Going round with green

I was fairly unproductive over the weekend in terms of working on my 15 page research paper. But I did manage to make a pattern AND sew something from it. Golly gee, did I feel productive! Well... maybe not where I need to feel productive in. I should have been looking at pyramids, not swirly green fabric.

See, isn’t the green fabric pretty? And tempting? How could I say no to making something pretty out of that fabric? Well, I couldn’t. I have a hobo bag I bought from Target a few years ago and it’s slowly starting to come apart. I thought it would be a good idea to create a pattern from what I liked about it. This pattern needs a bit of tweaking to it, but overall I’m happy with how it worked out.

I made a few changes to the Target bag, like not putting in any lining. I didn’t get my head around how to do that until I was putting the finishing touches on my lovely green bag. I may add lining at a later date, but that’s when I buy more fabric. I’m trying to deplete my excessive stash that I brought down to Georgia with me and it’s slow going. The skirt I made was another project from my stash and I have a second purse in the work. We shall see what else comes from the stash in terms of projects.

And yes, I'm modeling the bag in my pj's. I remembered to photograph this right before NCIS yesterday, and I was all ready for bed before hand. I wear socks with skirts and am ready for bed by 8... Not really, just the random times I remember 'oh hey I need to take a picture!'

Falling for mums

Back in July and August, before I moved down to Georgia I had a little bit of fun with my camera's macro option. As usual... Outside in my front yard my mother had planted mums. I think by the time August rolled around she was quite frustrated with them. They look lovely when they're in bloom, but once they wilt they look hideous! Just when my mother went to pull the plants up, they'd have flowers again. Ah, the endless cycle of nature.

I had the opportunity one day to take my camera and capture some of the flowers beauty before the died and annoyed my mother even further. I was so happy with the clarity in these. Even though my camera says it has a 10x zoom, sometimes the zoom isn't clear, or agreeable. I managed to get a few really nice shots and I thought I'd share. Here is one of the red/orange mums.

I love the contrasting colors of the petals to the inner section and the scattered of the yellow/white around the center. The combination of colors reminds me of the fall leaves. The leaves which Georgia is lacking here. As my roommate has said, the leaves don't change colors, they just die right off the trees. I feel Georgia's fall isn't as spectacular as it is up north, but I am partial to the northern weather habits.

Plaid winter wishing skirt

I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Yet... I've been super busy adjusting to graduate school down here in Georgia. This weekend was super fun with 3 days of work and an annotated bibliography, test, and presentation all on Monday. Today I have a project due as well. All of that school work left no time for sewing, it's going to send me into withdrawn, not a good thing!

I did manage to get a skirt sewn a few weeks ago. I know, I'm horrible at getting things posted. It took me forever to get a picture of it and then I got distracted (by homework, shiny objects, and perhaps a glass of wine...).

I whipped the skirt together without a pattern, not bad for never doing something like this before. The material is bottom suiting, so it's a bit thick and was a pain and a half to attempt to iron flat (let's just say it didn't happen in some places, stupid stubborn material). I won't be able to wear the skirt for another month or three as it's still 80 degrees down here in Georgia. I believe the skirt would be better off in my native Ohio for this time of year.

Do pardon the socks here, my feet were cold. I slipped the skirt on before I walked to class, which requires wearing socks. Why you ask? Because it takes 40 minutes for me to travel from my apartment to the building where I have classes. Yes, it's a long walk, but it goes by fast for the most part. I may sew later on today, so let's hope there isn't as much of a gap between posts. Or I may just have to start posting about what I'm learning in class. Anyone up for architecture history?

Pft

As I blow massive amounts of dust off this blog I have to sincerely apologize in my lack of updating and lack of sewing. I do have a good reason for not posting in forever in a day... I swear!

The reason is simple: I moved. Across multiple state lines and 12 hours away from where I called home. In a place were a "cool front" is going from 90 degrees to 88 degrees. Not that I'm complaining about the heat, I like that. Seriously, that's not a cool front. A cool front goes from like 70 to 50 in a day.

Weather and new climate aside, I brought my sewing machine with me! I do have a projects in the works as well, but I have to totally take it apart and put it back together. Not looking forward to that, ugh... I'm also in graduate school and working, so that will slow down my updating and sewing. We'll see what fun things I get into down here, I think I may have to poke my head into some of the thrifts store that are scattered throughout the city.

Over the Top

I occasionally end up buying too much fabric for a project and end up having as much as a yard left over. Who hasn't though? I normally guess on the amount of fabric I need since I end up buying the clearance fabric at JoAnns and don't' have time to ponder which patterns I should use. Most of the time I have a little scrap left over the ends up in the form of a bag or wallet. The white wrap dress I made left me with maybe a yard or so of fabric, of stretch fabric to boot. I hate having excess fabric, it sits around mocking me. Sending off the "make something out of me" vibes. Most of the time the fabric just sits around not being used. That was until a few days ago!

At one of the lovely 99 cent sales at JoAnns I picked up a top pattern that I thought would work wonders since I had that left over fabric. Turns out I didn’t have the amount of fabric I needed for the pattern. BUT! I managed to manipulate the pattern so I have a shirt! I managed to beat the fabric, it thought it could just sit around taunting me. HA! Take that!

I normally don’t wear many of my sewn items out in public. I have a slight fear of people making a rude remark or having them look down on me because I sew. Especially since I work in retail and we HAVE to be nice to the customer (I think work should pay for my therapy of due to repressed feelings of wanting to smack stupid people). One of my coworkers couldn’t believe I sewed. Then again, I can’t blame her. I’m the only 22 year old girl I know who sews herself clothes. I told my coworker that I’d wear some of my clothes into work to show her what I’ve made. So far it’s just been this shirt on Friday. But Saturday I wore a tunic top that I have yet to photograph... and Sunday I wore my blue wrap dress. I received many compliments from my coworkers, which I did not expect. Ack... I have to wear something tomorrow that I sewed as well.

My lovely white top got the thumbs up from many of my coworkers who remarked that it was a cute top and then proceeded to ask me multiple times if I had really sewed the item after I told them it was hand made. I take that as a compliment. I’ve had a handful of customers comment on some of my dresses that I’ve worn to work (I wear dresses on Sundays as I go to mass and figure what the heck, I may as well look pretty). The customers tend to give me a somewhat nasty look after I inform them I’ve made the garment or they’re impressed. Normally I get the nasty look, which I kind of find amusing. They’re just jealous...

Who Wears Short Shorts?

I’m still here... and sewing... I swear! I’ve had a busy week attempting to get my ducks in a row for graduate school. I raced around this week attempting to find roommates because my parents had informed me that it was inappropriate for me to be living by myself. Something about it being “too expensive.” Don’t worry though, I’m in the process of fixing myself a super nice cardboard box!

So what have I been sewing? Things... Pretty things... Oh fine, I’ll show you!

I’m in desperate need of shorts since I’m moving to a warmer climate. This is my first pair of shorts/pants/item that’s not a skirt or dress or top. I’m fairly proud of it, even if it’s a bit short for my mother’s taste. I got the nice, “that’ll cover our butt?” when I showed it to her. Yes, yes, it covers my ass! My only hang up with these is there are no pockets on the butt. I could always change that, but I didn't have enough fabric with these.

I had to modify the pattern some as the measurements I took didn’t yield the desired result. I had to cut the pattern out twice and even then I had to take the sides out a slight bit. I do enjoy the plaid on the hem and inside the pockets. The next time I make these suckers I’m not going to line the pocket with denim at all. I’ll just use some of my scrap fabric (which there is a lot of) for some awesome detail. And maybe, just maybe I’ll start on another quilt here since I have so much extra fabric and don’t know what else to do with it.

And yes, I do realize the pockets bulge a wee bit. I'm not sure how to change that and I'm going to go crazy if I have to take out another stitch from these! I think if I pulled the front fabric down a bit and resewed they'd be fine. I'm good with them for now. Next time they'll be better.

Gone Green

I attempted to find some spare time over my weekend to sew... Attempted. I had to work, volunteer, and hang out with friends I hadn’t seen in forever. Sewing sadly did not manage to squeeze its self anywhere in those topics, much to my dismay. I do believe my day needs about 6 more hours in it so I can have relaxing/sewing time. Not going to happen anytime soon.

I did manage to finish a dress I’ve been working on! I see your faces, you’re asking: another dress? Seriously Kat, another dress?? Hmph, would you rather I had sewed a tent? Oh, no, no you don’t like that idea? Good.

This dress gave me problems. We had a long battle, but I somehow manage to win (I may have cheated and threatened it with fire... but I WON!). The dress is from McCall's 6070 and I didn’t have to alter it in anyway, which made me happy. It was the freaken elastic that gave me problems! For part of the pattern elastic has to go around the horizontal panel, top and bottom. So I measure the elastic out and cut it to its specified length. All was good, it was great, then I fed the elastic through the tubes I made and there we ran into issues.

Did I sew the channels to narrow you ask? YES.... I can hear your laughter and your mocking, to which I glare. I got very friendly with my seam ripper and fixed my narrow channels, no problems the second time around. So you’re thinking I’m good to go right? NOPE. The elastic was too long. I pinned the elastic together and tried the freaking thing on to attempt to pull the loops of elastic that were sticking out of the channels, think that did any good? Noooo! I had to cut 9 inches of elastic off each piece!! NINE INCHES!!!!

After figuring that out, swearing, and sewing things togther it went great. I had to cut some of the length off so I didn’t look too short (I’m 5’4” just at the petit cut off) and then hem. The dress doesn’t technically have sleeves which makes it great for when I’m moving down south, I can stay cool and look cute.

Along with zippers, elastic has made its way onto my “EVIL NOTIONS LIST.” ENL for short. Stupid elastic...