Sew Perfect for Every Body!

Oh wow I have a headache the final fitting was last night, did it fit? Yes it did but, there is always a but. But it does not look right once she has on her dress. Here is the deal most wedding dress have no sleeves and this one is not exception to that. It is a beautiful dress. As you can see but she wants sleeves. At the bridal store they told her that she could wear a bolaro style jacket. But did not want all the lace all over it she just wanted it to be sheer and she wanted to wear it under the dress so that it would look like it was part of the dress. This should have been easy to do, and now that I think about it I should have taken the jacket right out of my mind but did not. So since October 20 I have been working on a jacket that she could wear under the dress and of course it work perfectly when she did not have the dress on. Once she had the dress on it bunched up and puckered all over the place and did not look flattering in the least. Last night the night for brain st...

This was to be the weekend that was to get at least 10 purses completed. My total so far is 1! I have made patterns and made sure I had enough fabric and interfacing but I need some purse findings: closures, D rings, purse hooks, chain handles, spring loaded openings. I do not want to make velcro the closure and I do not want everything to look like tote bag! In the Fall fashion magazines I have seen some fur purses and the type of fur I just happen to have so I will make some of these as well. After a weekend of nonproductivity I need to get it together and start getting some work done.

I have change the title of my blog because I am restarting my home business of alterations and sewing clothes for customers because sisters do not pay anything but dinner occasionally. This blog will enable me to post what I changes I am making to garments. Ideas for clothing and jewelry that I can first draw and then attempt to make. I open a flicker just to show pictures of the changes made to garments you know before and after shots. Other changes are going to be with me, myself, I. I have grown weary of people telling me what I can, should, need to, must, have to do! I am very much aware of what I can, should, need to, must, have to do and I will handle it in my way. I love my friends and family and I care for them deeply but I cannot handle anyone trying to tell me what to do and using some method physcology to get me to see what I am doing wrong. It seems that the majority of people around me want things their way without consideration for me and when I bring that to their attent...

I have been very hot and we do not have air conditioning. A fan in the window blow hot air so I suggested that we go to the library which is the same idea a lot of others had who have the same problem. Traffic was absolutely horrible. Not because everyone was headed to the library but because of the Grand Prix. I did not know it was taking place this weekend so the trip to the library was fraught with danger. Hubby does not do well in stopped traffic which has not apparent reason from his persective. I was so happy when we arrive at the library but then parking was the problem. Once inside I return a book that I had for about 2 years and since they were happy to get the book back the fine was only 10.00 and I was able to get a new card. It has been quite comfortable here but they will be closing in a hour and i will be trying to find out what place to go and hang out in until the coolness of the evening begins. But if tonight is anything like last night It did not really get cool...

The red dress is finished! Yea! I think I did a beautiful job on making the neck opening square and the arm holes were stitched and then covered with lace which will be turn inside and hand stitched so that all you see is a clean finished edge. The hem is a narrow zigzag stitch which does not weight the dress down at all. So it should float as I walk by. It does need a belt! So I will be searching for that and hopefully find one within the next couple of days. I have some red t strap sandals with a ½ inch heel so I should be comfortable all around in this dress. The dress that I am working on now is the same pattern as the tan flower print dress that I made a while back. The fabric is cotton white and black. The print is black and looks like chain links or something that reminds me of chain links of a necklace. I want to do something creative. Sissy tells me to make the neckline v instead of scoop but I am not sure about that. I have the zipper in the back and cannot decid...

You know how you can be working on something thinking about something else. Well that was what I was doing. I was working on a dress that should take about 1 hour sewing time to complete. It took me 4 hours to finish because I kept sewing and stopping. I have this sheer fabric that will need to be lined when I use it so I decided to use it on a very simple dress. The color is a red with flowers of different colors printed on it. The flowers are outline in white so the lining of the dress is white. The fabric is white rayon. It is a good thing that the dress is sleeveless because this will be a hot dress! Hubby’s sister came in town on Saturday. She decided to stay with us. Hubby did not bother to tell Sissy that Pap was in the hospital because he figured if she really care she would call him every day not just when she needed money. Needless to say she was a bit ticked off to find out Pap was in the hospital. I think she would not have made the trip had she known. That’s wha...

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...

Recently our family has been dealing with the sudden death of my husband cousin. He did not go to the hospital for regular check ups. He did not like going to the doctor office for any reason. He did when he went into a diabetic coma and his body just shut down. So no one is sure how long he blood sugar was over 500 but finally it was just to much for his body and he died. My husband who has been diagnose as a diabetic promised that he is going to do everything he is suppose to do to keep everything under control. But I know after a couple weeks that would pass and he would continue down the same path as usual. He was not able to get a whole life insurance policy because his blood sugar was high and unstable. Today was the day he stop caring and went back to his bad habits. This more his meter read 230. That was first thing in the morning, not having breakfast. He takes his meds with Orange Juice and 3 hours later is suprise when the meter read 200. He took a nap and said he...

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 cannot get it together. Why because of bad Feng Shui! My sewing room has my computer in it and from time to time I take somethings out of the room and add other things to it. I do that because once it is done everything is good and I feel ready to stay in my sewing room and I can get lots of stuff done. I had things almost the way I needed them to be and i was able to start some some projects that I had not finished. I was doing some hand sewing on at quilt square and working on my needelpoint. Then the worst thing that could happen happened things were moved around in my room. My dear sweet hubby took the printer from his office and hooked it up to my computer because my printer is not working and proceed to change the room to fit is needs. He was in my space for 3 dys and would have been there longer if I had not insisted that he get it out! He had control over my space and then took over my computer for those 3 days. Now that he has returned his printer to his space my space...

Sunday I get back to my sewing projects. I have been stuck in neutral since before the holidays so I have set a date to get out of this slump. Sunday February 21, 2010. I will prep my stuff in the morning. Go to my religious services that afternoon after that participating in hospitality by assisting with the lunch/dinner for the visiting elder that will be doing the public address. Then sewing! My little designer has drawn 5 different outfits and we will have to get started searching for fabrics. I will be taking her with me to the Salvation Army Fabric Fair this year it is the best way for her to find all the fabric that she wants for her designs and I will be able to afford to purchase them for her. She is a smart little girl all her clothing will be for September, return to school, so the fashion show can happen sometime in the summer. This gives us lots at time but if we do not plan correctly we will be going frantic when the time comes. Tomorrow I am going to meet Betty...

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...

Yesterday I decided that I needed a dress to wear, today. I did make the dress but I was not happy with it. I designed a shift dress with ruffles around the collar. I hated the ruffle. It did not lay the way I wanted it to. Because the fabric was really too thick for the type of soft ruffle effect that I wanted. So I removed the ruffle that I put on. I searched through my stash of fabric and of course I did not have the right type of fabric in the right color. When I removed the ruffle I stretched the neckline in the front of the dress so I need to make some more adjustments to it. When you wear a jacket with it no one can see the mistakes or the dress. So once I have fixed it to look the way it really should I will post it correctly. It does not pay to wait until the last minute. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the evening I have been crocheting Tri-Color squares for the guest bedroom. Two shades of blue the other color is white. I ...

Lion Yard Is doing a new Crochet A-long. I was not successful with the last one. I went to the store to pick the color yard and nothing appealed to me. So It was a project that never got started. However I should be better with this one. Since I was already crocheting it should be easy to start something else. These are the square I am crocheting in the evening after dinner and before bed. I should have a lot more done but Oh well. The yard you see at the beginning are the colors I will use for the New Crochet A long. Will be interesting. I have never crochet this Motif before. I am looking forward to it. My White Pizza is heating in the oven. Hubby should be asleep so tonight is as good as any other for crocheting. I still have not started my yummy chocolate brown coat. Soon I am sure. Do something creative every day!

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...

Auntie and Crazy Cousin made it to the airport and arrived in Chicago. I was relieved when I got the phone call because they worry me. Now they are on vacation for 14days and I have 14 days to get my car back on the road. I did not take them to the airport my sister did. This enabled me to stay in bed until 12:30. I am so glad that the house was clean so I did not feel guilty being lazy. Today the sewing room in clean enough to be messed up again. I got started on making some changes to the dress. I took the sides in 1 and ½ inches and redid the hem. It’s a little shorter but not really too short, I do not wear minis. I searched for ribbon in my stash of trims to see if Betty’s suggestion would work. The ribbon trim would give it an Empire Waist look which you see a lot of this summer. So I guess I will give it a try. I guess the real problem I had with the dress is that I did not like the way I felt when I had it on. I think that, Dresses should make you feel pretty. Suits s...

I started not to write this blog because I have no picture to show. Well I have a picture but I cannot find my Cord to connect to the computer. So I wore my completed pants and shirt to work today. It was very comfortable and one person said she really liked my shirt or blouse. That made me feel good. I will have to make the pants longer next time. The lenght I have in this pair is a little shorter that I would like it. Tonight I have gathered all the summer knit fabric. I will have lots of dresses and weekend wear by saturday. Have a good night. Pictures tomorrow if I can find that cord.

I have been so tired since we have moved to the new building. Since I am in front of people all day there is little to no downtime. It does make the time go so much faster but I lose track of time. Saturday I laid out a pattern for dress pants for work. Butterick 3371 I choose this pattern because it was to be a after 5 look for whenever I go out to a high end resturant. That is not likely to happen anytime soon so I decided the pants would be great for work. I am not committed to this because pants have always been a difficult fit. But I must get restarted sewing because if too much time laspes I will not be interested in sewing. I will have to review my completed projects folder to see how many projects I have completed so far. I found a tutorial for a pyrimad wristlet. I plan to make some changes in the measurements to get a little bigger pyrimad to make a purse for evening wear. Prom season is coming up and I think this would be a great item to sell. I should have had the...