EPIC WIN: My 2009 Sewing Favorites

Almost two weeks ago I blogged about my 2009 Sewing Disasters. Today it's time for a positive spin with my 2009 retrospective on my sewing wins!

Let's start the show!

I think it's a tie for my two favorite garments of the year.

1. First up is my white jacket:

I fell in love with the embroidered fabric at JoAnn's, ignored it for a shopping trip or two, finally succumbed to it even though the fabric is impractically white. I whipped up a coat in a weekend-ish.

I'm not loving them hem, but I was very proud of the bias taped interior finish. You know I must be, because I never showed the interior of a garment before, have I? I added pockets the following weekend because the lack of pockets was driving me insane.


I also added the loop for hanging up the coat in my gym locker:



I also love these buttons (though the jacket actually snaps shut):


I wore it everyday until the temp dropped to the 30's.

2. This is a tie for #1, essentially. It was my first attempt at piping something, and I absolutely fell in love with the technique!


I wore it all winter. And now I'm wearing it again on weekends. Plus I finally got to use stash fabric that's upwards of 12 years old!


3. So once I started piping, I couldn't stop, with this nightgown and bathrobe set!
I wore the bathrobe every weekend during the summer.


Overall, I think it's pretty cool.

I also made the nightgown again, this time in a black print with red piping:


I actually never wore this nightgown, though (yes I can hear you all gasping!)


4. I was doing physical therapy when I made this pillow (I mean, not during therapy itself). I told the therapist that I sew, and when she asked what I was making, she sort of scoffed at the idea of a pillow, like pillows are so easy. But this was more complicated than what I think she had in mind:

At the time, I believe I blogged that it's one of those projects best done slowly, a bit at a time. There's no instant gratification with a pillow like this.
I really should fill out the corners with some stuffing (it's currently stuffed with a pillowform).

I look at it everyday on my Ikea chair and it makes me smile.


5. I just adore this cowl neck shirt. I made it again this year, this time in gray. It was worn quite frequently, along with the original pink version.

The ties on the back are just adorable.


6. I only made this 2 weekends ago, but it is destined to become a shirt I wear frequently. I was unsure of the overall look, but I wore it to work and felt very comfy in it. The fabric is just delightful and soft!!


7. I was pretty happy with this shirt that looks more like a jacket once the puckering collar issue was resolved. I wear it about once a week. I rediscovered the joy of princess seaming.

I never should have washed it, though. It was kind of brutal to the fabric.

8. I'm very fond of this Built by Wendy shirt, especially now that I've worked the sizing of the biceps out! I think the ties are adorable!


9. I really love the pleating of this neckline!


10. And I like my little giftmas gift to myself: this red nightgown. I've worn it quite a lot lately.


So that's it for my 2009 epic wins! I think my next "epic" post will be about what I learned about sewing this year. :)

So it was a lot funnier to write about failures than the wins...Good night!

Simplicity 3696 DONE

I finished off Simplicity 3696 tonight, woo!

I abandoned my "dark blue cuff" idea and just added a strip of red fabric cut with the selvages. I think it looks like a long cuff and looks more like a feature and less like "I didn't have enough fabric." I have other ideas for future shirts, such as sewing multiple strips of fabric together as a cuff, or to pintuck the cuffs.

You can see the slubbiness of the fabric. Antoinette was asking if it's soft. It's ok. Not really scratchy, but not very soft either. I think it will get softer over time, though I have no evidence of that, it's just a hunch.



I wound up ripping out the old gathers and putting in new ones.
these are the old gathers:


these are the new gathers:


I think I might actually like the old gathers better. Sigh. That was 20 minutes of my life, gone.

Back update: My back is so much better. I woke up Monday morning and felt fine which was pretty wild after Sunday night's pain

Knee update: I have to check my pain spreadsheet, but I think I had a week without knee pain, but it's been coming back. My right knee has been hurting since Saturday. I see Len on Friday and hope he can help me out.

New pain: something in my shoulder--hmm..we'll see where that's going...

Nostalgia: It was a year ago that we went to Kauai. Oh, nostalgia.

Good night!

Simplicity 3696 red nightgown in progress

I've previously made the bathrobe from Simplicity 3696. But I also wanted to make the shirt/nightgown from the same pattern. I cut it out last week and started sewing it tonight.



Fabric is this "recycled" organic cotton knit from lucys.com. I think it said it was made of remnants from a cotton fabric, which is why it's kind of slubby. I remember when I washed and dried it, it shrank a lot.



So I'm thinking of making the sleeves long-sleeved by adding some navy blue contrast cuffy things. I would have cut it out long sleeved but I just didn't have enough fabric (looking back, though, I would probably make just a long sleeved shirt instead of a nightgown). And then I'll hem the nightgown and it's done. Or I might try to fix the gathering to make it more even, but really, I'm going to sleep in this, it's probably good enough.


So this is my Giftmas gift to myself. A red season-appropriate nightgown.

Cookie update: I'm really glad that I decided to redo the cookies. They were a big hit. I had quite a few of them myself. And I had nice comments like, "Are those Kyle's chocolate chip cookies? Usually they're all gone when I find out they're here." A newbie said, "These are really good." Gotta love extrinsic validation!!

Star Trek, Anyone (AKA Simplicity 3559 view B)

For today's Sewing Saturday I decided to try Simplicity 3559, view B, a 60's retro pattern. It has a front center seam which I had planned on eliminating by cutting the pattern on the fold. But since it actually opens up into a V at the collar, I wasn't sure how to handle that. So I cut it with the seam down the front.

I hated it.

I thought the seaming, plus the color, and that funky little collar, makes it look costumey. Like it's a bad Star Trek knockoff for Halloween. I just need a fake triangular type patch and beam me up.

Pete said I look like "number 6" from Battlestar Galactica. I had to look that one up.



I need a haircut. Love how my hair looks square in this pic (to show the side panels):


That back neck is HIGH!


Ideas to fix it:

• Definitely not putting sleeves in--this pattern doesn't come with sleeve facings but I thought of something...
• Already ripped out that ugly hem and will fix that too
• I will taper the front seam from the waist out to minimal seam allowance as it's rather weirdy looking there in the side picture
• I already ironed out that weird crease.

Thinking of adding buttons (they are actually a view B feature):

Options:
white buttons with red flowers:



Or red ones:


I thought about sewing red buttons all the way down the front seam, but that would be weird, right? Plus I don't have that many "same" buttons to sew all the way down the front.

Also thought about piping the front seam, but that also would be weird, right? Because then I'd have to pipe the other seams too.

After a one hour long walk tonight, I was itching to do more sewing, but I did not want to touch red Star Trek dress again today. I wanted to make something I knew I could make, that was a sure winner. So out came New Look 6443 for round two of the nightgown! I'm nearing completion of it, but I cut myself off from the sewing machine for the rest of tonight.

Piping is back, this time in brick red:





I am infinitely happier with the nightgown than the dress. But looking at the photos now, the dress isn't SO bad.

Which do you prefer? Star Trek dress with red buttons or white ones with flowers? Vote now!!

First half of supersized weekend

I'm having a 4 day weekend. Yeah!!
It started yesterday with the morning in bed, an afternoon of retail therapy and then some cupcakes.

Left to right:
85 cent cupcake from Gina's Pastry Shop
$1.70 cupcake from LaBon
$2.25 (or was it $2.50?) rose cupcake from LaBon



I think La Bon's cupcakes are slightly more delicious but they are definitely a close match. Gina's are certainly cheaper and a bit closer to my home. (I asked the cashier, these are really 85 cents? and she said yes!)

I started sewing again! I know! I shouldn't be sewing but I couldn't help myself. We'll see how I feel tmw. Right now, I don't feel any different than before I started sewing today. I stretched before sewing and took breaks, and set a time limit so didn't sew for as long as I would have liked. But I have been wanting to make this nightgown since I saw it on Kitty Couture! Be sure to check out the last picture in that post--what a hoot!

My new friend piping was along for the ride:

I made a nightgown.

Here's a closeup as it exists now:


Cute, right?

I'm trying to decide how to finish it off.


Three square buttons?


Three round buttons with red flowers?


One round button?

Here's the back:


And here it is with the flash, so you can see the embroidery in the fabric:


Of course, I have a lot to say about the pattern, especially since it had bad reviews on SPR. I actually liked it, and will post a review in the next few days to explain why.

I started my next project. Guess what this will be:



Good night!!