Mood Sewing Network African Wax Print Roundup + Contest

The African Wax Print challenge for the Mood Sewing Network has wrapped up and I've made a collage of all the awesome garments everyone made:

Mood decided to host a challenge on their Facebook Page. Here's what they had to say about that:

"A few of our Mood Sewing Network bloggers participated in an African print challenge last month where we asked them to create their best look using their choice of one of our prints. They're all so fabulous that we need your help choosing a favorite! We're offering the winner an extra $50 credit, plus a $50 gift card to give away to one of you! So vote now - the one with the most likes and shares on this original post by Wednesday, February 15, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. EST will be our winner!"

Obviously, I would love to win. More fabric? Yes please!! Also I'd be able to gift one of my awesome readers a $50 gift card to Mood, which would be super fun. Click HERE to vote for me. All you have to do is like the picture of my garment. And if you must, click through to vote for one of my fellow MSN contributors. ;)

Kwik Sew 3755 - Progress report

Last night I sat down with my pattern and did a bunch of tracing/drafting. I'm having to transition from an x-small on top to a small through the hips, and that took some figuring. Keep in mind all of the tiers on this dress and the fact that I'm adding tiers to the back. I had planned on telling you exactly what I did, but I got confused several times and had to erase and redraft. So, if you are wanting to make this out of a knit with the above changes, you are on your own. Sorry. Here are my finished pattern pieces.

Tonight I cut out the top 2 tiers both front and back, as well as the top ruffles. Here's how it looks so far - not too bad, right? (And before you get all excited, yes, I did finally receive my custom dress form after 3 months of waiting/pestering the manufacturer about it. I was all set to do a blog post with all the details until I noticed she has no butt. Yes, after all that waiting, there was some miscommunication/misunderstanding of his thick accent, and she arrived derriere-less. So, the manufacturer is making me another form - with a butt - and I am holding this one hostage until it arrives in the mail.)

Okay, back to the dress. It was fine from the front but very gappy under the arm. This is when having a dress form is super useful. I was able to pin the dress to her to check fit, something I would never be able to do to my own body. If I pinch out just a little under the arm, I get a great fit. Oh, and I need not make the ruffles 1" wider as that is messing up the vertical line of the knit. SO, I will be recutting these pieces tomorrow as well as the rest of the dress. I think the hard work is now over and the rest of it should go together quickly.

In other news, I currently have an unpleasant and persistent cough that has made going to sleep at night very difficult. Every time I start to nod off I am racked with coughs. Today I bought a humidifier to hopefully relieve some of the dryness that is tickling my throat. I really need a good nights sleep. The middle of the night is a lonely and depressing time to be awake and tired.

Mini Wardrobe Contest plans

FIRST, thanks so much for all your wonderful comments on my Vogue 1150 dress. This is the first time I've ever received over 50 comments on a post. I'm blown away by all the feedback!

The Mini Wardrobe Contest over at Patternreview.com is set to kick off March 16th and run through April 15th. I am determined to enter and finish this one, even though I'll be out of town for part of one week. But it's only 4 garments. I should be able to do that easily, and hopefully won't get tired of my color pallet in that short amount of time.

Here are the fabrics I've chosen. I'm usually more of a vibrant color lover and pink is not my favorite. Especially this pale color pink. But somehow I've amassed a small array of coordinating fabrics and I do love pink and gray together.

As you can see I have 5 fabrics chosen and only need to make 4 garments. The three in the middle are definites and the outer two I can't decide between.

On the left is a black tweed suiting weight polyester with flecks of gray and white in it. I've got Burda's skirt 120 from the November 2009 issue paired with it.
The pink crinkled silky-type-polyester-something-or-another (augh! I never know the names of fabrics!) is going to be made from NewLook 6831, view D (top right drawing). It is low cut and I plan to wear either a black cami or white cami underneath, depending on what it's paired with.

For the middle pink printed silk - my favorite from the bunch - I'm planning to make a simple knee-length bias skirt using Simplicity 4881. BUT, I don't do elastic waisted anything, so will be drafting a waistband for it.

For the gray wool suiting I'm planning a fitted jacket. I love jacket 129 from Burda's September 2008 issue, and have been saving it for the perfect fabric. I plan to do the topstitching in thick black thread. It'll pop just a little off the gray color, but not enough to distract from what I'll be wearing underneath. Although the bow from the pink blouse and the ends of the jacket lapels might make too much fabric in one area. I'll probably make the blouse first and then decide on the jacket design.

The pink on the far right is actually a thin textured knit. Thin and see-through and delicate. I've had this fabric in my stash for several years and have struggled with what to make out of it. A church friend of mine has the cutest tiered knit skirt that I've been thinking about replicating for awhile now. Then I found a similarly spaced tiered dress on Kwik Sew's website. You may think - Oh Horror! - unflattering ruffles and no body definition!!! But I think if I make this out of the thin pink knit in a figure-hugging smaller size and sew the ruffles in the back as well as the front that it just might turn out super cute and flattering too. I think. And it would look nice under a fitted gray jacket as well.

So, do I make the black tweed skirt to pair with the pink blouse? It might look kind of bland from behind when wearing with the gray jacket. Or do I take my chances with the pink tiered dress that might go horribly wrong but would look better with the gray jacket?

***Where to find the contests at Patternreview.com***

I totally understand any confusion about upcoming contests. I found that site a bit hard to navigate at first as well. Okay, click on the "Message Board" tab at the top of the site. Sometimes you have to click it twice because the first click only shows new pattern releases and such. Click on "Contest Discussions" under the "Contests" bar. There you can find a complete list of all the contests for the year under "2010 Contests" as well as all the discussion threads for each contest. HTH!

BWOF 5-2009-102B - Brown brocade jacket

What'cha think? I'm in love with this jacket. It looks very fall and harvest-y to me. I especially liked the buttoning cuffs and interesting welt pockets of this design.

This pattern is top-notch. Everything lined up exactly right and the fit is superb right from the tracing paper. This is why I love BWOF so much; their patterns fit me really well without a lot of headaches.

This fabric is from JoAnn's Monaco collection which I bought online since it sold out quickly at my local store. It's just the right thickness for a jacket, so I left off a lot of the interfacing Burda "suggests". I did interface the center fronts and front/back facings.


These are two-part sleeves with the cuffs lining up with the outside seam.

The full lining is brown Ambiance. I know I've mentioned before, but I love linings. There is no finishing of the seams to be done and just a bit of hand sewing for the bottom and sleeve hems. I'm weird in that I actually enjoy hand sewing, in moderation.

The instructions for these welt pockets were A.W.F.U.L. I must have read over them at least 20 times before I gave up and just did my own thing. I did take pictures of the process and planned to do an online tutorial for it. However, blogger was not my friend yesterday, and after 45 minutes of frustration, I gave up. (I was trying to put the pictures on the left with type on the right. I kept deleting my pictures somehow.) Anyway, if anyone is truly interested in making this jacket and is perplexed about the pockets, I'll go ahead and try to post it again.

I had button issues with this jacket. In order for the button by the welt pocket to not have it's buttonhole sewn too close to the welt, you have to install an inside button and buttonhole. Okay, not a problem. But then when you sew the inside button to the inside and the outside button directly on top of it on the outside, you can't get it buttoned. My solution was to sew the inside one on first very loosely, then wrap the thread around and around, making it elevated and a little floppy. I'm sure there's a name for this technique.

Here's the sad news and why you don't see this jacket paired with any of my other wardrobe garments: it doesn't look good with them. There's too much brown present with all the brown bottoms I made. The tweed skirt does look nice, but I've no shirt to wear peeping out of the top. The jacket has to be worn closed since it's double breasted, and all the tops I made either disappear under it or have sleeves too cumbersome to be comfortable. I love the jacket, but it was the wrong pattern choice to go with everything else. And the wrong color. This just goes to show you can have a lovely array of coordinating fabrics and still not have a cohesive wardrobe.

Do I have time to make another "topper"? No. Even if I had the time I don't know what I could come up with that would pull everything together. I've sewn myself into a corner by picking these colors. I should have chosen several different shades of neutral. Or perhaps a different color scheme with more then two colors in it. Come to think of it, I should have picked one or two knits instead of all fitted garments. Or designs that were more simple then complex. I should have, but I didn't.

The good news is that with the exception of this skirt, I really love all the garments I made. So many of them do coordinate with each other. And while I'm tired of brown and teal at the moment, I know I'll like it again soon and they'll get lots of use.

BWOF 8-2009-121 - Brown twill skirt w/ front pockets - Wardrobe contest garment #8

(pattern used for skirt only)

This is the last of the bottoms for the wardrobe contest! Originally I was going to do some crop pants with this fabric, but I'm a little out of time to try to fit another pair of pants. Also, the other brown skirt I made is a bit dressier, so I thought a casual skirt to go with all the tops would make a great addition. I'm wearing this top with the skirt.

I can't resist designs with interesting construction lines, and this one has them in spades. The fabric is a stretch heavy-weight twill. If I had it to do over again, I would use a thinner fabric. The side panels extend into the inside pockets, and with another layer of fabric at the CF, the pockets bunch a bit when I'm walking around. It's not unbearable and I'll definitely wear it. Just FYI if you are planning to make it.

I love a skirt with a back yoke. If you click on the picture, you can see two darts taken on either side of the CB not present on the blackline drawing. Without them, that yoke was terribly poochy when the waistband was attached. I had more fabric; I could have cut another yoke. But I couldn't figure out how to fix the problem without adding the darts. In the end I think they look fine and don't distract at all from the design lines. The back waistband fit onto the back skirt much better with the darts in place, so perhaps that was an oversight on Burda's part.

Here's a close-up of the front. I had to fiddle around with my machine to figure out the pocket thread bars.

I love that the zipper extends up into the waistband. I think I'll do this on other skirts with side zippers. It's much less bulky then a tab closure and you don't have to fiddle with hooks and eyes.

Back close-up:

I used two whole packages of bias tape for this project because of the many vertical seams. This skirt was to be casual and I didn't want to line it.

Here you can see the small back darts made to the back yoke. The bottom inside waistband was folded up and slip-stitched in place.

8 Down, 2 to go!!! I am currently working on the "topper": 5-2009-102B. It's going really well and I'm very excited about it. I should be finished with that by next weekend, and then I have only a very easy sheer top to finish things off. Whew!

Something was missing...

Look closely. Notice anything different?

After I finished this blouse and hung it in my closet, I found myself looking at it and thinking something wasn't quite right. It looked sad, if that makes any sense to you. Like it was missing something. I remembered one of the reasons I originally liked the design was for the sleeve tabs. (They had been left off because at 1 1/4" wide with a squared-off top, the small buttons I used didn't compliment the scale. They looked funny to me.) And then I got to thinking what a shame it was that the sleeve tabs didn't work out. Hmmm... What if I made them 7/8" wide instead? Perhaps with an angled top?

And with just the smallest of additions, I now love this blouse.

NewLook 6563 - Teal floral blouse w/ front tucks - Wardrobe contest garment #7

Woot! Another garment for the PR Wardrobe Contest is completed and there's finally some light to get the photos taken in. I originally planned to use this fabric with McCall's 5809, but it turned out to be a wadder so I had to find something else. This pattern has been in my stash for years; I'm not sure what took me so long to make it up. The fabric is a polyester chiffon from JoAnn's that I bought earlier in the year. It was part of their Monaco collection that I bought quite a few cuts of. Here is the post for the pants.

These sleeves are so pretty and feminine with their long flowy shape and gathers at the sleeve heads and bottom band. They look peasant-y to me like my most recent wadder, only without the ginormous amount of width.

This was suppose to be a bit more loose fitting. I measured the pattern piece before I cut it out, but forgot to subtract the 6 front tucks. Oh well, I love it anyway.

Here you can see the front tucks, button-and-loop closures, and slightly ruffly peplum. Didn't I luck out with the buttons? They are the perfect size and color. I did a bunch of little tweaks to this design:
1. Added 1/2" to the bottom of the bodice
2. Added 1/4" to the bottom of the peplum pieces. They only allow 3/8" hem and those are fiddly to sew, especially on a curve
3. Added a fabric inset along the button line to prevent exposing my skin
4. Took a 5/8" seam along the neckline instead of the 3/8" of the pattern - again, fiddly to sew


Here's the before-mentioned fabric inset. Why don't they include this in the pattern pieces or instructions? Without it, the slightest move exposes skin and/or undergarments.

This is the super skinny bottom sleeve band. I have been scared of these in the past, especially if it's bias cut. But this time around I compared it to the pattern piece and then starched it. I used three lines of gathering stitches for the sleeve bottoms and sleeve caps and had no problem making the gathers evenly spaced.

This pattern did call for bias tape to finish off the neckline edge, which I love to do. I also added it along the sleeve seam for a pretty finish. I again had luck with finding the right shade of teal for the bias tape.

I did french seams throughout. This picture is of the side seam and peplum side seam. If your fabric isn't too see-through you can alternate ironing the seam to the front and then the back. This cuts down on bulk.

I've got several other things to show you later, but for now I must go sew. This contest is kicking my butt!!! Poor Justin is playing with the kids all day today to give me more time at the machine.

BWOF 11-2008-117 - Brown skirt w/ inset panels - Wardrobe contest garment #6

Here's some more brown for you. Although it is a wardrobe staple so I'm glad for the addition. The fit on this one turned out to be really nice. As you can tell, I shortened it to knee-length by trimming 3 inches off the bottom and 6 inches from the middle. Long skirts of any kind aren't the most flattering on my body, IMO.

Burda calls for this to be made in a stretch fabric. This is because there are only 3 pattern pieces, with one being the facing, so the front and back are the exact same. You need some give to stretch over the bum and not pouch out in the front. This fabric is a stretch suiting bought from JoAnn's earlier this year.

I loved the interesting construction lines on this design. The hardest thing was making those corners crisp and lining up the seams correctly. Otherwise, it is pretty simple and straightforward. Do you like my "hose"? They are actually nude-colored fishnet tights. I love the subtle addition of texture they offer. The brand is Hue from Macy's. I bought some black ones also.

Here's the full lining. This was my first time using a knit for a lining. The instructions call for cutting it off before the fabric flairs out but I opted to extend it down to just above the hem. I ended up moving the invisible zipper from the side seam to the center back so it would lie smoother.

Here you can see where I zigzagged the facing in place onto the lining, as per the instructions. I thought this might turn out wonky but it actually looks really nice and neat.

My shoes are from Bandolino. Aren't they fun? I've had them for about 2 years.

Butterick came out with some new patterns for Winter. I'm not very impressed with the new selections, but do like the tied front jacket from 5428:

Now I am taking a break from the wardrobe to work on McCall's 5931. It has ginormous sleeves, of which I am making smaller in width. Hopefully it turns out looking cute.

This and that

Remember how much I loved this jacket from the October Burda magazine? But then I was lamenting about where to find some leather or possibly faux leather. Y'all had some great advice about where to go to get skins. I was thinking it over, wondering if I should start with something a little more simple for a first leather project.

And then while perusing through some new fabrics at Hancock's I ran across this:

It's a wonderful fake leather in a great shade of tan with light and dark areas to it. Talk about perfection! It was a steal at $10.99/yard for 60" wide fabric. But wait! Hancock's takes JoAnn's coupons and I just happened to have one for 50% off. I got 2 1/4 yards and hope that's enough. The pattern calls for 3 skins of 30" X 30".

There's not been much sewing going on around here. We went to Houston this weekend to visit my sister and brother-in-law and attend the Texas Renaissance Festival in Magnolia. It had some fun parts but entirely too many freaky people walking around. Exactly what does an S&M costume have to do with the Renaissance, I ask you? Or a chain metal halter top with nothing else on underneath? Yikes! I'm glad my boys aren't old enough to really take notice of those things.

In other news, I'm really struggling with my enthusiasm for this wardrobe contest. I am super bored with aqua and brown, and would really like to be making some other things for fall. Perhaps that is why I've only completed one garment and it's past the middle of this month. I feel like I have to be working on wardrobe garments in order to get them all done, and I hate that feeling. I want to rebel and just forget the whole thing. But then I really do want to complete it. At this point I'm not sure what I'll do.

BWOF 10-2008-113B - Teal & brown floral charmeuse top - Wardrobe contest garment #5

Miss me? Yes, this 'simple' collared shirt took me 11 whole days to complete! Early on I felt I'd made a mistake in choosing this pattern. Burda totally leaves you on your own to figure out the sleeve cuffs. Then I had a problem with making the button holes. I began to think the sleeves would turn out too loose and unflattering and lost confidence it would turn out. Whenever this happens to me I have trouble blazing through. I watch TV while I sew and only get a few seams done a night. I do other things instead like knitting or reorganizing my fabrics and patterns. I don't put it aside and make something else, but it takes me f-o-r-e-v-e-r to get it done. Whew! Finally finished! And what do you know but I love the end result! These are the matching pants I'm wearing with it.

This polyester charmeuse is from the JoAnn's Monaco line that I bought back in late spring. Isn't it gorgeous? Charmeuse is definitely not an easy fabric to sew with. It slips and slides, and I can't tell you how many machine needles I went through and still got the occasional pulled thread.

This pattern is extremely small through the hips. I measured the bust and waist before I cut the fabric out, but forgot to do the hips. Thankfully, there is a very large dart through the bodice fronts, and I was able to let that out. However, I wish I had been able to let the back out as well so the bottom side seams were at my actual sides and not a little pulled to the back.

I decided not to use the sleeve tabs because I didn't like the way they looked. If I'd chosen larger buttons they probably would have been fine. But the small 7/16" size just looked odd on the much wider tab. To keep the cuffs from rolling down without the tabs, they were tacked to the sleeve on both front and back vertical seams.

Covered buttons have come a long way in the last few years. They use to make me extremely frustrated. I have thrown a few across the room, then had Justin "help" me. Those suckers were hard to snap together! But these new ones have teeth that grip the fabric and the back simply pops on. Still rather fiddly with this small size but so much better then the old ones. On this blouse I covered the buttons in the same color as the surrounding buttonholes. That way there wasn't a brown button poking through a teal buttonhole.

I left off the top and collar button/buttonhole simply because I don't plan to ever wear it all buttoned up. And speaking of buttonholes, for some reason my machine did not like this fabric. The buttonholes it made were super ugly. I tried everything I could think of and then discovered they looked good on the back side. So I put them in from the wrong side of the button band.

Here is the top of the shoulder where the raglan sleeves come together. I think it's pretty neat looking.

Here's the hem. I was a little leery about these button bands not having interfacing, but they turned out looking fine.

I used french seams throughout. This picture is of the underarm and raglan seam.

Okay, for the sleeve cuffs I had to do some thinking. Burda doesn't even provide a fold line, so I had to experiment. I ended up cutting the sleeve without a hem allowance. My fold line turned out to be 4" from the bottom, so while sewing the sleeve sides, I taper the seams out from 5/8" to about 1/4" at the bottom. These are approximate because I used french seams on the sleeves as well. After ironing a crisp fold line, I turned the very bottom in about 1/2" and then sewed that up to the sleeve arm, stretching it just a bit to fit. Then I turned the cuff up, ironed another crisp fold line, and tacked to the side seams. Does that make sense?


Five down, five to go. Next up is an extra for the contest, a vest. It doesn't go with all the bottoms nor all the tops, so can't be considered the "topper". I think it will be a great addition to this wardrobe so I'm making it anyway. It should be easy, but then you all know my track record with supposedly easy projects. Keep your fingers crossed!