My Sewing Conundrum

When my life is busy (like really hectic) and there is no sewing time, I usually buy patterns and fabric. The items are on sale at prices too good to miss (or so my brain tells me). I find my behavior confusing. There are plenty of patterns and fabrics in my stash of goodies. I could spend my limited time sewing a seam or two. Do I do that? No, I spend my time exploring websites! When I'm involved with a sewing project, the sales don't appeal to me most of time...if I even notice them. I'm just too busy working on a project. Anyhow, I did buy some treasures. I'll have lots of fun with them if life allows.

The BVM sales are great. Here's what I bought:

Fabric Mart had a 50% off sale on double knit and ponte. In my defense, that type of fabric is lacking in my stash. I do need some basic wardrobe builder fabric.

Fabric Mart Ponte and double knit



Sawyer Brook only has a few sales during the year. I love their fabric. It's a bit pricey but well worth it.

Sawyer Brook sage silk and print cotton satin



Gorgeous Fabrics has great fabrics at a reasonable price but high shipping costs. There are sales almost every weekend. Most of the time I check the sales when I'm looking for something specific. This time I was looking for sage lace to go with the above pictured silk. When I found it, I had to have it knowing that the colors might not match. The fabric gods were with me and the colors are perfect. Of course, fabric doesn't like to travel alone so I bought a  couple of pieces to go with it.

Gorgeous Fabrics lace, print ponte knit and brown double knit

I did manage to work on the shirt for DH when all the sales (of interest to me) finally ended. I just have buttonholes and buttons to go.

That's all that's going on in my sewing world. Happy sewing!




The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

I'll start with the good. After seeing Carolyn's version of the Oscar de Renta Dress, I bought a couple of yards of Guipure lace to go with the silk/wool fabric purchased at one of Mood's 50% off sales. Hey, I got the silk/wool at such a good price I might as well buy fancy lace to go with it. The $400 a yard for 44" silk guipere was out of my price range (even in my wild mood of "gotta have Guipere lace"). Mine is cotton which is expensive but much less costly. Still, I almost called to cancel the order. Enough of my wild mood was left that I didn't. When it arrived, I did a happy dance and floated around the house the rest of the day. It is gorgeous! The photo does not do the lace or the wool/silk justice.

Over the past several months, I've lots of fun reading Carolyn's blog and thinking how I could make her garments to suit me and my life style. The lace dress is planned for my anniversary in June. I made a dress similar to one of her Butterick dresses in March (photo to come) and cut out the black pointe and faux leather dress. I really have to finish that dress one day soon. It was a challenge to do the pattern work and the cutout, but I had fun doing it. I was working on my SWAP garments and had brown thread on the machine. I was too lazy to change it.

Then, the bad comes. It seems like the past couple of  months have been one bad news thing after another. There was nothing terrible - just annoying and hard on the budget. As a result, there has been minimal sewing and blogging. It started with scratching noises in the attic. The neighbors next door left and took their cats with them. Here, I thought the cats just liked us so they spent most of their time at my house. No, it wasn't the treats and back rubs. It was the rats. When the cats left, the rats moved into our attic. When the exterminator climbed up to the attic, he managed to step on the shelf in the closet and pull it out of the wall. Years of old business records and forgotten fabric came tumbling down. About the same time, we had our annual air conditioner/heater check and discovered our 28 year old air conditioner wouldn't make it another year and needed to be replaced. I took my car in for regular service and learned that a tube thing had come loose and was starting to leak. If it wasn't fixed, the leaking would ruin my engine. I was advised not to drive it until it was fixed. Naturally, I told them to fix it. Then, the ice maker broke in the fridge. I think there were other things that I can't think of now (best forgotten anyway). All of these things happened in the middle of tax season. Although I'm retired, I still do tax returns for family and friends. They managed to give a few tax challenges this year, but that's all right. After the air conditioner and the car, I put off taking my sewing machine for annual service. It's in the shop now so I have my fingers crossed.

Here's the ugly.

The pictures above are most of the stuff that I had stored in one closet. Obviously, I am talented in putting lots of things in a small place. At least, the one bed is just my projects in progress. Everything but the business records are cleared out now. The majority of the mess went to the trash bin, to Goodwill, and to Red Cross. After I finish taxes, I'll do the shredding of those old records.

While I'm thinking about "ugly", is anyone watching Fashion Star? I really like that show, but they have started working in teams and showing the nasty conflicts among designers. I'm so disappointed. It is starting to be more like Project Runway that I have stopped watching. I just don't like all those ugly conflicts.

To end on a positive note, I'm back to sewing now. Yea!! I finished one top for Faye's Essentail Top Sew-A-Long Challenge and, hopefully, will have another finished before Sunday. This post is long enough so I'll blog about those is another couple of posts.

More to come soon.

Cherry Pitfall

The sewing on this T-shirt was fine. I love trying different t-shirt patterns and this KS3338 is my TNT for a simple, casual knit top. I like the slight gathers at the side that take care of most of the winkling around the armhole. I took the picture on Dolly so you could see the gathers. The gathers hardly show at all when I wear it. I need a dart in most patterns. The dart gives the shirt a more fitted and often more formal look. That look is great but not always what I want. The fabric for my Cherry T-Shirt was 100% cotton. There were no problems with sewing the fabric.

So...Where was the pitfall? I have been pretty good (for me) about limiting the additions to my fabric collection. Starting with the purchase of this fabric, I have serious concerns that I am a fabric addict. I showed all the signs. I thought I had it under control. I love to look at different fabrics on blogs and fabric sites. I was looking a lot, as usual. For a while, I was able to say "Oh, that's beautiful but I need to sew more of the beauties I have first". Then, I just had to check out what Lucy's Fabrics had to offer. I saw this cherry fabric. My last name is Cherry. (Yes, I know. My name is a flower and a fruit. I get a lot of looks of disbelief and attempts to misspell my name in some way.) Most fabrics with a cherry print have a white background. I look drained in pure white so I've never bought them. This fabric had a cream background. It was a knit that I could sew quickly. I had to have it right away. Well, we all know that fabric shouldn't travel alone. I easily found another nice fabric. Did I stop there? Of course, I didn't. I found serveral more and pretty soon I was close to the $75 for free shipping. You got it. I added another fabric. Why pay for shipping when I could have a cut of fabric instead? That started a roll of fabric purchases that lasted for several days. It really wasn't my fault. All these sites had such great sales. Yea, right. I was like an alcholic who was going to the bar with friends. For a long time, he/she would just have water or maybe a drink or two. Then, one night this game plan resulted in so many drinks that he/she was passed out. Well, I didn't have a hangover at least. I just had a lot of guilt - not so much about the fabric I purchased. I love the new members of my fabric family. I only have guilt about the big gap between what I buy and what I turn into finished garments. I don't know if anybody noticed, but I did not include the yards of fabric purchased in my June Review. I'm too embarrassed at my June behavior! I'd like to think that I don't have an addiction. I only have a lust for fabric. I'm not real sure there is a difference. At least I did finish a garment in the month that I purchased the fabric. That's a first. There may be hope for me yet.

Bloggers are Terrific!

Thanks to all of you who gave me suggestions for my animal print fabric. All of them are great with many ideas that I would never have considered. I plan to use several of them in the future. Meanwhile, I am still plodding away at my blouse muslins. The three weeks that I planned to work on sleeve fitting has turned into 6 weeks. I'm still not done, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've fitted the bodices for the princess seam blouse and the side-dart blouse. The left sleeve is done for the princess seam blouse. The right sleeve is giving me a bit of a challenge. I'm so assymetrical that I have to fit both sides - double the fun (lol). During breaks, I've cut out a skirt, a knit top, and am close to finishing another knit top. This fitting process is so tedious that I have to stop and get back to it in an hour or two - sometimes the next day! Hopefully, this will all be worth it although I'm sure that I'll be tweaking the fit for some time. Anyway, I should have some things to show soon!

Fitting and Fabric

Well, I'm on round 3 of fitting my two blouse garments. They are getting there - slowly. At least I'll have lots of sewing practice by the time I get to fashion fabric. To ease the tedious task of working out these puzzles, I'm playing with my fabric instead of buying (How's that for discipline?). These are the two pieces of knit fabric I bought from Fashionista Fabric. Originally, the larger piece was planned for a dress and the smaller one for a top. Now, they don't know what they want to be when they grow up. IMO, they look so good together. Any ideas?

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy New Year! Here's wishes that all your sewing, crafting, and other activities turn out wonderful!!!