One last Licorice post, and a FESA roundup

Here we go...Licorice in real life! This was the only picture I ended up with from the party where you can actually see most of the dress, including the belt. In every other picture, my arm was conveniently hiding the belt.

The verdict: Overall, I'm happy with how it wore, although it needs a little tweaking. Since I had to take in the darts more than what the pattern originally specified after my fitting muslin, the fabric was straining a bit at the center of each dart by the time I took it off. So I'm going to have to round those out a bit before I wear it again, and hope that the fabric isn't already obviously damaged. I also need to add another eyelet to the belt, because despite having measured, it's too big! Fortunately, extras came with the kit, so I can do that easily enough. I think I'd also like to add some kind of loop to the belt to hold the end in.

Anyway, I got a lot of compliments on the dress, and people were surprised when Nicole told them I'd made it!

The next day, along with some Anthropologie window-shopping, Nicole and I went to Gaffney Fabrics, which is pretty close to her apartment.
And, well, after months of not buying anything without a specific purpose, I couldn't resist picking up a few things. It's the corduroy's fault--the lovely shade of blue, and the velvety feel of the thin wales were screaming, "You think I'm gorgeous, you want to buy me, you want to make a cute jacket out of me...." (If you've ever seen Miss Congeniality, just picture Sandra Bullock doing her little routine in there at the end and you'll get the general tone.) Anyway, the corduroy was already cut into a 2 5/8 yard piece, which I figured would be plenty for a cute little jacket. Maybe something like this? Or this? Or maybe go all Sgt. Pepper's and make that Hikaru jacket that I've had saved on my hard drive since back when BurdaStyle patterns were free? The floral print is to be the lining of whatever I settle on--we found a roll of this satiny stuff in the basement, and the blue matched perfectly! I didn't have to feel guilty about splurging, either, because they were having a post-Thanksgiving sale still going on and this stuff was rather inexpensive-- only $2.99/yd for the lining, and only $1.99/yd for the corduroy itself!

I'm not going to get to this one right away, of course-- I'm in the middle of a reconstruction and I want to fix those darts while I still have the machine threaded with the right color, I've got a little Christmas present I need to make once the rest of my supplies arrive, and then the next priority is going to be starting the tracing and fitting process for my winter raincoat. It's actually been fairly unseasonably warm around here for most of the fall, but the cold is finally starting to dig its claws in, and I've already missed having this on a couple of the colder rainy days so far this season.

I'm looking at my initial Fall Essentials Sew-Along list, and I think that overall, I did pretty well! I didn't get to the jeans yet, of course, and I still have the two coats on my list that are high priority.  My Cadence is still in the works, too. But I did finish the teal skirt from the "Fashionable Foundations" category, the knit top from the "Chic Chemises" (and I'd say I'm at least a third of the way done the Cadence), my one "Fashionable Frock" is in the bag (and the Licorice gave me an extra one to boot), the slippers from the "Tender Tootsies", and the knitted hat from the "Baby It's Cold Outside", as well as a nice dent in a matching scarf. Plus Jolene' bag, and finishing Shantelle's scarf, and making a nice dent on my mending pile. Not bad for three months-- especially since I had to re-knit the Cadence thrice!

So, aside from the Christmas present, I think I'll do the raincoat first, then the jeans, then the brown corduroy jacket that I've been meaning to do since last year. Though I'll probably break these up with some reconstructing, since these are all pretty involved sewing projects. It'll probably take me until February to finish all of these, but that's ok. This new blue jacket idea that's percolating will be better for an early spring jacket, I think, since the corduroy is definitely on the lightweight side. I'm hearing rumors of a spring sew-along, and I'm hoping it's in the same spirit as the summer and fall essentials one, so we'll see...