puzzle solving

After the great lace disaster of last week, I've managed to get to the point where the front is basically done, and am now applying lace to the back! Which, surprisingly, has turned out to be more complicated than princess seams. Between trying to somewhat match up the motifs that are going over the seamlines and trying to keep it flat and intact over the organza part--I'd like to avoid having to stitch that down so it looks nice on the inside--trying to do this one side of the back has become like trying to solve this complicated puzzle where I'm carefully trimming around bits of sunflowers and overlapping other bits to try and make a fabric that still looks nice but stays flat. All this while trimming and stitching as I go. I tried putting the bodice on Donna and trimming out a piece of lace to put on this piece yesterday, and it didn't work, so I had to resort to basically having the entire piece of lace hanging off of this thing at some point and stitching as I go. I had to make some overlap, but I did have a couple of flowers touching on the front as I tried to work around the princess seams, so it will have to do. There's not many other options for a lace with a lot of netting in between flowers. Most people probably won't be looking that closely, right?

At least those other cut pieces won't entirely go to waste, as I can recycle the sunflowers as skirt embellishments. I'm having my leg model here so they really pop! There's about 6 fully trimmed out so far, and others in various stages of cutting netting away. I've been working a little of this in between things so I can break up the mountain of hand-sewing on occasion.

The other major thing I've gotten done this week was sewing twill tape around the top of the bodice to help shape and stabilize the neckline, and turning and stitching those pieces down. It took some re-reading of Bridal Couture and a shoutout for some clarification on Twitter to figure out exactly how best to go about it, but I think the results turned out well. I grabbed this pic on my phone in-progress...










And here's the result! It did make a rather nicely-shaped neckline, I think--maybe a little pointier than I would have wanted on the right side, but we'll see if I redo it. I did do this part with some negative ease, so it should help the thing curve in and fit me better, too.






In continuing the tradition of showing the guts of the dress, here's what it looks like inside, with the photo seriously filtered to really let it show. For some reason, this side was way more ripply than the other side, and I may end up re-doing this particular section to attempt to get it to lie flatter. (I think this is the pointier side, come to think of it...maybe that explains it.)

One last order of business before I get back to work-- I was recently given the Premio award by the lovely Hana. It's to thank the last 9 people who have commented here, and I'm all in favor of more commenting (and have been making an effort to leave comments more often myself this year!) So I'd like to send a shoutout to Hana (still the most recent commenter!), Donna, Murieann, Helen T, Gwen, soisewedthis, Allison, Christina, and Carolyn.

I apologize to those of you whose blogs I didn't link-- I discovered as I was doing this that apparently Disqus won't link me to the blog for the commenter like the default settings do. I also learned from Hana that apparently the comments don't work on Internet Explorer! Has this been an issue for anyone else? Would it be better if I try to undo the Disqus and just go back to the default commenting?

Award time!

 

Gwen was kind enough to nominate me for a blog award! Thanks! :)


The rules for this one:
1. Thank the person who nominated you. 

2.  Add The One Lovely Blog Award/Very Inspiring Blogger Award to your post.

3.  Share 7 things about yourself.

4.  Pass the award on to 10 nominees.

5.  Include this set of rules.

6.  Inform your nominees by posting a comment on their blogs.

For the 7 things about myself, just to do something different this time, this edition is going to be all crafty confessions!

1. As I've mentioned before, my mom started teaching me to sew when I was still in elementary school. The first thing I remember making by myself from a pattern was an elastic-waist skirt, a bit on the fuller side, from a lavender twill that was printed with white heart outlines and the occasional pink or blue heart. This is odd, because I very quickly outgrew pastels, pink in general, and hearts. Also, I'm not sure I ever did iron the hem, so it looked pretty awful.

2. My one foray into the vintage pattern world was a vest I made in high school. I may have mentioned it before. It was a 1970's pattern for a cropped, button-up vest, from my mom's pattern stash before a major purge. I made it from a snakeskin vinyl that I found among her things, probably also from the 1970s. I couldn't pin it, so I traced the pattern pieces on it with a sharpie. And wrote the labels for what piece was what right smack in the middle of the pieces where anyone could see it, because this vest was not lined. I actually did wear this quite a bit. (I really wish I'd been taking pictures of my creations back then. I made some wacky stuff as a teenager.)

3. Since I still consider myself to be a beginner knitter, though perhaps an advanced beginner by this point, my last two previous attempts to become a knitter were the following: A scarf that I knit in college, made from that Lion Brand Homespun stuff, which I only finished one half of because Homespun is seriously awful to knit with and I ended up with so many extra stitches on my needles from the splitting that the thing looked awful. The sides curled up like crazy and one end was probably a good 4" wider than the other, at least. (As a side note, all the crocheters I know love that yarn. I guess it's easier to work with on a hook.) The other attempt was a never-finished bit of knitting that I made in high school, solely as a costume prop--one of my friends decided to do a Dickens-themed costume party one year around Christmas, and I decided to go as Madame Defarge from A Tale of Two Cities. Needless to say, I no longer have either project.

4. I started scrapbooking as a teenager as well, due to a kit that an aunt gave me for Christmas one year. I did some wacky stuff with that, too, like taking one of the flowers from the centerpiece at the "junior-senior banquet" (aka Christian school version of prom, where dancing was only allowed at the afterparty that some parents would usually sponsor so it wasn't officially done by the school, and kids whose families were opposed to dancing for denominational reasons just wouldn't go), sticking it in my flower press, and gluing it in. So to this day, I have a flattened, glittered carnation in that book along with my prom pictures. (For the record, they were giving the flowers away after, so I got it fair and square!)

5. I've talked before on multiple occasions of the highly ambitious projects that I've wanted to do, and are now either sewing or have sewn, i.e. jeans and a wedding dress. But there's a few things that I'm rather scared to attempt sewing myself. I think the top of that list would be bras, or swimwear.

6.  Given that I have yet to successfully make any of the standard fit adjustments (FBA, etc), or to successfully draft my own pattern for anything that's not a bag, I'm seriously beginning to wonder if I have the capability to do flat pattern alterations at all. I'm going to blame math--it's not that I was terrible at it, but it certainly doesn't come naturally to me and having to deal with numbers honestly gives me a headache very fast. (I always tell a people that since I'm a musician, I'm very good at counting to four repeatedly...)

7. I wouldn't say I've attempted all crafts, but there's a few I've dabbled with that just never really stuck. Stuff like cross stitching--I've started and never finished multiple projects, and I guess it just bores me. I've also played with polymer clay to try and make my own jewelry, and that didn't really work out, either. (Though I do break that out occasionally for scrapbook embellishments or geeky crochet hooks.) My bestie also tried to teach me to crochet once, and I've since discovered that I generally like the look of knitted projects better, and it seems to be easier on my wrists. A few things I haven't attempted, and probably won't, are weaving (unless you count those nylon loop potholder things that kids make), and spinning my own yarn, because, you know, wool.

As for ten people.... I know this one's been going around for awhile, so I apologize if there's any repeats. I'm also trying to go for blogs are not quite as well-known, because the people who write them are inspiring and they deserve recognition too!

1. Claudine at Rolling In Cloth
2. Alexandra at Alexandra and the Cuckoo Clock
3. Christina at her brand spankin' new blog home, Clever Crafty Creative
4. Hana at Marmota's Dress Diaries 
5. Allison at A Fabric Fixation
6. Kristin at Quiet and Small: Adventures in PhD Land
7. Gail at My Fabrication
8. A more recent find-- Sophie at Monbouton's Needles
9. Dawn at Two On Two Off
10. Kelli at True Bias

An award and a giveaway

Nid de Tissus recently gave me this lovely award-- thanks, Donna! And there's some fun questions to go along with it, so here goes...

Favorite Color: It's generally a toss-up between blue and green--I love both! I've found myself going for teal in my fabric choices quite a lot over the last few years, too. It's a good compromise between the two!

Favorite Animal: I grew up with both cats and dogs, and am quite fond of both. I also like horses--they're beautiful creatures.

Favorite Number: 7, I guess. I'm not much into math.

Favorite Non-Alcoholic Drink: Tea! Finally, a decisive answer.

Facebook or Twitter: Facebook. I have a Twitter, but rarely bother to use it.

My Passion: Music, obviously. And sewing is quite up there!

Getting or Giving Presents: Both. I do enjoy making and giving things to my family and friends, but I do have to admit that getting stuff is pretty fun too!

Favorite Pattern: New Look 6407, aka my go-to blouse pattern that I keep altering into other things. It's just so versatile!

Favorite Day of the Week: Saturday!

Favorite Flower: Sunflowers!

Favorite celebrity role model: To be perfectly honest, I don't really have one. I tend to just watch the movies and shows/listen to the music I like, and then ignore the actors' and musicians' personal lives.


Since I'm supposed to pass this on, I picked a few bloggers whose posts I always enjoy and whom I didn't mention in the last award. (It's up to you whether you want to participate or not!)

1. The Girl With The Star-Spangled Heart-- Though I'm not really into the vintage sewing scene myself, I always enjoy seeing the outfits, classic movie inspirations, and as of late, her ongoing series on the fashions in Downton Abbey and attempts to bring some of the Crowley sisters' style into her current wardrobe.

2. Sewn By Alviana-- She's just now getting back into the blogging scene after a (well-deserved and totally understandable) break to have her first daughter. But I've long enjoyed reading her upbeat posts! And since she's from Malaysia, she'll also sometimes give these neat glimpses into the more traditional outfits from there.

3. fanbloomingtastic-- One of the newest additions to my quasi-daily reading list, which I found via this year's round of Sew Weekly contributors. It's interesting to read about the life of a U.K. transplant on this side of the pond. And there's frequent Doctor Who references, which of course makes me like her.

4. 21 Wale-- She uses a lot of cool patterns from companies I'm not really that familiar with, particularly in the realm of magazines. And she also makes these amazing kids' clothes--I'm also impressed that her kids appear to be such willing models!

5. Kelly's Korner-- Her clothes always look so cleanly and professionally finished, and I like that she's been sharing (and actually making things inspired by) some of her favorite Pinterest finds as of late.

Really, there's so many fantastic blogs out there, that it's hard to pick!

And I did promise a small giveaway last time, so here we go!

I was recently cleaning out/organizing my pattern stash. And while I did get rid of a few things that I knew I'd never use again, I found these five that have never been used at all. It seems a shame to throw out uncut patterns, so I'd like to pass them along to someone who might be able to have some fun with them. So here's the list, with links to larger pics when I can:

1. Burda Young Fashion 8174, in sizes 34-44 European (also listed as 8-18 for the Americans)
2. Simplicity 5505, in sizes 6-12
3. McCall's 5137, in size 14-20. I know this style hasn't been seen around for the last couple of years, but it could have potential in alterations, maybe?
4. McCall's 4873, in sizes 12-18. (This is me finally accepting that empire waist patterns tend to look terrible on me, at least without massive amounts of alterations and a more fitted waist..)
5. McCall's 5050, in sizes extra-small to medium. (No numbers listed, sorry!)

I realize that not all of these patterns are going to appeal to any one person, so I'm willing to split them up. So if you'd like, leave a comment letting me know which pattern(s) you're potentially interested in, and if you don't have a blog I can find you at, an email address would be helpful too. I'll give you until April 2. (No spam-bots, please... I've already gotten 6 or 7 anonymous spammy comments this week, and it's only Monday! I might have to go back to word verification, or block the legitimate anonymous commenters again...sigh.)

Edit: And this is why I shouldn't write posts at midnight...I should probably clarify a couple of things about the giveaway. To keep it simple, I'm going to do it first-come, first-serve. Any patterns that are not claimed by April 2 will be Freecycled locally. Thanks!