Sew Frustrating!!!

So last week, I worked on finishing up a skirt I'm making for my sister. It's a real simple skirt that I've been working on for about 2 years now. Haha!

I finally got everything ready to go - got the fabric all smoothed back out, and got the pieces all traced and cut out. I started on the sewing part and realized that the embroidered butterflies looked like they were upside down. That was about the time I recalled that the fabric had a nap and direction. And that I cut all the pieces out upside down. Luckily, it's a fairly narrow A-line skirt. I think if I can get my sister to try it on, and if she has enough room to walk in it (it's a long skirt), I can fix the "top" part of it so it will fit well enough. Heavy sigh.

In the meantime, I decided to get started again on a jacket I'm making for my mom. Again, in the works for about 2 years. So I needed to iron the lining out because it's been folded up for a while. And say, where did that iron go!? Oh yeah, in the back of the van. I have to haul it to and from my 4-H sewing club every other week. Heavy sigh.

So I decided then to whine about on my blog. :-)

Scrap Fabric Creations

Got this book a few Christmases ago. Finally got around to making things with it this summer as experiments before showing the kids in my 4H sewing club how to make them.

Fabric Leftovers: Simple, Adaptable Ways to Use Up Scraps

First I made this little pouch for my cell phone.

From Scrap Fabric Creations

Then I made a box out of some leftover butterfly fabric I had.

From Scrap Fabric Creations

Here's a close up of the tassle.

From Scrap Fabric Creations

The book has some really fun ideas for using scrap fabrics. Some of the items use up so much thread though that it seems like I didn't really save anything. But the items are cute and they are a fun way to whittle down all those scraps I can't bring myself to throw away!

New Banner

A while back, I asked my daughter to draw me a new banner for my blog. I think it turned out pretty cute.

Slow going

The Sewcation is going slowly this year. I've only finished up one thing so far; Simplicity 4223 for my daughter. I'm going to try to make one for myself as well, but it's not likely to get finished up completely before I have to go back to my regularly scheduled program.

Let the Sewcation Begin!!!

Actually, I started doing some work yesterday. But today is the "official" beginning of my week long "sewcation"

Woo hoo!!!!

Getting Ready for Sewcation 2010

I've got my time off from work approved and in the calendar! Sewcation 2010 is set for mid-March!!

Yay! I had a really, really good time doing last year's sewcation. I didn't get to do a whole lot of personal sewing between then and now though. In part because I took about 35 pounds off the old bod and now I need to rework everything. I also started a 4-H sewing club in the Fall and I've been spending a good bit of my sewing time working with the kids.

Speaking of which, we took a field trip to Joann's last weekend and talk about timing! They were having their President's Day sale going on. Who knew? I'm sure lots of people knew, but I didn't. I can't seem to keep up with that sort of thing.

My mother-in-law came with us and she wanted to get me a birthday present because she hadn't already. What a wonderful confluence of events! Loads of stuff on sale at Joann's and a birthday pressie waiting to happen!

I picked up 10 Simplicity Patterns for $1 each. WhooHooo!!! I'm going to mix some of these with some of the projects I didn't finish in 2009 to build my project list for this year's Sewcation.

Here's what I got:

From New Patterns

There are a few dresses in the mix, which is unusual for me, since I rarely wear dresses. But, the hubby likes me to wear them at least occasionally so I thought I'd see if I couldn't make something that we both would like.

Sewcation Days 3 to 7

I can't believe I never went back and finished up my notes on my 2009 Sewcation. And here it is time to start planning this year's fun!

So, for my own sense of closure, here are days 3 through 7.

On day 3, I finished up Simplicity 7086. It turned out pretty well - I don't think the pictures really do it justice. I had to take it in almost immediately after making it because I had been losing weight and lost enough that it started really looking like a sack on me.

From Sewcation - March 2009

After finishing up Simplicity 7086, I went on to Simplicity 4076 - View D. I'd made this one before, but wanted to raise the neck line a bit and give it another go. I ended up raising it by 1 and 1/2 inches and made it up in a nice green and pink fabric I picked up from FashionFabrics.com.

This was my favorite out of the 3 that I completed during the week.

From Sewcation - March 2009

A couple days later, I finished up McCall's 4872 - View B done up in a knit from Crybabys Boutique. This was pretty much just a re-do of a basic t-shirt pattern I've used before.

From Sewcation - March 2009

I started in on a 4th shirt - Simplicity 3759 View B - which is a redo of the blue paisley blouse I had done before. I did eventually finish it up. But I wasn't happy at all with how it turned out, so I didn't even take final pictures.

OK. Now I can move on to planning for this year's Sewcation!

Sewcation - Day 2

I'm about as slow blogging about my sewcation as I am at actually sewing. It doesn't help that in order to use the computer, I have to kick someone off of it!

Did I mention I was slow? I spent most of day 2 on this page.

From Sewcation - March 2009

This is why I've been working on knits for soooo long. The knit shirts I've been working on have 3, maybe 4 pieces. This thing had 7 pieces - some of them twice (i.e. two fronts, two front facings, etc), plus 3 had to have interfacing as well. I'm also still getting the hang of collars since I've only done a few.

By the end of the day, I had gotten all the major pieces together and lacked the armhole facings, the hem, the button holes and the buttons.

If the garment looks unpressed it's because I was having brain farts with my iron. I can't remember why now, but I got it straightened out the next morning and re-pressed everything. After that, it didn't look quite so sloppy.

By the way, the camera doesn't do the fabric justice - which is common enough I guess. It's not nearly as PINK as all that. The little flowers are pink, but the background is almost a very pale lavender color.

Here's where the day ended...

From Sewcation - March 2009

Sewcation - Day 1

The first day of my Sewcation was on 3/16. I started pretty early - around 6:30 am, and finished the day around 8:45 pm. With a break for lunch, a break helping clean out the back fridge, a break to go grocery shopping, a break to cook dinner, and finally a break to eat dinner. Heh heh - it might seem like I didn't have time for sewing at all!

But I did.

This first day, I started on Simplicity 7086 - View C. I made View B a couple of years ago. It was a project I meant to blog about after I stared blogging, but never got around to it. Here's the original review on PatternReview.com though: Simplicity 7086 - View B. I meant to work View B up again with this really pretty pinkish with little spring flowers on it fabric I found at a local quilting store. But I did not get enough fabric to make the sleeves. So I worked up View C instead.

From Sewcation - March 2009

If you look behind the pattern, you can see my window - it's still dark outside.

When I first used this pattern, I was tracing my patterns onto visqueen. I didn't really like the visqueen very much, so I stopped using it sometime back, and now I use "sewing" fabric (it's actually soil separating fabric) from Carriff to trace my patterns. It took a few hours to get the pieces retraced. Luckily, I had not altered the original pattern any, except to lengthen it by .5". I added the two new pieces needed for the armhole facing.

From Sewcation - March 2009

It took me the rest of the day to cut out the fabric (I trace around the pattern, then cut to minimize damage to my pattern), cut out the interfacing, and to get the first dart made.

Here I am tracing around the pattern pieces...

From Sewcation - March 2009

Did I mention I'm slow? I really am.

Here's what it looked like outside my window once the sun came up. Spring has sprung in our neck of the woods, and we have a really nice crabapple tree in bloom.

From Sewcation - March 2009

Here we are with all of the pieces cutout. There's still the interfacing to do.

From Sewcation - March 2009

One final pic. My DH homeschools our two children. Afterschool, the younger one, my DS, decided he needed to share my workspace to play with his SnapCircuits.

From Sewcation - March 2009

March Madness - My Sewcation

Take a look at the "2009 Projects" list to the right. That's the list I started out with for my very first "Sewcation".

I took a week off from work to sew, sew, sew. And it was FUN!!!!

I lost two days going camping with the family, but that was fun too. Otherwise, I spent most all of this past week, and this weekend getting in some much needed sewing time.

I started with 10 things on my list and finished 3. HA! Definitely a case of my eyes being bigger than my stomach. It wasn't for lack of trying though. During the week, I woke up at my normal time, and most days was at it by 6:30 am. I usually didn't call it quits until about 8:30 pm. Seems like a lot I suppose, but there were a number of interuptions. Still, I was able to stay pretty focused the entire time. But I'm also a slow sewist, so there ya go.

Pictures and stories will be forthcoming I hope. I meant to do a blog entry each day as I went along, but I always seemed to run out of time for that. And frankly, I wanted to sew, not blog :-)