I Love Mail!

It's like Christmas, look what arrived!!

 

 I've been wanting to improve my apparel sewing skills for a while and designing my own clothing has been on my list of things to learn how to do for a long while.  Baby steps right?  

New Skirt

The color for this month is yellow and how serendipitous that I had a skirt planned in that color.  I've had this fabric laying about for at least a couple of years.  I love the wee flowers and the little nubs of texture, not to mention the fact that yellow is just such a happy color in general.

I made this full circle skirt using *** pattern with a few of my own adjustments.  For starters the fabric was very see throughr, I didn't want to bother with a slip but neither did I want to go around flashing my knickers so I added an underskirt. It's the half circle skirt version of the same pattern
The original pattern just used a waist stay rather than an actual waistband, I wanted the latter so I created one.  This brought up a whole new issue with the zipper I'd originally put in, as you can see.

The fabric doesn't lay right around the pull, there's a big gap at the top, and somehow it's causing the waistband to be off kilter.
At first I thought I could live with it, but the more I looked at it the more it bothered me, so I pulled out my seam ripper and undid the waistband about four inches on either end, removed the zip and replaced it with an invisible zip.  My first one ever.

The only thing left to do now is the hem. . . on both skirts.  This could be a while. 

New Project

My boss asked me to make up a jacket from one of the patterns we have at work.  Looking at most of them they seemed more suited for my former mother-in-law than someone of my tender *cough* years but I finally settled on this pattern.  The As You Wish Jacket.  I'm making the orange one with 3/4 sleeves.

Here's the main fabric I chose to make it with.  I love the depth of the color and the slight glint of metalic from the copper.  The pattern uses high quality cotton for both the main and lining fabric. 

I had a lining picked out but the more I look at it the less I like it so I'm holding off on finishing it.  The pattern has been super easy to put together though, it's a very simple cut and sew.  I love instant gratification projects!

You have three options for the jacket hem,, the two shown on the pattern as well as a straight edge.  I preferred the curved, my hips don't need a harsh line anywhere near them.  Then you can do either full length sleeves or 3/4. My plan is to purchase or make some pretty frog closures for the front. 

I'm looking forward to finding the right lining fabric so I can finish it. 

Extra Fabric Needed to Match Plaids

No sewing this weekend.  I was in another town working.  I don't know how much I've mentioned it but not only do I have the honor of serving in the military as a traditional reservist but I serve the military members and their families as well in my job capacity.  It's a great honor and humbling to be among these people as they prepare for deployments or are returning from.  In the interest of security I'm sure you'll understand if I don't go into to much more detail.  So even though I didn't spend the weekend relaxing, it was very satisfying.

Here is a project to share with you that I worked on this last week.

I've had this cute plaid fabric for...well, a really really long time.  It's a lightweight cotton that's a little rough and has a tendency to wrinkle a bit but not horribly.  I haven't bothered to measure it but I think I've around 4 yards of it and for as long as I've had it I've not had a clue as to what to make with it.   Finally I got a flash of inspirations.

 I learned most of my apparel sewing in high school and while there have been the odd projects here and there (the last big one being over 7 years ago and a bit of a fail) I am not ready to dive into anything beyond the straight seam or occasional dart quite yet, so I love the simplicity of this pattern. I decided to make version A (the main picture) It's two side seams, two sleeve seams, lace, a casing, a hem and some elastic.  The most difficult part was lining up the pieces so my plaid matched.  (whoohoo, I remembered this from my high school days)

 

I did make an adjustment to increase the width at the bottom to make sure it wasn't snug around my hips and were I to make it again I would do the casing for the elastic differently  As is it makes the lace want to fold to the inside.  Other than that it's great and just reeks of spring.  My boyfriend thinks it's quite adorable.   

What's great about this is that fabric and lace are both from my stash, all I had to buy was the the elastic, so my cost on this was under $2!  

I'm rather excited to get back into apparel sewing so expect to see more of those sewing projects.  Thanks for stopping by.  Take care.