Prom 2013

Amid the chaos this year we had the opportunity to go to an event with friends this weekend.  One of the local radio stations holds an adult prom every year.  

I didn't go to prom in highschool, and I didn't go to any formal dances in college. In fact, the only fancy events I ever go to are weddings. And while that's fun, I guess I always wished I had that experience, the prom experience.

Love and Cinnamon

I've never really been a fan of Valentine's Day.  I could ramble on for pages about why but you didn't come here for that. And some of you have made it clear in the past that you don't respect my opinion on such things. Which means you probably won't like this post at all anyway. lol

Anyway, I know I've been bad about posting lately, but things have been really busy. Too busy even to sew! I know, that's just crazy!  But I've been thinking about you, my followers, wondering what wonderful and fun and amazing projects you have been working on, wondering if you are painting or sewing or generally making yourself into a better person (yeah, you know who you are). And I just wanted to let you know you're in my thoughts.

And since it is a special occasion I wanted to post something over from another blog that seems important for today.

Sarai over at the Coletterie has generously offered to donate all of the procedes from today's sales of her beautiful Cinnamon pattern:

Cinnamon Pattern

to benefit the important civil rights issue of our time: marriage equality.  

If you're disappointed this isn't a post about me trying the cinnamon challenge, well, at least you have this pretty slip dress to look at: (isn't it lovely!)

Cinnamon

So if you sew or know someone who sews this would be a great gift for yourself or someone else and the money goes for a good cause.

Hope your February is going great! 

PS: idk why some of the non-linked text is showing up underlined, but I'll try to get it fixed asap.

Stretch & Sew 1582

While my posts here may have been spotty at best over the last couple of months, I've certainly not been lax in my sewing. In fact we are just starting to reclaim the living room from what was beginning to look like a sweatshop from all of the giftmaking. With the holidays over and most of the gifts given I can start to show you some of what I made.  

One of the first was this Stretch & Sew pattern from the late 1970's.

Dress of Many Circles

One of the most fun sewing projects I did this year was a dress I made for my niece's birthday.  When I was playing around with the leftover fabric from those horrid jackets earlier this year I was suddenly inspired to make this dress. But I knew I didn't have time just then. So I made a little skirt just to try out the technique and loved the result.

I had just enough of the dark silver and the white left over to create an ombre effect, something really elegant. And being the goof that I am I had to pretend to try it on.

Blue Shirtwaist Dress: Part 3

So I know I haven't posted in like a week. Sorry about that. Here, finally, is the last part of the shirtwaist dress.

Where last we left off I was trying to figure out what color to make the collar and cuffs. So I started off by painting the colors on digitally, just so get an idea of what they looked like.
 

Blue Shirtwaist Dress: Part 2

With tweaks to the muslin complete I made a pattern for the dress. Now I know I usually use junkmail for my patterns, but several years ago my grandmother gave me a bag of bits and pieces that included some of the oldschool pattern material. I don't usually use it as I'm not often sure of whether I've really got a pattern I'm going to reuse. Now I think I might have something worth reusing, so I went for it.

laying out the pattern pieces

Blue Shirtwaist Dress: Part 1

I've been wanting to make a shirtwaist dress for myself for a couple of years now but just had never eked out the time or shelled out the money for the yardage of fabric involved. In fact, I knew that just the fitting of such a garment was likely to take more time than I usually care to expend on something I'm keeping for myself.

The original idea was for a 1940's era shirtwaist dress: simple, everyday wearable.  But as time has progressed and I've amassed a huge file of pictures of patterns and dresses made by other bloggers, my ideas shifted around slightly.  In looking at many pictures of 1940's dresses, the skirt portion is often very smooth in the hip area and the sleeves often have that nice little poof.

Wedding Alterations: Part 3

This is the third and final entry on the little bits I got to do for a friend's wedding.

When I brought the altered dress to the bride-to-be her mother pulled me aside and mentioned there might be another small project or two later.  One of them was the pillow for the ringbearer.

Wedding Alterations: Part 2

Continuing the story from last time, I had the opportunity to do the alterations on my friend's sister's wedding dress. 

 Diving right in, wedding dresses are often many layers. This one was no exception.

 

Wedding Alterations: Part 1

I don't normally do wedding dress alterations anymore. Honestly, they're a bear and for many brides this is a really stressful part of the wedding planning.  But for friends I made an exception.

One of my friends was instrumental in helping my own wedding day come together, pinning boutonnieres & corsages on various people, making sure my grandparents were all where they needed to be, and providing huge amounts of moral support among other things.  So when I found out her sister was getting married I offered up my services.

S7236 Finished

Today amid a torrent of rain and hail (ok, a very very brief torrent) I finished the Simplicity 7236 dress and managed to get a couple of decent pics of the finished product.

Armscye pinned to lining

S7236 Not Quite Finished

Well, as much as I had hoped to have a finished dress to share with you today, it's just not going to happen.  I have an inherent ability to take what should be a simple straightforward pattern and add one or two extra elements that means a ton of extra handsewing. lol oh well... 

Here's what I've got for you...

S7236 Lining

Monday I posted about beginning work on Simplicity 7236.  Today I'll continue with the lining.

I have in my stash a couple of yards of a basic brown polyester lining.  By now you know how much I abhor polyester, but more expensive linings aren't in the budget and this dress (in the wool i've picked out anyway) really needs a lining.

S7236 Pattern and Muslin

This year I am working hard to sew through my stash of fabrics in order to drastically reduce the volume of fabrics we have around the apartment.  The first big project I found to do for myself towards these ends is Simplicity 7236.

1967

Banana Brownies and a New Dress

In between sewing for other people, I decided I needed to do a little for me. :)

So I've started work on a new dress for myself (i hope) using Simplicity 7236.  This was my mom's pattern and it has a few alterations made to it already.  I've cut out a muslin and am trying to work out the fitting details as I am able to grab a few minutes here and there.

pic from Vintage Sewing Patterns

Little Striped Dress

A few months ago when I started shopping for fabric for all of our holiday gifts I found and fell in love with this lovely seersucker.

Only, it's hardly even noticeable as a seersucker - the stripes are so tiny that it simply feels like a textured baby stripe.  The color was a pale purple with white stripes and I just had to have it for one of our nieces.