WIP Archives - Page 4 of 7

Lucinda July 17, 2012

Sewcation 2012: Days 1 and 2

Ahhhh….a whole week on vacation, visiting my family, and nothing to do but sew! I figured this would be the week to tackle all of the summer sewing that I still have left to do, because come next month, I’ll be wrapping up all of the cute sundresses and skirts and moving on to Halloween sewing and fall dresses. It feels like summer is only a minute in New England.

This is round two on a halter dress that I made about seven years ago. It fit me fine then, but taking it out of my closet recently, I discovered it was quite big all around. I knew going into this that I would have to make a muslin and start completely from scratch on this one.

Well. I did get it to fit.

This muslin uses 3 sizes (!!) to get the right fit. I tweaked everything on this puppy! Took the sides in, let them out, added some width to the center back seam, cut part of the bust one size and the rest of it another. It ranges from a 8 up top all the way to a 12 where the waist starts. I don’t think I’ve sewn a single garment as crazy-all-over-the-place as this one. No wonder I have a hard time finding ready-to-wear dresses that fit me. Ah, but that’s why we sew, right? We get the garment to fit our bodies and not the other way around.

Don’t you love that fabric? It’s a cotton I scored last week at Metro Textile in NY while I was coming back from a business trip. It has a retro feel to it, which lends itself well to a halter-style dress. It’s also pretty sheer, like a voile, so I’m lining it with a thin white cotton. I need to get this done this week to wear to a wedding I’m going to in about two weeks. Plus, when I get back to MA, it’s all about packing and getting ready to move to my new apartment. I can’t wait!

So today is Day 3 of Sewcation 2012 and I’m stitching this baby up, plus also (possibly) starting a muslin on a easy-peasy empire waist sundress. I don’t think the muslin is going to be that involved and all I’ll need to do is move the bust dart up slightly. If I get these two dresses done, plus all of the cutting out/fusing/serging for two other projects, it’ll be mission accomplished this week.

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Lucinda July 10, 2012

Next on the Needles: Spring Garden Tee

Remember this? This is my haul from shopping at Webs!

There’s something about summer that just doesn’t motivate me to knit at the speed I do in the winter time. I’m guessing it’s because there’s so many cute summer clothes I want to sew and I’m not really inside watching Netflix and Hulu as much as I do when it’s cold outside. At least I have my AC installed in my window now and can knit comfortably without having to deal with sweaty hands…

Anyway, my Gemini is getting very close to the end and I’m planning on that occurring this week. I’m travelling today to New Jersey for work and have a four hour train ride down and a four hour ride back to Boston over the course of two days, so I anticipate that there will be much knitting happening on the train. And as any smart knitter would do, I’ve packed the yarn for my new project, the Spring Garden Tee.

I’m not that optimistic that I’ll finish knitting the tee before the summer is over, seeing that I casted (is that the proper past tense?) on for my Gemini, oh, back in May, and I’m still not finished with it. But I just can’t bear to start my Owls sweater in that heavy, wooly Rowan Cocoon that you see in the above pic. Maybe once September rolls around…by then I’ve caught the “autumn bug” and want everything to turn cool so I can bring out my boots and jackets and cute sweaters. Autumn is the one good thing about New England weather.

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Lucinda June 26, 2012

On My Cutting Table: Vogue 8723 [Fit and Flare Dress]

This dress is going to be a winner, I can feel it.

I immediately jumped onto this project Saturday night after my fail at a Vogue DKNY dress and did a tissue fit of the pattern. Seriously, why didn’t “Custom Fit” patterns exist years ago?? They’re freaking brilliant! I selected the bodice pattern that fit my bust size (the smallest one, obvs), pinned all of the darts, side seam, and shoulder strap into place and voila: a perfect fit, unheard of for me with patterns with bust darts. Just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, I cut out the lining for the bodice and stitched it up to test the fit. Again, spot on.

My only hesitation with this pattern is the skirt. I read some reviews on Pattern Review that the skirt is wicked full and difficult to gather, especially with heavier fabric like the cotton that I’m using. I’m going to try sewing a wide zig zag stitch over a length of cord or floss to gather up the skirt instead of sewing two rows of basting stitches; the basting is more than likely to break with all of the pulling and tugging. I’ll also try the skirt on myself before I attach it to the bodice – I have a feeling, with the body and fullness of this cotton, that it is going to be one super poofy skirt and may need some trimming down. Which should be easy, since the skirt panels are just wide rectangles.

The fabric is from Metro Textile in NYC – look for a post this week about my shopping adventures and what I found!

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Lucinda June 12, 2012

20 Minutes to Sew – An Experiment

It fits, it fits! Huzzah!

Let’s face it: we all don’t have a lot of time to sew. Heck, I can barely find time to go to the grocery store and do my laundry every week. I usually leave my sewing and crafting until the weekend when I’m off from work (yes, I have weekends now!), but that somehow manages to get erased from the weekend agenda when there are things to do like going to the beach and mini golf (oh yeah, and that laundry and grocery shopping thing I mentioned before). What’s a crafty bitch to do?

Since saving all of my sewing time for one or two days a week isn’t working, I made a goal with myself for the week: carve out about 10-20 minutes each day this week to sit down at my sewing machine and see what I can stitch up in that frame of time. Of course it’s not an original thought; Nancy Zieman has a whole line of sewing patterns called “10-20-30 Minutes to Sew.” She’s right: a few minutes here and there each day can quickly add up to a finished project.

Monday night went pretty well – I got all four panels of my Ginger skirt stitched together, pressed, and finished the seams with my pinking shears. I figured out that if I can sew at that productivity level each day, here’s what I can accomplish this week:

Tuesday: Fuse waistband interfacing, stitch waistband pieces together
Wednesday: Stitch waistband to skirt
Thursday: Insert zipper
Friday: Hem skirt

So if I can stick to the agenda, I’ll have a cute skirt to wear for the weekend. If this experiment works this week, this may be the way that I do my sewing from now on.

The only downside? I’ll need a white top to wear with my new skirt by Saturday…

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Lucinda May 24, 2012

On My (Mom’s) Cutting Table

I’m home visiting my family on vacation this week and I’m taking full advantage of my mom’s sewing room set-up…huge cutting table, nice sewing machine and iron, good lighting, etc. And for my birthday, she got me new scissors! I’ve wanted a pair of Gingher dressmaker shears for a long time and I finally have my own pair – they’re a dream to cut with and I can’t believe I’ve gone so long cutting with my trusty orange Fiskars (not to knock them or anything…these are just nicer).

The above is fabric I bought last year from Mood for a top that I started and finished yesterday – love it when that happens! I’ll post pictures of the finished garment next week.