Vinyl Boot Alteration (I love Halloween!)

Why, you ask? Why in the world would Dawn be altering boots? Can one do that with a sewing machine?? Yes, my friends, you can. You just need a leather needle, a rolling foot, tear-away stabilizer, vinyl boots, and a load of patience. See these boots? My husband gave them to me as a gag gift a few years ago. Yes, they have killer 6" heels. And actually, they are pretty comfortable to wear. I have a costume to show you tomorrow. It goes with the red boots. Tonight, though I thought I would show you the alteration of the boots. First, I cut them off two inches above the knee (I want them to be knee-high boots).

Then, I unpicked the stitches that held the vinyl to the zipper. I also removed the zipper stops and repositioned them at the new "top" of the zipper. All you need for that is some needle-nosed pliers. See the underflap? That is a thicker piece of vinyl that I shaped easily with my scissors. Then I just folded under the vinyl and used a zigzag stitch to "hem" the boots.

I used a 110 leather needle with my leather rolling foot. I also sandwiched tear-away stabilizer between the vinyl and the machine bed so it wouldn't grab.

Even with all that, it is hard to get even stitches. All of the stitches shown below are of the same stitch length. When they are closer together the vinyl was getting bound up. When I grabbed it and started pulling, the stitches got farther apart. This is my test sample.

Here's the back showing the stabilizer.

I'll show the finished boots tomorrow along with the dress that goes with it. Here's a sneak peek. Anyone? Anyone? It's a Burda pattern and it's only a few months old.

CAbi Fall and Winter Collection 2009

If you've never been to a CAbi party you should go. They are like Tupperware parties but for Carol Anderson clothing. The clothing is nice but expensive (for me at least, I'm cheap) and it's fun to look at your friends dressed in something that is totally not them. I never buy anything at CAbi parties but it is fun to hang out with my friends and try on clothing. The consultant knows I'm only there to pick over details and she always tells me that maybe I should go and design for Carol Anderson. Yea, as if. I always tell her the same thing. I'm a workhorse, I have skills, I can copy, but I CANNOT design or be creative on my own. I am not an artist. For me an artist is someone who creates using their own ideas. I always use a pattern. If I change it, it's because I've seen that detail on something else and want to copy it. And, I'm not looking for "Dawn you ARE an artist!" comments. I come from a family of artists (woodworker, potter, silversmith) and what they do is way different than what I do. So here are some excerpts from the fall and winter line. I did like a bunch of the details. I sit and draw while she is doing her presentation.

First up, this cute pair of pants that was made out of a very thick bottom weight knit suiting. It was very interesting to touch. It had a bit of stretch. The details in the back where cute too. It had a notch at CB, seaming lines that ran down each leg, and a little buckle in the back.

I loved this vest/jacket thing . . . until I tried it on. I love the colors on it and I love the design on other people. I think it was too baggy in front and that kind of threw the belt off. It just looked too big and made me look very flat chested. Which, of course, I am. This is why I sew my own clothes.

There was a very cute t-back vest (far right) that I really liked. It was more slouchy than fitted. I think this Simplicity pattern is the same back but the CAbi vest is much loose; made to be worn open and flowing. The wrap dress (second on right) was made out of a beautiful fabric. It's an orchid purple with navy and black accents. You could totally use the Jalie wrap top pattern for this.

Hmmmmm, there are more but my scanner has decided that it does not want to work. More on this later.

Burda 08-2009 #121 Pencil Skirt with Pockets

I did get my hair chopped last week. The back is much shorter. Not as short as the reverse mullet but short enough to give it quite a bit of body. Here's item #8 of my Wardrobe Contest entry. This is a cute pencil skirt with pockets and fun seaming. I had some issues with the hip area but I got that straightened out after the photo shoot. Of course, it's a black skirt so you can't see too many details.

Here it is off the body. I could either use the flash and fade out all the details or be in focus. I settled for the slightly out of focus pictures because you can see the seam details.

After I took the photos I saw these tugs around the butt. I fixed that by letting out the side and CB seam just a little bit. The back section is straight so I made a "pocket" for the ol' derriere. Part of the bump on the right side is the invisible zipper.

When I cut this I only had enough material to cut the yoke in two separate pieces. So, there should not be a seam in the waistband or the CB yoke.

The bottom back has a small open slit for walking ease.

Review coming at PatternReview.com later tonight.

Pillowcases for "The Sisters"

Some of you probably remember the post from a while back where my son insisted on calling his sisters, "The Sisters." Well, The Sisters and The Boy all sleep in one bedroom because their mother is a selfish human being. We have a bedroom downstairs but it's my sewing haven. There is a bunk bed in the kids' room and The Boy sleeps on the top and the girls sleep together in the bottom bunk. My husband and I both agree that it would be a shame if the mother of this household flipped out one day and went crazy. Therefore we think it's a good idea for me to have a sewing room. Sewing is my therapy. Without sewing, I get a titch bit loony. Lately I've noticed that when my son goes to bed the girls have gotten his pillow off the top bunk and are cuddled together on it. I figured it was time for the girls to get their own pillows.

So, I pulled out all of the girly-pinky-lacey-frilly fabric (my girls loooove pink and lace) and put it in a big pile. I found this fantastic tutorial online for the pillowcases. Yes, I know it is super easy but this tutorial shows you how to do so the only raw edges are at the side and bottom of the pillowcase. It's kinda cool. I'm also adding it to my favorite links to the right.

I ended up with this . . .

. . . with orange rick-rack . . .

. . . and this with lace.

This is the inside of the first one. The line of stitches is there only to hold on the rickrack. I love how you get a finished edge on the inside.

Ahhhhhh, I love me a quick, cute project.

Chanel Jacket 6 - Sleeves, trim, and other stuff

First off, I want to say thank you for all the support with the moose posts. I also want to apologize for the rant. I try to live my life by not getting involved with negative people. I really think they bring everyone around them down and I won't let myself get involved with it. Uck.

On with the sewing, shall we? I've been playing with the trim and figuring out how to apply it. I know the couture method is to hand sew it. There is no way I could handsew all of the trim. After my last couture jacket where I thought I was going to chuck it out the window, I am going to take shortcuts on this one. No it won't look like crap but there is no reason (unless you like to) to handsew it on. I just happened to have a matching gold in my thread stash so I tried zigzagging it. The blue trim already has matching stitching running down the length. I found a guiding foot that works to make my own stitches along their stitching line. And no, I won't use gold. I wanted to make sure I could see it and the gold was already in the machine.

Here you can see the original blue stitches with my gold ones on top.

Here's the finished trim on the sleeve.

The sleeves are on. Aren't these just great? I can never get jacket sleeves to set-in without puckering. I'm either awesome or this pattern is just drafted nicely with little ease. I'm leaning toward the later as the reason for these un-puckery sleeves.

I also ditched the zipper in the front. Instead I sewed in some hook and eyes. I love the zipper idea but with all the trim and crazy boucle I wanted something more discreet.

Hopefully today I'll get the pockets cut out, trim put on, do a final fitting, and, and, and. I'm a compulsive list maker and I often give myself too much to do. I think I'll end there. We'll see how much I get done.

Kid Jammies

Remember these from my September 6th post? Holy cow, I put these off for a long time. I had to stop making them because I ran out of waist elastic. Then other things like meat and mothers got in the way. I think they turned out pretty cute. Check out the other post for close-ups of the embroidery. This is KS 3234. It's a pajama pattern that I use for all my kids' t-shirts and pull-on pants. I'm only on the second smallest size right now so I'll get many years out of this pattern. I made five pairs. One is for my son and the other ones are for a set of twins. How strange is this? I have a core set of college girlfriends that live in Anchorage. Out of the group there are two sets of identical twins and a set of fraternal twins. One was my roommate in college and the other was my next door neighbor in college. Tainted water? All three of us had twins within nine months.

All I gotta say is . . .

really?? I understand people not agreeing me or supporting me with the whole moose thing. But, really, let's not get ugly about it. Just because you don't agree with something someone does, you shouldn't attack them or the people that do support them. I mean, really, are we 12? Jules? Really? I would write you specifically but, strangely enough, your profile isn't available. Sort of makes it nice for you to shoot out nasty comments anonymously.

If you don't like it, don't read it. But really, I'm writing this post to ask you to stop attacking my readers. Insult me all you like. I'm a teacher, bring it. But, leave the readers alone. Let's put our big girl pants on, here.

Sorry you have to read this rant. People who think they are better than everyone else irritate me a bit. We all have different customs, values, ideas, etc. I don't agree or like what everyone else does but I would never assume that I'm a better person than they are because I do something differently.

Ugh. I'm stopping now. Sorry again. Sewing coming up later tonight. Promise!