Christmas Dress! Still can't make things fit...

I made a dress for Christmas! Actually I made a dress that I mostly finished in October or early November but never finished fitting until December 24th. That way I could wear it to midnight mass to look great for my walk of shame out of the Cathedral. (Don't look at me, it wasn't my fault!) Pictures of this scandalous dress are few and those I do have are oddly lit, but hopefully you'll get the idea...

Disregard my rumples--I just got off work.

I used Butterick 6582 (the same I used for Jenn's wiggle dress that she NEVER GAVE ME PICTURES OF) and layered this ~carnelian red lace/cutout fabric hybrid--it's too sturdy to be lace but too hole-y to be a cutout fabric, is there another name for it?--with a nubby, tawny boucle-type wool blend that I shrank the dickens out of. It can't get much smaller! Here's a mega-close-up of the fabric.

Yeah! You don't know what part of the dress this is! It is like one of those pictures that you keep zooming out of until you figure out that it was a super-close-up of an old milkshake.

For a wiggle dress, it is surprisingly roomy. What that really means is that I still don't have the fit issues worked out. It might be a fabric selection issue or my determined nature to only make things in the wrong size, but it seems unavoidable. I keep hoping that I'll outgrow my mismeasuring/sewing stage. Heck, I can bike in this "wiggle" dress, that is wrong on ten levels! Also, check this out.

It's not a tumor.

What is with that shoulder lift? Looks like I need to do some minor disassembly, poke around there with a chopstick, then press that seam into the suburbs of Sacramento. Citrus Heights, I'm coming for you!

Without the protective sweater; with the protective dog.

Hopefully I'll be able to post the "2011 in review" summary soon. Stay tuned! If things get really crazy, I might even let you know what I've been doing in 2012!

Rainbow Collection: Michelle's Birds-in-Your-Head Green Laptop Bag

I need to tie up Christmas stuff! Here goes...

Since Michelle normally negotiates for clothes all year long, I decided that I wasn't going to make her a dress or pantsuit or day-glo pantaloons. She had recently purchased a laptop, meaning she could once more go out and about and compute. "Excellent!," I thought, "I'll make a super-cute bag to lure her to coffee shops and parks and discotheques! Maybe she could even bring Olive along!"

Or not...

Then this seemingly innocuous laptop bag ate up the better part of November's craft time. I was following a How Joyful tutorial re-blogged by Craft: from Sew, Mama, Sew! I read through it a time or two with the diligence of a room full of Labrador puppies and figured I'd be good to go. It's a bag. Come on. Yeah. There were some...kinks to be worked out, especially with the amount of batting to be sewn into the handles and the final cut size of the foam padding that is built into the pockets and I'd rather not recall the bear that was turning the entire bag right-side-out through a two-inch opening. It became a huge trial because that cursed bag got in my head! Maybe it was me, I don't know, but I felt like there were parts when I should have just abandoned the instructions and followed my gut. I stalled and stalled and cursed and broke ~ five needles (those handles were death on my needles!) and finally wrapped it up with cattish finality on December 1st. By that point it was all I could do to trim the loose threads. I have enough extra foam and batting to give a go at another laptop bag (or something else with foam and batting), so we'll see how mouthy and irritable I am after that.

Never buy fat quarters unless you want to make quilts or really awesome laptop bag pockets!

All deprecation aside, the good part about this project was that it finally gave me a project to use a bunch of my smaller prized fabrics on. The inner pockets were made of some of my favorite quilting fat quarters and the outer shell was this (2009?) Echino fabric leftover from Bryce's wall hanging/curtain. The yellow handles and accent pieces were remnants from Michelle's yellow playsuit.

All in all, it is a nice little bag that should provide some level of protection to Burnt Chicken (Michelle's laptop). So though I didn't make an outfit, the level of intensity for this project certainly fulfills the Rainbow Collection: Green criteria. Besides, it looks dang good on Timber.

Technophobic dog says, "Get that laptop away from me!"

Huzzah!

Claire's Summer Fun Dress! in December

Yay for summer dresses in December! It really gives you something to hope for, since I've had summer on my brain in an incapacitating way for the past month. How is it in the 20s at night? How is that POSSIBLE?! Anyhow, Claire has long been talking about dresses of mine that she likes, specifically my 50s party dress. My goal had been to make her a version of that dress until I realized that I didn't have the pattern in her size. Dangs. The plan shifted into making a version of Burda Style 108 (March 2011), with the seam allowances included, unlike my last duel with this pattern.

more pictures from my porch, such class!

This fabric was a gift from Michelle as a thank you for sewing her a number of things. Can you picture it as something other than a spring-in-your-step dress? I can't. The original dress pattern called for a bubble skirt, but that seems a little silly on a grown woman. Instead, I cut the pattern pieces in the recommended length (a rather short and kicky 21 inches, ee!), gathered the tops and sewed it to the bodice. The hem is basic, as in without horsehair braid because I felt it would give too much lift to an already short skirt. Without the horsehair braid, the skirt falls about four inches above Claire's knees. 

Gathering skirts is something I should put on my resume...

The dress fits her pretty well (no photographic proof, just trust me), gives her hips and everything! Now if only it would warm up a solid 60 degrees. 

These photos were taken at the 11th hour, aka right before I wrapped this gift on December 24th. 

Rainbow Collection: Bethie's White Eyelet top

This may be a first for me--Bethie seemed to like her Christmas gift. WHAT?!

This eyelet top has been in my brain for a while. The fabric was picked up at a sale in a storage unit in Davis from when Riki was...selling fabric, I don't remember the line of reasoning behind it. This was probably the most usable piece of fabric I bought that day (what am I going to do with that army green wave design?) in spite of it being a smaller piece; I originally planned on making a dress for Stella, thinking that Beth would be crazy about it. I kept not making the dress and eventually adjusted my goal to make a top for Beth, which I imagined would pair perfectly with a dark grey cardigan (neutral colors to achieve her goal of looking French). I'd made the Sorbetto earlier this summer for a hangouts top and had originally planned to make the eyelet into a tank top, but it seemed like the right thing to do to slap some sleeves on it and make a delicate yet casual short-sleeved shirt. Claire of Sew, Incidentally drafted a pattern for sleeves for the Sorbetto and shared it on the Sew Weekly, so I was set.

I paired the eyelet with some tannish-gold liner fabric to provide much-needed modesty while giving the illusion of showing bare skin. Construction was not too complicated, but the lining caused some strife. The Sorbetto is not usually lined and I improvised on using the lining as facing, so there were some imbalances when I tried to affix the lining around the armholes to the shell fabric and sleeves. Specifically, the sleevehole lining came up higher than the sleevehole shell fabric, which was ugly and led me to curse and seam rip and curse some more. The only way I knew to solve the issues that rose out of using the lining as facing was to topstitch the hell out of everything--the neck opening and sleeves are topstitched into oblivion. Note to others: consider how fabric shifts when you're using lining as facing!

You've been topstitched!

I hereby declare that this top fulfills my Rainbow Collection: White requirement! I wonder if I have enough of this eyelet to make another Sorbetto...

Christmas is over, thank heavens...

It is a tremendous relief to have Christmas behind me--all of December was lost to sewing, worrying about sewing, preparing to sew, and breaking needles. I break the most needles at Christmas. Especially on Michelle's gift, which took out a pack of needles.

I made lavender sachets to accompany most of my gifts (homemade and bought) this year, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. The sachets are a great scrap-busting project! I have leftover lavender if anyone wants another (or a first) sachet to put in your drawers or with your laundry as it dries, drop me a line if you would like one.

I'll post pictures of some of the things I made over the next couple of days, though I sadly did not get a picture of Cate's Janet-Leigh-in-Bye-Bye-Birdie-inspired nightie (from Simplicity 2749),

I used the 3rd version, naturally.

paired with the mini-Madeleine bloomers, nor of Chris's ranch bed pocket from Simple Sewing (now with more pockets than ever!); aside from those omissions, I think I got photos of all the handmade items. Better than all of that, I only used fabric in my stash as part of the big fabric destashing effort. Huzzah!

Totally Premature Rejoicing!

Yes! I finished one Christmas gift already and I'm almost through another one. To make sure I took care of the most important things first, I made a gift for a very demanding recipient who would surely give me hell if I did not give them something wonderful and amazing for Christmas.

I played a dangerous game, placing a skirt so close to Olive's back end...quite a gamble.

Yes, I made a skirt for lil' nine-year old Stella, who doesn't seem to really know when I gave her something and when I ducked out of a gift-giving situation and just showed up for cake. Anyhow, I figured it was safe to post this because Stella doesn't seem to do much on the internet, and even if she did, she'd probably forget about her gift before Christmas.

This skirt was based off the tutorial on Sew Delicious for a little version of a skirt seen on Peggy from "Mad Men", which should also apply to making grown-up sized skirts if you're so inclined. The denim is from an old pair of jeans that I wore through (finally, something to do with those other than denim-bottomed bags!), and the fabric is something that Eschy bought a couple of years back at Bolt for me to use on an Anna Tunic for her. The buttons...

The buttons are from the Ephemeral Mailbox Museum from a time before I really knew how to buy notions. They're adorable and and I love them, but since I'm not as whimsical with my clothing as I originally thought, I've had a hell of a time figuring out how to use glittered cupcake buttons. Don't even get me started on how I'm supposed to use the glittered scissor buttons in the same fashion...

So, not a bad start to the season, right? Right. Hopefully I don't go on a sewing strike until December 15th just to bring myself to the appropriate stress level. I hate my subconscious balancing acts.

Bad weather coming your way

I finally fulfilled my dream of being a tornado for Halloween! One pack of assorted farm animals from Rite-Aid (~$6) and your existing set of black clothes and you've got yourself a gift-card winning costume! Farm animals, Chris's miniature train tracks and trees, and some of my bike pins were among the items to get swept up in the dervish known as Victoria on Halloween-Monday. Things to know if you ever make your own tornado costume: a skirt is probably a better idea because the debris on my legs kept getting tangled, and make the strings on your legs shorter so they can't get tangled! I lost some of the items just walking around the office, so don't be super attached to any of your debris. Oh, and be ready to spin ALL DAY LONG. Still dizzy.

Here it is in action:

In other news, I made Jenn a black and white houndstooth-type dress in this pattern this past month, fulfilling my new year's resolution, and a fabric destash as well.

Compliments: Butterick.McCall.com

I used the black version with the bows as the selected model. I made a huge mistake in not taking her picture when she tried it on at my house, as the louse refused to send me any pictures from the party she wore it to. I'll get her yet. For the record, the pattern calls for interfacing on the bows, but that made them waaaay too stiff and I had to hand-tack them to the dress so they wouldn't poke people's eyes out. I would not do the interfacing on the bows again. Her friend Sara had the same dress made for her in blue taffeta (Mad Men party, if you're wondering), minus the bows. Tres chic! At the very worst, I'll be able to report on my version, which is a brown/gold linen blend with a red lace overlay, no bows. I need to hem that beast and document it! I kind of want to wear it to the bazaar on Saturday, so I better get moving. Unfortunately, I'm getting sick as we speak. dangs.