7/31/2014: Floral Pencil Skirt

Last weekend I purchased some new fabric at Joann's.

My husband has compared this to a table cloth, curtains, or old woman bathroom wallpaper. He is not exactly wrong, but I still love it. I got 1 2/3 yards, so I decided to make a pencil skirt (I still have a yard left over). 

I made a pattern from a skirt I already own that is a little shorter. When I pieced the skirt together, I had originally put the zipper on the side, but after 3 tries with unfavorable results, I sewed a seam up the back of the skirt and put the zipper in the back. Much better. I also chose not to do a waistband, but instead just did a simple 1/4 inch rolled waist. When I was finished, I did a 1 inch hem. My zipper and my thread were dusty rose, but it would have looked nicer to chose the background light blue color.

I wore it to work yesterday and styled it with a skinny aqua belt. It's pretty cute but it gets wrinkled very easily.

7/31/2014: Ariel's SightSeeing Dress Part 2

My past 2 costumes have looked kind of homemade so I wanted to make a more professional looking costume this year. I started out by going to Yardage Town to pick up some fabric. I have never been there so I wanted to check it out. Needless to say I was unimpressed by the dinginess of the store and the lack of interest the sales people showed in their customers. I would choose Joann's over Yardage Town any day. I picked up some satin and charmeuse for the top and the skirt.

I tried sewing with the light blue charmeuse and it kept bunching up. I think I was not using the right tension settings on my machine, but I abandoned that fabric in favor of a different, more study satin. As for the darker turquoise satin, I only bought 2 yards and that was really not enough. I don't know what I was thinking. So I had to buy more skirt fabric as well…$$$$$$$!

7/31/2014: Comic Con: Ariel's SightSeeing Dress Part 1

I decided to make Ariel's Blue Sight Seeing Dress for Comic Con this year.



My husband and I have gone the last Comic Con the past 2 years and I have dressed up both times. The in 2012 I went as Princess Mononoke, and in 2013 I went as Snow White. My husband went as Freakazoid both years.

7/31/2014: Patterns

I found these 3 discontinued patterns at Yardage Town at the beginning of July:

Because, you know, everyone needs these. Obviously that is why they were discontinued. Simplicity decided to get crazy and it clearly did not work out for them. Especially with the jackets :/

7/31/2014: Beginnings

I started sewing in 2003 when I was in 10th grade. I took sewing I and sewing II as high school electives and I got hooked. I never sewed anything that impressive, I think a skirt, maybe a couple of little purses, some strawberry print pajama pants (I wonder what happened to those…). My class had a scraps box, so I used to take pieces out to make squares for my quilt. 

Eventually I ended up with this masterpiece. I tried to match fabric patterns and colors together as best I could and it turned out alright. I bought a large golden yellow floral fabric for the back piece, and chose not to use quilt binding for some reason. Lastly, I attached the front to the back through the batting with little yarn pieces at the corners. It took forever. It used to use it on my old twin sized bed even though its a little small, and I still use it sometimes. I love it.

This is my sewing machine, a Singer 4530. My mom purchased it in 1989, and along with the much newer brothers in my sewing class, I learned a lot about sewing on it. Eventually my mom gave it to me because she wasn't using it anymore, and so I use this old and trusty sewing machine for whatever project I have. I have recently been coveting the Brother CS6000i. It is around $150 on Amazon (right now it is $143) and it has so many features and included accessories that it is a serious deal. I love my Singer but it is old and it gives me problems when I am doing just general stitching. So time to upgrade, I think.

I have recently started sewing much more frequently and want to start making my own clothes, so I will document my adventures here. I also like to crochet, make costumes, and do crafts, that's going to crop up here too. I was originally posting on Tumblr, but I am going to move everything I have (which is not much) over here, so there are going to be a bunch of posts all at once to get updated. Whoops.