I'm Back!

Wow!  I certainly didn't intend to not post for 3 whole months.  However, summer, while warm and wonderful and fun, kicked my butt when it came to doing anything for myself. Hello, gross underestimation of how much time and energy it takes to manage 3 kids with no planned activities....

Anyway, since school has started I have gotten back to it, but not quite so quickly to writing.  There always seems to be something else that needs to get done or some emergency breaking out that is a better use of my time.  But, now I'm back to it, I remember how much fun this is!  Inertia, I tell you.

So, what have I been doing? After 90 days of all kids all the time, I started sewing a bit for me :)

A totally different experience than kid sewing, but how fun to recreate and add some fun things to my wardrobe at the same time. 

I started off with this super easy Saturday Gathered Skirt from a book called "Sew What You Love" by Tanya Whelan.

It was seriously just two rectangles of material sewn together, a little bit bigger rectangles gathered onto the bottom and shirring around the waist.  I figured it would be easy to practice on and kind of hard to screw up... 

 I also made it with some super-cheap clearance material from JoAnn's, so I wouldn't be wasting much if it turned out horrible...

In the end, it was an easy, fun and cheap addition to my wardrobe.  Totally worth it.  

My next endeavor were a couple of Seafarer Tops from Sew Much Ado.  These looked super easy and not terribly complicated - again, perfect project.  And they were easy...  If only I could measure properly...

What you see here is actually the second iteration... 

 

 

The first version was scandalously tight...  Turns out that when they say that pattern sizes run smaller than store sizes, they are right.  So, despite what the measurements told me I made my store size and had to go back to the drawing board...

Thankfully, my lovely sister-in-law is smaller than I, but has the same good taste... 

And here's the final version that I have had time to make...  This is an extra large and may be on the big side...  I figured out that for the banded version I'm better as an extra large, but the non-banded should be large.  And that's the beauty of sewing for myself.  I can tailor it to the fit I want. Yay!

(Thank you to 6 year old Conor for the photography here!)

Finally - I figured I would dust off the Washi Dress pattern I got waaayyy back last December.  Now this pattern is a lot more technical than the others I have tried, and lets just say, I had some "issues."

The material was some really great cotton from Moda. Sorry, I forget the pattern, but I got it at my favorite store here in Seattle, Drygoods Design.  Love, love, love this cute little store (packed with great stuff) in Ballard! 

Problems...  Right...  First of all, the dress makes me look pregnant. Something that no woman ever wants, unless she is actually pregnant.  Which I'm not.

Second, the back is somewhat tight through the shoulders.

I'm not sure you can really tell in the above picture, but trust me, it is tight...

After reading and thinking and tinkering, I no believe that most all of the problems spring from the fact that I really needed a full bust adjustment.  While the medium fit size wise, my boobs just didn't have anywhere to go, creating gapping and other strange fit issues that I attempted to remedy in the entirely wrong way, by taking in the waist and pulling up the shoulders.

It doesn't look terrible, but the waist hits wrong, there's still some gapping and it is generally unflattering...  Oh well, live and learn. 

I may try again on this one, or you may see this lovely fabric reincarnated as some other lovely top.  I will, however, attempt a full bust adjustment on my next Washi.

That's it for ME sewing for now.  I have also been a baby gift and home decorating fiend, which should be along soon.  It feels GREAT to get rolling again!