Who knew?

There is sewing going on here, I promise, it’s just that I didn’t realize how tricky picking up a UFO would be. It’s requiring some fitting adjustments that I’ve never had the nerve to tackle before, so it’s slow going. I’m going to try and redraft and then recut the sleeves tomorrow. I’ve got muscular upper arms that are kind of throwing things through a loop. Fortunately, I found a cool resource for doing this that I’m rather excited about, because it’ll possibly give me a bit of a forward shoulder adjustment that will help the shirt hang better as well as fit my upper arms a little less snugly. Ah the internet. You really can find pretty much anything you’d ever need on here. 🙂

On a really happy note, I’m down about 3 more lbs. Progress! Yay! Slow and steady means it’ll stay off, right?

Have a great day! 🙂

A Finished Object! Butterick 5497

I hope everyone that had a holiday this past weekend had a fabulous one! I know we did. 🙂

Anyway, I started working on this pattern pretty quickly after finishing my first pair of Burda shorts nearly a month ago. I wore it twice before it was even finished :oops:, which made it so that it took even longer to finish up. I finally inserted the elastic around the underbust and hemmed it over the holiday weekend, so it can officially go into my closet. In short, I really like it. The sleeves feel weird (though I’m a sleeveless kind of gal well into the freezing temps of winter), but they were part of what drew me to the pattern to start with. Try to ignore the wrinkles caused by being left in the dryer for a day and a half…

Front view

 

In the front to prevent the v-neck venturing well into indecency, I took the cheater’s way out and topstitched it. I think it looks fine this way, though I’d probably find another method next time.

I was also drawn to the back of this view, because it’s got a cut-out! I’m a bit of a sucker for those, and this one is cute without being revealing. 🙂

And, for once, I can say that this one looks better on me than the dressform. 😉

This is entry #1 into the interesting knit top styles sew-a-long. 🙂

Butterick 5284 & a wadder

I’ve been busy this week. I finished my jeans, and I also started a couple of other projects.

I started working on Butterick 5284 immediately following my jeans adventure, because I need shirts too, and my other denim from Denver Fabrics still hasn’t arrived yet. *Le Sigh* For reference, this is the pattern envelope:

I’m working on view A without the little ruffles down the front. They are cute, but this is my fabric:

My first ever plaid! 😯 They aren’t going to match up perfectly, but I think it’ll be close enough most people won’t notice. I probably should have used Tasia’s method, but I was too impatient to bother. I opted not to do the ruffles for two reasons. 1) I thought the fabric was a bit busy for them, and 2) I simply didn’t have enough fabric. In fact, this is going to have a “mandarin” collar because I didn’t have enough to cut out the collar either. It doesn’t really hurt my feelings too badly, and I figure if I really hate it, there’s plenty of this fabric left at Jo-Ann’s that I could pick up enough to get a collar out of.

Anyway, I have all the pieces cut out (and serged as you can see) and I have basted them together to check the fit, and it looks like this project will fit just fine. The only thing I’m concerned about is that I might not be able to put in the waist darts…since I don’t actually have a “waist” I’m trying to decide if it’s worth it to let out the seams and put them in or not. Right now I’m leaning towards no, but that could change at least 5,000 times before I finish up.

My wadder project was Butterick 5495:

The fact that this was a wadder is likely 100% my fault. I was rushing to get it done in time for a funeral yesterday, and only had one afternoon to get it ready to rock. I tried to baste it together and it had a weird “puff” above my already unimpressive stomach which made it look like I was well into my 2nd trimester. I think I’ll try it again when I have a flatter stomach, more time, and a fabric with a nicer drape. It looked really cute until I looked at the side view, so definitely don’t take my bad experience as a reason not to try it if you like it.

$1 Sales! Or, why I shouldn’t be allowed to shop alone…

I could elaborate, but really, I think the title and the picture pretty much say it all. LOL!

Simplicity 5 for $5:

3775
2925
2556
2508
2451

Butterick $1 (limit 10):

5451
5454
5450
5463
5284
4659
5542

All that and, a big cardboard cutting mat for less than $30.

New Butterick!

I got the email notification about the new lineup for Butterick today, and of course that meant that I had to check them out–especially since they mentioned this new feature about cutting lines to make their patterns dress/blouse/tunic length all in the same pattern. Now, I realize that it’s pretty simple to do this yourself, but sometimes I’m just a lazy seamstress. I’ll admit it. Sometimes I just don’t feel like going to the effort of doing it. I’m actually more excited about the “tunic length” option, because I get tired of making shirts longer so they don’t show my tummy while I’m reaching over my head–which I do often because I’m only 5’2″.

So anyway, on to my favorites. I’m really liking this shirt (views C & D):

I’m also really liking the neckline on this one, but will probably need to wait until I reach my weight-loss goals, because I just don’t think it would look good on anyone that doesn’t have a slender neck:

I like the idea of this one as a shirt:

And wouldn’t the ruffled one make the most darling diaper bag for a friend that has a new baby girl? Assuming I had any “girly”-type friends who would appreciate it, and that were expecting a girl…LOL!

You should check them out, some of the dresses are semi cute (if I ever really wore dresses), but IMHO most of the other stuff is “meh” at best–especially the jackets. *Cringe*