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my dressform, dolly

14 Apr

technically, this is still a work-in-progress, but i am too excited to wait! must share this now!

i have a dressform – she is a dritz mydouble and, eh, i’m really just not impressed with her. “adjustable” means that if you expand one part of the form, the rest will also expand. “rich plum color” means she clashes with EVERYTHING. and that “foam-backed nylon cover” for “easy pinning”? more like hard plastic that you can’t stick anything in. i mostly just use the form for hanging WIPs – it’s not really suitable for anything else, due to it’s limitations.

i’ve been thinking about buying a nice form, either a fabulous fit or a wolf (oooh so dreamy), but they’re both way the eff out of my budget and i’m impatient/saving up for something else. instead, i hit compromise & bought myself a fabulous fit fitting system – they’re on sale right now @ amazon for $69, so yay!

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pants? possibly.

4 Apr

my favorite fabric store, textile fabrics has the greatest sales. my personal favorite is when they slash the entire store’s worth of fabric 40%-50% off 2x a year (in january & july, naturally). my second favorite is when they pull all their OOP patterns – for every $10 you spend, you get to choose a free pattern. i don’t know about y’all, but i can always find an excuse to buy shit at the fabric store, so i trekked west of the river with miss lauren winter & we picked ourselves out some goodies. i’m not going to bother with the stuff i bought – it’s pretty boring, albeit necessary, sewing notions like machine needles & white thread & *yawn* is anyone still listening? but check out the patterns i snapped up when they finally allowed me in the back room

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western wear for 2011

3 Feb

here is a sewing resolution i’ve had stored in the back of my mind for the last month or so: i want to make a western shirt. not just a “western shirt,” but a legit/gorgeous western shirt with the contrasting yoke outlined in piping, the (hand!)embroidery, the pearl snaps, and the welt pockets with little hand-sewn arrowheads. partially because a “real” western shirt is expensive (and they never seem to fit me properly 😦 ) and partially because they just look like so much fun to make!

i found this pattern today, and after about 20 minutes of deliberating (it was $15! i love how i will spend 5x that on fabric but not on a pattern), i snapped it up:
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isn’t it perfect? look at those welt pockets! and that piped, scalloped yoke – with guitar embroidery transfers! it’s a smidge on the small side – my high bust is 34″ – but should be easy to grade up, plus i have to do a FBA anyway.

even the suggested materials & notions look fun: pattern back.
mine will probably end up similar to view A, minus the fringe (or should i keep the fringe? decisions, decisions!). i love the white + red, although maybe white isn’t the best idea for someone messy/careless like me. i want real pearl snaps instead of buttons. where can i buy pearl snaps?

i know, i know… i need another vintage pattern like i need another hole in my head.
don’t judge me.

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the importance of pressing

1 Feb

there are two types of sewers: those who press, and those who don’t.

i must confess, in my early days of garment sewing, i fell squarely into the latter. why would i want to press anything? i hated ironing and i didn’t see a point in spending nearly half my precious sewing time smooshing a bunch of seams that were on the inside of a garment, aka, no one was going to see them anyway.

sadly, i can’t pinpoint the exact moment that i had my “A-HA, PRESSING!” revelation, but suffice to say i have turned a complete 180 as far as my iron is concerned. i am a pressing fiend, y’all. i have developed a love affair with my iron and my finished projects have never looked better. properly pressing really is the key to having a gorgeous handmade garment – as opposed to “homeade” (and probably sewn up with quilter’s cotton, yeeech).

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(image borrowed from vintagesewing.info :3)

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my sewing room

24 Jan

y’all, i am a total, shameless lurker. show me a blog/website/picture album that allows me to peek into someone’s home and i will sit there for hours and investigate every nook and cranny. in that same note, i absolutely love sharing pictures of *my* home, for all the other lurkers on the internets. i spend a lot of time decorating – and redecorating, and redecorating – my house, especially my sewing room. i loving having a beautiful and clean room to keep all my sewing goodies in. it’s so inspiring!

i did a little reorganizing over the weekend and took a few pictures to share 🙂 sorry these aren’t the best – i took them at night, so i had to use the flash. y’all wouldn’t want to see out the windows in daylight, anyway. it’s so gross and wet and cold and there are straggly patches of snow hovering in the shadows. GROSS.

lots of pictures after the jump!
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shoulder pads? why not!

10 Dec

i know what you’re thinking: “ew! shoulder pads! the one element that should stay in the 80s forever!” and i guess, for the most part, you’re probably right. there’s nothing like a giant shoulder pad to make you feel like an out-of-place linebacker. in my defense, though:
– i bought a really neat dress on a recent thrift day with lauren winter and it was clear that someone had removed the shoulder pads and that they needed to be put back in asap – the shoulders were too big and doing this horribly wrinkly/puffy thing that ruined the otherwise sleek lines of the dress. considering how many shoulder pad dresses i buy on a regular basis, you’d think i’d have a discarded shoulder pad or 8 laying around somewhere but noooo
anyway, that’s not as fun as what brings us to my second reason…

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i have this pattern, and i wanted to try it.

hee!

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refashioning a vintage dress

6 Dec

this isn’t really much a sewing-related update… i mean, there was sewing involved, but i did not get any pictures of the innards, or a before shot for that matter.

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anyway, i got this great 40s navy wool(blend?) dress from my friend carmen of closet case vintage (and, uhm, if you are in the market for vintage goodies, def check her store out bc this girl has got some seriously good taste). the dress is lovely on it’s own, but it needed a little bit of work before i was ready to re-debut it.

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i officially hate vogue sewing patterns

29 Sep

vogue released their winter line of sewing patterns today – pretty early, if you ask me, since most of us are just dipping our toes into fall weather clothes (it was 100* here in nashville last week!). normally, i loove vogue sewing patterns. i love the extra touches that are included to make your finished garment more “handmade” than “homemade,” like french seams and foundation corsets and fun things like that. i love that they make patterns based of major designer’s looks so you can rip them off and save yourself $1000 in the process. i love the smug satisfaction i get from sewing an ~advanced~ vogue pattern because it makes me feel smart and knowledgeable.

I DO NOT LOVE VOGUE’S NEW PATTERN LINE, THOUGH.

i hope you are not eating when you proceed.

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vogue 1161 – work in progress – + flea market finds

28 Jun

so i started trying to hammer out this vogue pattern over the weekend:
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vogue 1161
i know it doesn’t really look like much, but there are a lot of neat design lines (WHY would you style the dress with leopard print fabric that hides the seaming and details? WHY?) that i thought would make a hot little cocktail dress. you know, for all those cocktail parties i don’t go to.

anyway, the fabric calls for something slinky and silky, so i went with this rich orange silk:
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also, btw y’all, i hate sewing silk and i really am going to swear it off soon.
reasons why i hate silk:
– it unravels worse than anything i’ve ever seen before. just during the process of cutting and marking my fabric pieces, i have probably lost over 1/2″ on all seam allowances due to the silk unraveling and being a bitch. this dress prob won’t even freakin’ fit by the time i am done with it AUGHHH!!
– it is a bitch to cut – it shifts and slides and hates on me. i tried cutting on paper, i tried cutting one layer, i tried pinning the everloving hell out of it… it must be some kind of shape-shifter because it would NOT stay in place. the only thing i didn’t try was my rotary cutter – because, 1. i hate my rotary cutter; 2. the blades are dull; and 3. i hate my rotary cutter bc i don’t actually know how to use it – but my scissors are pretty freakin’ sharp soo i don’t know. anyway. cutting sux, y’all.
– ironing makes me sad. i learned very quickly that, even though my rowenta has a “silk” setting, it wrinkles and puckers the crap out of my silk and apparently i need to use a press cloth. whoops! the iron isn’t hot enough to totally flatten those dang seams, which is a bummer because i am an seam-pressing fiend every other day of the week.
– i had to buy a marking pen because my wax ~tailor’s pencil~ was too hard and bore a tiny hole in the fabric, crap.

but you know what? at least it is a pretty silk.

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vintage sewing patterns

7 Jan

i admit – i love me some vintage sewing patterns. i collect them in small spurts, always with the intention of eventually creating something with them (but always being distracted by some new shiny whatever at the local joann’s $1 pattern sale). most of my vintage patterns come from the thrift store… i have purchased a few off etsy, and i’ve had a few given to me by (awesome!!!)friends.

i just recently discovered the vintage pattern wiki and holy hell, that site is like some damn crack for me. i also realized that a few of my patterns were not listed on the wiki… so i took pictures of them with the intention of uploading them to share. i’m also going to share them here because WHEEEE PATTERNS!!

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