Yarn Crawl

New Knit Fabric Love!

I just got an email from Gorgeous Fabrics saying that many knit prints were on sale for 20% off - so of course these three had to jump into my cart. I just bought 2 yards of each as there are a number of dress patterns I can use those for - including the two new Butterick patterns that I'm obsessed with. JoAnn's didn't have them in time for the sale they are having, but I'm hoping Hancock will next week when they go on sale Thursday there.

Anyway here are the fabrics:

A subdued work appropriate one:

Another work or play one:

And one that's nothing about work and everything about being wild and crazy:

Planned January Garment 3.0

I swear I must be jinxing myself as yesterday I sewed up the Vogue dress - the good news is it looks fabulous on Dawn (my work friend/recipient of my inverse triangle shape garments). The garment adds waist and hip curves, which is great if you are somewhat lacking in them - not my situation! I will be hemming it for Dawn over the weekend and will show it modeled on her at some point. (It's very much a date night dress, in my opinion, so she probably won't be wearing it here to work, but I'll get her to take pictures at home.)

In the meantime, I still need to make my January garment (unless I count that one, which technically would be within the rules) so I think I'm going to make another Chetta B. faux wrap dress, except my challenge will be to modify the pattern so that it can be worn without a cami underneath. I should just need to raise the neckline to make that happen.

January Garment Attempt 2

At lunch just now, I cut out the pattern tissue and most of the fabric pieces for the dress from this pattern:

I will be eliminating the zipper as this is designed for knits and can go right over my head. I saw another review for it today where the reviewer had done the same thing, and I liked her version.

I'm using this fabric from my stash:

Wish me luck!

New Pattern Obsession

As I mentioned before, I'm still working on the HP Uptown/Downtown Knit Dress and plan to have it done by Jan. 31 for this month's garment in the sew-along.

However, that didn't stop me from buying all of the new Simplicity and New Look patterns. I'm pretty interested in this one:

I like View B (with the cap sleeves) best. I like the high wrap neckline - no cami required and a twist on my (somewhat overdone) wrap dress look. Wovens, who'd have thought?? After sewing that trench coat, though, I really feel like I can take on any project, given enough time and patience. I think this will be my February project. It's nice to feel like all I need to make is one garment a month - very doable. It calms my Type A sewing tendencies.

Simplicity 4084 (COAT) Progress

I have been working (somewhat feverishly, lately) on finishing up the wool trench coat. Just for a refresher, here's the pattern I'm doing - View C, shown in purple in the center inset:

This has been my first coat, and there are a lot of other firsts with this too. (First completely lined garment, first lined pockets, first belt carriers, first sleeve tabs, first two-part sleeve, first shoulder pads, first sleeve heading - this is a neat trick) first woven with princess seams, first sewn wool garment, etc. etc. etc.) I have learned so much but in that learning process it's been very difficult to document everything, mostly because I've done the majority of the work in my six-hour sewing classes on Saturdays. The other reason is that I feel like I've ripped out practically everything that exists on this coat.

Here it is as it stands - right now it first needs pressing again and then it needs topstitching, buttonholes, buttons, sleeve lining hems (outer sleeve hems are already handsewn - what...) and bottom hem. I have pins to mark where the buttonholes will go. I had to lighten the exposure on many of these pics to get the details to show up in my dark hallway outside my sewing room, despite taking the pictures just now at lunchtime.

Here's the full length shots - I think the dress form is crooked, so I have to fix that.

This picture looks a little weird, as I had to get going back to work and didn't have time to mess with it:

I probably wouldn't have stuck with it if I didn't have this class to hold my feet to the fire, but I'm glad I did. The next one (what...) will be even better. The fit part was easy - it was a straight pattern size 12 with Miss Petite adjustments, no others were necessary. Other than needing to shorten the bottom hem a little, it really fits me perfectly everywhere, which is pretty amazing given my height. It's nice to know that whenever I'd want a trenchcoat, I could make this up.

It was more "fabric management" (i.e., fraying) that made me crazy. I think I would make this is a regular trenchcoat fabric next or in another fabric that didn't fray, or wasn't loosely woven so I could serge the hell out of the pieces first. I did serge a few of the pieces to clean them up, but it tended to distort them a little even with the differential feed set to zero. I am liking the (close-to) end result though and plan to finish it up before class on Saturday. Next up for the class will be pants - should be interesting!

However...

Despite my aforementioned lack of blog mojo, I did just have these five pieces of fabric jump into my online cart over at Spandex World. Check these out - I was careful only to get the poly/spandex mixes - I think the "ingredient" combo I don't like is nylon/spandex, which I have a few pieces of in stash and don't think I'll use. Whatever it is, it's that thicker knit fabric that is solid white on the reverse side - I had picked some pieces of that up in the Vogue Remnant room and I don't personally like it.

These are the new pieces - I did two yards of each for simple summer dresses or tunics/tops:

and a yard of this for a swimsuit, as it was on sale too:

As you can probably tell, I'm loving orange and coppery orange colors lately. They are so nice in the summer with a tan! Now I need to get sewing on my existing stash so I can knock it down a little before these new fabrics arrive!

More Knit Fabric, Patterns, and Sewing Plans

This morning I was going to cut out another S3868 (Threads) cap sleeve dress (version on the bottom right) before work

and discovered I was missing the midriff pieces somehow. So...as the Simplicity sale is still going on over at JoAnn's, I went over there and picked up another copy of it.

This is the fabric I'm going to use for it - I think it'll be really cute - it only takes 1.5 yards so I can use my smaller pieces with this pattern:

What else? Three other Simplicity patterns jumped into my cart when I was at JoAnn's - a smaller size range of Simplicity 3775 (the bodice on the V-neck version is just a little too large and I think I need the 10 to have it fit perfectly instead of the 12, especially if I make the sleeveless version so I won't have underarm gappage or absolutely NEED to wear a cami to avoid indecent exposure)

and two new (to me at least) patterns -

first one has some really cute dresses that can be made in either wovens or knits - love all of the short versions (especially the two on the bottom right) and none of the long ones:

and a cute new variety of skirts, pants and shorts, all for knit fabrics - I love yoke/contour waistbands - they work really well for me:

Additionally, I cut out a short version of Simplicity 3503 (the long cream dress on the top right, except knee length)

last night, as a trial run for a version of the maxidress - I decided to do Version A/B first as it's different from anything else I have, but wanted to do a shorter version first to see if I like the style before I commit to a larger piece of fabric on the maxidress.

I'm going to use this, another piece from my SP (just like the navy/white print I used the other day for my 3775 dress, except this one is like an emerald/forest green and white)

Do I sound manic? 'Cause I guess I kinda am. Now I'm cutting multiple things at a time and churning out the stuff even faster. AND I just subscribed to BWOF (Burda World of Fashion, a magazine with like 60 patterns in it each month, which has usually about five or six designs in each issue that ImustsewNOW.) Have I sewn anything out of my back issues? Well, not exactly. But I'm working out the best way to copy the patterns. I think I'm going to photocopy them multiple times (once for each piece, as they overlap) to be able to cut them out. The whole tracing thing wasn't for me, as I tried a few different methods over the weekend and didn't like any of them.

I haven't even gotten to the new fabrics yet - I have recently discovered Fabric Mart

Maggy London ITY jersey

Maggy London sunny yellow ITY jersey - $1.39 a yard

Maggy London ITY tribal jersey

Anna Sui knit fabric

and Fashionista Fabrics

and picked up some really great steals from both of them, along with some great paisley mesh knit fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics

and more tricot lining fabric from her that I really like in off-white and black. I also bought this from her a few weeks ago but may have forgotten to blog it:

CRAZINESS!!! I must stop the insanity. But I really am sewing through it!

More Patterns

I hit the Simplicity pattern sale at lunch today and got these:

This one's designed for woven fabrics, but I could either do that or a knit with it - I like the kimono style dress for casual weekend wear and the halter maxi dress:

A pattern that definitely says "fall", which is something I don't even want to think about yet - the shorter cardigan says it is designed for knits (like sweater knits) but I was actually thinking of making the longer cardigan in the foreground in a knit fabric, just in a smaller size to account for the knit vs. woven fabric, and shorter to look more in proportion on me:

Another fall-ish pattern, though this could be changed depending on which fabric was used. I like the red version on the left in a sweater knit or a wool fabric:

Another pattern for these "Amazing Fit" pants (with the slim, average and curvy fits)- this time in a wide legged, cuffed version that I'm seeing everywhere - I had done a muslin of this pattern in a previous version (the curvy, of course) and it fit pretty much right out of the envelope aside from the ever-present length adjustments. I love the contour waistband on this one, and I'm hopeful about this fitting as well as the other - possibly better. (I know, I actually need to make a pair and get beyond the muslin stage. Eventually.)

AND, last but definitely not least, is this:

Jenny oh-so-helpfully drew my attention to this pattern, correctly recognizing that the pink version is a perfect knockoff of this Victoria's Secret top I wanted to find a pattern for a few months ago:

It no longer exists on their web site (where it looked prettier as it was modeled on a Halle Berry look-alike), but I found a picture of it on sale on Ebay.

Another Version of S3775 in SP13 Fabric!

I had been looking for just the right pattern for one of the pieces of fabric I got from my fabulous SP13, Shelby, and I decided to go with one of my TNT (tried-n-true) patterns in a slightly different version.

I've made the 3/4 sleeve version with a scoop neck and plain midriff, I've made two 3/4 sleeve versions with the scoop neck and ruched midriff, and now I've made the V-neck version with 3/4 sleeves:

Thanks again, Shelby, for this wonderful fabric! I really love it and I feel so good in this!

I'm still not done with this pattern yet - I want to make the short sleeve scoop neck version (with plain midriff) in a summery fabric for hanging out on weekends. I think the plain midriff version is a lot less bulky and plus, WAY easier and faster to sew. I cut this one out at lunchtime, and sewed it last night while Jim was watching the hockey game!

On the knitting front, I started a new project over the weekend and I've already separated the sleeves! News on this one to come soon...

Another Butterick 4976 Wrap Dress and a New Knitting Project

Here's another Butterick 4976 dress - I had started this one a long time ago and messed up on the sleeve, so put it in a bag in the closet. I just took it out a few weeks ago, fixed the sleeve, and finished it up but didn't have a chance to show it. This version fits better/more closely than the green/black/white one I showed for the party the other week as I sewed it with all 5/8" seam allowances instead of 3/8" on the sides.

The orange part of the print is not as bright as it looks in the picture - it's more like a dark burnt orange.

and the shoes...

I really love this pattern and I want to make another one in this fabric next:

I also started Paloma from French Girl Knits - my mini KAL with Debby:

I'm on round 6. I ended up ripping back and starting over last night as I messed up on the lace pattern, but was able to get back to where I was before I went to bed.

It will look like this when it's done (except green, as I'm making it in "Shamrock" Louet MerLin)

Tomorrow we're leaving for Galena for the weekend so I won't be around til Sunday. Have a great weekend everyone!