Weekly Rummage

This Saturday there is a rummage sale at St. Clement of Rome Episcopal Church. 1501 32nd Avenue S. 98144. It's in the Mt. Baker neighborhood from 10-4.

There is also a rummage sale at Snohomish UMC, 2400 Lake Avenue SE, Snohomish, 98290. The sale is from 10-3.

I really thought there was a sale on Beacon Hill but I must have been mistaken.

McCall's M5692 balloon dress

This was Primrose's birthday dress. I hadn't intended to make the balloon view, but with one thing and another, that's what I ended up making. I couldn't figure out how to put the zipper in securely without the lining. I definitely felt that the instructions were inadequate, but then I always feel like instructions are inadequate. Then I go off and wing it and make it the way I think it should be done. Sometimes it works out, sometimes I realize halfway through what the instructions meant. This was my first real zipper. Separated zippers don't count, they're too easy. I mucked the zipper up a bit, re-did it, and mucked it up less the second time around. Then, being the crafty monkey that I am, I called it good and left it along.

I thought at the beginning that this dress was a bit dark. Prim likes it though, and popular response has been very positive. I love the owl fabric. Without the ballooning the skirt was plenty long. With it, well, when she bends over you can see the waistband of her pants. Since she's 3 I imagine that we'll be seeing quite a bit of her waistbands. I made size 3. It ended up loose in the top and a bit shorter than I would have liked. I'll eventually end up taking apart the balloon skirt seam and letting the extra length down so that we can get some additional wear out of it.

This was all made of corduroy from Joann's, bought new (on sale though).

Flowered corduroy Avalon Jacket --Bigger, better, and well, just bigger.

I loved the one that I made for Primrose so much ( it looks absolutely fabulous with blue jeans) that I made a bigger one for Willa. So much easier the 3rd time around. I absolutely adore that flowered corduroy. I am sad to see it go. I have tiny smidge of it left. I may make it into a Insa for Primrose. I have a bunch of nice new skirt patterns, but I'm afraid to use a beloved and irreplaceable fabric on an untested pattern.

Purple Rain Avalon

It's mostly finished. I still need to put some ribbon around the cuffs and I'm planning to crochet some purple frog closures and to make a gold flower to pin at the collar. This was planned as the companion to the Early American Bordello Insa skirt that I made last spring. I found this difficult fabric much easier to deal with the second time around. Since it has a tendency to unravel as soon as you cut it, I singed all of the edges right away. This melted the ends and kept my fabric nice and sound until I sewed it up tight. Unfortunately, my choice of lining fabric was not a good. It tended to burn instead of melt, so I ended up with lots of frayed ends. I eventually applied some light interfacing and that helped. I need a better singing system than a bic lighter though. My fingers got sore and the lighter got very, very hot!

I had a lot of difficulty making choices for this jacket. I couldn't decide on a lining, and now I think I should have gone with a different on. I ended up running out of the gold and had to use a purple stripe for the sleeve lining. I also sewed the front lining to the back wrong way around so I added the blue ribbon to cover the seams instead of unpicking and re-sewing. I added some lavender ribbon up and down the front and back, and then went back and unpicked it all.

I love the way this turned out. I keep thinking of Prince when I work on it, all it needs is a billowy neckpiece to make it perfect for him. I completely adore the gold ruffles on the back. I would like a touch of gold at the cuffs and collar but I'm not sure how I'm going to get it there.

Just as a side note, when Willa got dressed this morning she put on only clothes that I had made for her --the ruffled Feliz dress, Imke hoody, and a pair of pants with a lovely indian print of animals on it. It made me very happy.

Sewing, not posting

Sorry, I've been sewing instead of writing about it. I have two partially completed Avalon jackets on the table for Willa and I'm trying to clear them from my list so I can get cracking on Primrose's birthday dress and her Halloween costume. There was no good tiger striped fleece to be had in the city so she has fallen back on being a puppy for Halloween. We'll see how it goes. I would like the costume to be actual clothing so it gets more than just one use. I think I'm going to make an Imke hoody with floppy puppy ears on it and a pair of leggings. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about a tail. Maybe detachable? Or add one to the Imke but not stuff it?

So many choices to make!

Sewing along

I finally cut out the muslin of my suit. I hope to start stitching soon. I am mostly done with the leggings for Willa. I haven't put the elastic in yet. I am working a couple of tea cosies, and I just finished a pad for a friends bicycle seat. I hope it's nice and cushy for them.

Like a Dream!

Well, I finally wrestled the bottom panel off of my new Kenmore and oiled her up. She runs like a dream! I just realized as I'm typing this that I forgot to look at the belts and see what shape they're in! Silly me.

I stitched up one of my new patterns, the Vijona shirt, for Primrose and I love the pattern. It was just my color choices that blew. However, I am sure that next time my choices will be better and we will all get to view the end product. I spent most of the weekend cutting.....and cutting, and cutting and cutting. I have two jackets, a skirt, a pair of leggings and a shirt waiting to be sewn and I still haven't cut into the muslin for my new suit! I did manage to get rid of three big chunks from my stash of knit fabrics though.

I also stopped by JoAnn's, just to pick up some machine oil for the Kenmore. Perfectly innocent. Unfortunately there were all these 50% off signs all over the place. I ended up poorer, not especially wiser, but with some very tasty fabric (including a couple of chunks of knit fabric- my logic is not like your earth logic). I'm also continually plagued with the question "did I buy enough of it?" Generally the answer is no.