Double trouble Pacific Moon

schmeebot has received her Pacific Moons, so it's safe to reveal the "surprise" entry in the collection!  It's challenging to find good PacMoon fabric:  schmee wears these skirts hiking on windy Southern California hillsides (Or are they mountainsides?  Living in Houston I would hardly know the difference!)  Anyhow, we all know that wind + skirt = danger, so heavier materials are best.  Ikea always delivers, but it's nice to have other options.  

Hancock's had a 50 percent off sale on this super-bright-and-cheerful twill.  I spotted it, got excited ... and realized it wasn't quite beefy enough.  Bummer.  But I didn't want to give it up, and decided it was time to try a double-layered skirt.

This first attempt is orange with pink inside. Yep, the pockets are nice and deep:  schmee puts water bottles and such into them while hiking.  The cotton twill layers "grab" each other well, and behave as one.  I cut them separately, but otherwise treated them the same as I would have a single layer.  I didn't double the pockets and waistband, and I think that worked.  If it washes and wears well, expect to see more fun color combos in the near future!

The yoke facing was some leftover fabric from Emery #4.  Which I guess I still need to post ... soon!   I had to cut pieces sideways and upside down to get them to fit, but I did manage to get a deer with a bird on his butt on the back yoke.  Sometimes it's the little things.

Pacific Moons, Spring Edition

Time for a new batch of Pacific Moons -- I've just finished up four more for schmeebot.  Looking back, I made her just one in December last year.  And I had to go back to May to find the batch made before that!  I can't believe I let her go without new Moons for so long.

Easter sewing FTW.

schmeebot told me recently that I had made her 21 Pacific Moons so far, that makes the ones I just finished 22 through 25.  I'll show you 22, 23, and 24 now, but I'm going to hold off on revealing 25 until after schmeebot has received it.  I tried a little experiment on it.  I think it worked, but it is really for the wearer to judge.  Plus ... 25!  I have never sewn 25 of anything before, so the quarter-centennial of Pacific Moons should have its own moment in the ... moonlight I guess.

For these three, there were no new tricks up my sleeve, so there's nothing to add with regard to the making.  They're all Ikea home decor fabric, with quilting cotton yoke and pocket facings.  (Well, one has home dec fabric pocket facings ... didn't have a good mostly-white scrap handy.)

First up ... "Onion Rings".  I think Ikea intended flowers but that is what they look like to me.  Bee fabric I've used before for the waistband facing, and I got my rings matched across the back seam.  Go me.

Next up, "Moose in Love".   We've been calling the fabric that since it was acquired last year.  For the record this does appear to be two female moose,  However, I still maintain that they are in love.   Pattern match across the back not so good this time, but the design is so busy it's hard to notice.  There are words on the inside ... the fabric's called "thesaurus" and it was on clearance at fabric.com. I guess people don't like to build their vocabularies while they sew.

And finally, "Leaf".  No cute name for this one.   I did have fun with the layout though.  schmeebot says this one is her favorite of the three.  No picture of the inner fabric because at the time I took the picture I hadn't sewed it down yet, but it's the same ladybugs fabric I used on the blue skirt I made in December.  How boring, but it worked best out of what I had.

For those who celebrate, Happy Easter!    I love the colors of Easter, and the opportunity to celebrate Spring.  Which has finally arrived, it seems.   We dyed eggs in the backyard, while the dog begged us to go back inside.  Some dog.   

The House dress

So, I have found my perfect dress pattern.  Or rather my perfect dress bodice pattern, and that's the part that matters when one prefers full skirts.   This pattern is none other than Christine Haynes' Emery dress, and Emerys are everywhere on the Internet now, so clearly I am not alone.

I have now made this dress four times.  I may make it four million times, because it's the perfect canvas to show off an awesome print, and when it comes to sewing, fun fabrics make my world go 'round.   It's one of the reasons I keep coming back to quilting fabrics: it's hard to find apparel fabrics with prints that appeal to me half so much.   I should probably try designing my own someday, though with all the good stuff already out there (and the expense of services like Spoonflower) the bar is pretty high.   But someday.  Especially now that I have the perfect pattern to use the fabric for.  I think that in the coming months I may bore you with my lack of pattern variety, but long-hoarded fabrics are going to be bursting out of the stash right and left!

Anyhow, would you like to see these wondrous dresses?  I have photos of Dresses 1 and 3, so I will show you those now.  We'll start with 3, because that's where I really perfected the fit, plus I have pictures of me actually wearing it!  I shall call it the House dress, because duh. The fabric is Michael Miller's "Mod Pad".

This is at the end of a long day ... I had an event to go to downtown and this is what I wore.  (I wore it on a stage, even -- I was handing out awards.)  You can see a seatbelt crease across the front of the bodice, but trust me it fits me better than any dress ever in the history of dresses!   

I chose to leave off the sleeves.  I did muslin the bodice with a short sleeve, and it was actually not far off fit-wise, but I really like the look of the dress sleeveless better, and I always wear a cardigan or hoodie anyhow.   

I used Butterick 6075 as a starting point for fitting.  They're a little different (Butterick 6075 has no waist darts in the front) but it guided me well in my pre-muslin pattern alterations.   Based on the muslin,  I made a few more alterations, then Dresses 1 and 2.  Here's Dress 1, which is made using Kate Spain "Sunnyside" raincloud fabric, drifting through my backyard:

I think it was between Dress 1 and 2 that I doubled the width of the back neck darts -- a common alteration for me because of my shoulder blades.  I had already completed Dress 2 by the time I decided that a slightly closer fit would be better.   The only changes I made between Dress 2 and Dress 3 was to sew 3/4" seam allowances on the bodice sides instead of 5/8", and to pinch out another 1/4" from the upper center bodice, tapering to nothing at the waist.  

I decided to drop the House dress into the Sew Dolly Clackett pool, and may add Dress 4 as well if I get it photographed in time.  Some fabric came out of stash for that one!

Finally, here's a closer look at the House dress, and Dress 1 ("Stormy Dress?").  You can see my contrasting facings.  The Emery dress doesn't come with facings, but I drafted a neck facing for a little extra stability, and did my usual thing of attaching it to the lining.

When I come back with Dresses 2 and 4,  I'll catalog my pattern alterations, and show the change I made to the armscye when I went sleeveless, which I took from Butterick 6075.

The "Signs of Spring" Butterick 6075

Here's something I made back in February, when Spring seemed as if it would never come!  Yet another 1950s Butterick 6075, that would be number ... five?  Six?   I've lost count.

With this much envelope wear it had to be good, right?

(That case holds a vintage sewing machine ....)

I've had this Amy Butler Lotus fabric (quilting cotton) for ages.   At the time I bought it I thought the print seemed kind of large, but nowadays I'm preferring big prints.  I stil love the color combo, and the stylized lotuses look like pale suns to me.

I took care to line up the print on the skirt (which is cut in four pieces, so there are seams in the front and back).  The pieces are wedge-shaped, and so the edges of each piece dissect the print diagonally, so I ended up with a slightly kaleidoscopic feel.  Here is a lousy picture of the front of the skirt ...

I used a couple of colors of my favorite Imperial cotton/poly batiste for lining: I was running low and had to work with the scraps I had left.  My local fabric store (well, local is a relative term now that I live 30+ miles away from it) stocks this stuff, but inconsistently.  So I hunted around and found an online seller:  "The Stitchin' Post".   Now the batiste coffers are full again and I'm a happy camper.

I did my usual and attached the facings to the lining.   I like that I got the print centered, even on the inside (though look closely and you'll see it isn't prefect).

This will be the last Butterick 6075 for a bit because I've found a new dress pattern love.   More on that next time!

Deer and Doe Arielle

Oh no, the projects are piling up while the tumbleweeds wander across my blog!   But I finally got some photos today, so it's time to catch up.   Without further ado ... back in January (I think it was, anyhow!)  I made up Deer and Doe's Arielle blouse.

I was set on a two-fabic Arielle from the beginning, so I combed through my scrap boxes (yeah, plural) to find some good pieces that worked together.  I did a trial run with leftover rayon challis from this dress in size 6.  Which I found was a bit too big on me.  (For some reason I used my hip measurement to choose size rather than my bust measurement, go figure.)  I used some poly-cotton batiste for the shoulder yoke and collar on that one.  The rayon challis drooped a bit in the front due to the weight of the collar:  it isn't one of the recommended fabrics, perhaps with good reason.  

Arielle enjoys the almost-Spring breezes!

For  v2, I used size 4 and Denyse Schmidt cotton voile fabric. (Left over from not one but two skirts, so I got some good mileage out of that piece!)  The yoke and collar are cotton batiste.  Unfortunately my interfacing was both too heavy and too white for this project, and you can see it through the collar.  

I added a couple of inches to the length, and vents to the sides since I don't see myself tucking this in.     At the time I was making it I thought I'd wear it under a cardigan to work, like I usually do with knit tank tops.  However this has not yet come to pass.  Perhaps because the cold weather demands warmer layers.  Or because that collar looks a little crappy up close and personal.    Or maybe it's just too different from my usual uniform, making it unappealing first thing in the morning when my brain gravitates toward the path of least effort.    I do think I like it though, so I think some day the stars will align and it will make it out of the closet.

Rounding out this post with the back view. 

I should have put this on my dress form for photos ... but then I'd need to find a matching bottom.  (Am I the only one who thinks dress forms wearing only a top look a little ... exposed?  It's worse than having nothing on them at all!)  However, I'm really only seeing this top with pants, which are a no-go for dress form-kind.  Incidentally, my dress form is named Ethel, after my grandmother, for this very reason:  my grandmother does not subscribe to the idea of women in pants.

Anyhow, back to the point ... final verdict?   Cute top, easy to sew, but I need to give it a real wearing come warmer weather to see if it's truly "me".

January's skirt

I wanted to document my one and only sewing project for January.  Since it's just another variation of the same skirt I've made a million times, let's make it quick shall we?

Made of brown micro-corduroy with two shades of pink dots, and lined with a burgundy rayon.  Can't remember where I got this fabric.  I've been holding onto it for a while.

Yoke facing is a fat quarter that I've had for eons.  There wasn't enough to use for pockets too, so I used the last of my red and pink Lindy Leaf print, which has been used for a few facings and first appeared as this dress. I love Lindy Leaf. (After doing the image search, I want some of the green and yellow variant now!)

Happy Sunday everyone, I'm off to work on my current sewing project!

Artzona recap

Big barrel cacti were everywhere!

Artzona:  it was amazing!   As an introvert who doesn't usually "do" groups, I was a bit concerned that the overall experience would be more stressful than fun.  However, this is one of the few times in my life that I can say I genuinely enjoyed hanging out with a large group of people ... all the more amazing because they were a group of people I had only just met!  The Artzona crowd turned out to be a real "come as you are" bunch, ranging in age from 30-something to 80-something.  The majority had been to a past Artzona (this one was number three), but there were plenty who like me had never attended, and a few who had also never met any of the other participants before.

Chihuly sculpture and cacti just belong together.

So, what happened over the four-plus days I was in Mesa?  The event organizers did an amazing job thinking of how to make the most of the time. We made art of course:  in a conference room at the hotel, well-equipped with big worktables and snacks.   There were also some optional side trips:  an evening hike in the desert, an art walk in Scottsdale, visits to art supply stores, and a trip to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit at the botanical garden.  Also, on the last day I went to see Taliesin West, built by Frank Lloyd Wright,  before heading back to the airport for the flight home.

Taliesin West.  Beautiful, but totally worthless as an actual place to live.  Unless you like to keep your living room at 95 degrees in the summer and don't mind snakes in your bed.

I know not everyone loves to read about others' vacations, so I've kept it brief -- but hopefully this gives you an idea of what an art retreat might be like.  Suffice it to say, I had an amazing time, and it was over before I knew it!   My roommate was fabulous, and we had a great time from the moment we met for the first time at the airport.  I loved not only seeing other people's art, but also how they worked.  The woman next to me showed up with an incredible amount of gear, including a spray booth, and her art-making was almost like interpretive dance:  she was layering textures and collaging in layers, mostly working standing, with efficient, graceful movements.  Other people were sculpting items, drawing, painting ... you name it.  I saw lots of neat techniques I want to try.

Just part of my Artzona haul!

I had to travel for work the weekend after Artzona and have otherwise been busy as usual, but I am exploding with creative energy and am making stuff whenever I an squeeze it in.  In fact, I finished a sewing project this morning:  I'll share that soon, along with another sewing project I finished over a month ago.