Finally a bit of show and tell.

Where has the new year gone?

I finally got myself in gear and been bust finishing off some garments I started last year.

Firstly I have yet another Loud Shirt

Loud shirt no4.

I was almost getting there on the pattern matching, then forgot the lapping of the front pieces due to button hole palacement and lost it. Ah well maybe next time.

And now  another late sewlong. This dress was for New Vintage Lady Plan Pattern Project sewalong that ended last year, and I finished it this week. DOH.

Front view.

Pink buttons to go with the purple/white cotton. the buttons do match, must be the effect of camera phone.

 Side view

And back colar detail.

I didnt really change that much with this dress in the end. Only adding the white satin binding on the bottom hem.

I have also started work on another project this week, but more about that next week as it is a birthday present, so no showing until the gift is handed over. Which today was looking doubtful, I have got to the very last bit of hemming when my machine went, whrrrr, clunk. Bugger. So hand hemming I guess.

On another note last weekend I opened a new packet of stockings, (very much prefare them to tights, yuk) and this is what I got,

One stocking, I can not be bothered to take them back. Luckly I had more packets with two in them, so now I have a spare.

I hope your week is going better than mine. Happy sewing and knitting

Sew Vala. x  

Dress 2 of the Plain Pattern project.

Here is dress 2 of the Plain Pattern Project.

 The fabric is an embroidared crepe backed satin. It is actually mint green, but my camera has made it look silver.

The changes I made to this version is I made it longer, I made a belt and this time I did not add the large pointed sleeve cuffs, I also used over 14 metres of white satin binding. Instead of the buttons I used 7 white frog closures, as they seemed more appropriate to the fabric choice.

Here is a close up of the embroidary

This time round I think I got the understanding of the lap technique for the interfacing right, (well I hope so) and the only issue I had was trying to iron the seams flat

Here is a shot of the back neck detail which mirrors the pointed collar.
 
I wore this dress to my nephews' wedding and felt fabulous all night.
The plain pattern project is held by new vintage lady and I bought the pattern

Butterick 6747 dated 1953 from Tina at what-i-found

Have a fantasic week everyone, Sew Vala

Late summer Roses Dress, Plain Pattern Project 1

Wow its been over a week since I have had chance to get my hands on the laptop long enough to do more than check emails.
Alot has been done in that time.

 So before I get ahead of myself here is the finished Plain Pattern project dress 1. Hosted by newvintagelady
My choice was

Butterick 6747 from 1953. Which I bought from the lovely Tina at what-i-found.
With fabric chosen to be as close to the pattern image as possible. However after I had constructed most of the dress I realised I should have done a constrasting colar, ah well.

I wanted to do some proper outside pics so me and the lovely Mr S went to Letchworth  Garden City to do the shoot as its has some very cool art deco buildings.

The cinema in Letchworth, How wonderful are those windows.

Showing a bit of leg outside of the town hall, Oh my. I tried to dress with apropiate accessories, vintage gloves and a vintage handbag. Although I have to admit I can only go so far as my obession for wild shoes is always present (Biba shoes, I love you). As for the hair, well it has taken me many many years to accept I have what can only be described as side show bob hair, some days it looks great but mostly it dont. And on this day no way was it going to co-operate.

Ah yes back to the dress the only alteration I did was to the length, being under 5ft meant lots of shortening.

And as I would expect of any dress like this there's always going to be a Marilyn Moment.

On the whole I love this dress , I have already made dress 2, which I wore to my nephews wedding at the weekend. Pictures to follow shortly.

Happy sewing all you lovely people. Sew Vala

Debi's giveaway and my current projects.

In case you didn't know, the lovely Debi from over at my happy sewing place is having a fantasic giveaway for this gorgeous dress

hop on over to see her fanstic blog about the Gatsby picnic, which looks like a very cool day.

I have been a bit quiet on the blogging front this week, as my daughters laptop is poorly so she has been using mine. which has given me time to work on my current projects.

I have finally finished the

Dress one . Although I haven't taken any finished pictures yet. I want to do some 'proper posing' pics outside in a suitable place. They would be much better than taking them on Betsy which is my usual thing.

The other item under my sewing machine this week is finally started the cos play out fit for my daughter. 

No Problem i said. eek.

Luckly she wants the blue hat with cat ears and not horns.

So I'm back off to carry on with that and hopefully tonight I can 'remove' my laptop from her 'Nepeta' fingers (thats the charater above) and let you all know how I am getting on.

Sew Vala. x

Skipping stiches and 'what on earth?' instructions.

Ok so back to more on Butterick 6747 . When I picked up this dress this week and began to sew this happened

Looks like its time for a little machine maintance.Empty bobbin fluff, check tension, check stutch length/width etc. A few test pieces later

The unpicked stiches can clearly be seen but next to it looking good.

I also had problems with my overcasting so had to revert to zigzaging the edges.

 I think a service may be in order soon.

And then this is where the real problems started. And I felt like this

I could not at all understand the inerfacing for the colar and front, at all. So I bloged help, and  the lovely ShelleyJ over at New Vintage Lady sent me a link which descrided what I had to do way better than my instructions did. Thank you ShellyJ.
Basicly it was the same as the facings I did in my Loud Shirts, but the technique is very diferent. Once I had the hang of it the dress bagan to take shape

Although with that colar as it is I could audition for the next Flash Gordon movie

Any way back to reality. I am still not sure if I did the interfacing construction 'right' The instruction asked me to 'lap the interfacing, so I did this

??????.

And when I sewed the interling to the facing it all went wonky. But hey thats inside it did cause me minor irritation becasue I really want to do things right, I am not a perfectionist by any means, I just want to do well.

Before I go today

I have just realised I meant to do a contrasting colar. DOH.

SewVala.

Progress on Plain Pattern Project.

I am taking part in the plain pattern project over at new vintage lady. My choice was

Vogue 8146. I have previous made the jacket and never got around to making the dress because I decided the fabric I had chosen was just too boring. However I had already cut out the pattern and dress before I came to feel this dress is DULL.

So I was rather pleased when NVL hosted this sew-along, it would give me reason to finish it and then make it twice more with more interesting fabric and details.

However this was not to be. Yesterday I made the facings and started on the front darts, all was going well even though I realised that since cutting the dress out several months ago I have put on quite a bit of weight. This didn't matter as I knew I wasn't going to be wearing this dress anyway.

And this moring I did the back darts. And the sewed one part of the back to the front and was pinning on the other half back when I suddenly realised my mistake



I had sewn the other half back on to the wrong side of the fabric,

So I ended up with two left half backs. This happened because the fabric has no 'wrong side' and I wasn't paying attention to this when I drew out the darts.
Unfortunally due to the weave of the fabric I am unable to unpick the darts and to be honest I can't really be bothered.

So I think is more Earl Grey, while browsing my patterns and start again. With an all new plain patttern project.

Right then lets put the kettle on..

p.s I know the silly little pictures are not usually my style. But today I just kinda needed them. And I quite liked it, hope you did to.

Sew Vala.