Finished the tee

Yay! Im so excited! I finished the Imke tee. I hemmed it with a rolled hem to get a lettuce edge. I think with more practice I'll figure out the settings better to have tighter stitches so none of the fabric will show through but for a 1st time I'm very satisfied.



Not only that but I am getting much more comfortable with my serger now. I was able to reinstall the stitch finger, rethread it and reset the tension and the stitch settings to regular serging without consulting the manual.

Anybody interested in seeing my fabric stash? If so I'll post pictures :)
I love my stash and it gets better and better. I just got a gorgeous order from fabric.com and I'm waiting on some stuff from fashionfabricsclub.com Is there such a thing as a fabric addict? I'm helpless lol....

500 unique hits, Hello.....anyone out there?

This morning I logged on to find my unique hit counter at 500. Now I know that I've personally come to my blog from 3 different computers, so technically that means there were 497 more computers or rather lovely readers like you who have visited my blog. But it's so quiet here. I'm not complaining but I don't have a single comment on any post and would love to know if anyone out there is actually reading and liking my blog. It would be really encouraging to hear from some of you :) Leave a comment to say hi!

1st project from "Sewing clothes kids love"

Thursday night I was itching to sew but didn't have the right pins for that dress I was planning on making. The pins were making holes and snagging the chiffon fabric :(

sooo... I decided to start on another little project that I've been so excited about. A couple of months ago I bought the book "sewing clothes kids love" and have been reading it and accumulating fabric in quite a scary way and it was about time to get down to actually cranking out some garments for my little girls. I decided I will not sew any more clothes for the summer as their drawers are full so I'm starting on a fall/winter wardrobe for them. It will be great to crank out some fall/winter as I am due September 20th and may not be up to sewing much then.

Just some background on why I'm so excited about this book. I used to sell Oilily clothes and fell in love with their designs. The mixing of fabrics that don't look like they would or should go together until they do is so much fun! It's a real exercise in creativity. I've been reading online for some time about the farbenmix style and was so excited when I saw this book.

Thursday night I started tracing and cutting the pattern and last night I worked for almost 3 hours finishing and then cutting fabric and serging it together. I started making mistakes and usually at that point I walk away for a bit but I was so determined to finish it last night so I just pressed through. Thankfully all of the mistakes were small and fixable but at 1am when the last thing I needed to do was hem it I did go to sleep. I'm planning on doing a lettuce edge hem on this and have never done one before. 1am was definitely not the time to start fiddling around with my serger, I knew it would probably end in disaster. I'm working on the settings now and sewing on scraps to try to get the right look. I don't have it yet but I'm almost there and I want it to be perfect because this top came out so stinking cute!

When it's done, hopefully today I will take pictures of E. wearing it. She was tickled pink when she tried it on this morning and just wanted to know when I was making the skirt to go with it.

Click on the pictures to see them bigger, it's worth it. Does anyone know how to make them bigger on the blog to begin with?

My dress form is pregnant!

So... I have a wedding to attend, like next week, well no.....a week from yesterday! Am I going to go out and buy a fancy maternity outfit when I'm 8 months pregnant that I may not wear again this pregnancy? NO! So I had an idea for a dress I wanted to make and that idea has now turned into a 2 piece design instead, top and skirt. Fabric is all washed and ready to go but I need my dress form since I'm working without a ready pattern and will need to do a lot of draping. This morning my dress form got a happy makeover and I think she looks so cute. Lets hope her back won't hurt as much as mine after standing all day with a big belly like that ;)

I'm a bit nervous because I don't have a clear idea yet of the finished project. But I think it will come out great. Whenever I embark on a creative project, be it photography, graphic design, painting etc my best work comes when I get my hands in the materials and start messing around working my brain like a blank canvas. Going into a project with a specific thing in mind might just stress me out. So I will take a deep breath and remember to stay flexible and let my creativity run wild. This is the first time I'm going to just totally wing it with sewing though. I'll keep you all posted on the progress.

Recycling Cashmere!

My husband loves cashmere sweaters. He brought some into the marriage and over the years I've bought more for him as gifts. Sadly a couple of the older ones have been tossed in the trash when they had a hole that could not be repaired discretely. This was way before sewing or crafting was even on my radar.

After this past winter I went through all his sweaters and put the ones that couldn't be worn anymore with my sewing stuff. Yesterday I carefully took them apart at the seams and look! I have a bunch a gorgeous soft cashmere. I'm going to use it to make a sweater for my 8 year old boy and maybe a 2 piece sweater outfit for my 1 year old for this winter. One of the sweaters also had this great zipper with a worn in leather zipper pull that will be great for the older boy's sweater. I'm a bit sad remembering a beautiful blue sweater that got tossed :(

One hour robe recycle.

I had this terry robe stuck in the back of my closet. I bought it last year when I was pregnant with ND and it was huge even then. Then I had the baby and the unworn robe went right to the back of my closet.

Yesterday while picking up my daughter at camp I noticed a lot of the girls were coming out of the pool in robes and that would be a lot easier than E. having to get all dried off and dressed after swimming since she was coming right home anyway. This morning I pulled it out in in one hour E. had a soft adorable little robe for herself.

I laid her nightgown over the robe and traced a bit outside it to make my cutting lines. I cut it out leaving in the collar and zipper in. Then cut new sleeves, sewed them in, hemmed it. Easy, fast and fun!

before
look how big it was :) (E. wasn't so happy when I took this pic)

Finished (now she's happy, I think she likes it!)