Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Anchor's Aweigh

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I'm so excited everyone!  I've been completely obsessed with making a nautical themed dress for months now, probably at least since we were still knee deep in the snow.  (Ok.  That might have just been May knowing the prairies but let's not quibble ok?)  Now it's done and ready to wear!

I had originally planned on making my nautical fabric into another Emery dress, but had been holding off not quite sure what I wanted to do with the skirt (certainly not waistline gathers.  Nope. Not for me, thanks!) So my lovely cotton fabric that I ordered from a seller in Thailand early in the spring sat languishing in the storage bin.  OK.  That's a lie.  It only went down to the sewing room about two weeks ago.  Prior to that it sat on my dresser staring at me begging to be sewn up.

Anyways, I'm going off course here.  Let's get back to business.  A few weeks ago Kennis of Itch to Stitch released an update to her Marbella* pattern.  It's a pattern I've had my eye on for a long time, I love the slightly scooped out boat neckline, but hadn't quite committed to purchasing yet because of the skirt.  I'm just not sure I'm a tulip skirt kind of girl.  But the update happens to be the addition of a variation for a circle skirt.  Yes, please!!! I'm definitely a circle skirt kind of girl no question about it.

I look impatient here.  I wasn't...
Little Man was telling me how to pose and I was concentrating.

I muslined the bodice because you just never know when it's a new to you pattern but as like almost all of the Itch to Stitch patterns I've sewn to date, it fit great from the get go.  The only adjustment I made was to lengthen the bodice by about 3/4", which is pretty much standard for any pattern I sew from any company.

Oooh!  Look at the impeccable lining up of the invisible zip.
Ok.  You can't really see it, but it's there and it lines up
...and it only took me three bloody tries to get it perfect.

The pattern itself sewed up really easily.  I did choose to skip the lining step and just lined the yoke instead.  I'm a bit lazy that way! LOL  It was also a billion degrees outside which meant it was about a billion and two degrees in the house when I was sewing and the thought of extra layers was just too much for me to contemplate at the time.

Note to self.  Be careful where placing hands.  I'm not grabbing my own butt.
I was following instructions to put my hands in my pockets.
Just not fast enough.
Seven year olds are demanding photographers I tell you!

I was going to get fancy with my hem and do some ribbon or contrast fabric binding but in the end decided that I'd keep it simple and just do a narrow three-step hem for it.  I did buy some fishing weights to stitch into it, to lessen the "flash my knickers" potential but then promptly forgot about them.  I might just stitch them in just above the hemline into the seam allowances on the sides and centre back and see if that does the trick.

I think this dress is going to get a lot of wear this summer.   The cotton is soft and a great weight and I love the style and fit of the dress itself.  This one is a total win for the wardrobe!!

See ya later!  I'm off to do some more sewing! :)

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Vintage Baby

This year I decided I was going to officially take part in the Vintage Pledge hosted by Marie of A Stitching Odyssey and Kerry of Kestrel Makes.

I wasn't sure at the time I signed up what I wanted to pledge, so I will admit to being pretty wishy-washy about it.  Something along the lines of "I will knit or sew some projects using vintage patterns".  There's commitment for you, all right.

I still have absolutely no direction in mind for what I'm doing in terms of my vintage pledge, well... in many areas outside of the vintage pledge as well, but we'll focus on the pledge in this post, not life in general at the moment.  LOL!  I have enough stress going on in life at the moment that my crafting should definitely not be one of them.  So, my goal is to have fun and enjoy this and just see what happens.

One of the limitations of my Vintage Pledge is that I do not have an extensive library of patterns to choose from.  Although with the 80s now being included I suppose I have many more than I realize - but when I think vintage I like to go a bit further back.   Also, the majority of the patterns I do have are children's patterns.



Wow!  So that was a lot of preamble to get to the point of this post, which is that I have actually made my first Vintage Pledge project of the year!

I signed up to do a swap in one of my Ravelry groups in the spring and was assigned a little girl who lives in the Southern States so I really wanted to make her a little sunsuit for the heat of the summer.  I knew I had a great 1960s pattern in my stash that would fit the bill exactly for what I was envisioning for her.

I didn't realize until I dug it out of my pattern box that the pattern itself was a size 2 and the little miss in question was just turning one this summer and unlike my gargantuan babies, she is slightly more petite, so between consulting a modern pattern I had in my stash (well - early 1990s anyways) for sizing and a bit of going by guess and by golly I graded the pattern down to what I hope is closer to the 12 month size clothes she actually wears.


It was a fun sew and I love the blend of the vintage look of the pattern and the modern beachy print.  I decided to add eyelet instead of a self ruffle at the bottom because I LOVE eyelet on all things and then changed the bottom of the bloomers to have a ruffled edge rather than a turned under casing because ruffles should be somewhere on a baby girl's sunsuit in my humble estimation and since I'd eliminated them from the top they had to go on the bottom.  (My mind is a mysterious and bizarre place.  Don't feel badly if you're thinking, "What in holy hell is she on about now?!?!" I certainly won't judge you for it! LOL)


I also knit a quick little head band because the swap was on Ravelry and I felt that meant it should definitely utilize yarn somehow in it!  I used a thoroughly modern pattern but picked one that I thought sort of echoed the vintage vibe of the eyelet I used on the suit.  The Princess Headband took almost no time and was an absolute pleasure to knit!


Anyways.  End result?  I adore this outfit and as a bonus it fulfils the first of my Vintage Pledge projects.  Whoot!  Whoot!

Next up on my sewing desk is a modern pattern for me, but I do have a few more vintage pledge project ideas floating around in my head right now!

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