The Last Week

Busy times continue around here.  I've been scrambling to get a lot of my summer house maintenance done before July 10.  Why?  Because my niece will be visiting from Turkey!  Not Niecey-poo, who has come three times before; sadly she decided to spend the summer studying for an upcoming exam.  This time it's Niecy-two, her younger cousin who is 8 years old.  We're really looking forward to her visit and I want to have as much of my work done as possible so I can just enjoy my time with her :-)

I've felt like I haven't had much time for sewing or knitting, but somehow I managed to complete a shirt for Hubby and two more Emery dresses in the last week + one weekend!  Because my time is so limited, I'm lumping them all together in one post.  None of these are new patterns anyway - these makes are all about the fabric.

Here's Hubby's newest guitar shirt.  I saw this fabric in the Hawthorne Threads newsletter a couple weeks ago and immediately ordered some - cool guitar prints are hard to come by!  This is called "Guitars in White" by Timeless Treasures.

Hubby asked for a mandarin-collared shirt with pockets deep enough for his new phone.  He likes being able to have things made to his specifications!  The pattern I used is one I bought new in 1996 to make him his very first guitar shirt, McCall's 8409.  The style is quite oversized; I liked it in the previous versions I made, which were all dark colors, but with this light fabric I feel it overwhelms him a bit.  So I'm debating taking it in a little at the sides.  It does fit nicely across his shoulders, which are wide.

Going chronologically, here's my Tiki Winki Emery Dress, which I've already shown you (and not completed in the last week).  This one is actually my favorite so far in terms of colors that suit me.

Next I made up a version in a stash fabric I bought last fall in hopes of making a dress just like this.  I bought it from Fabricworm; it's from Moda and is called "Tickets" but I can't find it anywhere to link, so I have a feeling that by the time I bought it, it was already out of print.

This dress is ironic because as much as I love the print, I actually rarely go to the movies!!  I've probably been to the movies 3 times in the 5 years we've lived in Chicago!  It's always too cold and too loud, and the chairs hurt my back.  I much prefer to watch at home :-)

I like the dress, but I don't love it as much as I was expecting to.  The fit is a little looser than I'd like.

"enhanced"

"actual early morning light"

I realized before my next version why my bodices were a bit on the loose side.  This is kind of embarrassing . . .

Ever since I got my Janome almost 2 years ago, I've been sewing with the needle on the default setting, assuming it was centered.  For some reason I decided to measure the needle position the other day and . . . it's not!  I have no idea why a machine's default wouldn't be the center position, but mine is actually one click to the right of center - giving me slightly narrower seam allowances and therefore slightly wider clothing.  Derrrrrrr.

So now I'm getting into the habit of centering my needle before I begin to sew.  I did it on this fourth Emery and I'm happier with the fit on this one than on any of the previous 3.  It's not actually noticeable in these pictures, in part because of the busy print, but I certainly notice it when I'm wearing the dresses.

failing at beating the self-timer

So here's a confession.  All I want to sew or wear these days is Emery dresses.  The pattern is a great blank canvas for pretty prints, and it's easy to sew since I've got the fitting worked out.  Because I really only have another week of sewing time before my niece comes, and then likely none until September, I want to spend my time sewing things that aren't frustrating and that I know will be successful.  So I bought myself a few pieces of fabric in order to Emery to my heart's content.  This is one of those.  It's Michael Miller's "Point of Sail," which I bought from Fabric.com.  Every time I see this fabric online, the triangles are always pointing downward, which reads "bunting" to me.  I wanted it to read "sailboats," so I turned it the other way around for my dress.

Emery #5 is already underway, and I'm hoping to get in a #6 before next week too.  Blogging is likely to be sparse from now until September while I enjoy family time :-)  But I will continue to do micro-blogging over on Instagram.  Well, I think I will but I tend to get caught up in the moment and forget to take pictures most of the time!