Floral Vintage Vogue

After a couple of basics and a just okay outfit I really wanted to sew something I will love. Well, I at least like this - a lot, but it's not perfect.

This is Vogue 8811. I bought this pattern two or three years ago, loved it at first then started feeling skeptical about it and never got around to trying it until now. I lowered and widened the neckline and added pockets. Overall, I'm not sure if I like this bodice or not. I sort of like it but it's not quite right somehow. I do not like shoulder pads so I adjusted the shoulders for the lack of shoulder pads. I think I need to shorten it (the bodice) about an inch next time. (maybe) The skirt, on the other hand, I do love and I will be using it again. It's a half circle.

The pattern included a piece for making a matching belt but I decided to buy one instead and ended up buying two. The one above was supposed to be grey. The photo on Amazon looked light beige or "bone" color (exactly what it looks like in my photo) but the description said grey. I trusted the description but it was the photo that was accurate. The other one is a neon yellow. I was hoping it would match the bright yellow-green leaves.

Close, but not quite. I like it anyway though - the color, that is. I like the narrower width of the beige belt. I still want to find a grey belt that is actually grey as well as a couple of the other colors from the fabric.

What next?

Do you ever finish a project and you can't wait to start the next one but you have no idea what you want to sew? It should help to have sort of a plan but for me, not so much. I went into my stash and fondled all the fabric and looked through my patterns. I found a couple of pieces of fabric that I forgot I purchased even though it wasn't all that long ago - less than a year. Nothing really screamed, "Sew me now!" Well, actually, most of them screamed, "Sew me now!" and that's part of the problem. Also, which pattern to use and that I haven't pre-washed the fabrics I most want to sew right now and waiting an hour for it to go through the washer and dryer is just too much because I want to cut it out right now. So I'm blogging instead. Make sense? No, of course not. Who said this was supposed to make sense?

I do have something new and wonderful to show off. I'll try to get around to photographing it later when, hopefully, it has warmed up a bit. It is ridiculously cold for the second day of May. And by the way, it's my birthday. I am... no wait, that can't be right. I am a number that seems unreal and doesn't really matter anyway.

Neue Mode 23347 Minus Sleeves... Oops, Plus Other Sleeves

I hate Neue Mode patterns. First of all, I hate that they do not include seam allowances. Yeah, I know, some sewists find advantages to it, like you get to decide how big of a seam allowance you want - for example, 3/8 instead of 5/8 or whatever, but I'm used to patterns that have seam allowances. So I'm spoiled. I am what I am. They also do not come with instructions, which generally isn't a problem for me but I like to have them "just in case."

Other than that, I suppose Neue Mode 23347 isn't really bad. It was easy enough but as I was cutting it out I kept thinking, "Why did I even buy this pattern; it's going to turn out to be just this shapeless, sack-like thing." And honestly I really don't remember why I bought it but I suppose it didn't turn out terrible.

My original intention was to make it sleeveless but that didn't work out. The pattern doesn't show a sleeveless version and I could see from looking at the pieces that the armholes would have been huge. I cut them a lot smaller but they were still indecent. The really disappointing thing was not that I didn't get to have a sleeveless tunic but that, other than being too big, they were the first perfect armholes I have ever made - no twisting, no puckering. [sigh]

I didn't have enough fabric left over for sleeves but fortunately I was able get more. I made them loose for comfort. I also added pockets because, Must Have Pockets! I'm actually not sure yet how I feel about it. I need to live with it for a while but it's comfortable and I think I'm going to be okay with it.

And now on to the leggings.

These are McCall's 6173 which is sized totally wrong. If I had made them exactly according the pattern, in my normal size, they would have fit like palazzo pants. Seriously. Okay maybe not that bad but definitely like loose fitting trousers. I took them in about two inches at the inseam and they're still too loose. They're also too long but that's my fault. I was afraid of making them too short.

I can fix them easily enough but I was impatient to move on to the next thing so I'm going to wear and wash them a few times and see what happens and then maybe I'll fix them or maybe I'll just pretend it's a deliberate fashion statement.

Inspirations and Temptations

Not a lot this week but you can always find something inspiring or tempting, right?

First, look at what Carolyn has done with stripes. And notice that perfect stripe matching on the side. I'm not a big fan of straight shift type dresses for myself but I like this idea and I'm thinking there must be some way I can adapt it to something more my style. Maybe just a tunic, but I'm not abandoning the idea of a dress of some kind.

I sort of have dresses on the brain lately, as in "When, oh when will the weather finally warm up enough to wear breezy summer dresses again?" The weather has been strange this year. It was warm back in February. Now, not so much.

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I almost passed by this one without taking a good look but, fortunately, something made me stop and look at all the pictures and read the whole thing. I'm so glad I did because just look at all that hand applique work! The whole thing, not just the applique, is sewn by hand.

I have actually had it in mind for years to completely hand sew a garment just to say I've done it. I actually enjoy hand sewing and I think the blanket stitch is fun to do but I don't know if I will ever tackle anything that elaborate. But doing something with a lot of applique is tempting, so... maybe.

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I just discovered Dandelion Drift. I must admit I was initially attracted to the name since, as I might have mentioned before, I have a bit of a thing for dandelions. And, going past the name, it looks like I might be finding some inspiration there from time to time, such as the colors in this room decor

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I have mostly been avoiding temptation lately but of course there is always something tempting in eQuilter's What's New section. (Nope, not advertising for them; I just genuinely love them.) My little girl heart is so in love with this ballet print but my responsible grown-up self (spoil-sport) keeps saying, "Shush! You know we probably wouldn't wear that because it's just too pretty and we have way too many quilt ideas already and the husband would never let us put that much pink on the bed anyway."

Here's one that's completely different and more likely to turn into something wearable: this large scale floral. Those flowers are nine inches across! I'd love to see a wider view of the fabric but this is something I might take a chance on.

White Skirt

I don't wear white very often. In fact, I avoid it. I have one white blouse that I made because I felt like everyone needs a white blouse but I rarely wear it. The reason is that I am a bit of slob at the dinner table. No matter how hard I try to eat like a lady there's a better than 50/50 chance that part of my meal will end up on my clothes so when I think of wearing white or pastels I have visions of clothing disasters involving red sauce or blueberry pie filling. Nevertheless, I recently got a notion that I "need" a white skirt. I started thinking about it mainly because of the "seafoam" or "aqua" dot fabric in the second pic in this post. It's going to be a top and I was thinking about what I would wear with it and decided that it needs a white skirt. Well, I haven't made the top yet because it turns out that I don't have enough for the pattern I wanted to use so now I'm trying to decide which other pattern I want to use. Anyway... on to the skirt.

White things are hard to photograph. I took about 20 or 30 pictures, on different days, indoors and out, and most of them came out with a large, blank white area where the skirt is supposed to be.

I made it to look like a favorite RTW denim skirt that I had ages ago. It has elastic in the back.

I almost always go untucked but I wanted to show the whole skirt. In real life I will always wear it like this or with one of my shorter (high hip length) tops.

The fabric is just a medium-light weight twill from Wal-mart. I wanted it to be something that is not precious so I won't be afraid to wear it. It was reasonably fast and easy to make and I can always get more white twill so I will wear it.

Inspirations and Temptations

For a long time I've been thinking I need a weekly feature and even knew what I wanted it to be but I've been hesitant to start. In "real life" I am exceptionally good at keeping to schedules and commitments (you might even say obsessive) but online it's a different story. So, instead of a "weekly feature" I'm just going to call this a "randomly recurring feature". Here we go...

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First, from Advanced Style (I'm going to only post smaller versions of other people's photos. Follow the link to see it full size.)

Overall, this is not my style at all. I like the look on other people but for me the long, loose, flowy business doesn't seem practical for my life. Also, nobody around here dresses like that. Not that that would bother me, especially; I probably dress weird anyway, but this just seems totally alien to our region.

What I can take from this is the colors. Orange, red, rust, turquoise, and a bit of green. The leggings and a more me-styled tunic? (whatever that is) I don't know when I'll get around to it but I'm definitely keeping this combination in mind and I will be looking for these colors and similar prints.

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And landscape print dresses!

You know that thing they do on TV with the ray of light from heaven and angels singing, "Aaaahhhhhhh..."? Well, when I saw Roisin's blog post it was kind of like that. I have been seeing and loving and being tempted by big landscape prints but I always think, "What can I do with that?" and since all I can think of is a quilt that I would get around to finishing in maybe 15 years I, sadly, move on. So why didn't I ever realize how perfect and lovely a landscape dress would be?

Roisin always inspires me with her use of wild and crazy prints. I'm always attracted to novelty prints but sometimes timid about using them, especially larger prints. I love that there are people out there to inspire me to do what I always wanted to do anyway.

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And here is temptation to which I have already given in:

If you have decided that you are absolutely not going to buy any more fabric for a while DO NOT go to Fabric.com (or any other fabric retailer) "just to look". How could I possibly resist fish paisley? Fish paisley! How awesome is that? I already have a black and white paisley dress. Just normal paisley, of course, but still, I thought I should do something different with this one so I bought the black on white polka dot to go with it. I'm thinking that will be the bodice but I haven't decided on all the details yet.

I love colors; I've never seen a color that I thought was too bright but there's something very appealing about black and white too. I've seen it recently here and here but I can't honestly say those inspired me this time. It was definitely the fish paisley.

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And this pattern:

This one has been tempting me for a while. I already have at least a dozen patterns that I haven't used yet. But I finally decided to get it. I'll make this one soon. Really.

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And a couple more: Anna has found a blouse pattern with hem facings. I'm generally not a fan of facings but that seems like a really good idea for curved hems.

And a temptation I will definitely not give in to: Oonaballoona's bright floral print trousers. She's got the booty to rock those things; I do not. But, for me, maybe some print leggings with a modest tunic? I don't know. I'll let that one simmer for a while.

OMG! X-Rated Fabric!

I am, by today's standards, the kind of person whom many people would consider a prude, but I am not without a sense of humor so I'm going to share something indecent and possibly shocking, but hopefully funny.

I also tend to be oblivious to a lot of things that make other people gasp and snicker so in spite of the text of this tweet I had to stare at the picture for a couple of minutes before I saw it. And now I can't un-see it. (Yes, I could put the picture here and save you the trouble of clicking but I'm not going to because I don't want it on my blog. Prude, remember?)

The scary thing about this is, if I had seen this pillow or the fabric in a store I might have thought "What a lovely blue and white floral," and bought it without realizing. Note to self: always examine complex prints carefully!

The First Summer Blouse

Finally, I have actual new photos of an actual new thing I sewed. Yay, me! First of all, I swear the two halves of the front are perfectly even. This happens every time I try to take pictures of a blouse. And, even aside from that, overall, it's not a great picture but... [Stop apologizing for the lousy pictures, Lynn.]

And here are the two patterns I used. I love a couple of the collars on the old McCall's pattern but that was several sizes ago so I used this Kwik Sew pattern and reshaped the neckline to fit the McCall's collar. I like the way it turned out and I'm going to do it again.

Both this fabric and the buttons I originally bought to go with something else. The buttons are from Create for Less, which is a great store for buttons and other notions but their close-up images could be better so when I wanted buttons for something specific I ordered several different styles of button that I thought might work. These are the ones I didn't use but I loved them and I'm so happy I finally got to use them. A similar thing happened with the fabric. I ordered this to go with another print and ended up deciding to use something else for that project. It's a smooth cotton; the "texture" is just printed.

I think it would actually go better with my black jeans. Anyway, I like it and I think I'm going to be wearing it often.

Still Here, Still Sewing

Oops. It's been ages since I updated this thing. I have been sewing; (when I haven't had my face in a really awesome science fiction novel) the problem is that I haven't been photographing. I mentioned the long sleeved t-shirt. I also finished a little pink bolero style jacket but I kinda want to wait until I have something else new to show off with it at the same time. I'm in the middle of making a little outfit for my granddaughter.

I have also been working on a long neglected quilt. See, here's what happened. My husband has three brothers and two sisters and I got this brilliant idea that I was going to make a quilt for each of them and their spouses. I got two done and started a third but that one didn't go well and I started to not like it so I lost motivation to work on it. It's been - I can't remember - three or four years since I started it. I recently went back to working on it and I'm getting close to finishing it. I have lots of ideas for other quilts so that's my main motivation right now - finish this one so I can move on to the next.

I love hand quilting. I want to say it's "so zen" but I think we Americans probably don't understand what that word really means. We have a habit of picking up any word we like the sound of and giving it whatever meaning is convenient for us. That's not entirely a bad thing but sometimes it makes us look like idiots to the rest of the world. But anyway, there's something about hand sewing, doing the same stitch over and over again - some people find it unbearably tedious but I find it relaxing and peaceful.

So, since I don't have any new pictures to share right now, I'm going to go deep into my Flickr account and find a couple of old quilt pictures, just to have something to post here.

This is one I made for my sister-in-law. I don't have a picture of the whole thing, just this close-up.

And here's one I made for my younger son. He picked out the colors. This was, I think, the second quilt I ever made. I have always loved the tumbling blocks pattern. This is one of two that I have done.

And Another New Look 6963 (+ long sleeves)

I don't have much to say about this one except that I'm happy with the way it turned out. The hem looks uneven in all the pictures I took but it's not.

The fabric is a lighter weight quilting cotton so it's perfect for the spring-like weather we've been having. I think this and the long sleeved t-shirt I haven't photographed yet are going to be my last long sleeved things until fall. Next I am going to try to force myself to do some refashioning of clothes I don't wear but can't bear to give up and also work more on the quilt and maybe start another quilt. It might be a while before I start something else new but I will definitely post some of the refashioning here and maybe some more stash pictures so stay tuned.

All of these ambitious plans are complicated by the fact that a few days ago I started reading Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey and can hardly stand to put it down long enough to write a little blog post. Yep, that's right - I'm a sci-fi nut too.