A coat of a different color

I actually listed one of my ebay items (others should start being listed more quickly now).
I am going back on what I said (not to post about any of them), but only because this one has to do with my next big sewing adventure.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180979274573

See I bought this coat off of ebay and it is indeed very lovely. It is heavy warm and i love how the mink gives it a feminine elegance. But alas, it doesn't even close to fit. I have been keeping it for years now thinking that I would get profecient enough at sewing one day that I would be comfortable taking it in. I also thought of just taking it to the talor and having them take it in. However, the coat just seems so well made and lovely the way it is. Plus I keep reading about people not being able to find larger vintage clothes. so I have decided to part with it and free up the space that it claims in my closet.

In that reclaimed space, I would like to replace it with just as lovely a coat because I don't have a vintage coat or even a coat that goes at all with my vintage wardrobe. So, in an effort to be able to wear vintage everyday I will need a coat in order to be prepared for the colder winter my collegies tell me is coming this year.

In comes Gertie's coat sew-along. It only calls for medium weight fabric, but I think it will fill the void nicely. I am worried that I don't have all of the sewing skills needed to make it, but I love learning and Gertie seems to be a really good teacher. I have already purchased her craftsy class on the starlet suit and am hoping that I can use some of those videos for extra places I need help. I know it covers bound buttonholes for example. If anyone has taken the class and knows what sections would be helpful, i am up for suggestions since I haven't looked at the class at all yet (oops).
So, I am going to do the sew-along, but at my own pace (as I do everything) and hope to come out of it with a nice winter coat and perhaps a wearable muslin.

Now comes the part where I might lose you. I found this drawing

and am a big Doctor Who fan. I think that it would be really cool. not to go over the top this time, but just to do a lining like that. But how would I get fabric like that? I know you can do custom printed fabric at spoonflower and I might go that route.  they have an inside the TARDIS print already, but it isn't quite what I am looking for. it is just too, clean, rigid, I don't know (and it won't let me post a picture of it here).
Here is the inside of the TARDIS  (from when david Tennant was the Doctor)

What about painting fabric? I don't have any experience with that. Do they make paint that doesn't make the fabric stiff? Markers, dye, I have no clue. I probably wouldn't bee any good at drawing it, but I might be ok with a bit abstract.
Any ideas on something that might work for the lining?

So, are any of you planning on doing Gertie's sew-along? What are your plans?
Have you done any of Gertie's craftsy classes?
What about her book, have any of you gotten your copy yet? i have been pining for one, but haven't been able to get it yet. (Hint hint that would be a great gift if any of my family members are reading this).


And I will finish off this post with some other lovely coats I have found on pinterest

Yeah, I finally post and it is mostly off topic.

As you may have noticed, I have taken kind of a break from blogging (not that I was ever very regular at it). It is not that I don't have things that I want to share with you (because I most definitely do). It is just that I am still working on my priorities and way of life as I mentioned in my new years resolution post.

It is very important that I take care of myself and my family and I have been striving to do that better each day. I have been struggling with it and haven't gotten things perfect, but I am working with God to walk closer with him and his plan for me each day.

I have not given up on my blog or posting to it. It has just taken a backseat until I get some other really important things worked out and until I get a good schedule going where I have the time and energy to get the necessary things done in a day that need done.

Honestly I don't know how some people do it. Take working out for example. How does one who works full time, takes care of children (before and after school until bedtime), takes care of home (which is part of blessing my family), makes time for husband, etc. find the time in her day to workout. I know that working out is important and not just for weight loss or make myself not only feel good about myself, but it actually physically makes me feel better throughout the day, I have more energy and am more relaxed.

Marilyn Monroe

If any of you have any insider tricks on how to fit this into a schedule that starts at 5:15am (with getting kids ready for school) and doesn't end until at least after 9pm (with putting children to bed) mostly later with preparing food for next day and cleaning up, I would love suggestions. I have tried getting up earlier and that is currently what I am thinking the only option is, but I am not very diligent at it. I have thought about doing something during my lunch hour, but I don't know how I would be able to workout, clean up, eat and make it back to work in 1 hour, does anyone do that?

I have done better (not perfect, but better) at some things on my resolution.

For one, I caved and have gotten a blue tooth so that I am hands free while driving. Now, that is not being off the phone completely while driving (though I try to do that when the children are in the car), but it is a move in the right direction and I think that is enough for now. I will determine at a later date if this habit needs modified more.

I have been making healthier meals for my family. Okay, they haven't all been healthy, but I have pretty much stopped doing the fast food thing. I have come up with a menu planning system (which I am still perfecting) which allows up to 2 nights a month of fast food/going out to dinner. The only exceptions I have made is for when my husband meets me for a lunch date. We do not get to go on "dates" much so I let the fast food/restaurant rule slide when he comes to my work. I feel that our relationship is more important.

I hate that all my weekend time has been/is spent cleaning, so I have been working on getting a good cleaning routine down. The house isn't spotless but I am making strides everyday (and my cleaning pinterest board is overflowing with ideas to try). Which brings me to a tiny portion of this post that is actually slightly relevant to the blog....

In cleaning the house, I have determined that I need to purge a lot of things that I do not love, have room for, use, etc. Most of these things I have sent to Goodwill (though a lady at work is going to help me deliver some of the items to a women's and children's shelter in the future). There are some things though that I am not going to donate (vintage clothing, collectibles, etc). I was told that Goodwill does not accept vintage(retro was the word I think was used) clothing and such. I am not exactly sure what they do with it, but I was worried that they might dispose of it and I felt that was terrible. These items deserve homes that appreciate them. I thought of opening an etsy shop, but that requires me putting a value on these objects and I feel very reluctant to do that and it doesn't put a time frame of getting these items out of my home. So I have decided that I am going to put these items on ebay.

I haven't sold much on ebay (back in college I tried and it was a disaster -I was just too naive). I haven't actually started selling these things and I can't tell you how fast they will come out or what not. I am also not going to post every little thing on my blog and make this a selling tool, I don't like that and that is not the purpose for this blog nor will it ever be. But, I wanted to let my readers know about the things that I am selling (I figure they will go for very reasonable prices), so what I did was set up a pinterest board where I will post pictures of the things I am selling with links back to the ebay postings when I get them up. (Nothing is up yet, I am just preparing now, but expect the selling to start this weekend *crossing fingers*).

Things to look for me to sell...
- original vintage purses/handbags
- original vintage clothing (dresses, skirts, shirts, sweaters, etc)
- original vintage scarves, jewlery, other accessories
- original vintage sewing patterns (mostly women's but a few childrens)
- original vintage shoes (& a couple of rockabilly/pinup new pairs)
- collector barbie dolls ( not vintage - unless the 90s is now vintage- I know not really related, but I need to get rid of them too)
- plus random pinup/rockabilly/vintage inspired pieces that are repros (or 80s does 50s)

So that is about all the vintage stuff that I have to post at the moment, I do hope to get back to being able to blog more regularly soon, but until then, I do keep my vintage pinterest boards really active. Now I do pin lots of other things, so if you only want to watch my vintage boards I suggest going to my main page and then just following the boards individually with whatever your interests are. If you would like to follow new boards that I might create, but don't want to follow some of the boards in particular, what you do is select follow all on my main page and then unfollow the boards that you are not interested in.

Finished Sorbetto and starting next project of ...

As you know, my sorbetto has some serious issues with the darts. I found online a tutorial on how to move the darts from the muslin (instead of from the pattern like most tutorials I have seen).

So, I started to use my trusty seam ripper and take out the darts and seams. I found this to be very difficult due to the material and because like a dummy I had the threads as tight as they go on the sewing machine. So after fussing with it for a few days and losing my seam ripper, I decided to give up on it. Don't look at me like that, the shirt had tons of very visible holes and things in it from the stitches and it was much too tight anyway.

I decided that I would just cut up this "muslin" and would place it on the cut out pattern to figure out where I would need to move the bust to.

Because the original pattern I printed got ruined (i don't even remember what happened to it). I decided to print a new one. Yeah I love that part of pdf patterns :)

Once I printed, measured the check size square, and pieced it all together, i decided that I should remeasure myself since I had obviously grown since I measured last or the muslin would not have fit like spandex. Curiously I did not measure any different. I then looked at the pattern directions again to make sure which size I needed to cut. It was indeed the same as before (which by the way is kind of scary seeing that number which is way bigger than the number I would buy at the store and to think it was so tight).

Anyway, i cut out the pattern and placed my muslin cut out on it. Now I was expecting it to be smaller, since i did cut off the seams, but it wasn't even close. It was several inches smaller all the way around!

I have come to the conclusion that perhaps I might have printed it wrong the first time. Oops. And I did screw up the french seams width when i checked after Annabelle mentioned it in a comment to a previous post. Together it was way off.

I didn't have anymore of the polyester fabric that I originally used, so i decided that I was going to just go ahead and make the shirt out of a plain white vintage sheet. There was enough fabric that I could use more if I screwed up badly.

So, I pretty much started over. Cut the fabric, followed the directions for the most part. I did not sew up the darts first, I waited until after I had sewn the shoulders that way i could try it on in a way and move the darts where they needed to be. Funny thing though, the darts were in the correct position. I did still think that the darts were a little long according to . “Paternmaking..” by Joseph-Armstrong says to move the point 3/4 in to 1 1/2 in. which I found on this blog.

So i shorted it slightly.

I very carefully measured the seams when doing the french seams and was careful to make all seams straight and it was amazing how easy it was. The fabric just glided over the sewing machine going exactly where I wanted it to. It was like someone else was sewing it all together.

I was having such a pleasant time with it, I decided not to push my luck with the bias tape and did a cheat method of just sandwiching the seam int he middle of the folded over bias tape and sewing it up. Not perfect and it made the join of the bias a little off, but it saved my momentum and I am fine with it. I will save that battle for another day. I also noticed that I might have used the wrong size bias tape. i just bought a pack from Walmart in the right color, when I went they did not have any different sizes in stock. the directions called for a 1/4 inch seam allowance, but i had to sew at 1/8 in order to stay on the bias tape which was just shy of 1/4.

The only other issue I had was with the hem, the french seams did not want to press up, but I got it worked out.

I tried it on and it was easy to slip on. My husband thinks it is a little looser than it should be, but I am fine with it since I figure it will be tucked in most of the time.

i don't have many pictures, but here is what I have. Ignore the wrinkles and purple marker, supposedly it should disappear in 24 hours (it has been over 48 when the photos were taken). I am sure it will come out in the wash though.

Oh, one more thing before the photos, sorry. I stuffed my dress form (which i have named Mandy - which would have been my sister's name had I been a twin) and now she is just the right size :)

So now that I finished the first little project on my list I am moving to the next. I originally thought that I would be doing more blouses and then a playsuit and pants. But, after looking over the patterns that I have most of them are vague (or don't have directions at all). And the patterns that I owned were vintage and I am not sure I am ready to tackle that yet.

That is when I saw that A Fashionable Stitch is doing a shirt waist/ wrap dress duo sew-a-long. Which is great because a shirt waist dress was on my list and I don't have any. It uses a modern pattern, so the directions should be good and if I do it in a reasonable time frame there will be people to help answer some of my questions and problems.

So here it is...

I started a pinterest board (Pinterest Shirt Dress Board ) to come up with all of the ideas I had for the shirt waist dress (I actually started one for the wrap dress too if you are interested).

I found one particular image that I want to be my inspiration......

These girls look lovely. This is the look I want to basically go for, which will require getting the fit correct and adding those cute little pockets and maybe a belt.

I bought the pattern at Walmart which I had them price match to JoAnn's sale (which saved me over $8). I found it amusing that the cashier asked what it was and told me that he had never seen a sewing pattern before. Then I thought about it and wondered if much of today's youth was unaware of these type of things.

I then followed the sew-a-long in figuring out what size I was. Which really surprised me and I am glad that I bought the right size pattern because it was close. I will definitely check that first before buying the pattern in the future!!

That is as far as I have gotten so far, but hopefully i will have an update before too long. i don't want to get too far behind on the sew-a-long so i will be able to ask questions.

wish me luck!!

Mad Hatter part 2

After that last post with some of my hat collection (which I have yet to wear any of), I thought it would be good to show you some of the hats I have found online (etsy, photographs, etc) that I love.
I cant afford any of these hats, even if they were for sale.

I have considered trying to make some hats that would really suit me and go with my outfits. I have pinned several patterns/ tutorials. I think the first I would try would be the pillbox Love her style & blog. Here is a pic of what it could look like

Mad hatter part 1

So the blog has been a bit depressing with none of my projects turning out well. So, I thought I would lighten the mood and share with you one of my collections. Well, at least part of one of my collections, my phone battery died while taking photos, so I gave up after that. Now I like some of these better than others and I'm not even sure I know how to wear some of them LOL. But since my husband monopolizes the computer, I am having to post via iPhone which puts all the pictures at the bottom so I can't arrange them or talk about individual ones. :(
I know, maybe you could guess which is my favorite, tell me what is your favorite, tell me any hat advice you have etc.
So here are the pictures already...

Short update post. Hopefully more tomorrow

So, I got my dress form today! Yay!

First I brushed her with a cleaning brush because she had been neglected in someone's basement for a long time.

Can you see the ring around the neck after I took the foil off. Yuck! She also had a few holes and pinches, but I think she is good.

Next thing I did was measure her. She was set smaller than me, surprise, so I had to adjust her (as expected).
Her innards were all rusty and some of Wingnuts were too tight for me to get loose. So, I take her completely apart. I didn't bother piling her bolts or anything while apart though. I just put her back together.

I measured her bust, waist, and hip and made them match mine. She still isn't shaped like me. For one, her boobs are higher. The darts on the top I have been seeing are in the middle of her boob instead of above it like mine.

And how is it that the dart on the right is lower than the dart on the left, but they still both look like they are in the middle of the breast ( and above mine).

I didn't se a boob lowering adjustment just widening. I see that the above and below bust size are bigger than mine in order to get the bust size right, so I think I might need to get those right and stuff her bra. Will that fix the fact that they are so high, I don't have a clue. Hmm... I'll keep tinkering with it.

I wish the lighting was better in here so I could take pictures. I tried to with my phone an they turned out black though it isn't that dark. Who knows.

When I publish with the blogger iPhone app it puts all the photos at the end, is there anyway to avoid that (well besides posting via the web)? I fixed it today. Sorry for anyone who saw this post last night when I wrote it.

Fit issues & basically I don't know what I am doing

Okay, so I am finally ready to post some pictures of the sorbetto I made. Mind you was only suppose to be a muslin (out of my high school graduation gown lol). The problem is I never really have sewn a muslin and after reading a bit, I realize I was suppose to only bast in the stitches. Oh well, I really wanted to learn how to do French seams so I am glad I tried it out on a this instead of an actual garment.

Ok, so the first problem was when I washed it (I just washed/dried it as normal, nothing special - it is made out of 100% polyester), it well... I'll just show a picture.

I'm not sure how I should avoid this. I did pink the edge after cutting before sewing the bias on. And when I unpick some of the seams, will they all do this making it hard to reuse this muslin for another go around?

Next issue, I was having slight problems with sewing straight, yes I have the most basic sewing problems.

I was holding the fabric pretty tight on accident because I was concentrating on trying to get the line straight. Here is the resulting mess.

But that is easily solved. Don't pull tight.

The other issue is : fit, or more specifically it doesn't fit LOL. The easiest to spot is that the darts are too high (and too long?)

I guess I will need to unpick the sides and darts and lower them, but should I mark where they should be with a marking pen while it is on, or will that point be wrong once the dart is taken out? If that is the case, how do I know how much it should be lowered? And the side was cut a little different where the dart was, that means it will be even smaller when I see it up again (this time I won't do French seams though until I am happy with it).

Also, it is really really tight. That might be due me gaining weight since taking my measurements. Oops. I have started an exercise program (p90x) and have successfully finished week 1. But it is hard to get on just as a pull over without buttons or anything.

Another issue and this sounds really stupid, but I don't know fit well enough to really judge, anyone have any good articles on how garments are suppose to fit LOL.

Here are my ideas of problem areas.The arm hole too small? How about the neck, do the straps seem too far on my shoulders to you? Wait, I forgot to take a picture of that. Oh well.