Life Gets in the Way...

Lately I have been a terrible blogger, as well as blog-friend. I haven't posted in weeks...and haven't read or commented on other blogs either. Work has been completely insane; we are in the midst of renovations in our office, and the contractors are just working around us. Over the holiday break they were supposed to have taken care of all the rerouting of our data lines; unfortunately...it didn't work out as planned. So, on our first day back on Jan. 3rd, we had no phones and no internet connections in our office. Panic ensued...and by 9am our front desk was working out of a computer lab off-campus, and the rest of the advisors were in a conference room in Admissions. Three days later, we were back in our office, but playing catch-up with all the things that we had missed or deferred while we were out of the office.

Needless to say, I haven't entered the sewing room in a week, but do have some finished projects from last week.

I started the new year off finishing up a few projects that had been lingering around the sewing room. One of them was a shirt for my nephew that had been cut out and lying around for MONTHS. He was over on the weekend and as we made a game out of finishing it...seeing if we could sew it in an hour if we worked together. He manned the iron and I ran the machine...and we would have made it, too, if it hadn't been for that broken needle. One hour and three minutes later, he had a shirt to match the one I made for his daddy:


Yes, I know that some would question making a shirt for a 9-year-old that had burlesque dancers on it:


But, he wanted one exactly like his dad's, and let's face it...I already made one with drunken skeletons on it for him...we are not exactly pillars of society around here. He wanted it, his dad was fine with it, so I made it for him. He's a tall, skinny boy so I lengthen the smaller boys' sizes for his shirts. I just slash the pattern horizontally and add about three inches, and have also found that the sleeves need lengthening, too.

In my own sewing, I have been trying to put together some travel clothing. In March, I am going with a group of family and friends to Egypt...and I need clothes that will travel well as well as be comfortable while visiting sites. To that end, I have been looking for some easy layering options. The first thing that I made was BurdaStyle 12-2009-120.

Because of the challenge of grading up patterns to plus size, and dealing with the different amounts of ease given the original draft and what I was looking for, I used a shirt that I had made before and was happy with the fit to draft the body of the tunic. I really only used the Burda draft for the hood, shoulders and neckline.


I made mine from a very fine wool jersey, and since I also wanted the option of wearing it without a shirt under it, I added snaps to the placket:


So they wouldn't show from the outside, I attached the "top" half of the snaps before the placket was sewn, so they are actually inside. The bottom half I just attached in a standard way. The burda pattern and instructions for the placket frustrated me to no end, so I ended up drafting my own pattern piece, and attaching it my own way...based on the way I did the sleeve plackets on my husband's shirts.

I also did not flat-fell the hood seam the way Burda instructed, I just serged and top-stitched. I don't think it looks bad that way:


Finally, I have also been working on making a good pair of yoga pants/sweat pants. I am now on the third pair, using Kwik Sew 3115:


I raised the back waisline by 1 inch, lengthened the pant leg by 2 inches, and did a "knock-knee" adjustment that accounts for full inner thighs, as well as knock knees. For knit pants, they turned out very well:


I made them in a double-knit, farily soft, like a sweatshirt knit. I think they will be great pants for the plane.

On the table right now is a half-finished bag for a friend, as well as a blue knit version of the black tunic. Other than that, nothing too creative is going on around here. Over the holiday, my husband and I ordered new furniture for the living room, and it will arrive in 8 weeks. In the meantime, we are arguing over whether or not to pull up the living room carpet. The problem is, is if the floor is super-jacked-up, we don't have the money to refinish it right now. If its just a matter of sanding and refinishing...we can do that ourselves. But massive repairs? Replacement? No dice.

I'll keep you posted....