Autumn/ Winter Sewing Plans

I’m starting to come up with a plan for my cold weather sewing and I thought I’d share them with you.

I’ve already mentioned the coat I want to make with some Pendleton wool. I’m pretty sure I’m going to make to make McCall’s 6442 with it. I just love the hood. I will most likely begin work on that in mid October.

I also really want to make a  winter weight dress. All of my dresses are light cotton or rayon. I have some pretty blue wool, and I’d like to make something inspired by what Kenley wore on episode 3 of this season’s   Project Runway. I don’t think I’ll do the contrast cuffs though. I have some seed pearl beads and I’d like to bedazzle the peter pan collar with them and make a matching cream colored belt.

Mostly, I want to make separates. I’ve already started work on that front. I love the look of short circle skirts for fall, like this one. I’ve already made one in brown corduroy. I’m just letting it hang right now so I can hem it. I also have black corduroy to make a second.

I’m planning on making a few bow-tie blouses and shells with some of my lighter 1 yard cuts of fabric. I’m going to start work today on the Portrait Blouse from Gertie’s book. That will use up the rest of the cotton gauze I made the yoke of Macaron with. I have some floral rayon to make a long sleeves blouse with. Between my brown and black skirt I should be able to mix and match an eclectic wardrobe. The rest to be decided.

I also want to make some more items with knit fabric. I already made a sweatshirt with the free Dolman Sleeve Pattern that Cindy from Cation Designs released. It’s super cute and I’ll post photos as soon as I can get the mister to take some. If you follow me on Instagram this is old news (my user name is cynbular). I also won a PDF T-shirt pattern from MariaDenmark. It will make some great layering shirts.

Today, I had a pretty amazing thrift store find and picked up an entire bolt of nice stretch denim for $25. The fabric came from Columbia Sportswear and is 60″ wide. I think there’s about 10-15 yards, I haven’t measured it. I’ll definately try my hand at jeans. I think i’ll start with Clover and then make a more traditional jean, as well as a pair for the mister.

I also want to have the Bombshell Dress done, if not by the holidays, then by my birthday at the end of February.

Looking at the list it seems pretty daunting so I’m not sure how much I’ll finish, but it’s nice to have a plan and goals to work towards.

xx, Cynthia

That F@$&ing Peplum Top

If colorful language upsets you, dear readers, please look away. First, allow me to give props where they are due. This is that fantastic peplum top from the cover of the August issue of Burdastyle (I *know* you’ve oogled it). I need to tinker with the fit and I really think I’ll like it  A LOT. I love how it dips slightly lower in the back. I love this stretch cotton sateen that Kollabora sent to me. Also,  photographer husband really stepped up his game and got some beautiful photos that hide what a shit show this was to make.

I’m giving my copy of Burdastyle away (in part), because it fucking drove me bonkers.That’s not to say that there is anything horribly wrong with the mag, mostly I’m an idiot and made about a million mistakes. There are tons of cute things in there, but I’m put off them for the time being. I’d never seen a Burda mag before and was jazzed to get my grubby hands on it. Then I saw the pattern page. WTF is that shit? It’s a sewing pattern for Klingons! I’ll stick to the downloadable PDF’s from now on….

Patience and perseverance won out in the and I got this traced out. Mostly. I used the sleeves from Macaron and made bias tape (holla!) to face the neckline. That’s because I was sick of finding the right line on that hot-mess-of-a-pattern-sheet.

Then I made a muslin. It was huge! I removed 2 inches from the center front. I also added half an inch in length and lowered the neckline by the same amount.

The skirt portion of this top was over 23 inches long… GRRRRR. That’s a dress. I removed over 13 inches in length.

Now for my mistakes. Remember how I removed 2 inches out of the center front of the BODICE. I *should* have removed that out of the skirt. Duhh. That didn’t occur me at the time. It occured to me when I was trying to ease the skirt into place without puckers. Also, this fabric has a fair bit of stretch to it. Did I account for that when I fitted my non stretch muslin? No. This is huge. That’s why I’m wearing a belt. I have to! I need to take this in a few inches at the side seams. I also forgot to let the circle skirt hang before I hemmed it, so that will probably stretch and get wonky too. FUDGE!

But these photos look great. They show me the possibility in this top. When I first put it on I felt too trendy and forced. I made it more my style by adding this beaded collar I found last Christmas at an antique shop. Très sixties

xx, Cynthia

Giveaway Day

Remember a week ago when I said I’d have a giveaway that weekend in honor of reaching 100 followers, yeah, me neither. I’m having a giveaway this weekend instead!!! YAY free shit!!!!

If you want to win, leave a comment by September 15. If you’d like your entry to count twice post a youtube video of baby animals (the cuter the better).

xx, Cynthia

Glacier National Park

Montana is the most beautiful place on Earth. It seemed like every time I turned a corner I’d see something even more gorgeous than the last. We (the mister and myself) went with our friends Luke and Julie and had a pretty epic week. We saw 5 grizzlies, including 3 cubs, 4 black bears, a moose, mountain goats, big horn sheep and an assortment of other animals. We were unable to complete the full 60 mile backpacking loop we had planned because someone (alright it was me…. I’m a total klutz) dropped our camp stove and broke it. We only completed about 30 miles in the backcountry. We spent to the rest of our trip playing in the water and going on day hikes.My google reader is totally full of, what I’m sure are, awesome makes and hopefully I can get through my backlog. We took over 300 photos, here are a few. xx

See You Next Tuesday!

5 cool points to you if you caught my SATC reference! I’ve muslined my 1950′s shorts and bra top. Boy, oh boy, this is going to be adorable. I’m making them out of a length a green and cream seersucker. The shorts fit right out of the envelope with no fitting changes needed.

The top is another story altogether. The band fits perfectly around my ribcage, however the cups have a little extra “perkiness” due to the bullet bras of the era. I need to remove about an inch from the apex of the bust.  I played around with it for a couple of hours Sunday night. Eventually, I extended one of the darts all of the way to the top of the cup (essentially making a princess seam), but now I have gaping under the arm. Should I add a mini dart there too?

Is this the perfect situation to try a SBA? I wear a D cup, so I’ve never looked into them before. I have wiggled these darts every which way. There is just a little pool of extra fabric right over my nipple area that needs to be removed.

However, I won’t be able to cut into my fashion fabric for a bit because I’m leaving for Glacier National Park tomorrow! We’re going to do a 60 mile backpacking loop. Here’s a photo of me there 2 years ago. I’ll post a ton of photos when we get back in a week

Next…

Somebody Loves Me!

My husband went away for the weekend, to go surfing, and came back with this vintage lovely for me. I saw this machine  and cabinet a few weeks ago in a little sewing and vacuum repair shop in Newport, OR and fell in lust. The guy that owned the shop was very knowledgable and talked with us for a quite a bit. I even dropped my serger off to him to get serviced since I haven’t been able to use it yet.

I’ve been wanting to upgrade to a solid workhorse and I think this fits the bill. This machine is all metal, and has just the stitches I need. The machine was barely used and all of the accesseries and owner’s manuals were included. The buttonholer is even still in plastic.

The cabinet is great as well! I can drop my machine all the way down and use it as a table top for cutting fabric. The machine can also sit even with the desktop for an extra large work surface. It also can sit above the cabinet so I can use the free arm. Every drawer includes thread holders. I’m so stoked!

This makes up for the fact that tweakers stole the front wheel off of my bicycle last night. I had to figure out how to get me and my significantly less portable bike home last night at 1 AM. Anyways, I’m going to go play with my machine now

On the sewing table…

Blue Steel

So pensive, what’s going on in that beautiful mind?

These photos really crack me up. Chris really got into his male modeling and threw out all of the blue steel, Quiet Ryan, and arm behind the head sexiness I could catch. Oooh lala.

This is his bad boy Magic Mike shot.

I made another version of McCall’s 6383 for Mr. Dapper Duds. I really like the slim groovy fit of this 70′s pattern. I used a black chambray from Joann’s for the body of the shirt, and a colorful rainbow plaid for the undercollar, collar stand, and the inside of the pocket flap. Originally, I had planned to make colorful piping as well, but I didn’t like the way it looked when I layed it out. I think I need to move away from piping for a bit.

Hey girl, I really like the way you put the yoke on that western shirt.

I made a few changes to the pattern. The most obvious change I made was to make this version short sleeved. I layed out the sleeve piece from the modern McCall’s 6044 to see the length I should make the sleeve. I was shocked to see the difference in the sleeve cap. Isn’t that cray cray? No wonder I was unhappy with setting in the sleeves on the modern pattern. I kept thinking they looked puffy. Sleeves, you were the problem, not me.

I also shortened the pattern by 4″. My man is not one for tucking in his shirts. The last adjustment was toning down the large 70′s collar. I simply removed the seam allowance (a standard 5/8″) to get it to a more modern proportion.

I’m really proud of the  seam finishing I did. He could wear this inside out if he wanted to. I double dare you to find a raw edge. I used flat-felled seems throughout. I really like the strength and tidyness they provide.  Side note: I really need to get a flat-felling foot. This shirt is built to last.

The inside, yo!

I finished it off using this tutorial for creating an easy rolled hem. It closes with black pearl snaps I picked up at an awesome hoarder estate sale

Ahhhhh….Wool

I’m about to make ya’ll super jealous. Yesterday, my friend sent me a text that she was at the Pendleton Outlet in Washougal, WA. I pounced on that and asked her if she saw anything reasonably priced (less than $20 a yard) in a pretty red, I’d love some.

I’ve been thinking about McCalls 6442 for my big sewing project for fall. It has the twirl factor of Colette’s Lady Grey, but also includes a hood which IMO is crucial for a rainy Oregon fall-winter-spring. I envision looking like Little Red Riding Hood. I’m also well on my way to having all the supplies needed. I went to a crazy hoarder estate sale about a month ago, and got several yards of horsehair interfacing and shoulder pads (amongst a million other sewing doodads for pennies).

Anyways, she text me back that she found a pretty red and black checked fabric that was only $5.99 a yard, what?!?!?!? So, she picked me up 4 yards of the prettiest, softest, drapiest, lovely wool for $25. I was ecstatic when I saw what was waiting for me. Bonkers, right?

I has such pretty drape I’m not sure if a wrap coat is the right use of the fabric. Although, I’m sure the flare if the peplum would look so beautiful, cascading from my hips. This will need to be underlined for body and warmth. I’ve gotten such a steal on all of my supplies so far, I think I’ll splurge on a silk lining.

Now that I’ve seen the fabric my mind is thinking of a hundred other projects to use it for, such as a circle skirt, Gertie’s Starlight Suit jacket, fitted sheath dress, a vintage looking cape with a notched collar. Oi vey, there are so many possibilities in a flat length of fabric. Opinions please?

In other sewing news, I’m making another western shirt for the mister. I royally effed up on it, so I’ve been unpicking stitches forever. I didn’t catch that I’d put one of the shoulder seams in backwards until I’d flat-felled it and both topstitched and edgestitched the yoke down. Yikes!