Thursday, December 4, 2014

SEWCATION!

I have like, the most possible amount of days off work. When I leave work at Noon on Christmas Eve, I don't return until January 5th! Woohoo!!!

Why yes, it'll be Christmas and New Years and all that...but having giant kids at home means "Christmas" is about an hour and 12 minutes. And that includes breakfast. ;-) I'm partially kidding.

So even with all the festivities there shall be plenty of time to sew. Especially in the mornings before said giant kids even stir from their sleep! That really is my "secret" to sewing; I am an early riser. I rarely sleep past 7 a.m. and I live with sleepyheads. My husband may wake up by like 9 and the kids? Pfft. Sometimes my daughter doesn't roll out of bed until after noon.

I have already begun my year-end wrap up blog post and there's some revealing stuff there! So I will be trying to think a bit more about how a new items fits within my wardrobe. This mostly applies to work wear. Who knows which way the wind may blow for 'fun' sewing!

I have 7 things on the list to sew. And FIVE of them are new-to-me patterns. So yes, I will be doing some muslin'ing on a couple of items. BOOOOO! ;-)

First, the color palette.

Oy! This is another issue. I pulled out a ton of fabrics and just put them 'around me' on the bed. And I have a lot of stuff that is SIMILAR in color so they don't "go" together. And I have a gazillion prints! A gazillion!!!! Sheesh.

So it took awhile (a good while), to decide how to combine chosen patterns with fabrics in a way that they would work with each other. Now, the entire wardrobe is NOT mix & match, but there are lots of outfit combinations to be made.

Obviously, many of these items will also work with my existing sewn items

I knew that it was imperative that I commit to pattern/fabric combinations before starting. I don't want to get bogged down. I want to know EXACTLY what I'm going to do so I can boom, boom, boom! get these things sewn.


M6708 in animal print jersey (no pockets)

I hemmed and hawed about an animal print cardigan. "Will I REALLY wear THAT to work?" Male dominated industry and all that...

I'm going for it!

V8597 in teal jersey

In-House Belle blouse in white challis

Style Arc Sandra in medium wash denim

V9032 in black suiting

M6996 in mustard jersey


M6078 in black/green/gold knit


  • The V9032 and Belle blouse have both been made before, no muslins needed. 
  • I am not going to muslin M6078; I will just make sure the armholes aren't too low and that the length is correct.
  • I'm going to compare M6996 to M6844 (which I've made like 6 times) and see how well they line up. If they are similar (which I expect), I will sew that out of the envelope.
  • I HAVE to muslin the jeans, obviously. Hope to get that done well before sewcation occurs. 
  • I also will muslin (aiming for wearable) that Vogue top. Fitted top plus raglan sleeves; I don't want any problems or surprises.
  • M6708...Ooooh. That *could* go wrong but that's something where the fabric choice will really determine the fit. I think I'm going to go for lots of flat measuring and actually measuring the amount of stretch in my jersey (earth shattering, I know) to choose a size.
Most of these are what I consider to be 1 day projects.

M6996, V8597 and M6078 should be able to be completed within a few hours; which I consider "a day". It's rare that I sew for more than a few hours in one day and rarely in one sitting. The Belle blouse over a couple of days and same with the pants and M6708 cardigan. The time eater will obviously be the jeans.

A few weeks ago my husband cleaned up and oiled the vintage machine so I plan to set that up for topstitching to save some time.

I have to sew that baby quilt before 12/18 and hope to start some muslins in between working on that. If by muslin #2 those jeans aren't working I will probably quit them because I'm sure I'll be all distraught about it and will never (okay maybe not NEVER) make more than a couple of muslins.

I've got at least a dozen combos that work in my head from those pieces. We'll see how they fit together in 3D :)

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I've finished my denim trousers AND my Butterick jacket. But with tundra living and DD working, photos during the week are near impossible. Hope to get some taken this weekend.