Operation Salvage = success?

Well, the blouse is done as of this afternoon. In order to get a picture of the fit, had to try it on myself....so please excuse my pasty, banged-up legs, messy room and the horrible lighting. I think overall, I managed to salvage it pretty well, though I had to make some changes from my original plan (namely making it a sleeveless blouse, rather than a short-sleeved one), and some kind of oddball adjustments.

Here's the gist of it, without my hair in the way.

And here's my oddball salvage job. No, that's not a shadow-- that's a fake princess seam intersecting with a dart. I think I can safely say that the full bust adjustment attempt was a complete failure, and this was the only way I could get it even close to well-fitting around my chest in the end. And yes, I realize that the seam is puckered. I'm pretending that those gathers, as well as the dart that makes it look like I pieced together the side, were intentional design features. I made it work. Eat your heart out, Tim Gunn.

I guess it'll be ok that it's sleeveless, in the end-- I think the silhouette is such that I could possibly use it as a layering blouse if needed. And I still like the fabric, I think I did a nice job with the underlining, the silk organza worked out nicely as the interfacing, and I think I managed some cute buttons on this too. (Black probably would have stood out better, but I couldn't pass up the almost glittery-looking embossed design on these.) So overall, even though this means I still have a looooong way to go in my quest to perfect fitting, I think I can consider this a success.

Another exciting development around here is that I've finished the wrap, mostly. The knitting is done, and I wove in the ends yesterday.

This is what it's looking like right now--there's a row or two where I'm not sure what the heck happened because there's some odd line of holes (on the backrest of the chair).

But seeing as how this was considered to be a lace pattern, at least according to the designer (albeit a super-easy one), I think I did pretty well for a newbie.

I still need to block this. Once I figure out exactly how to do it. The pattern recommended basically soaking it and then rolling it up in towels or something.

I liked working with this yarn overall--it's Lion Brand Nature's Choice organic cotton. It's super-soft, and I hope it stays that way after blocking. It did have a tendency to shed a bit (especially when I knit part of this while on an exercise bike--then it was like my orange tabby cat on black), but I didn't have any trouble with knitting it on bamboo needles, even with my tendency to knit tightly. I have a little bit over one ball left, out of the six that I bought for this--the yarn was labeled as worsted weight but I think it's thicker, so I didn't need as much as anticipated. So I think I'm going to use the rest to make a pair of handwarmers sometime. I've been joking for years that I need a pair of skin-toned fingerless gloves to wear at church when I'm playing flute on worship team, because it tends to be so cold in there. And I don't think I'd find anything much closer to my skin tone!

In the meantime, I've started both a dishcloth and a second pair of the Constellation gloves, this time for a friend. And also tearing up something for my next refashion. Not much progress yet on any of those three things, but I'm chipping away at them..

I hope this isn't a craft fail in progress.

I started sewing my black and white blouse today--seemed like a good way to spend an afternoon that I did not have to be teaching band. (Reaping the benefits of standardized testing, ohhhhhhh yeah!) I'd had visions in my head of this coming together super-fast and having almost an entire new shirt to show for this afternoon. But no...it's being complicated.

First, there's this. I must have screwed up somewhere along the line with the FBA I did, because while I had a nice amount of room there, the dart ended up being rather low. (I'm not sure why, since things seemed all right when I was tissue-fitting the pattern.) It looks fine here, but there's a reason for that....you see how small the armhole is?

This is how wide I had to make the shoulder seams to get those darts in the right place--an entire inch beyond the seam allowance! I also had to take the sides in somewhere in the 1/4"-3/4" range (most at the waist, least at the top and bottom.).

And then chop these bits out of the neckline and armhole to make it functional again.

So then the mandarin-style collar was too long, so I ended up cutting this much off of that to make it work....only to remember after I cut it that I'd completely forgotten to factor seam allowances into that measurement. So I stitched the sides with a 1/4" seam allowance to compensate as much as I could. Guess I'm going to be trimming the neckline even more to compensate for the rest.

I'm going to have to see what's up with the facings after all of this--I haven't touched those yet. Hopefully I trimmed the armholes down enough for the cap sleeves to still work--though I have a bit of an advantage on that part, at least, since I picked the view that has just a cap rather than a full-circle sleeve.

If this blouse turns out well after all of this winging it I've had to do, I'll be shocked. And if I ever use this pattern again after all of this, I'm moving the bust dart up at least an inch before I cut a thing.

I really like this fabric, and I was so excited about trying the underlining technique in a more casual project now that I actually know how to do it right. So this is all kind of bumming me out. I don't want to end this post on a downer, so here's some happier things in my crafty world:

#1: The knitted wrap is almost done! At least as far as the knitting goes. I estimate that about 10 more rows should do it as far as using up sufficient yarn goes, while still leaving enough in the ball to do the last two all-knit rows. We'll see how my estimation goes. I'm going to try to finish it tonight, rather than beat myself over the head with this blouse some more.

#2: New magazines! I stopped at the bookstore on my way home from teaching last night to see if the April BurdaStyle was something I wanted to acquire. (It wasn't. Absolutely nothing jumped out at me when looking at the line drawings. There was one jacket that was ok, but I already have more jacket patterns than I'll probably ever sew.) So instead, I picked up the spring SewStylish and the summer Knitscene. Which just may contain my first attempt at a real sweater, once I finish the two summery tanks I have in the queue, because this cardigan is cute and it doesn't look terribly difficult. So it might be a good first attempt at sleeves. And, knowing how easily I get cold, layering options might also be the best way for me to go!

While I'm on the subject of knitting, I have to give a shoutout to Brinn, who very kindly commented on my last post to tell me how to raise the neckline on the tank top she designed that I want to knit. Very sweet of her!

#3: New fabric! And new yarn! Yes, my Fabric.com order came in.

So these are my apron fabrics, all washed up and ready to go. The flower print is actually much larger than I anticipated, so it's a good thing I was going for a more funky, colorful aesthetic! (To give you a sense of scale, the coin on there is an American quarter.)

And the bird fabric I picked up for the Crescent skirt (also a larger scale than anticipated--did I just not read the description or something?), along with the linen/acrylic blend yarn I got to go with it. Now that I see them in person, I'm not as convinced that the two things will go together--the greens in the fabric are a bit more of a yellow shade than I thought, and the yarn is more of a blue-toned green. But who knows--maybe they'll still work. If nothing else, I checked the yarn against my sunflower skirt, now that it's out from its winter hiding place under the bed, and it goes quite well with that. And if all else fails with this skirt, I can always pull out my basic white t-shirt.

I'm baaaack...

....and I survived the crazy busy week. Even got some unexpected time to recuperate yesterday--I was originally scheduled to work at my retail job, but the weather was horrible yesterday and I was scheduled for the outdoor register, so I got a call telling me to stay home since they weren't expecting enough business for 2 cashiers. So instead, my best friend came over, we watched Tangled and a whole lot of The Big Bang Theory, and she crocheted while I knitted.

(No pictures in this post, since I'm writing it spur-of-the-moment and it's too dark to get any decent pics. But I have lots of links.)

Still working on that wrap. It looks like it's about 47" long now, which is actually what the pattern calls for. I'm debating whether I want to make it a bit longer, since I've still got something like 1 2/3 balls of the yarn left. (Apparently I quite overestimated how much I would need. Except it looks like it's a lot longer in the picture. This one just barely wraps around me.) But then, it's rather tempting to just knit the 3 rows I'd need to finish it off so I can move on to something else! It'll get a little longer when I block it, right?

I also started my next sewing project today, which is going to be view C of New Look 6967. I had to do some fitting modifications to the front of the pattern, which hopefully will work out all right. And I got everything cut out this time--impressive for me, since I usually get lazy by the time I get to interfacing and don't actually cut it out until I need it to complete that step. I'm making it a little more complicated for myself by almost completely underlining it--mostly so I won't have to deal with the lack of opacity issues that white fabric tends to have. The only things I'm not underlining are the facings and one half of the collar, since they'll be interfaced instead. And I'm actually using a piece of the silk organza for the interfacing, as an experiment. So far, I've got the basting done on about half the pieces--I'm actually doing a blend of hand- and machine-basting for that. (Hand-basted the sleeves, the organza to the facings, and the darts on the back, but I machine-basted the outer edges of the back.) I still have to do the front and the front facings. I don't think this will take very long to sew together once all of the prepwork is done, though. Especially since I'll probably just serge the seams to finish them.

And now it's stashbusting confession booth time. Though I'm subtracting about 2 yards with this blouse (not counting the underlining fabric, which I did not add the total in and I used up all but scraps so it evens out), I'll be adding something like 5 1/2 yards once my Fabric.com order comes in. It's all Nicole's fault, really. She had the idea that it would be fun to make some Anthropologie-inspired aprons, and asked me if I wanted to get together to sew some. Which sounded fun, as well as practical since I tend to be messy when I cook. I did look in the stash first, and didn't see anything that would really work for such a project. So I think I'm excused on those two pieces. But the blame lies solely on me for the 2 1/2 yards of cotton print that I spotted that would make a really fun Crescent Skirt. Then, to make matters worse, I made the mistake of looking in the 65% off clearance section of the yarn portion of their website, and found a linen-acrylic blend that perfectly went with said skirt fabric. So of course I just had to buy it. I'm thinking a less low-cut (if I can figure out how to make it so) version of this.

So not only am I canceling out something like the last 3 projects I did for this fabric purchase, I now seem to be acquiring a yarn stash. I've got yarn for all 6 of the things in my Ravelry queue, and even if I do make the wrap long enough to finish out the current ball, I'll still have one left. Plus I still have yarn left from the beret, too. Drat. At least I'll end up using the apron fabrics almost right away.

Guess I'm committed.

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I was almost sure I'd be letting go of the Etsy shop. Well, I've started raiding the collection of jewelry that I'd made for the craft fair, i.e. what I'd be attempting to sell on there, and actually wearing some of it myself. So since letting go of the shop means I'm not going to be posting in the blog I made to go along with it, I'm going to start showing those things in here as I pull them for myself or give them away.

So here's my first keeper:

I was really pleased with how this turned out, and had thought for sure that it would get snatched up at the fair. All of the beads are recycled from a bracelet I found on one of my thrift store excursions--it was this loop of pewter-looking bead holders strung on elastic. Every holder had something like 4 or 5 loops, and every one of those had something like 3 beads, so there were a LOT of beads on this thing. I wasn't really wearing bracelets at the time, and this one wasn't really appealing to me as is, but I'd figured I could use the beads for something. I think the freshwater pearls just might be real, but the rest of it is definitely faux pearls and crystals. I put it on 3 different types of chain.

(And here's a more closeup pic of the earrings.)

I already had a couple of brown necklaces I really like and wear often, but they're kind of more seasonal-looking to me since they have shells and leaves and such. So I figured this set would be a good supplement to that.

I've pulled a couple of other things for myself, which I'll post as I go. But here's what else has been going on in my crafty little world:

I had a nice chunk of sewing time on Monday, so I started that dress that I was planning to knock out. So far, I have the pleats done in both the front and the back, and am working on the yoke pieces. Hopefully those pleats are ok, because the directions were making absolutely no sense to me for that part. It's these weird pattern pieces that have chunks cut out of them, and the straight line at the bottom of the chunk is supposed to be the top of the pleat, and somehow you're supposed to sew across that without getting the outer part and still have it press flat. Yeah, that wasn't happening. So I kind of ended up winging it and adding some topstitching--both to capitalize on the corset-looking nature of the seams, and to actually get the top part of those pleats to stay in place. On the plus side, the paisley pattern ended up matching up much better than I expected it to, particularly at the bottom of the pleats!

In knitting news, the wrap still looks just like a longer version of the same picture I posted before. I think it's somewhere around 20" long now. Maybe a little more. So I kind of feel like it's less exciting to blog about since it's just a giant rectangle of the same thing over and over. But I haven't gotten completely bored with knitting it yet, most likely since I'm just doing a row here and there as I don't have time to do other things, and the instructions call for making it 47" so I guess I'm about halfway done. Maybe a little less. I recently started the third ball of yarn, and I have 6. I have to at the very least use 5 of them, preferably all 6, because I said so. And I don't care if it's a little longer as a result. I'm still trying to avoid creating a yarn stash to rival my fabric/bead/scrapbook paper ones, darn it, and so far I'm doing a pretty good job!

On a random note, I've also been refashioning my hair a bit this week! Nothing drastic, just got a slightly differently-styled haircut with a little more shaping (and most of the length I had before.) And my sis-in-law gave me a block of henna from LUSH for my birthday this year (part of my ongoing quest to be a natural redhead, whether my hair wants to or not, and I've liked the more natural look and feel that the henna gives my hair. Plus less chemical damage and more eco-friendly. Yay!) At the suggestion of the lovely helpful store employee I was talking to on Sunday, I ended up putting it in last night and wrapping it up, and sleeping on it, and washing it out this morning. So far, the color's turned out the best out of the henna products I've tried, and it actually washed out much cleaner in terms of toweling it off afterwards! But I can't show any pics yet--since this henna also had cocoa butter mixed in, and the instructions for washing it out called for both shampoo and conditioner, my hair ended up so heavily conditioned today that I pretty much had no choice but to ponytail it. It literally feels like I forgot to wash the conditioner out of my hair. Ugh. Hopefully it'll be better tomorrow. But at least it's an awesome shade of red.

Beaded wrap tutorial

This is how I made the wrap I'll be wearing for my cousin's upcoming wedding (along with the LBD.) It was super-easy, and no pattern required, so I figured this might be a useful tutorial for someone. Here goes...

You'll need:
2 yards of drapey fabric. (Mine was 45" wide.)
Trim with beaded fringe, to equal one width of the fabric. (Half goes on each end, so I used about 45" for mine.)
Sewing machine with a zipper foot
Thread, iron, cutting supplies

Step 1: Lay your fabric out, matching up the selvages, and trim off just enough fabric to even up the ends. I used a hand-dyed-looking silky fabric that's been sitting in my stash for several years, but as long as it has some drape to it, pretty much anything could work. (I'm envisioning the refashionista crowd using some old curtains....)

Step 2: On the shorter ends, press under about 3/4". (This would be width-wise.)

Step 3: Pin the selvage edges together to make a long tube. (You're folding it lengthwise to do this.) The pressed-under edges should be on the outside of the tube, with the folded edges lined up. With the regular machine foot, sew together with a wide enough seam allowance to enclose the selvages. (I had to use about 3/4", but that would vary depending on how wide that selvage is.) Do not sew the folded-under edges. You want an open tube.

Before you turn it, trim the corners of the seam. You don't want that edge sticking out!

Step 4: I found it helpful to press the seam flat while it was still inside-out, just to start defining the edge. Turn the tube right-side out, with the folded edges inside the tube. Press the seamed edge flat, with the fold as close to the seam as possible. You might want to also press the opposite side to give that side a crisper edge as well.

Step 5: Get that beaded trim. It's probably best if you find something with the ribbon/twill tape as close to the color of your fabric as possible, because it's really hard to keep it from showing! I found this in the home dec section of the local Joann's, so it's pretty heavy, but it does help the wrap to hang very well!

Now start sandwiching the ribbon between the two folded edges. You want to keep the beads out, of course, but hide as much of the ribbon as you can. (It'll likely show a bit once you stitch it.) I highly recommend pinning the heck out of it to keep everything in place, because slippery fabric + heavy trim is pretty much a recipe for disaster without it!

I didn't actually cut the trim until I was very close to the opposite end of where I started, just to guarantee that it would fit exactly.

Step 6: With the zipper foot, topstitch as close to the edge of the fabric as possible. I took my time and went really slowly, but as stated before, it was still very hard to keep a bit of the twill tape from peeking out. So I'm quite thankful that I was able to find a color that matched my old fabric so well!

I don't have a picture of this step (sorry), but once you get the beaded edges stitched down, it's also good to do another close topstitching on the long edges, just to keep it lying nice and flat.

And here's the finished product!

And a closeup of the beaded edge. It really hangs quite nicely!

So there you have it. This really didn't take me very long at all...probably something like an hour and a half from start to finish, if I subtract the lunch break and how much reading other sewing blogs while I was pinning the trim in slowed me down. I hope someone finds this useful--and if you use the tutorial, I'd love to see the finished product! Also, if I need to clarify anything, let me know.

So this makes 3 successful things I've sewn for this wedding....does that mean I finally broke the wedding sewing jinx? :-)

the art of procrastination

So as of today, there are only nine days left until my brother's wedding. And I've been on limited crafting time this week, between work and social stuff that's popped up (my best friend from high school is in town with her husband and two kids, so I went over to her parents' house last night to catch up with her, and then my best friend now stopped by tonight). No, I don't have a picture of the dress yet. So really, other than a little bit of time spent on it tonight, the only day I had this week that I could have worked on finishing the wrap was Monday, since it took me a good bit of time on Sunday to get the buttonhole figured out (for one half. I still have one half to go as of tonight. Including basting the interfacing onto the velvet.)

So do you think I sewed on the wrap on Monday? Nooo... I did this.
This pile of wood is my computer desk, completely disassembled. I hope I can get it back together all right... I don't have a picture of what it looked like all together originally, but I did take pictures of the different pieces and components before disassembling them the rest of the way/removing the hardware that was left. (My dad had already taken it apart a bit.) So it took me several hours, but I got the whole thing sanded. And pretty much by myself--I did have to get my dad to help me with one particualarly difficult screw (which was not my fault, whoever originally put it together did a crappy job that resulted in chunks being taken out of the particle board, which is the main reason I absolutely have to paint it. Because we had to fill those in with some kind of construction goop.)

So now I can say the room is officially started, even though my brother won't be moving the rest of his stuff out until after his honeymoon. I even bought my paint yesterday, and made a date with two of my friends who volunteered to come over and help me paint. (Without my even asking them to. I have good friends.)

Also, though I'm procrastinating on getting a picture of the dress (due to bad lighting and a horribly messy current bedroom), I did finally get a picture of my hutch thingy. (The top is a little messed up-- the finish was chipped pretty badly, so that got some preliminary sanding.)
And then this is a closeup of the doors. I know it's a little bit country looking, but I do like the hinges and hardware a lot on this! It's kind of earthy, which fits in my rather nature-inspired room very well. (I just have to figure out what color I'm going to have to repaint them... I don't think they're going to work with it as is after I paint it white. I'd debated leaving it the natural color, but since the main flat surface was messed up anyway...)

On a somewhat related note, I found this quiz courtesy of Salinda. According to it, my decor style is "global casual".

Your home is warm and inviting, and expresses your curiosity and zest for life. You have wide-ranging interests, and an appreciation for many different cultures and ways of life. You bring a sense of the far-flung world into your home through its décor through unique or artisan-made treasures. Objects in your home tend to reflect your personality, your passions, your values, and your eclectic interests. This gives your home a sense of intrigue and comfort.

You value creativity. You are stylish and fun loving, and can be an inspiration to others. You have a natural sense of drama, and you know you have to be willing to take risks—whether with colors, finishes, furniture choices, or ideas—for your home to stand out. Your home can be happy and lively and the place all of your friends want to be.

I thought it was pretty accurate, actually! And a nice way to not go with the cop-out of "eclectic".

Today I...

• ...finished the sister-of-the-groom dress from hell! Mostly finished it last night, but I sewed the hook and eye to complete it this morning. No pictures yet, as I didn't have time to take them. I'm still not happy with it, but at this point, I just have to go with it and hope that no one notices the many imperfections that are bugging me.
  
• ...cut out the wrap that I'll be wearing with it. I'm a little bit concerned about how it's going to turn out; my original plan was to use some silk velvet (yum) that I dyed back in the summer on the outside, and then line it with satin to give it a little more body. Unfortunately, I found that I severely underestimated how much satin I'd need, and didn't have enough yardage to cut it out in any direction. (Any ideas with what I can do with about a yard of really shiny satin would be appreciated.) So both sides are now going to be the velvet, which is why I'm concerned--the velvet's just so drapey and I'm afraid it'll just sag all over the place, since it's basically a double-seamed tube of fabric with rounded ends.
  
• ...went to Joann's to get some interfacing to hopefully help solve that potential problem. (The lightest weight of non-fusible interfacing they had.)
• ...was hoping to finish that wrap, but my brother's fiancee's bridal shower was today, and by the time I got home from that and Joann's and a stop to get them a new wedding present, I was just too tired. (I'd originally gotten them a cake pan, because my brother loves cake; the plan was to get them that and a box of one of his favorite mixes and a can of icing. But one of my aunts gave her a ginormous basket from her and her three daughters filled with all sorts of kitchen goodies (I have to admit I was kind of jealous--I've always liked kitchen stuff more than a girl who can't afford her own place should), and a cake pan of the same size was one of the goodies. So my mom said she'd buy the cake pan off of me--she'd picked it up for me while she was out at Kohl's and I was at work, and no longer has the receipt, so I can't return it. And she likes the fact that it has a lid. So I got them some measuring cups and such instead, since they hadn't gotten any of those yet (and you need the liquid ones for cake mixes). And left it for my brother since they've been getting wedding presents delivered here anyway, so then I can give it to them first. So there.)
• ...made my mom's necklace for the wedding instead. Again, no pictures, because flash never works for jewelry pics and it's too dark for natural light.

So that pretty much covers my Saturday in a nutshell. And maybe, just maybe, I can finish that wrap tomorrow. Here's hoping...