jazz dress

I finally got to do some sewing! I spent a lot of time this summer reorganizing and rearranging my sewing room. I'm not done, but at least it is back to being functional again. I'd really like to paint in there, but that will have to wait a couple of months.

I saw on Carolyn's blog that there is a sewalong for Butterick 5147

I have had this pattern for a long time, but never got around to making it. Although I did not join the sew-along, I decided to go for it. Last spring I bought some fabric with jazz instruments on it and even bought lining to go along with it. So, since I already had everything I needed, including the invisible zipper and thread, I had nothing to hold me back!

It took me a few hours to trace out this pattern even though it was only 2 pieces. I have trouble doing a FBA on dresses with vertical and horizontal darts and making them look smooth. I still didn't get it exactly right on this one, but I think I've got the adjustments down now so that the next time it will look even better. I also did a high round back adjustment, a swayback adjustment, and had to go up from a 10 to a 16 from shoulder to hip. Making the right combination of alterations in the right order can make a big difference in fit.

This dress has a slit in the back and the instructions for the lining give it a nice finish. I like the fact that it is completely lined and I am happy with the way the invisible zipper turned out. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the dress. I will make it again, but I will go about an inch shorter next time.



































































Next up = I'm working on this bathing suit. I am going to make the strapless maillot version.
It's Kwiksew 3503

Quilting on the cheap

That's probably an oxymoron. Quilting is not cheap. Not really. However, there are some things you can do to save you some bucks. I know a lot of quilters who have either spent a lot of money, or a lot of money and time creating a "design wall." The local quilt shop has a couple of design walls in the workroom so you can lay up your pieces and arrange them the way you want them. I have no such thing at home, but what I do have is batting. That's right, I pinned a large piece of batting to the wall and all of my quilt pieces stick to it without even using any pins. This works even better than the design wall at the quilt store because it does not need pins. Well, you want to start using pins when you are sewing larger sections of the quilt together because then they are just too heavy and fall off. Another advantage of my "design wall" is that I can unpin it from the wall and roll it up with all the pieces on it if I am going to take it anywhere to work on it.


























So, I have most of the blocks sewn into strips, and even some of the strips sewn together. I have to decide how big I am going to make this quilt. The size shown in the book does not match any of the quantities listed for the patterns. I find this a lot in quilt books. The book will tell you how many blocks or strips you need for either crib, twin or queen size, but often times if you count the blocks on the picture, they will not line up exactly with the finished sizes given in the book!

I think what I am going to do is work from the two opposite corners and work my way to the middle. That way I can still make it bigger if I want to by just adding some additional strips at the longest diagonal.

At this point, I want to hurry up and finish the top of this quilt. I'm really feeling the need to make some clothes for work. School starts for teachers on August 2 in my district (students come on the 5th). I will be there for the 3 days before students come because I can sit most of the day. I am not ready to stand up all day long, which is exactly what I will be doing as soon as I go back to my classroom. Right now I have until the 23 of August per the doctor. I hope I can build up enough strength in my knee and stamina to stand all day by that time. Not that I'm all that anxious to go back to work, but I really don't want to miss any more work than I have to either.

A Little Stripping

I've been wanting to sew for the last few days. And I can. I can sit in a chair and sew. I can stand at the ironing board if I'm careful. But, I keep walking into the sewing room, pulling out fabric and patterns, and then walking out. I've been feeling uninspired. I keep having ideas of what I want to do, but then, I can't seem to find exactly what I want to do it. I do think I have fabric and pattern picked out for a Vogue knit dress, but I don't want to cut it out. What to do?

Well, I decided I would work on the quilt I cut out over a year ago for my daughter and haven't worked on in about that long. Yesterday I started finishing the strips and today I finished the strips and am working on cutting them into squares. My 1/4 inch seam is never perfect, even though I've tried a couple of 1/4" feet. I think I let the fabric get to close to the guide, so my seams are a little wide. I tried moving the needle over farther, but I don't want it so close to the presser foot that it hits it! I just need to keep practicing.

I hope to finish cutting the squares today. I need to get more fabric for the side triangles, but I can probably start sewing the rows together and add the side triangles at the end. Who knows, maybe I will actually finish this before Christmas :-)

From Grace's Quilt

On the mend

Well, I had knee surgery almost a week ago. I haven't been doing any sewing. In fact, I haven't been doing much of anything! My leg is in a machine that keeps it moving most of the day, and when I'm not doing that, I'm in the living room with my foot up watching TV. In fact, I have watched over 30 episodes of Grey's Anatomy!! The good news is, I feel like everything is healing quickly and I'm not really in any pain. The doctor said the surgery went really well. We thought I had a torn ACL, but actually, the ACL was totally gone and they had to build a new one. I had this done about 8 years ago on my other leg, but this time it is going much better.

Last night, I did go into the sewing room, clear off the cutting table, and pull out some fabric. I keep changing my mind about what to make. I want to make PANTS! Of course, my leg is in a huge brace, so I probably won't even get to wear pants for a couple of months. I'm pretty sure I'm going to make a dress next. I will be wearing a lot of dresses for a while - which is a good thing. It is very hot here, so dresses are the coolest thing to wear. Also, I really, really need to make a dent in my stash

From Summer 2010

That top row is all fabric for jackets and coats. The next shelf down is knits, except for the far left stack, which is misc novelty fabric.
The third row is cotton, rayon, and linen;
the fourth row is woolens and suit weight blends.
The bottom shelf is denim, a box of linings, and muslin fabric.

I have a couple of other boxes and baskets with fabrics as well. I need to get everything to fit in this cabinet! So, I'm hoping to get busy sewing SOON.
Unfortunately, my surgery was on my right knee. I have to keep it elevated and the brace keeps me from bending my knee. I'm either going to have to learn to sew left footed, or use the push button feature on my machine!

BWOF 06-2009 strapless top

Well, first of all, just let me say that it will always be BWOF to me. I don't care that they changed their name, I will probably always think "BWOF" Besides, who wants to go back to each issue and think "Oh, is this Burdastyle or BWOF?" Anyway, back to the top.

I had seen another review for this on PR and decided to check it out. I had fabric that I knew would work and the only thing I had to buy was the elastic.











I'm really glad I made this top. I had a few little struggles and put it aside for a couple of days. But, finally, I figured out what to do and got it finished. I'll probably wear it tomorrow to a Fourth of July BBQ since it will be hot outside for sure.OK, here was the problem, due to my "wrong-thinking" I decided that since this was a strapless top and there were no shoulders or upper bust area to worry about that I would just go by bust size. Well, that wasn't a good idea. While the top circumference is fine, I needed more room in the front and less in the back. Consequently, the side seams are slightly forward, but not noticeably. The big thing is that there was not enough fabric to go over the bust. Had I tissue fit this, I would have seen that. but, since the front of bodice was already sewn together (6 layers of fabric) I did not want to take it apart and cut a new underbodice piece. I did make the bodice lining bigger and I figured that would work if I did not attach the lining to the bodice at the bottom and used the lining more like a shelf bra. But, the more I thought about it, I didn't think that was what I wanted to do. Instead, I added a 2" wide strip at the bottom of the bodice, sewed it with a 1/2" seam, and then cut it away to nothing at the side seams. This worked, but only because it was a knit and the darts are covered with the crossover pieces. The darts are too high. But in this top, it's no big deal. It still fits great and is very comfortable.

One thing different about this pattern is the way the elastic is done. The lining is sewn to the bodice and then the lining is turned up and sewn at the edge of the seam allowance for a casing. Since I only used 1/2" seam allowances instead of 5/8", it made it a little tricky. The pattern called for 3/16" elastice, but I used 1/4". If I make this again, I may use 3/8" elastic for a little more strength.

This is a great pattern and sews together pretty quickly if you don't screw around with it like I did. There are LOTS of layers in the bodice, so be sure and use a very thin knit. The knit I used reminds me of "onionskin" - it was a mystery knit that I picked up at a cheap price in San Diego a couple of weeks ago. It never even made it into the fabric cabinet! (I wish I would do that more often.

I'm really in a sewing mood and would love to make up about a dozen knit tops of different styles, but I've been spending most of my time getting my classroom in order and now it will be my house. I am having knee surgery on Wednesday and I am the only one in my house who drives right now. I guess I'm going to have to learn to sew with my left foot since the surgery will be on my right knee :-)

OH! I got this in the mail the other day. Now I have something to look forward to reading while I'm stuck with my leg in a machine :-)

next up

Well, the dress was a hit at the wedding and I am SO glad that I had a strapless dress to wear. The weather was 100 plus degrees and the wedding was outside. Although we were able to sit in the shade during the ceremony, our table was in the sun. We finally all moved the table into the shade, but that was after sitting in the sun for about one hour. Anyway, needless to say, it was HOT, but I stayed as cool as possible.

I guess this has me in the strapless mood now. I've seen a couple of good reviews on PR for this Burda top (I guess we can't way BWOF anymore.) It is from June 2009 #113. I have some mystery fabric that I bought in San Diego last week that is similar to onion skin. I'm about 1/2 way done, so we'll see how it goes!

Vogue 8184 - Strapless Dress finished

Well, I barely finished this in time to wear to the wedding this evening, but I'm glad I did. I won't be making the black and white one anytime soon because I just found out that I have to have leg surgery, so my next week and a half will be spent scrambling around trying to get everything in my classroom and home in order (somewhat) because it is a long recovery from ACL surgery. I am not looking forward to it at all. I had the same surgery done on the other leg about 10 years ago and what I remember is waking up in a LOT of pain the day after surgery and it being a very long time before I could get back to a normal life. I will have to take 4-6 weeks off work, but fortunately, I am getting it done soon, so I will only miss about 2 weeks of work, hopefully. Unfortunately, I am starting a new grade this year, so I have no idea what I'm doing as far as planning for a sub (or even myself.)

Well, back to the dress. I ended up putting a lot more effort into this dress than the pattern called for, but I'm glad I did. I really could play volley ball in this dress and not have to worry about it. At the wedding this evening I saw MANY women in strapless dresses, and I also saw many of them, including the bride, tugging at their dresses. I never had to even think about tugging on mine. I did wear a strapless bra with it, but if I had made the top a little tighter, I would not have had to even do that. (and I NEVER go braless) I was so afraid that this was going to be too tight, so I think I ended up making it a little too loose. Even still, this dress fits well and between the pattern designs and the tips I learned in the Kenneth King bustier class really produced a well-made dress.


Here you can see that the boning is sewn at every vertical seam (except the zipper seam), The waist stay, in this case 1"wide polyester grossgrain ribbon, is hand sewn to the boning only. I also sewed a strip of organza ribbon along the top edge of the bodice to prevent any stretching. KK recommends either twill tape or strips of silk organza selvedge. I thought the twill tape would be too bulky, and I didn't have enough organza selvedge, so I thought I would try the organza ribbon since I already had it on had. That worked perfectly.















The skirt on this dress is rather full, but has a 1.25" hem. Usually this ends up in some pleating or "gathering" of the upper edge of the hem. This time I took my time and really used the iron and a spray mist bottle (the steam iron sagas are another story or two) and the skirt edge eased in perfectly with no puckers.






I think there is something weird with this picture because the zipper looks like it doesn't meet at the top. Actually, it does. I put this zipper in by hand because my centered zippers suck. I always put in a lapped zipper, but then it always makes it tricky to get the lining, or even a facing to lie flat and cover the zipper tape but allow you to zip the zipper all the way up. So, if you have a good tip on that for me, let me know. ANyway, this is a hand picked zipper, because I knew I would need a very strong zipper (thinking that it would be tighter than it was) At PR weekend LA a couple of years ago, we had Susan Khalje teach us some couture stitches and I remember her saying that a hand picked zipper is the strongest zipper application.

I'm glad I learned some of the tips from Jennifer Stearn's embroidery class and got the placement for this embroidery exactly where I wanted it. I wore the dress at the wedding tonight and it was comfortable easy to wear. I definitely want to make another one of these again.

A mess!

Since I am doing this dress without a collar or ribbon trim, I decided I would do some machine embroidery on the front. I am taking the online class from Robin Stearn at Pattern Review and have already learned some great tips. I did a practice piece, and it came out perfectly














Unfortunately, when I did the real deal on my dress bodice this morning, my machine decided to throw a fit and mess it all up!!! Fortunately, I have one scrap barely big enough to recut the center front bodice piece and start over. If it messes up again, I'm sunk!



So, this dress may end up being the "wedding" dress after all. It is taking a little longer than I expected (too many interruptions and machine malfunctions), so I can't imagine that I will have time to make dress number two. Also, I could not get enough of the fabric I needed for dress #2, and when I went to Fresno today to see if they had any (their computers said they did) they did not. I have some creative ideas on how to "make it work", but of course, that will take additional time. I really wanted a black and white dress to wear to the wedding since the theme is black and white, but it looks like I'll be wearing peacock blue and black - if I finish this dress!

Starting the strapless

Yesterday I made a muslin of the top, and after numerous adjustments, I think it's going to fit. I'm concerned because it is still pretty tight in the waist, but according to Kenneth King, there should be no ease... and honey, there aint no ease in this! A couple of years ago, I took an online class on PR with Kenneth King on making a bustier. I'm hoping to incorporate some of the techniques into this garment.

First of all, the whole foundation of a strapless dress is in the lining. The lining holds the boning and the waist stay. Also, there should be a strong supportive fabric as an interlining between the lining and the fashion fabric. KK recommends using wool felt or unwashed denim, but I didn't want this to be a suit of armor. I did want something that would not stretch or give, so I decided to underline the lining with silk organza. I'm hoping this will give enough support while still being light weight and cool. The vogue pattern doesn't call for any underlining at all, so it will at least be a step up from that. This dress has a lot of favorable reviews on Pattern Review, so I'm really hoping for a good result. I have never made a strapless dress before, and probably haven't worn one for 20 years!

the next step on this dress will be to put the boning in the lining. KK recommends using rigeline boning, which I like, but the Vogue pattern called for covered, so that's what I'm using. The advantage of rigeline is that it supports the bodice all along the boning. Covered boning only supports at the top and bottom of the seam since the boning "floats" inside the casing. I've only used rigeline, so I wanted to try the covered and see which I liked better.

I have to drive out of town tomorrow, but I hope that I can get some done on this dress in the morning.

Burda 5775 - finished!

Well, I finally got to my machine today, and I finished my dress. I put in one sleeve, but did not like the look. It seemed to look more matronly on me with the sleeve, so I took it off and bound the armholes with seam bindings. The neckline is finished with a facing. I'm wearing the dress right now, and even though it is pretty fitted, it is comfortable. I think I will get a lot of use out of this this summer.
































I really need to get busy on my sewing. I have a wedding that I'm going to next weekend and I want to make this dress. It's Vogue 8184. I'm planning on doing the strapless version with the collar and fuller skirt. I'm going to make a prototype first, just to be sure I like it. If I don't, I'll probably make something totally different, like maybe a knit dress.

Tomorrow I have absolutely nothing on my calendar that I need to do! You KNOW what I'm going to be doing :-)

Oh, and thanks to all of you who made comments about my knee. As it turns out, I have a torn ACL and now I'm going to need surgery. Unfortunately, the soonest they can get me in is right when school starts. I can't imagine taking off work right then because I don't even know what I'm doing since I'm changing grades. I wouldn't even begin to know how to make sub plans. Also, this is a big deal and I will need to take a minimum of 4 weeks off work. I would wait until Christmas break, but right now I can't kneel, crouch, climb, run, or jump. This is not good. I just bought a new bike, and it's even been giving me trouble on the bike. I want to get it fixed, but I don't want to miss that much work. arghhhh...

i-pod/pad/phone users enabler allert

Well, I was just browsing through bloglines this morning and on dress-a-day's post I read about an intriguing iphone ap. I clicked on the link and it directed me to this Threads review. So, being the tech junkie that I am, I headed straight for the apps store and picked up these two babies:
fabric stash
pattern pal
(sorry, I don't know how to link to these aps, but if you have itunes, open the apps link and then search for these two apps.)

These are both made by the same developer. I'm just downloading the, but they sound very good. I'll keep you posted!


The first day I was in San Diego I traveled all over looking for fabric stores. The first (and best) one I hit was yardage town. Nothing fancy but a great selection of fabrics. The prices were very good and I found a nice rayon acetate blend for a jacket and a tropical weight wool blend for pants. I am going back there again today.




The other fabric store I hit was in LaJolla named Jane's Fabrique. I was not impressed. They had a narrow selection of fabrics - or at least nothing that interested me. Fabrics were either $10-$15 a yard or $80-$90. Not much in between. There was a beautiful red tencel-rayon blend fabric with a wonderful drape. But there really wasn't anything I could think of that I would use it for. If it would have been in navy, ivory, or another good jacket color, I would have bought it for that, but there were only a couple of colors, none of which I was interested in.

Most of the other fabric stores that showed up on either my iphone or gps turned out to be either non existent or tailoring/alterations stores or sewing machine/vacuum stores.


Yesterday I tooled around downtown and the gaslamp district. Had a great lunch. Eventually I happened across the mall and went into Nordstroms. The salesgirl there was very friendly and helpful and I ended up buying 2 things there. By this time my feet were telling me "enough!" So I headed back to the parking garage - a good 6 city blocks and then back to the hotel.

Today I am headed back to yardage town just to look again with fresh eyes and see if anything else begs to be purchased! Also, I need to pick up some 2" wide elastic for this New Look pattern I picked up the other day.

This afternoon we are going to the zoo. I absolutely love to go to the zoo. I know the SD zoo really requires a couple of days to give it justice, but we only have this afternoon.

We are heading back to the valley tomorrow morning because Andy has a meetiing at 6. He is training for a triathalon for Team in Training which supports the leukemia and lymphma society. He is participating in honor of my dad who died almost 2 years ago (hard to believe it's been that long) of cancer. I'll be posting more about that later.



Hmmmm... I think someone wanted to go on the trip with us

Not Quite Finished

I was hoping to finish the dress this evening because we are leaving for San Diego tomorrow. If I weren't singing at church, I could probably finish it in the morning. Oh well, when I get back. The neck facing is sewn in and under stitched, but still needs hand work. I just need to do the sleeves and the hem. I really like the fabric on this. It is a heavier weight cotton (& I think Lycra blend). I didn't mark the changes in length above the bust correctly, so I had to make 1/4" shoulder seams. The fabric was fraying at that seam before I could even finish the edge, so I pressed the seam open and laid a narrow strip of fusible interfacing on top of it. This will keep the edges of the seam from fraying and give a little extra stability to the shoulder seam. Most of that will be covered up by the neck facing.

I'll be anxious to get back and finish the dress.

Well, I'm sick of being fatter than ever and none of my clothes fitting right. Today I went back to weight watchers. I want to lose about 13 pounds. Also, we just got Wii Fit and have been having a blast playing it. In fact, DD is yelling at it right now :-) When I was in Uganda I had an accident and tore a ligament in my right knee. It is still giving me trouble, so I have to be careful about what exercises I do. The other day I was riding my bike and it popped out on me, so, I have been hesitant to do that either. I have an appt to get a second opinion next week.

DH has a business trip in San Diego this week, so I am tagging along. I'm hoping to find some good fabric stores to haunt while he is working. I also have a couple of good books I want to read while I'm there.