mad men.

I made this dress this weekend.  I used New Look pattern 6869.  I have been watching Mad Men (a little Jon Hamm, anyone, anyone) and was inspired to make this dress.  I cut it out on Thursday sewed most of it together on Friday and finished on Saturday during nap time.  loving how it turned out.
the fabric is just a $4.00/yd cotton twill that i found at Hancock's.  I was gonna go with a wool/cotton mix but figured that i could go back and make this dress again with the expensive crap.  
I, as always, learned a few thingies.
1.  Line the bodice with a light material.  seriously.  I lined it with the same fabric I used on the rest and it made for a very, very VERY thick collar.
2.  Follow the directions.
3.  Read the directions.
4.  Invisible zipper foot.  Holy crap, the greatest invention ever.  EVER!  I did not even know this thing existed till yesterday.  Life changing.  It only cost $2.40 at Joann.  
5.  Put in my first vent.
6.  I need a dress form.
7.  UNDERSTITCHING.  
8.  I am pretty sure that the directions were translated from Mandarin Chinese.   
9.  Dang, my calves look good in this dress:)
10.  Zippers- I kill 'em.


My confidence in dress making is definitely getting better.  I am a pro at darts (16 for this dress) and sleeves.  I ended up putting in four sleeves (two for each copy- the outside that you see and the lined bodice).  I am pretty pro at collars, but my confidence is not quite there, you know?

shirt

Those who know me know that I am loving the reemergence of the 1980's.  I also blogged the other day about how I wish I could be Joan Collins and/or live my life as though I was a character from Dynasty.  I went to the Goodwill about a month ago or so and found a 1980's McCall's pattern.  It is an amazing pattern.  So I went to the fabric store and found some fabric and behold:

The fabric ended up looking awesome, especially with the pockets turned on the bias, but it was really hard to work with.  It was like 60% poly, 5% spandex and the rest cotton.  It frayed easily and did not keep a crisp line.  I did learn a few things!
1.  Collars are not that hard.  I think I have got it down.
2.  Following the directions makes things SO much easier!!
3.  Hemming:  Since the fabric would not retain a nice clean line, I decided to do a running stitch on the seam allowance, which in this case was 5/8".  Then I went back and ironed the seam allowance then folded the unfinished edge into the folded seam.  Then I finished the hem.  EASY!  I am sure I am not the first person to come up with such a trick, but I thought it was a brilliant idea!  And it worked beautifully.
4.  My chalk pencil is the ballz.
5.  I need to take better measurements because for me, my measurements are always changing.  I ended up having to take in the sides and sleeves another 1.5", but even so, it is still a little big.

Yay for vintage patterns!!!

Hoodies

I found this fab pattern on etsy for this hoodie.  It looked super easy and fall is upon us, so here is the result!  I opted for flannel for the lining but I am not sure I would do that again.  I mean, it looks really cool, but flannel does not have much stretch, as does the sweatshirt fabric.  I have never used sweatshirt fabric before and it wasn't too bad to use.  I made sure I finished all seams with my overlock foot, which helped the seams lay flat...and TOPSTITCHING. I dedicated an entire post to my love affair with TOPSTITCHING and I meant it!  Also, I opted for snaps instead of buttons.  Buttons made it look pretty girly so that was a definite no-go.  Brian took Rad to a Marquette football game and Rad came home perfectly warm!  Okay, off to my next project. 

Eat Your Heart Out, Princess

I finished my Amy Butler Liverpool dress this week!!!  I wore it to church today.  The besticle part of wearing something you make is when somebody compliments you on it, you get to say, "Thanks!! I made it!!!".  I did get a few compliments, not complement.  That's biology.
So... Here it is!

This was the first collar I put in and it was certainly not easy.  I do not make any attempt to be a perfectionist but collars require perfection and precision.  I can do precision, but perfection alludes me.  But I think I killed the collar!  I am going to make another shirt with a collar and some pajamas for the boyz so I can master the collar.  

I also learned that interfacing is my new besticle friend.  I love interfacing.  And belts.  Isn't the belt fab?  The most important thing I learnt is that being a perfectionist does not necessarily mean that the results will be any better than if you are going for speed, or as I like to call it, efficiency.  Let me explain.  There is a lady in my class who cut, marked, pressed, pinned to the T.  She started sewing before me and was way ahead of me.  Then there is me.  I just go.  I am all about business.  I have about 2 hours a couple times a week to sew so I try to get as much done during that time that I can.  I don't have time to pin and re-pin 100 times.  What I am saying is that Lady probably spent twice as long on her dress than I did and it did not turn out any better/worse than mine.  I beat myself up trying to be more of a perfectionist but the more I sew and do other things too, I am finding that perfectionism doesn't really add much to the end result, other than time:)  I do think that I could pay a little more attention to reading the directions.  That is time well spent!

Quilted Coasters, A Must

I wanted to share one of the projects that I started/finished this week (another biggie to come!!!)  We were in desperate need of some coasters.  Contrary to what Brian believes (that those water rings can be rubbed off wood), coasters are kind of a big deal, unless you want unruly water stains on your wood.  Out there in the blogging /craft book world, there are gazillions of tutorials, patterns and the such for quilted coasters.  I got out my scraps and came up with my own little block.  I also made the cutest birdie appliqué and fused them on.  Easy project, but I thought I would share the results.  I did not use fusible batting which I will always do for projects like this in the future.  Speaking of the future, I am thinking some quilted place mats!  A few other things I learned that might be useful....

1.  Don't bother with the (cheap) store bought printer fabric.  It is way better to use bubble jet 2000/set /freezer paper method.  It takes a little longer but I found that the adhesive they use to adhere the fabric to the paper is way too sticky. I printed really small things and when I went to remove the fabric it tore.

2.  Use a small needle to quilt the coasters.