Must. Buy. This.

I absolutely love this new pattern from Hot Patterns. I have never tried any Hot Pattern before but I am sorely tempted with this one. Part of it is the styling. I LOVE the grays and white. Love. It. If my local fabric boutique has it in stock, I'll buy it. Paulette, is it there?? I have some rayon knit that would be perfect. I would use self-fabric for the rib knit sleeves, neck, and hem. I love it and now I'll have to keep my eyeballs out for ribknit. My favorite is the elbow length sleeves.

Burda 10-2009 #104 Hooded Knit Dress

Here's the line drawing and model photo thanks to Kim. She posted a link to the German version of the website with the October magazine (thanks Kim!!). Like I said before, the model photo is cute but the line drawing is a bit mehhhh.

And here is my version. I used the reverse side of this fabric. I love this fabric. It's wool on this side and poly on the reverse side. It's like wearing a soft, cozy blanket. It's a very loose style which I am not used to but I do loooove tights and boots. I found the construction to be interesting. At first look at the line drawing, I assumed there would be a zipper but there is not. You use twill tape to finish the seam allowances. But, you also use the twill tape to make an underlap that attaches to your original ribbon facing. I used grosgrain ribbon instead of twill tape. Then you sew snaps to the underlap and the facing. I decided to whack it a few times with my industrial snap press and put on shiny silver snaps. I thought it needed a little bling.

You can see in this photo that there is very little shaping. I debated trying to make it a little tighter but decided, in the end, to leave it alone. I do like it but it is not a style that I usually wear.

Here are some detailed photos of the facing and underflap. You cut the front on the fold but then slash it open from the top the CF marking. Then you sew together the CB hood. After that you face it with twill tape (I used ribbon).

Here's the underlap. You create it by putting the ribbon together, sewing the sides of it, and then attaching that to the facing strips. Finally you fold the facing under and topstitch from the top. The underlap part extends into the CF. I hope that makes sense. I had to read, read, and re-read the directions to finally figure out what was happening.

Here's a close-up. It will either completely explain what I'm babbling about or it will confuse you.

I can totally see this with skinny jeans tucked into boots too. Aaaauuuugh, I love sewing with knit.

Early Morning Sewing II and Next Up

Well, dag-nabit. I wanted to show you what I was working on today but Burda is being uncooperative. Ya know that in-between time on their website? When they are showing the current issue (November) and the archives shows two months ago (September) but last month's (October) issue is no where to be found? I am making 10/2009 #104. It's that red and black sweater dress. It's kind of shapeless in the line drawing but it's cute on the model? Well, I'm making that. Hopefully I'll be able to finish by tomorrow so I can wear it to work on Monday. I love quick weekend projects. I love dresses that I can wear with thick tights and boots.

Speaking of quick, I cut these out last night and finished them this morning. All the ribbing is random stuff from my husband's grandmother that I inherited when she died. The mittens themselves is made from Polartec 200.

Chanel Jacket Close to the End

Ninety percent of the jacket is done. I have to either stitch down the pockets or find some buttons that will work with all this color. I used sleeve heads but no shoulder pads to help the sleeves not collapse. I put in three hook and eyes along the CF to hold the jacket closed. I think a zipper would have been a better choice.

The bottom hem is a bit wonky. I'm not sure what to do there. I did not add a chain to the bottom but that might really help it hang better.

It looks extremely cropped but isn't really. My natural waist is at the bottom pocket line. However, these are my low-ish rise Jalie jeans and make my torso look very loooong. Hmmm, the jury is still out on the jacket. Do you know, readers, that I don't wear any of the jackets I have made? I feel like I would like jackets if I could ever get one to fit. I have never worn this one, this one, or this one. I thought that my couture jacket class would help out with fitting issues but I got so bogged down in the construction aspect, that I didn't do much fitting. Or maybe it's just that I'm just not a jacket kind of gal. I don't know. I just know I have several jackets that I have spent a lot of time on, that I never wear. Not even one time. The most I have worn them is to take pictures for you guys. I guess we'll see if it is the same with this one. I think it would look much better with pants that are at the waist. I'll finish up with buttons and then take a few more pictures for my final review.

Chanel Jacket Progress and Denim

Here's a picture to prove that I have not given up. The flaps are on and the lining is in. I still have to hand stitch the sleeves and hem. I will slipstitch down the flaps because they keep flipping up. As you can see, I ditched the zipper idea a while ago and decided to go with hook and eyes. Hopefully tomorrow you'll see the whole thing presses, hemmed, and done.

Looky, looky who just got eight yards of denim from the Fabric and Notions Coop. There's a beefy red, a shiny brown, and two blues. At first, I didn't think the brown and blues would work for jeans because they are a tad on the light side. But, after washing them, I think they might work. I think the brown would make a great faux-leather pair of pants.

I've been feeling a bit stomach flu-ish so I'm not going to attempt anymore sewing tonight. When I get tired, I start to make stupid mistakes.

Slow and not so steady

Man alive, can I go any slower on this jacket? I've hit the wall and just want to throw the whole damn thing away. The trim is completely on the jacket and the pockets. All I have left is the lining and the finishing stuff like hemming, understitching, etc.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . . .

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .

One of my girlfriends wanted me to embroider the tops of her Christmas stockings with their names. I have Embird, the embroidery software, already and like the program. When my friend asked me to do the embroidery I figured I would also buy the Embird Font Engine. It's a bit spendy but I think I'll use it quite a bit. It enables you to turn any font into embroidered letters. Some fonts turn out well when embroidered and some don't. I found these two fonts at www.dafont.com. That is my favorite site for finding free fonts for my computers. These two are Fontdinerdotcom and Faux Snow. After several explicatives and many, many trial runs, I came up with this combination. If you have Font Engine I used Plain Fill (Fill 1) with the Triple Bean Stitch for the border of the letters. For the snowflake font, I chose No Fill and used the Redwork for the border of the "letter". I used a tear-away interfacing on the bottom with a strip of mid-weight Solvy on the top so they letters did not sink into the fleece fabric.

Here's a close-up where you can see the triple stitch along the outside. I think they turned out quite nice.

What my friend doesn't realize (or won't until she reads this) is that I had to take the fleece off the main stocking to make it lie flat in the embroidery machine. So, she'll have to sew them back together and sew them back on the stockings. I would have done it (it's a 20 minute machine job) but my transport system (my mom) was leaving to get on a plane this afternoon so I didn't have time.