Friday, May 9, 2014

My Mother's Day dress

So after not having sewn for myself for nearly 15 years I finally made myself a dress. With some some wonderful knit fabric from Fabric Mart, my favorite fabric store, I joined their sew along. If it hadn't been for an overflowing toilet and the resulting rain in my kitchen I would have finished on time but it still got done and I love how it turned out. 

Monday, February 3, 2014

Modifying a prom dress

In today's stores all the prom dresses are pretty much too short, too low cut, too figure fitting and just plain tawdry. For girls that want to be modest for their prom, look stylish and still keep their dignity, you pretty much have to sew from scratch or modify the dress.  In our church we have very strict modesty rules for dress.  This girl came to me and asked me to modify her dress.  She is pretty short so I cut off 3.5" of the hem, did a new rolled hem on the lining and the stretch chiffon and then pieced the old hem pieces together to form sleeves of a sort.  As you can see from her darling smile, she is very pleased with how it turned out! It only took about 2 hours to cut and re-hem the dress, but then about 3 more or so, to turn those pieces into straps, and hand sew them on.  There are several things in life I am pretty good on, but estimating time is NOT one of them.  Even with client appointments, although I have been in public accounting for 15 years, I really have a difficult time estimating how long something will take.  She offered to pay for the alterations, but I seriously have no idea how much is even fair, besides that it is a good service I can help offer, and that smile is payment enough!



Monday, January 27, 2014

Oh, so close...

Well, this past weekend I finally got back to fitting on my muslin for the online couture dress class I started over a year ago.  I have done a tremendous amount of sewing, but I always struggle with sewing for myself.  So, I had my daughter help me fit the muslin, pinning me in and out of it many, many times.  I thought I came to a good sleeve and overall fit for the dress.  Then, I made a few pieces new with the adjustments and basted the bodice together with a trial sleeve...it didn't fit well! It really deflated my enthusiasm, after I thought I had it.  So, now, I need to measure the armscye and the sleeve to see how much ease really is there.  I may have to modify a bodice side piece with a princess seam, but I won't know until I figure out the sleeve ease.  It seemed with my first trial sleeve, it fit great, then when I re-made the sleeve out of one piece of muslin, it was kind of tight and pulled the shoulder piece, off my shoulder.  Super frustrating.

I also just took on a small alteration job for a girl at church, it should be simple, and it is so much more fun to sew for skinny people.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Thinking about fabric

So, I am now in tax season, not yet preparing individual returns, but I am working on client payroll tax reports and generating W2s for them.  It is a pretty busy time.  I made those wonderful dresses for that cute missionary girl, but she had to come home early, after a week, due to health reasons.  For I am truly sorry that the people of Carlsbad, CA will not get to hear her teach them the gospel in her darling southern accent, I am grateful she is back and has an open schedule so she can help watch my children so I can work.  Everything works out in the end, as it is the Lord's plan, not ours.

Fabric Mart - my go to nowadays - has had a pretty good sale and some wonderful fabrics that I have purchased.  They just showed up yesterday.  There are some really dreamy linen fabrics.  I also got on one of their daily specials, some nice herringbone woven blend in a creamy color that I am anxious to get my hands all over.  I don't know quite yet what I will make, but as I sit here working on payroll tax reports, I am thinking of yummy herringbone and linen blend fabrics.  :)

A blue linen anyone can love

Beeswax - Honey - Yummy Yellow Linen

Wet Sand Linen

Ah, but the CRD0101 Herringbone is sold out...

I also just tried another online store and bought this amazing
Kauai Cotton Brocade
which came yesterday. The picture totally does not do it justice!  I know exactly what I want to make out of it, provided I like the fit and style of the muslin that I will sew one day.  It is a Burda pattern from December 2013.   I can't find the link real quick, I will have to come back and add it.

What fabric are you dreaming of? while doing something else :)


Saturday, January 18, 2014

Green skirt done

Well I finished the green skirt, lining and all!
The skirt has 8 godets in it as well as the lining. I was pretty happy with how the pointed join came together on all of them. I did one short cut on the lining as I just did a rolled hem on my serger on the lining and machine hem on the skirt. It turned out nice. 

A hairy mess

So I am plugging along making another skirt for Brittney, the girl going on the mission.  Well she actually left, so I am going to have to mail it to her.  The poly that I picked out for this skirt is super nice and silky, but thank heavens for my serger or else it is a terrible, hairy mess on the inside.  I finished the outerskirt (now working on lining) a week ago, and I am still finding little fuzzy clusters on the floor, carpet and random pieces of clothing I have worn over the past couple weeks.  I know that some suggest pinking shears and some suggest zig zag the edge of the fabric, but I just don't see how this can possibly rein this hairy mess all in, like the serger does.  I have to say, I am grateful for my serger :)  I hope to finish the skirt this weekend, as tax season is really starting to bear down on me and I have not yet done any of my clients W2s and their employees are getting impatient.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Making a dress by surprise

The best thing about this dress is that she didn't know I was making it for her.  She came over to try on what she thought was the floral dress I made her, but I blindfolded her and then once standing in front of a mirror, let her see what I had actually made! So, I uploaded the picture of her surprise!





The one that is up close uploaded is the only one I have up close, but the neckline/lining was not done yet

Silk Dress for a Missionary

A young lady at church decided to go on an 18 month mission. Part of that, she is required to wear only skirts or dresses to represent the church in a respectful, reverent manner. So, I offered to make her a dress, her choice of pattern and her choice of fabric.  She has a very pleasant figure, and being new to fitting, I thought it would be fairly simple.  I made a muslin, and had her try it on.  I thought it fit her nicely and took some pictures.  Upon review of the pictures I realized I had missed some big fitting issues, I had not seen before.  I ended up sewing 4 different bodice muslins till I got to a well fitting garment.  I thought the hard part was over, however the fabric she chose was the most difficult.  She picked yummy silk organza type fabric with chiffon florals on it.  This required it to have an interlining, which was an italian, stretch silk, and then a cotton silk blend for the lining.  Sewing the two layers together was quite a challenge to keep them behaving well together and not slip around.  In addition the rolled hem on the chiffon was very difficult because it went from chiffon that folded over easily to the charmeuse that didn't.  In the end the project turned out beautifully, I do wish I had matched the pattern at the invisible zipper.





Friday, January 10, 2014

Resolutions can be stumped by technology

So, in an effort to follow through on my sewing resolutions, and working on my blog, I am being thwarted with the technology to be used.  I have tried to find ways to post pictures on the blog, but to no avail.  All the while, finding that one of the "fixes" I tried completely disabled me from getting to the dashboard.  So I reversed the attempted fix, and here we are again.

Inspired by Mood

So, Mood Fabrics recently put out a post for a new blogger to join their group as a couple of them were unable to fulfill the commitments.  With the new year, resolutions, the realization I am just happier when I sew, I thought I would love to be a Mood blogger someday.  One of their preferences is that you are a consistent blogger and sewing all different types of garments with different types of fabric.  So, this year I would like to resolve to sew each month, and post a blog entry about it. This is a very ambitious goal for me, given that it is January and the beginning of my very busiest time of year.  I really like being a CPA, I love to help people with something that they just feel lost on and showing them that they, indeed, can do it.  However, the down side is that you have to put your personal life on complete hold at least from February-April 15th each year, typically adding a couple weeks on the beginning and end of that time period depending on your practice.  I hope to be able to fulfill this resolution, stop stressing so much about some other struggles in life and just enjoy the moments as they come.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Catching up!

So, I finally am getting around to updating my blog a little and I can't get my photos to upload.  So, that is very frustrating.  I can see that they are there, and when I choose to add them to the blog, it just sits there with a  "dumb look" on its "face".


So, I will try some wording then later go back and add some pictures....


In June of 2013, I made four flower girl dresses for a wedding in France.  Yes, it was as exciting as it sounds.  It was wonderful. The girls were from 2-4 years old and all I had to make them was their chest measurements and height.  They dresses turned out great and fit the girls just fine, which was quite a worry since I would not be able to change anything nor fit the dresses to them prior to the wedding.  I used a wonderful champagne colored dupioni silk with scrolled embroidery on it.  They had long skirts with a big bow at the waist and the bodice was a cross over.  We almost didn't go to the wedding due to the cost of the travel, but as I was sitting there in the church waiting for my "daughter" to walk down the aisle, I couldn't think of another place in the entire world that I wanted to be than right there, right then.  It was such a wonderful, happy feeling.  Claudia and JB are such a wonderfully matched couple, and at that moment, I had such a strong realization how much we truly loved her as a daughter just as our other children.  To be there for her wedding day, knowing it was important to her, was more priceless than I can describe.



Here is a picture of my Virginia trying on one of the dresses since she was the same size as a couple of the girls.