The 1970's Pattern I Couldn't Ignore

 I returned home after my quarantine and my sewing room had moved.

This plan was hatched before I went and got myself sick and quarantined (More details on how and why I got quarantined in my previous blog post in case you missed that). Another family member needed a bedroom on the main floor of the house, so I offered to move my sewing room to the basement. The sooner the main floor bedroom (aka my sewing room) was available, the better. I'd intended to start moving my sewing room right away, but then, well, corona happened so I was quarantined away from home and unable to move my sewing room. In my absence, my mom packed up my entire sewing room for me and moved all the crates, boxes, and shelves into the dining room so I could set up and organize my new basement sewing room when I got home.

I got home and immediately started carrying stuff downstairs and setting up a nice, workable, sewing space. My dad and brother had already moved my pattern dressers to the basement for me, which was a huge help! Down went my sewing table, sewing machine, and books. Down went a filing cabinet for patterns in large envelopes, and my ironing board. Down went my closet and costume accessories. A day in I wore myself out and had to take a long nap, but I was back at it that evening and the following morning. Then I wore myself out again and had to take another long nap. At this point I decided to slow down a little bit so I wouldn't have a corona virus relapse.

As I slowed down and looked around my new sewing room, I noticed a pattern on top of my pattern dresser that hadn't been put away yet. It was a 1970's unfitted dress pattern with angel sleeves. Every time I was in my new sewing room it seemed to be calling to me "make me! make me! make me!". Now, I could have just put the pattern away in the correct drawer and solved the problem here, out of sight, out of mind, but I chose to go a different direction.

After a couple days of this pattern calling to me from the box on top of the dresser, it suddenly struck me that I could use a very particular fabric for this dress. (One advantage of moving your sewing room, you get reacquainted with your fabric stash!) Nearly 3 years ago I acquired just shy of 3 yards of a beautiful embroidered linen from a "fill a bag for $5" bin at a small Amish store. This fabric has been begging to become a dress ever since, but what sort of dress could I make from under 2 yards of 50" wide fabric???

After a couple days of staring at this old Simplicity pattern every time I stepped foot in my sewing room, I began to suspect it might just work with my long hoarded 2 yards of embroidered black linen. A quick look at the back of the pattern envelope confirmed my suspicion. It would be tight, but with a bit of finagling it ought to be doable. 

The single-sized pattern was actually a couple sizes too big for me, so I was able to remove a couple inches of width from the center front and center back, which saved me some fabric. I added a center back seam, rather than cutting the back on the fold, shortened the sleeves a touch, and scrapped the tie belt idea entirely. With all these minor alterations all my pattern pieces fit on my limited amount of fabric and I cut out my new dress! From the scraps I cut a pair of patch pockets.

So yes, I took a bit of a break from moving my sewing room to do a bit of sewing in my new sewing room. I justified it by saying I needed to check and make sure everything I'd already moved was arranged in a way cohesive for sewing.

I cut out the dress one morning, and started sewing it. I went to work that afternoon, came home, milked goats, ate dinner, then went back to sewing. By the time I went to bed that night, the dress was done!

The pattern called for trimming the dress with bias tape. Plain bias tape just didn't "fit" with the embroidered fabric I was using, so I decided to use some metallic twill tape from my stash instead. 

The metallic tape is bright and shiny, making this dress a bit more flashy than what I usually wear, but I don't regret using it at all!

It pairs nicely with the shiny embroidery on my fabric!

According to the pattern instructions, the neckline was supposed to be slashed and gathered in some sort of complicated way to control the excess fullness above the bust. I chose to just do 3 small inverted box pleats instead. Super simple, and it gives a nice effect. I don't think my fabric would have worked well with the complicated gathers.

To tie in my added on patch pockets (Because all my dresses must have pockets!!), I trimmed them with some of the metallic twill tape to match the neckline and the sleeves.

I considered using the twill tape to make a matching belt as well, but after trimming the dress I only had about 6" of tape left from my original 3 yard roll, so that wasn't going to happen.

Instead I decided to pair the dress with the belt from my map dress, and in the end I think that was a better choice than a shiny belt would have been. With the embroidery and the shiny twill tape, this dress needed a little toning down.

It's definitely different in both silhouette and material than my standard style, but I really like this dress!

It was a nice quick and easy project to get back into the swing of things at home and test out my new sewing room.

I wore this dress the day after I made it, and my sister took pictures for me.

I was a little worried the metallic twill tape on the sleeves and neckline would be itchy, but after wearing this dress all day I didn't find that to be the case. Yay for non-itchy sparkles! 

I'm glad I decided to make this dress rather than ignoring this pattern's call. It's a fabulous fall addition to my wardrobe, and I'm thrilled to finally get to wear this fabric after 3 years of it languishing in my stash!

I Made a Red Horse Dress!

I found a sewing room in Romania!

Yes, a sewing room! Complete with sergers, industrial sewing machines, fancy professional irons, and a fabulous storage room stuffed floor to ceiling with all sorts of pretty fabrics!

Now the best part of this sewing room? It was my ministry for the month. Every day I got to hang out with 5 other people and sew. What ever we made would be sold to benefit the children's home my team was partnered with this month. Sewing and helping kids? This was right up my ally!

On my first day in the sewing room, the director, Katarina, showed me where the patterns and fabric were stored then pretty much told me to make what ever I wanted! 

I had an idea in mind for a little girl's dress and a matching doll dress. So I found a basic bodice pattern, adapted it to be what I wanted, then drafted a circle skirt and sleeve flounces to go with it. Next I went on a search for the perfect fabric and found 2 meters of this pretty red jersey knit fabric featuring a Swedish horse design.

With all the hand sewing I've done on the World Race I'd almost forgotten how quickly I could sew a dress with a sewing machine! By the end of the day I had the little girls' dress and matching doll dress completed!

The next day a girl from the Children's home came to model the dress.

I'd say our model approved of the dress, she could hardly stop spinning in it!

She was also quite a fan of the matching doll dress.

After our mini photo session, she stuck around for a while to watch us sew.

She was fascinated by everything and quite excited when I let her help me use the sewing machine to hem a skirt. 

My sewing room friends and I enjoyed having this child hang out with us for the morning and watching her get excited about everything! In a few years she will have the opportunity to come to the sewing room a couple afternoons a week to learn how to sew and earn some spending money.

Who knows, maybe she'll come to love sewing just as much as I do!

If you want to find out more about what I've been up to in Romania this month, check out my World Race blog!

   

Happy 4th (err. . .15th) of July!

Independence Day, the celebration of the founding of our country. The celebration of our freedom. Family, Friends, Food, and Fireworks, what more could one ask for in a celebration? Nothing really, but red, white, and blue clothing is fun to wear for the occasion, and very fun to make!

The week before the 4th I came across a bandana shirt on Pinterest, and decided I had to attempt to make one. Well, one turned into two after I showed the pin to my mom and she liked it too. Then two turned into three once I got to thinking and figured that red, white, and blue bandana shirts would be perfect for the Fourth, so my little sister needed one too.

Thus, after a busy weekend, I went to the sewing machine on the evening of the 3rd and set to work. These shirts went together ridiculously easy. For mine and my mom's I used a raglan shirt pattern and just lined the pattern pieces up as best I could on the bandanas.

I sewed the shirts together and finished the necklines with fold-over elastic. Less than an hour per shirt, I call that easy!

My sister's shirt was even easier. Two bandanas laid back to back, neck hole cut, shoulder seams sewn, side seams marked, based on a pattern the correct size, then sewn up (leaving armholes open of course!), fold-over elastic around the neck and the shirt was done! 15 minutes, that was it. I may have to make her a few more shirts like this!

The evening of the 4th friends came over for hamburgers, hotdogs, and fireworks, along with my personal favorite Independence Day dessert to make, American flag fruit pizza!

It's always fun having friends over who like to take pictures. Look at these fabulous sparkler pictures my friend Erentry's parents took!

 My dad brought out the blowtorch (best way to light sparklers), those of us who wanted to grabbed sparklers, and the audience on the deck gave instructions so that these pictures could happen!

Good friends and freedom, it was a fun night! Happy belated Independence Day!

The Perfect Purse Pattern - The Anya Bag

For approximately the past 2 years I have wanted to make myself a purse. I have searched for a pattern, even picked up a few at pattern sales, but never got around to making one. Every time my purse would wear out I'd look at patterns again, then find the perfect fabric, then just buy a purse. Yep, my grand plan to sew myself a purse apparently wasn't happening.

Well, a few weeks ago Zoe, from So Zo What Do You Know, announced she was going to be releasing a purse pattern, the Anya Shoulder Bag. She needed testers. Perfect! A purse pattern, that I liked, that I already had fabric for, with a deadline? This could work. I might actually make myself that perfect purse I've been planning for two years! (Yeah, I'm a bit of a procrastinator. I work best on a time crunch, things get done if there's a certain time I have to have them done by.)

So, I volunteered as a tester, and got sent the pattern and got to work. In one morning I got the bag sewn.

This pattern is great. The instructions are very clear with pictures illustrating each step. Extremely easy to put together, no matter your sewing experience, and extremely cute.  Definitely worth buying. Just making one purse from this pattern wasn't enough for me. I still had fabric left in my stash to make another purse out of! So, I gave my mom the first purse and got to work on a second one, for me.

From my stash I picked out a leather looking vinyl skirt I made myself in high school (it had a few issues) and a pair of black skinny jeans I never wore. The skirt would turn in to the body of the bag. The jeans? The yoke and straps. For the lining I found a scrap of black calico (left over from the Zelda costumes I made).

Then I decided to personalize the pattern, because as much as I like the original, there are certain things I always look for in a purse. Pockets are one of those. I added 2 big patch pockets to the lining and one pleated pocket to the front of the bag.

Then I just made one long strap, rather than 2, so that the purse would be a cross-body bag rather than a shoulder bag.

I added a little decorative stitching on the yoke, and my perfect, made by me, purse was done! After putting this off two years, it only took one evening to make!

After a week of this bag being my purse I'm still quite happy with it! At first I was worried about the lack of a zipper on the top of the bag. On my old purse however, I always forgot to actually zip it closed, so no zipper has been no problem. I've actually been better at remembering to button closed this purse then I ever was at remembering to zip the zipper on my old one. The only thing I might change? I'm thinking of add buttons to the interior patch pockets, as they like to gape open.

The exterior pockets however are great! I can always find my keys when I need them. Over all, I'd have to say that my attempt to make myself a purse has been successful!

A huge thanks to Zoe for putting out the perfect pattern for a project I'd been putting off, then choosing me as a tester so I actually got it done! I highly recommend this pattern to any one who wants to make a purse. I can totally see myself using this pattern again and again. (I'm already thinking of ways to make the next purse just slightly different from this one.) Maybe my days of buying purses are over!

Aprons Galore!

Over the past week I only finished one thing, well actually 8 things, aprons. Why? Well last Friday my little sister wore this adorable outfit. One of my old historical dresses and a pinafore.

The pinafore I made her a couple months ago, just for fun. I thought it would be really cute with her historical dresses, and it is! It also does what a pinafore is supposed to do. It keeps her dresses clean, but goodness does it get dirty! After spending the morning out in the goat pen that pretty white pinafore had turned green, brown, and grey. I decided she need some printed pinafores that wouldn't show dirt as easily. So she picked out a couple of fabrics from my stash and we got to work.

The first thing I had to do was figure out a pattern. When I made the white pinafore I used a princess seam bodice pattern. I changed it a lot to get the look I was going for. Well, this time I didn't want to reinvent the wheel.

So I laid the original pinafore out on white paper and traced each piece. I then added seam allowances and we were good to go! By that evening my little sister had two new pinafores, that she had helped make! 

Both pinafores have already gotten plenty of use!

 (and they keep her dresses clean while hiding the dirt!)

Once those were done I decided to get started on another apron project I've been needing to do.

At our last meeting about the mission trip to Guatemala, those of us who will be working with kids decided we needed aprons. Brightly colored aprons with big pockets to be exact. Why? So that we would be easily distinguishable as leaders and have a handy place to carry craft supplies and such. We needed 6 aprons of different colors, one for each of us. Once this was figured out I, of course, volunteered to make these aprons. So last Saturday I got started. 

First I made a pattern out of newspaper. I then cut all 6 aprons out. For the straps I cut bias strips about 3 inches wide. 

I cut the on the bias so I could also bind the curved edges of the aprons with them.

Much easier than making a curved hem! (especially since I would have had to make 12 curved hems, 2 per apron. Yuck!)

The aprons went together really easily! First I hemmed all the straight edges, then sewed on the pockets, and finally the straps. I'm very pleased with how they came out and I hope the rest of the team likes them too!

Now on to the next big project, my sewing room. I need to get it done! I've been putting it off because I have sewing projects I want to work on instead, but at this rate it will never get done. So this week I'm putting all sewing projects on hold so that I can hopefully have a sewing room. Today I wrote down all my plans for it.

Now time to implement these plans!