Rumpled

This past weekend, Hubby and I headed to Michigan for a get-together with my Dad's side of the family.  I decided I wanted to wear something new and spring-like, but I was afraid to wear my new Roxanne:  too many kids and too much food and wine around! 

So I made myself a new Archer, but with a twist this time:  this one is pop-over style.  I've been wanting to try this out for a while, as I love the look of a pop-over shirt.  I started out being a really good blogger, taking pictures as I went so I could show you all how I did it.

I narrowed the sleeve by 3/4" each side, and then made a 15" long tower placket.

Then I started to sew that placket on:

And then I realized that the next bit - the trickiest bit - would never show up in this crazy fabric!  So, tutorial abandonned!  But I will be doing this again in a chambray, so I will take lots of detailed pictures of that one.  I have seen some comments that people fear the tower placket, but it's really not that hard to do.

Anyhoo . . .   My good blogging intentions were further abandonned over the weekend.  We left home at 6:15 Saturday morning, so I promised myself to have someone take my picture once we were at my aunt's house.  Of course, I spent the whole day yacking with my relatives, eating and drinking, and totally forgot to get a picture of the entire outfit!  The closest I got was this picture:

This is a picture my brother took of my niece and me.  I trimmed her out because I don't think it's cool to post pictures of other people's kids on the interwebs.  Better safe than sorry :-)

So, what you guys get is a picture of my rumpled shirt.  It kept me comfortable and stylish all day long. 

I thought it was interesting that I got comments from a lot of non-sewing people about my "excellent pattern matching on the front."  They were impressed that I centered that butterfly (or as I like to call it, booberfly, due to its position).   I should have just said, "Yeah, I'm that good."  But instead I found myself explaining how the front is cut on the fold so no matching is required.

The reason I narrowed the sleeve is that I left off the cuff so I could do this:

But it turns out that narrowing it by 3/4" each side was too much for me, so I'll add some back in next time.

I was a little disappointed that the front placket kind of gets lost in the print, but I feel the overall shirt is a success.

Of course, this is more of the Anna Maria Horner Field Study voile, Sinister Swarm in Vivacious.

Here's the collar, also getting lost:

This shirt actually ended up taking less time than it takes me to make a "normal" Archer, despite the placket.  I left off the pockets and cuffs, and I only had to make 5 buttonholes on the placket and one each on the button tabs for the sleeves.  I left off the buttonhole on the collar stand because it will never get buttoned.

I LOVE making shirts, and it was really fun to do this one with a few changes to the style.  I can't wait to do it again, but I think I will have to as I've got more travel in my near future, and I really need to finish that Robson trench I've been working on for I don't know how long!

Thing One

I've been slowly working on a Robson coat, but yesterday I was seized by a desire to make up a pattern I've been wanting to make for the last 2.5 years:  the Burda Striped Top.

This pattern was in the September 2011 issue of Burda magazine, which I bought in Turkey (and thus, in Turkish) during Self-Stitched September of that year!  I've wanted to make this top and the maxi dress which uses this bodice ever since.

My fabric came from Morgan in my first Stash Diet Swap back in January.  I knew when I asked her for this fabric that I'd use it to make this top for spring.  I didn't get right to it because it didn't seem like spring would ever arrive.  But all of a sudden it's here, and it's time to get busy on all those spring sewing plans in my mind!

It took me almost exactly two hours yesterday to trace, cut and sew this top - pretty darn quick!  I traced a straight size 38, and effectively took 1" off the length of the sleeve by not adding a hem allowance, and 4" off the bottom.  The given length would have hit me mid-thigh!

This top is a slimmer fit than I was expecting, but that's not a bad thing - it makes it better for tucking into skirts, but it still looks good over pants.

I tried my best to match the stripes, and mostly succeeded.

But the way the top is drafted meant that I had to choose whether to match the stripes done the sleeve at the top or the bottom.  Of course I chose the top - so the underneath doesn't match up.  I'm OK with that.

I did my hems and around the neck with the coverstitch machine; everything else was done on the serger.  Here you can see the slightly denim-y quality of this French terry fabric.

I had a coffee date with Alicia this morning, and since it is lovely spring weather today, I wore this top with a floral skirt.  Believe it or not, I felt kind of hot!  Good thing I got this made up before it turns into summer!  (Skirt is old, from Anthropologie.)

So this is the first of the eight pieces I need to make to atone for all those fabric purchases I made.  Hehehe!

Celery

Well hello there!  I've been back from my trip for a few days, and slowly getting back into my routine and catching up with things that need to be done.  I'm hoping to write a proper post about my SUPER fun time in Toronto with a whole bunch of very lovely ladies, but today I want to talk about something that's weighing on me.  Consider this "True Confessions, Sewist Style."

So you know how you'll be on a diet and everything's going great.  You're controlling your urges and trimming down.  And then all of a sudden, you have a week-long cookie, ice cream and candy binge.  And then you have to spend the next month eating nothing but celery.

Well, whatever the fabric equivalent of celery is, that's what I will be consuming for the foreseeable future.  I now "owe" myself 2 fabric purchases, for which I'll have to create 8 garments from stash.  Ouch!

It all started pretty innocently.  I had one purchase credit available. (I've got a little tally in the right sidebar to keep myself honest.)  I decided that aside from a Robson Trench, which I've already started, the one thing I must have this spring is a floral bomber like all the cool girls.  And to up the coolness ante, I decided it must be silk charmeuse.  So I spent some time browsing all the websites I could think of, trying to find something that fit with the idea in my head.

I didn't find anything bomber-worthy, but I did stumble across this beautiful silk georgette, and I fell hard.

After a few days, I couldn't stop thinking how it would make such a great Nicola dress.  So I decided to table the bomber idea for a while and use my available purchase to buy this.

Of course, the next day, when I went to JoAnn's to pick up the notions for my Robson, my eye fell upon a fabric that was exactly what I had in mind for the bomber!

Even though it's polyester charmeuse instead of silk, the colors and style are exactly what I wanted.   At $6 a yard, it's a lot more economical too, and I won't have to worry so much about messing it up.  So I went ahead and broke my diet.  Not even sorry!

Of course, the following day, I found out that a fabric I'd been wanting from Hawthorne Threads had come back in stock.  This is the Robert Kaufmann small herringbone chambray, and it tends to sell out quickly.  Since I'd missed out on it last time they had it, I figured - in for a penny, in for a pound - and I broke my diet again!  I've been planning a denim or chambray dress for spring, and this is the fabric I wanted to use.  So, still not sorry!

And then there are the Roaming Charges (Andrea - that's a little joke for you!  For the rest of you:  I got totally freaked out by the idea of incurring massive roaming charges in Canada because I forgot I was in a foreign country!)

Incredibly, although Andrea took me around to all the fabric stores in the garment district in Toronto, I only purchased one piece of fabric.   This is a 60" piece of 60" wide silky soft polyester georgette, which I bought to use as a huge scarf - so really it wouldn't even qualify as a fabric purchase, right?  But it doesn't count anyway, because I gave myself a travel allowance of 4 pieces of fabric per trip.  Sadly, I also made that allowance non-transferable, so it doesn't help me out of my sticky situation! 

How cool is that?!

And then there's the very generous and lovely gift Andrea gave me.  Look:

 Gah!  I can't even believe it!  It's the one with the jewels!  So, so beautiful!  Thanks again, Andrea!

So, I'm five pieces of fabric heavier than I was a week ago, but I'm going to try very hard to be good from now on.  For some reason, I always feel compelled to tattle on myself.  No one would have known if I'd kept my mouth shut, and then you guys would all think I'm a great role model.  But that's just not how I roll!

Scrap Management

Guys, I am SO excited about this post!

A few days ago, my good friend Alicia sent me a link she'd found on Facebook for an organization called ZeroLandfill.   Here's how they describe themselves:

"ZeroLandfill™ is an award winning upcycling program held seasonally that supports the supply needs of local artists and arts educators while reducing pressure on local landfill capacity."

The link Alicia sent me was about a collection drive put on by the Chicago branch, coming up in April.   We've both been working on de-cluttering, so she thought I'd be interested.

And was I ever!  Although I'm getting ready to leave town, I wanted to make sure I had things ready to take to the drive when I get back.  So I spent all of yesterday morning going through my two huge fabric scrap tubs and pulling out everything acceptable in the drive - pieces as small as 2" x 2" are taken, of all kinds of non-hazardous materials.  I filled four large shopping bags with fabric scraps and managed to totally free up one of my tubs!

With my shoes for scale!  These are the BIG bags!

The reason this is so exciting for me is that fabric scraps make up a large part of my fabric "stash."  That's because I only throw away the smallest, unusable pieces.  And that's because I don't want to clutter up landfills with this stuff.  I tried to find some recycling options for fabric scraps about a year ago, but came up empty-handed.  So I've just been holding on to this stuff, hoping that some day I'd figure out a way to use it, pass it on to someone who would or find an eco-friendly way of disposing of it. 

I know that there are a lot of scrap fabric project ideas out there, but honestly, I don't find it fun to make those things for the most part.  So this organization is a perfect solution for me - and so much the better that the materials are used by artists and in education.   When I was a teacher (back in the day) I used to take all my leftovers to my classroom for the kids to use.  But since moving here, I don't really have a relationship with any school so I haven't pursued that.

I spent a fair amount of time looking around on the website.  It looks like there are branches in many cities across the US, and even in Toronto!  This link has a map of chapters in existence already, and a contact for starting new chapters.  The link for the Chicago chapter I gave above goes to their Facebook page rather than to a website, so if you want to find the post about the upcoming drive, scroll down to the Feb. 26 post. 

Have any of you ever heard of this organization?  Do you have other resources for disposing of fabric or yarn scraps in a responsible way?  I was really excited to share this with all of you, because I think I may not be the only one with this problem!