Running in Place

Last week I made progress on some projects, but at the same time it felt very unproductive, hence the title of this blog.  I think it was because I was mainly working on tracing patterns, making alterations, and making muslins.  I KNOW that that is making progress, but I am so impatient it still feels like I am not doing anything.  At least the first muslin that I made was for myself.

I had a length of Liberty that I purchased on Ebay.  I needed a pattern that did not take much fabric, because the length of Liberty that I had was only 35 inches wide and 2 yards long.  It hadn't been cut that way, it clearly had selvedges on both sides.  But, it has been sitting in my stash for about a hundred years because I never wanted to cut into it an ruin it and I finally decided, what the heck good is it doing folded up in here?  Cut it, sew it, either have a success or ruin it, because it is doing nothing in the stash.

So, I fitted, and traced and muslined...looking for a pattern that would work.  I finally found Simplicity 2255:

It only required 1 3/4 yards of 45 inch wide fabric  for cap sleeve version, so I hoped that I would be able to squeak it out of my Liberty fabric:

I started by making a muslin using an embroidered sateen that I picked up from a clearance rack at Hancock's.  The pattern has front bust darts and back waist darts for shaping:

I'm pretty pleased with the fit, so I made some small alterations and cut into the Liberty....I have a long weekend coming up (friday and monday off for Memorial Day), so hopefully I'll get some work done on it.

In other news, my nephew's interest in sewing continues.  He wanted to make a coat, and thought that if we started now it would be ready by fall.  So, I had him help me to trace off and muslin a pattern from the August, 2009 BurdaStyle.  

It went together surprisingly easily considered I had a 10-year-old's "help" in tracing.  I didn't let him off easy, though...here he is pressing the seams:

Of course, you can also see the giant mess in the sewing room and huge piles of laundry being sorted for washing behind him.  Hopefully over the holiday weekend I will finally be able to put together the new furniture purchased for the sewing room last year and get the mess cleaned up!

Here is my little monkey in "his" coat.  The back fits well, I might add just a touch to the length since he is growing like a weed and also leave all the ease so he can wear it for a while:

On the front, it seems like the overlap is a bit skimpy.  It is supposed to be double-breasted, and I feel like if I widen the front, it will make it possible to move the buttons over time and maybe he can wear it for more than one season.  Also, for all the length on the back seemed good, the front seems short.  I might lengthen it overall.  He is already texting me to see if I have cut the wool coating yet....

As always, more later....

A Summer Dress

Last week I finished a summer dress using a border print lawn that, pretty much like everything I have been sewing lately, has been moldering in my stash for a loooong time:

I wanted to use it for a casual dress, since I had seen a number of gathered waist or drawstring dresses in RTW recently.  Here is one from ModCloth:

One from J. Jill:

One from Old Navy:

So, I decided to use a pattern from stash and try and create a similar dress.  I used Butterick 5612, which was very similar to the Old Navy version, right down to the sleeves:

Except...I couldn't use the pattern for the sleeves because when I laid out the pattern on the cross-grain to use the border print....I didn't have enough fabric to make the cuffed sleeves!  So, I cut the sleeves shorter and just put some elastic in the hem.

Here are some additional photos of the finished dress:

For the most part, I had no issues with the instructions but I COULD NOT figure out the instructions for the placket.  So, I just constructed it the same way that I did for the Hot Patterns Superfantastic Shirt, which added a little pleat below the placket:

Because of a shortage of fabric, I cut the drawstring from the border.  You can also see in this photo the little pleat added due to the construction of the placket...or can you?  Really, it completely disappears in the print of the fabric:

Here is an image from the hem...I just lined the edge of the pattern up with selvedge and put a 1/2 inch hem in:

Overall, I really liked the pattern and other than my inability to figure out how to install the placket, the only issues that I had were related to using a border print and running short on fabric (changing the sleeves to gathered hems).

I also finished a couple of other projects this week.  I made another shirt from the same BurdaStyle pattern used for the two western shirts.  This time I left off the yoke, and actually followed the instructions for the hidden buttons...except I can't help myself where adding stuff is concerned and sewed a strip of eyelet down the placket:

I also made an apron for a friend of mine who is a pastry chef.  No pattern, just just laid an apron that I had onto the fabric and cut around it.:

She has sent me some embroidered patches that she found on Etsy, so I sewed them onto the pockets:

The apron will be winging it's way to California on Monday.  This week I will probably finish...nothing.  It is finals week, so I will have a ton of grading to do....so, I'll catch you when I can!  Have a great week!