Saturday, August 31, 2013

But I Really Can Sew! (a bit)

My current sewing project is moving at a glacial speed. Hopefully it'll be done before the end of September. In the meantime, here is proof that I can sew, a bit.


I sewed the following last year:


My first real dress! I won't bore you with the details, but I developed my "lazy" method which I don't recommend but it works in a pinch. (Maybe someday I will go into details but not today).





This dress is also a little rough around the edges (I had to dye it) but I absolutely love the color and the lace.

And I also sew blankies!


I completely made up this pattern! I gave it to a really special kid.


I made this one for my youngest baby.


I had to make this one because (1) It reminded me of the book I was reading at the time, "The Snow Child" and (2) all of my Christmas stuff is "Scandinavian" (real Scandinavian people probably wouldn't think so, but again, I was inspired so I ran with it). The pattern came from a book called "Scandinavian Stitches".

Friday, August 2, 2013

The Plan: Butterick 6582


I have so much to write about but I am going to start with this, my newest sewing plan:

 


Butterick 6582. I want to make the dress on the top left.






I am using a fabric similar to the one above.


The whole idea was inspired by this swimsuit. I love it!

My goals:

-make a "proper" muslin
-do a lot of hand sewing!!!


Hand sewing scares me. Not only does it take forever but it also can be fragile and ugly, in my opinion. I'm going to try it though, because I bit the bullet and watched Craftsy's Sew Retro. It was amazing! In it, Gretchen does a lot of vintage touches that make dresses look fabulous. Hand sewing is one of those things. It was like taking a master class. Seriously worth every penny to see start to finish how she makes dresses.

Also, have you seen Professor Pincushion on Youtube? Also a gerat resource that is free. She has a lot of dress patterns that she walks through completely, start to finish.

Finally, I have been renting all the Threads magazines my local library has. They are amazing! Those are my sewing finds this week.