Break's over

Well, that was an unplanned sewing break. I blame summer - even with air conditioning, I find it hard to have enthusiasm for anything in the summer. Even reading! But we're having a few cooler days (bliss), and suddenly things seem interesting again.

Which means I finally managed to finish my skirt. HOORAY.

I blend into my living room. I'll have to remember this outfit if I ever need to hide in plain sight.

The skirt didn't turn out quite like I expected - based on pattern art I thought it was going to sit at the waist, but it sits quite a bit lower. The yoke is kind of oddly curved, too, and I'm pretty sure that's the pattern, not me (see how it comes up again at the side seam?).

I do like how swishy it is, though. The cotton voile I used for the lining is very soft, so it's quite comfortable to wear. I think the white kind of wiped out the funkiness of the pattern in the fabric, sadly - you can kind of see it in the picture below, but mostly it just looks lime green. And it's longer than I had planned, so I might re-hem it. Maybe. If I ever get the energy.

So, what did I learn? I figured out how to add a lining when there isn't one in the pattern - very useful! I also learned not to sew the lining too far into the zipper tape, or else the zipper will be hard to close. Oops.

All in all, a very useful summer skirt, even it's not exactly what I thought I was making. And it perfectly matches the awesome Miz Mooz shoes I just bought (which many people pointed out today, hee).

Summer skirt

After all the fitting and finishing of May, I wanted to do something simple for Jume. Okay, really I was secretly hoping to do two quick projects in June, since I'm one project behind for the year. In any case, "simple" means a skirt, since I don't have to make a toile or any alterations. Therefore:

 

Front, back, waistband, zipper. Done! HAHAHA. First, I realized that the fabric was really light and a little see-through. Whoops. So I decided to add a lining. And then I saw a cute version on Pattern Review and decided to add the pockets. This, as it turns out, was a terrible idea. Not only is the pocket pattern badly made, with markings that don't line up, but they looked horrible once they were on. Like some sort of pocket-y jodphur. 

I'm currently in the middle of picking the pockets off. I think it'll be okay - because the fabric is so thin, it got a couple of small holes just from the stitches, but they're not very visible. And then I think I have to attach the lining - I'm kind of making it up as I go along! Thank pete for the internet.

Christmas catch-up

Well, my Christmas sewing was a huge success. Yay! The project that I didn't mention was the 5 drawstring pouches and zippered bags I made for friends (one set was already in the mail when I took the photo).

Aren't they fun fabrics? It was so much fun picking them. Although if you can believe it, these were much more trouble than the shirt and skirt - I had to buy more fabric twice, once because the fabric I bought was far too stretchy to work with and I needed something different (the top blue flowers), and once because I bungled it so badly I had to start again (the stripes). But I got them all done in time, hurrah.


And then there's the presents for my parents. I didn't get a picture of the skirt for my mom before I gifted it, mostly because I was sewing the buttons on Christmas Eve, and the skirt didn't look like anything without them. (I got the shirt buttons sewn on minutes before leaving to catch my flight out.) But here are my parents wearing their new clothes.

No, I'm not such a terrible photographer that I cut their heads off. Close, though. Both things fit perfectly (yay, again), and they both seemed genuinely thrilled, not just with the thought, but with the final product. I was awfully happy.

Now I can do some more sewing for myself! I'd bought some fabric in the fall to make another version of the skirt I did for my class, because I liked it so much. So I pulled that out today, and struggled through the effort of prepping the fabric (side note: this is the most time consuming part for me. so annoying). In then end I decided on another pattern I had, just for fun. I layed out the pattern and started pinning, but didn't get very far - it was very hard (and painful!) to get the pins through this fabric. After putting multiple dents in my fingers I figured it was enough for the night. But still, it feels good to start another project, even if it is, yes, one more skirt.

I made a shirt!

I feel like I just reached a new level in the sewing video game.

I have a bunch of half-started posts talking about this shirt, waiting for me to upload photos. (I clearly haven't reached any advanced levels in the blogging video game.) So here's how it started: I decided to make presents for my parents. My mom used to sew quite a lot, so it's not like a handmade shirt would be a novelty for my dad, but I thought they'd both appreciate the concept. So I found a shirt pattern and a skirt pattern (I wanted to make a vest for my mom, but thought that might be beyond me if I couldn't actually fit it on her).

Pinning and cutting takes me *forever* because I have to do it on the floor, and between the cats and my creaky body, it's slow going. So I did them both before starting any sewing. (A smart idea, as it turns out, because now it's the beginning of December and I haven't started sewing the skirt for my mom, but at least I'm not staring at a giant piece of fabric!)

The shirt was interesting - lots of stuff I hadn't really done before, like the collar. When I went to put the collar together, I realized I'd misread the pattern piece, and had only cut one when I was supposed to cut two (duh). And I didn't have enough fabric to cut it out in the direction it was supposed to go (not to mention that the fabric is striped, so it would look odd if I cut it in the other direction). So I ended up cutting two halves and sewing them together first to make one piece, then checking every three seconds to make sure the Frankenstein half was on the underside of the collar. But it worked! You can barely even see the join.

The only thing that's left to do is buttons - they're done by hand, so I can do those at my parents' if I need to. Also I really need to start actually sewing something on the skirt, so I feel slightly less panicked. The pattern looks pretty easy, but you never know. First step: change the needle to the special denim needle I bought (aren't I fancy).