The Mystery Bundle

I have a weakness for the mystery bundle. I love sending off my money and getting back a package of surprise fabric. I have been disappointed before, but I have also been very very pleased. I recently took Fabric Mart up on their wool bundle: four three yard lengths of wool for $28. I am very happy with what I got. (Really really happy.)

This is the one that I and my camera liked the least:


It's a brown that really doesn't photograph well. I don't really love it, so I will probably save it for a project where I want to try something new, but I don't want to ruin the nice stuff.

And our next in line:


This is not really my usual red, but I think it might make a cute spring suit.

The 2nd place winner:


I think this will be one of those 70s style mid length A-line skirts. (Cut on the bias of course.) I never would have bought this, but I was excited to see it because I had an instant vision of what I wanted to do with it.

And our winner:


These will be a pair of wide-legged trousers. I will love these pants. I can feel it in my heart.

I will admit to the fact that there hasn't been much sewing going on here at the compound. I picked up a virus and haven't been feeling so well for a couple of weeks. I am working on a sweater for my daughter, but even that has been slow going. On the positive side of being sick, I am catching up on my Lost episodes, and will be done with season three soon. Ah, Sawyer. And, I am going back to S. Korea in June to visit friends, and maybe my freaking camera will be working this time!

I hate BWOF plus size patterns

So, I'm just gonna come out and say it. I hate Burda World of Fashion plus size patterns. I don't have a subscription to BWOF because I don't really like every issue, and I can get reasonably priced copies in my neighborhood (at Nancy's Sewing Basket.) I had a subscription for a year, and liked only half of them, so I just buy the ones I like.

Now, I'm like a lot of other women. My weight is not where I want it to be, but I like myself and I think I deserve cute clothes. (Acting on that belief is another thing entirely.) I buy BWOF as a day dream tool, and I always swear I am going to make something from it, but I never do. Why? The plus size patterns usually suck. Here is how the issues usually appear to me. Cute, cute, cute, Lots of plus-sized jackets with no waist shaping, one over sized shirt, maybe a dress that doesn't inspire me, a pair of basic pants, and a skirt with some kind of weird yoke. Ugh. Burdastyle has cute plus size patterns, why can't BWOF? I don't even usually like the special plus-size issue.

I need a good pants pattern, so I am gonna try the one in the Feb issue to see if they fit better than the big 3, but I'm not really excited. I am also going to try to size one of the smaller patterns to fit me. It's just kind of a pain. Rant over.

Hawaii Dress

Another finished, but unreported, project was the dress that I made for the most recent Hawaii trip: Simplicity 2702. (This picture is a little on the light side so you can see the details. Ok maybe you can't. Maybe I just need a new camera.)



Here is a close-up of the yoke.



All in all this was a pretty easy dress to make. Except for the the yoke. I always have a hard time setting geometrical shapes in place. Sometimes they work for me, and other times they don't. (I clip corners, I baste, I try really hard, and sometimes the magic just doesn't happen for me.) This yoke was pretty much ok, except there was some puckering at the bottom. I have to be real honest with you here, I will do anything I can to avoid ripping stuff like this out. I do not want to have to do something so horrible over again. So, instead of trying to reinsert the front panel, I put a ruffle there to cover the puckering and called it a day. And you know what? I like the little ruffle, and actually wish I had made it bigger. The dress is kind of dark, and the all-over pattern kid of hides the yoke detailing. The ruffle adds just a little touch of something. (I could be deluding myself, but I don't think so.) I just measured the area I wanted to cover and muliplied that by 3. Then I cut out a strip that long, zigzagged the edges, basted down the middle, pulled the threads to create the ruffle, and then sewed it on to the dress. Easy as pie.

While I do like this dress, I don't like the sleeve option that I chose. These little fluttery things aren't that flattering on me (I have kind of big arms,) so I'm trying to fugure out how I want to handle the situation: make it totally sleeveless, or buy some more fabric from Joann's and draft some ones that I like.

Some Finished Projects

Not much inspiration to write a lot today, but I have some finished projects to show off.

Vogue 8425 for my daughter:



She is very petite and was dying for a high-waisted skirt. I had to shorten it quite a bit, and took about an inch and a half off the waist section. She loooves it.

Valentines Heart Amigarumi, also for daughter:



From a free Roxcraft pattern found here. He's a little wabi sabi, but Io likes that in her toys.

C4C Challenge for Charity Scarf:


Garter stitch scarf from one skein blue, one skein green Rowan Cocoon. Very very soft and beautiful in person.

Just back

I am just back from Hawaii. More crafty news soon.