Monday, December 22, 2014

Weekend Productivity...

...or something

I *had* to make an "ugly Christmas sweater" for DD -wait- "WE" were going to do it but only one of us managed to do 98.5% of the work. Typical, right? ;-)



Friday night/Saturday morning, my husband hit the road to pick up the kids (we are a blended family). Four years and I still can't sleep when he's not home. So when he left at 2:30 a.m., I willed myself to go back to sleep, but no dice. I got up and went grocery shopping a little before 5 a.m. It was blissfully quiet outside.

***

When I got home, I decided to start on my Christmas dress. The fabric is a hot pink and white striped rayon/poly knit from Fabric Mart. The weight is PERFECT for this dress. The stripes though are a little too narrow. It doesn't read as a striped dress...it just looks Pepto pink :( 

Review to come.


***

At about 10, I head out to meet a fellow PR'er at SR Harris. She was in town visiting her in-laws and I am *SO* glad we got to hang out!!!  

Fabric store selfie!

I was determined not to buy a bunch of stuff just because I wanted it. After making some pretty nice knit tops lately, I realized I have precious few solid colored knits. 

I got rayon jersey in eggplant and grey and wool jersey (SWOON!) in navy. 


I picked up striped french terry and real(!) leather to recreate this:


I'd previously shown a different one but the knit I bought from FM was too thin. However the French terry will be PERFECT. I just need to pick up some leather needles for that project.

***
When I saw that pink/purple ribbing I melted a little on the inside. I have really wanted a bomber jacket and with the new McCall's pattern coming out (I ordered it from BMV yesterday!), I gambled that it would match my cotton suiting fabric.


It does! Yay! It's brighter but the same color. Which is actually perfect because then the ribbed sections will really pop!

So by now it's like 2 p.m., I've been awake for 12 HOURS after sleeping maybe 3.5 hours. The kids and I had our mini-Christmas and then I dropped my daughter off at work.

I was too exhausted to sleep because I knew I had to go BACK out and pick her up later. So I just started doing STUFF. lol!!! A cherry Pepsi helped with the cause!

***

When I made M6752 for the Fabric Mart contest I really loved the dress but couldn't get past the dazzle knit.


With a crazy black/white/hot pink houndstooth ponte in hand, I set out to recreate it! But the ponte on top is too thick/stiff :/ So now I decide if I want to remove the bodice and make a new one from a lighter fabric or what. 

Sigh.


***
Sunday morning I pieced together the Style Arc Sandra pattern. It was only like 37 pages but seemed to take forever. Then I realized I was almost out of my favorite tracing paper (no worries, I have a Blick coupon to get more!). I had a big roll of freezer paper though!

By the time I got it assembled and traced off, the sun was setting and alas...no jeans muslin yet.


***

My stepdaughter is 14 but she is really short. She's too big for tween patterns but too small (well, would need a LOT of adjustments that I'm not used to making) for most adult patterns; not to mention I don't have a ton of patterns in the smaller size range. 

I decided that she might really like a M6996 cardigan and an XS should work out with just a little shortening in the bodice and sleeves. It's a cardigan so 'perfect' fit is less important.

In the meantime, (because I had to order a copy of the pattern), we were both wearing RTW scarves that were assembled the same way:
a rectangular piece of fabric, seamed on the short end and then hemmed. I let her go through the stash and I had about 6 fabrics that were light enough for a scarf. She chose this chevron poly from Hancock and within an hour, had a new scarf!


To mimic the rtw scarf, I french seamed the short seam and did a rolled hem on the long ends via machine

And THEN we made smores, watched a movie and I eventually went to bed :-p