decided that I was coming over as well. Then S was telling W about the Cricut and I discovered that she wanted to get one and has just been waiting for the right time to get it. So when S explain how I just invited myself over and everything is turning into a crafting party. W just smiled and said " Well I don't invite myself to people's houses I wait for an invite...

I am a great procrastinator. Unfortunately this usually gets me into some type of difficulty. I said that I was going to sew in the New Year! Okay at 6:00 in the evening I was in Wal Mart crafting section looking for fabric. It's not like I do not have fabric, I have a wardrobe full of fabric but I just was not feeling any of those just now. Nor did I feel the need for any fabric in the store either. So I looked at the yarn to see if I could find the right color for the comfort shawl that I was to crochet. Nothing looked right. We left the store with my purchases of, a 20 oz bottle of Mt. Dew ,batting for a crib sized quilt and 3 magazines. Some friends came over to watch House of Payne but they were all old episodes, I guess the new season starts next week. By 10:00 they had went home and My sweetie went to work. I went into the sewing studio and searched for the perfect fabric .....after a while the fabric just had to be nice .........and after a while longer I was just se...