New Look 6071 View A done

Thanks for your birthday wishes!  It was fun! And the snow has moved on and it was bright, clear skies today!
So....lately I've been sewing on Sunday mornings and really enjoying it.  I finished up the dress I started last night.  Well, I'm thinking about ripping out the hem and doing a minimal hem to try to gain as much length as possible; I shouldn't have cut length off this dress!


Here's the pattern.

It's a New Look Project Runway "Workroom" pattern. I saw it at the ASE where I met Deborah again, one of the Simplicity reps. She said to be really careful about marking that front piece...so I was and it seemed to have paid off.   I think it looks pretty elegant for not a lot of work. The right side front gets a "buttonhole" that the left side front is pushed through.  It's basically a slit with some stitching around it.  I guess it's not necessary to make a real buttonhole.  Oh, and I didn't understand step 11 at all, so I skipped it and moved merrily on.

(I, um, actually used a sharpie marker to mark the dots, etc on the wrong side, testing first to make sure they wouldn't bleed through.  I'm sure this is illegal sewing behavior but I figure all the sewists who do things the "right" way don't read my blog...)

That neckline is mighty deep. We're talking Burda deep. I'd like to  make this wearable to work sometime (er, when it's not freezing out, maybe with tights and a cardigan and a tank like Carrie suggested).  I *might* wear it to PR Day Austin.

The instructions state to cut out and use a binding on the neckline and armholes; I folded the edge over and twin needle stitched with the 2.5 needle. I think it looks nice. :)

I used the 4.0 stretch twin needle on the hem. (The pattern did have a "workroom tip" for the neckline and hem, that it could be serged and the SA cut off....too bad it didn't mention twin needle stitching as you know I love that technique.  Why not expose sewists to it?)

Here it is with my super cute mary janes.

It's a bit of a story but is essentially the front of the dress is a 12 and the back is a 14.
I had swayback issues of course:

But I put in two darts (using my Muse dress as a guide--though that one had 4 back darts and I only put 2 in this dress). It seems to have come out ok, from the side view at least

Here's the back view "before":

Here's the back view "after". Maybe it's a little overfitted from the back view?

Well, I think it's fun and cute, and could see making it again, maybe raising the neckline (which I'd have to think about how to do, and would probably involve moving the "buttonhole"), in some super fun sparkly knit or something.   :)


The Princeton farmer's mkt didn't have any flowers this week (though it had plenty of rain!). Mom gave me yellow roses for my birthday and they are gorgeous!

And I don't know; I just thought this was neat this morning, to see the shadow of my lamp on my bedroom wall

Be well and good night!

Did you hear?

It's mah birthday!


Oh yes, it also snowed all over including NJ!!  It's the first time it ever snowed on my birthday.

Do you see my pumpkin there in the snow? (oh, and my pumpkin growing experiment was a big FAIL. So that's a store-bought pumpkin)

My neighbor's tree couldn't take it; it looks like it collapsed under the weight:

And here are three trees in various stages of de-leafing:

So I had a nice lunch down the shore with my parents, then drove back to "beat the snow" but got caught in it instead. Once I got back to my house I took a nice 2 hour nap, ahhhh....

OH! So thanks for all the comments about the straight hair. It was SO much fun to have it straight for a few days and I got a lot of interesting comments on it at work and the gym and here on the blog. To answer your questions, it was flat ironed (not the keratin treatment) and done by my hairdresser. I had never had it straightened before. I'm not planning on flat ironing it myself, but I will have it done from time to time by my hairdresser. It seemed kind of weird the first two days and then I was really loving it.
So, it's back to curly, at least for today. ;)

Here's what I worked on tonight, New Look 6071, in progress. I picked up this pattern at the ASE.

It's not done yet, but you get the idea:


It's a pretty cool looking dress and the construction is pretty awesome, very simple in a way but it looks pretty cool. That v-neck is way low though and I'll have to figure out a way to make it more work-friendly.  It is actually a brown double knit though the picture color looks weird.

Funny that I chose a snowy day to make a summer dress but it's my birthday and I can do what I want. I might wear it in Austin for PR Day next month.


Be well and good night!

Straight hair?! and Simplicity 2154 this time in brown

Hello!
I liked Simplicity 2154 view D (the 60's retro pencil skirt) so much that I made it again, in the same corduroy, but in brown! (that shirt is purchased). This time I cut the 14 and wound up sewing the side seams down a bit more still..but otherwise it was the same alterations as last week's blue skirt.   I think the waistband could be tighter, but it is nice to be able to breathe while seated, I suppose.

And here it is styled with New Look 6735 leaf vest I made last week

I wish I could say that making this skirt the second time was easier and faster than the first, but I had an invisible zipper meltdown where I somehow twisted the zipper when installing it...twice.. It totally baffled me! Third time was the charm.

So what do you think of my hair?

Do you like it? Does it look weird? Does it look like Ozzy Osbourne hair?  That was the first person I thought of when I saw it...

For the first time in my life I had my hair straightened today. It will only last til it gets wet. I have always wondered how it would look!  My hair is pretty long straight...

Some more pix:


and another

I started working on Simplicity 3673, which is a 50's retro pattern.  Here's the back of the jumper so far, with darts on the left but not on the right, yet.  I don't know if I'm going to finish this one, sewing with this plaid is driving my eyes a bit bonkers.

So as my birthday is coming up, I made some cookies and cake for work for an afternoon celebration. (At my office, when it's your birthday YOU bring the celebratory item. And I must say, several officemates are in denial about having birthdays). So I made Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookies with walnuts from scratch:

I had a total fridge cake meltdown as well with the whipping cream.  This has NEVER happened to me before.

So I started over and used a metal bowl and metal beaters that I put in the freezer first; used my mixer instead of the food processor; and finally had success with whipping the cream!

Ta-da!  MUCH better:

(Oh, and thanks last week for the comments about the soup; I didn't try to fix it and it tasted fine.)
Farmer's Mkt flowers for this week:

I did a lot of chores today too, and with that, poof, the weekend is gone!
Be well and good night!

Simplicity 2154 view D: 60's retro pencil skirt done

hello!
I was inspired by Elizabeth and her orange skirt over at Sewn, and decided to sew up a corduroy skirt of my own.  Joann's didn't have any orange corduroy, so I went with this blue number instead.  I can't wait to wear it to work tmw, albeit with a long sleeved shirt and maybe stockings.  (The shirt is from JCPenney 2 summers ago)

It's Simplicity 2154 view D, the pencil skirt from their 1960's retro collection.  I picked up the pattern at the ASE in the lower size range, then thought I'd need the 16 for the skirt, so I bought it at the 99cent pattern sale at Joann's on Columbus Day (a nice little post-work excursion).

I made it out of a beautiful blue corduroy from Joann's, which I also purchased Monday night.  This fabric never hit the stash closet!

I wanted to show you the skirt with my shoes, but the lighting here is bad...but you get the idea.  (I happened to go back to Sears today and buy the shoes in the other 2 colors):

This skirt is a simple pencil skirt but I love it because it actually is at waist level.  It also has 8 darts and while I'm not a dart-lover, I do like the shaping it provides....no swayback fitting problems here!

Bad back shot. I realized after taking this picture that the zipper was not zipped up all the way.

I moved the zipper to the center back seam.  I did this mainly because I wound up having to take in the side seams and it's easier for me to do that without the zipper in the fitting way.  So the skirt is more like a 14 now.   I also used an invisible zipper. I was so afraid of them before but now I love them.  This is my third garment with an invisible zip.

I also had this idea that back vents were hard to do?  This was actually pretty easy.  I cut three inches off the bottom of the skirt, so the vent isn't as long as it could have been.

 On my monitor, the picture above is the truest to the actual fabric color, a very pretty blue.

I did the hem twice, and as I used my surgical seam ripper to efficiently rip out the seam, it also efficiently ripped a hole in my skirt, which I think I salvaged with some fusible interfacing.  Otherwise this skirt will get shorter by another 5/8 or so....

I also cooked today.  Here's chicken cordon bleu with a honey mustard sauce from Cook This Not That, and cantelope chunks (my dinner).  The sauce is made with 1/2 a lemon, which I forgot....went back to the grocery store tonight for the lemon.  I love using the lemon squeezer:

I also made the summer vegetable soup.  All was looking ok-ish here:

But I guess the milk curdled!   That's the first time that's ever happened to me.  I think it's still edible? Any thoughts on that?

Farmer's Mkt flowers for this week:

I went to my favorite bakery yesterday for some treats. YUM.

I think I'm writing my 100th pattern review tonight, about Simplicity 2054, both the articulated and unarticulated versions.
(ETA:  My 100th pattern review is posted now!)

Be well and good night!

New Look 6735: quick fall vest in leafy green

I've had this fabric from Joann's since last year.  In the winter I made a sleep shirt from this fabric using a Vogue pattern, but I wanted to make a pullover vest too, to wear over a shirt or under a jacket.

The leaves are 2 shades of green and white, but somehow I think of this as a fall vest.  Hrm.

I started this Monday night and finished it off tonight.


It's New Look 6735, view C without the sleeves, in size 14.  I tried making the shirt before (in 2008, in turquoise) and failed with the sleeves, wound up wearing it as a vest. 


In these pix I'm wearing the vest over a purchased shirt.

Do I look too much like a 5 year old in this fabric?  Maybe it would be better to wear it under a jacket or cardigan?


Side view.  I made the back from some leftover brown knit fabric.


There's a CB seam, so that wasn't very friendly for this fabric pattern.  Thus, I used the brown fabric for the back.


This pattern has the front side seam longer than the back.  You gather between the notches in the bust area. It's interesting I think.  Like a fake-out "dart".

To finish the neckline, I fused on some knit interfacing and then folded over and twin needle stitched down with a 2.5 stretch twin needle.

I interfaced because this fabric stretches if you look at it sideways, much less touch it.

I interfaced the hem too. At the ASE this year, I heard one instructor cringe talking about this method, but I learned this technique from another ASE instructor last year. I think it boils down to, what works for you best in a given situation. I found the interfacing method does NOT need to be used for all knits. But in a case of a Stretchy McStretcherton knit like this, it works for me.


For all you structural biology/chemistry types, go ahead and find the asymmetric unit in this fabric.  I dare you!  Knock yourself out!


Be well and good night!