Day three of my 50 one-hour drawings brought on my favorite piece so far. This little heart!

I have a great liking for anatomy, although I hate blood, guts, and dead things. Give me an internal organ and I’m happy as a clam (although don’t literally give me an internal organ, that would be weird...). This is the second time I’ve done an atomically correct heart. I’ll likely get into other organs as I continue to explore subject matter with my drawings.

As you can tell the color matches up a bit better with this piece. I am going off of sewing thread that is running out, and as of now all of these colors have been used up. This is great for me because I’m going through my thread and using things up. This is not so great because it means I have to go buy thread for the colors I actually need. I’m not looking forward to spending money, so goes the life of a graduate student. I’ll likely be tempted by cloth and patterns when I go, I shall try to abstain.

Happy Belated New Year!

Happy New Year all!

I’ve been incredibly busy these past few months. The past few weeks I was up North visiting family and friends. I haven't done much sewing in the past while. School ate up my time (as per usual) and I didn’t touch my sewing machine for the past 6 weeks. It’s been tempting me horribly. Unfortunately the sewing machine cannot write my paper for me. I’ve asked the machine nicely, bribed it with nice thread, offered it wine, and threatened it, no such luck with. Apparently I’m going to have to write my papers, so not fair.

I hope that will greatly change over this quarter, but I highly doubt that. This quarter I have a drawing class, I’m TA-ing, and I am working on my thesis. Add in two jobs (part time, thankfully) and balancing my social life, things are going to be super busy. So, I believe these next few weeks will be spent in a stress induced haze complete with rum, lots of rum. I may get some sewing done in correlation with my drawing class. 

For my drawing class I have to do 50 one-hour drawings. This will prove to be an interesting exercise. I all ready have one of my drawings completed. I had chosen to go the traditional route with a subject matter that relates to my major, then I got bored. Me bored is never good it leads to things like trying to take over small countries in my quest for world domination. 

This was a bit of challenge for me. I hate sitting still for long periods of time. The time dragged on a bit, but once I got into my drawing time passed too quickly! I found that I went from area to area randomly. Maybe I should have laid off the permanent marker? Hm... Likely.

I then cut up some of my remnant fabric (where the white came from I'll never know) and pulled out some thread I was hoping to use up. These are supposed to be lily-of-the-valley, in red of course! I hadn't embroidered for months before this, so I was doing this from memory. While I don't think it's all that great, it was much better than drawing!

So, it looks like I'll be working on small embroidery for a few days or other drawing related things. I'll be sure to share them so it doesn't look like I'm falling off the face of the earth. Once my thesis is complete (only roughly 40 pages to go...) I hope to get some garments out, but we shall see.

Polka Dot Dress

This is another dress I sewed over the summer. I thought the Maryy pattern from Burda would be a fun easy pattern for a summer dress. And it was for the most part. The pattern was fairly easy to follow, I tend not to use the instructions and this was great with minimal pattern pieces.

The fabric was another I found at Walmart. I’m glad to see the Walmarts are slowly adding back there fabric sections, but I seem to remember the fabric being slightly cheaper. If I had known that I would be paying $6 a yard for this, I would have headed to Jo Anns. 

This is a cotton and it would have been better if it was a tinch lighter. I found it was more flattering to belt this dress, which is fine by me. Always being cold generally means I’m wearing a cardigan anyway. I just so happened to have one from Old Navy that matches fairly well.

I had to add some fabric to the bust. Apparently I suck at measuring things and when I first tired on the top portion of this even adding the zipper wasn’t going to help me any. That was an easy alteration and I’ll remember to remeasure the next time I make this and make the part that covers my chest larger as well! 

The problems are easily fixed by wearing a camisole underneath the dress, which works out perfectly! I also altered this to work as a halter. This was me not following directions and wining it. I think at that point I had lost track of the instructions because they were buried under something.

I’ll definitely make another dress with this pattern. It’s such an easy pattern and I’m very fond of the dress, even if the fabric is a bit heavier than I would like it to be.

Blue Flowers

Here is one of the dresses I sewed over the summer. I took it from Simplicty 2884, which I all ready sewed another dress from in Made in the US of A. I saw the fabric at Walmart and instantly thought of this pattern. So what I all ready had a dress made from said pattern? The more the merrier! I’m just slightly disappointed that I didn’t bring it down to grad school with me, but I don’t think I could have fit it in my closet if I did.

I put boning in this sucker, which greatly helps holding things up in the back. Next time I make this, I need to remember to buy more than the recommended amount, I could have used a few more pieces around the bodice. I did have to fiddle around with the bodice piece some. It did not fit very well around my abdomen at first, so I had to go let out part of the patter, which worked out perfectly. I need to learn to make muslims of these things first.

As with the last dress I made using this pattern, I did not follow the skirt the pattern provided. I didn’t have enough fabric so I just did a dirndl skirt. That worked out just fine for me.

Please pardon the grainy photos. I took them at home before I came back down to Savannah and did not pull out my tripod, which really would have worked better. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Roses All Around

Since I’ve been busy the past few months, I haven’t had a lot of time to document or take pictures of everything I’ve sewn. These roses are one of those little things that escaped my camera when I first did them.

I have a lot of fabric scraps from sewing. Some of these scraps have been turned into a quilt, or the beginning of one really. Some strips were smaller than the 2 inch squares that I need and rather long. They became these roses. 

There was a blog tutorial I used for these. Alas, I can’t remember what blog or tutorial I used! That’s the problem with not doing things right away and school taking over my life. I did these in April or June, as I remember it being warm and trying to avoid writing papers, much like I’m doing now... I see a trend here.

I’m not sure what I have in store for these. I’ve been wracking my brain on what to add them too and have come up with nothing. Then again I haven’t sewn anything since August. I’m sure once I get working on some of the patterns I have I’ll be able to use them. For now they’re sitting on my sewing table looking cute.

Granny Blanket

If anyone was wondering where I was, I have one simple explanation for falling off the face of the Earth: school. I have three classes and one is an independent study. That means I am writing papers, researching, and working on presentations constantly. Mind you I only have class four days a week. In theory I should have time a plenty to sew on the weekends, not the case. I work two jobs. If I’m not in class then I’m doing work study for my department. And if I work 10-4 on the weekends, add in a half our commute each way and there goes my day!

I had to put my sewing machine away because my library books consumed the table where I sew. That was a sad day. I nearly shed a tear. I’m preparing to work on my thesis so things are getting hectic and I’m trying to apply for phd programs, as if things weren’t complicated enough! Sewing has sadly been pushed to the back burner. 

My Winter Break is coming up and I’ll be down South for a few weeks before I head home, without my sewing machine. Somehow I don’t think that would work too well as a carry on...

I have been crocheting though. That is easily pushed out of my way and I’ve been working on a granny square blanket for about two years. Yeah, that sucker needs to get finished. It’s currently on my floor baiting me to finish it before my three papers and two presentations. 

This blanket was started to use up some of my accumulated yarn. It kinda, maybe, sorta just took over. I have had to buy a few more skeins of yarn than I expected.  I’m not quite finished with this either. I would like this to be a bit longer. It needs to fit on my bed and keep my warm. My comforter is rather thin and I pile on the blankets during the winter months. Yes, even in the South I pile on the blankets. It doesn’t matter where I am, I can’t stay warm!

If anyone wishes to estimate how much time this has taken, it takes me 15 minutes to crochet one hexagon. And this is rectangular for the most part. The top corner tried to trip me so it's staying as is!

Also, good luck to anyone who is running Savannah's Rock and Roll Marathon! 

Ya’ll are probably wondering why I haven’t posted in so long. Well, I was back in Ohio for my summer, this meant I had an internship, online class, and a job. Not to mention I was trying to visit with friends who I hadn’t seen in months. I did get around to some sewing, but it was hard to get pictures of things and create posts when my mom was trying to make sure I wasn’t posting anything inappropriate on the internet... Such faith.

I do have a few items I sewed over the summer to share, although two of my dresses stayed in Ohio. Those might get shared over my winter break, possibly. And as for these next few months, I have no clue if you’ll see more posts or not. I’m taking three classes and working two jobs. Will I be able to fit time in to sew? I haven’t the foggiest idea.

Anyway, enough with my sorry excuses!

I had been thinking about making some sort of belt for a few months. Like most of my sewing projects it takes me a while to get idea from my head to an actual product. I had my eye on an obi belt, but I couldn’t find a pattern for one. After looking at a few tutorials on how to draft a pattern, I drafted my own.

I found some more fabric on clearance a while ago, this stuff is brocade. I’m not too sure why I bought this fabric, aside from it was pretty and shiny. Obviously, I don’t always put much thought into some of the fabrics I buy.

I whipped this sucker out in about an hour, along with drafting the pattern. I didn’t have any problems with it, although I might add length to the ties the next time I make this pattern. I’m getting low on medium weight interfacing, so it might be a while before I make another obi belt.