Overwhelmed

Chastity: I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?

Bianca: I think you can in Europe.


-Ten Things I Hate About You


Christmas is upon us.  I am feeling like that kid that's worried he's going to be left behind in school because I just cannot seem to get my projects finished like I planned.  I'm not even done with Alex's vest or my pants, but Christmas is taking precedence.  Since my mom and hubby read this I'm not going to go into detail with what I'm up to.  Let's just say I'm feeling the pressure because I have many things started, but not completed.  (As a side note, I can't believe how expensive nuts are!)

 As soon as I have something to show I will show, for now....

Here's a picture of a baby in a Santa costume (and the reason my four year old may need therapy eventually)

I Love My Ass...

but, evidently, Simplicity does not.  Amazing Fit my err...ass.  I'm so very frustrated with these pants right now.  I measure and measure and I can't seem to make it work.  I measured my (high) waist and it's a 40, then I measure my hips and they are a 49 (baby got back to spare).  This, of course, is off chart for the pattern.  Finally, I measured my crotch length and it was, no surprise, off chart as well. 

Calculating from the chart on the back of the pattern I might have been able to get away with a 24, but my pattern doesn't go up that far.  (I want to state for the record I have a Levi's size 14 jean in my closet that I wear often and my ass is fabulous in them.)  I'm considering tracing the largest size (22) and then I will have to make adjustments.  I pulled out my Fit for Real People to figure out what needs to be done.  Apparently this book is only useful for shirt, skirts, and dresses.  They have a whole other book for pants.  That's just wrong.

I'm also considering just chucking it out the window and having my personal cabana boy serve me a Pina Colada...

Option three is to just put it on the backburner and make Alex's vest. 

Perhaps a combo of two and three?

See and Sew B5203

I finally finished the shirt.  I was having problems finding the time for a while.

 
The instructions said the collar was supposed to be hemmed with bias tape.  I bought some bias tape that I thought would work with the color of the shirt.  No, really really not.  Too neon green.  Being this shiny (and kinda awesome) green I realized unless I made my own it wasn't going to really match.  I decided to go with a narrow hem instead.  I had done a ton of them for my Halloween cape and with the method from Threads I felt confident it would look great.  I accidentally read the instructions for View A though so no hole in the back. (D'oh!)

Then I was having sleeve "issues".   I looked at the instructions, but decided I wanted to do the sleeves so that it was one long stitch from the cuff of the sleeve to the bottom hem.  Eventually it became obvious that wasn't going to fly with these particular sleeves.  They wanted to be done exactly as the instructions said.  Annoying.  There was a lot of stitch and rip before I just succumbed to the instructions. 

This is honestly the best picture of the shirt on me.  Hair and makeup, but no smile.  :(  I'm starting to think my husband just likes to take pictures of me where I look unhappy.  I did smile, even did a little dance, but those pictures didn't come out right.  Perhaps it was the dance.  Too awesome for the camera to handle.

Here are pictures of my "new" workspace.

You can't see the picture, but the desk has a long arm.  I have a blank dry erase board, a calendar dry erase board, a magnetic board (shown holding pattern instructions!), and a yet to be mounted (hehe) cork board.  So much nicer than just making room on the dining room table.


Next up...measuring my big beautiful ass for pants.

Fall Plans!

Last Saturday I made the trek to Joann Fabrics in the town over (i.e.  the only non-quilt fabric store in 50 miles).  They had Simplicity patterns for .99 so I got the limit of 10 on those.  I had a list of fabrics and notions I was wandering around trying to find when I decided to try their back for the clearance fabrics.  Once there I noticed a sign for their Columbus Day sale.  Clearance was 50% off!  Jackpot!

Now on to my plans.  First up is a pattern that I had (my mom may have sent it, but I dont' remember) that is seriously simple.

This is a crepe backed silk in my favorite color of green. I'm making view B.  It's not going to be super warm, but it's long sleeve and will look good under a coat.

Next we have pants.  Super swank and awesome tailored to my big booty pants.

There is going to be a lot of measuring and double measuring.  The pattern has three fits:  Slim, Average, and Curvy.  With my big beautiful goddess body I'm probably going to need the curvy.  The difference between view A and B is a cuff on the bottom, which I keep going back and forth about.

I'm in love with this fabric.  It was $7/yd on clearance so that made it $3.50.  It's a poly/wool blend.  It's really soft and doesn't feel "artificial" like some poly's I've felt.  I love the blue stripe.  The original plan was pants and a jacket, but I just don't feel like any of my jacket pattern "go with" this fabric.  I bought the rest of the bolt (5yds 17 inches) so I will have lots to work with.

I didn't forget about Alex in my planning.  I'm going to make him a vest.

This was not a clearance fabric.  It's sweatshirt fabric, but I had a 50% off coupon.  Alex insists he won't wear vests so either he's going to have to get over it or I'm going to have to make it with no armholes and zip him up so he can't fight it.

Lastly, this isn't new just something from last year that I've been staring at all summer.

This is wool and feels super warm.  Again, favorite color of green.  When I purchased this from fabric.com I was supposed to get 5 1/2 yards of it, but they accidentally sent me 1 1/2 yards.  I contacted them and they didn't have any more of this fabulous-ness so I had to get something else.  Kinda sucks, but such is life.  This was going to be the very gentlemanly coat of Simplicity 2526 till I realized that it would look oddly out of place with Alex's everyday wear of jeans and long sleeve t-shirts.  He's more of a kick and tumble kind of kid and since we don't church like we should he has no occasion to dress up.

Anyway, now I'm trying to figure out what to do with it.  There is a winter-ish dress I'm thinking about and a couple of tops.  I was surprised that jackets take more material than a dress, but when I think about it I guess it makes sense. 

I have no idea in what order I'm going to attempt these things.  I'm slightly scared of the pants since they require a bunch of measurements, but I've been scared before and things have worked out fine.  The other two should be a quick-ish sew.  Off to the tracing board!

So What's Next

We got back a week ago.  When we left September 10th it was still seasonably hot here in WV.  I had planned on working on a cute top and a summer dress when we got back.  That would have been appropriate in Austin where it's currently 86 degrees.  However, here in WV it's at least 20 degrees cooler.  I decided to go through my fabric and patterns and found that the majority of my planned projects for myself are for warmer weather.  For Alex I'm set pattern-wise, but still don't have the needed appropriate fabric.  The few patterns I have for me that aren't spring/summer are for jammies and coats.  This means I have to either brave Joann Fabrics or just order from Fabric.com.  So that's what's next:  A Fabric Hunt.  As soon as I have a plan I will update!

Vacation!!

There will be no posts or sewing till the end of the month because I'm going on vacation.  Walt Disney World and a Disney Cruise!!!

FINALLY!!

The costumes are finished (kinda).  They were three costumes and four items.  It was almost like a sewing bootcamp for me.  I'm so very glad they are finished.  I was stressing about it something fierce. 

Prior to this year I really only sewed a few things a year and took my sweet time on them.  Summer is a hard time for me to work on sewing because even though my son isn't in school there are a lot of things we like to go out and do.  It also doesn't help that we aren't really on any schedule during the summer months.  These costumes needed to be completed by this Friday (Sept 10) because we were leaving to go to Walt Disney World for two weeks including Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.  We went last year as a family of pirates (bought costumes) and had a great time so we really wanted to go again.  Next year I think we will actually go in October though so I have a little bit longer to work on costumes.

For my son I used pattern Butterick 3244 for the astronaut (View C) to make Buzz Lightyear.

It's not exact, but I did study dear old Buzz trying to get it the best that I could.  I will be adding some embellishment to his bib...eventually.  The boots, the cuffs, the belt, and the bands are made of felt.  The hood was supposed to be as well, but I made it out of broadcloth (like the jumpsuit) because I just don't think felt on your head is a good idea in Florida.  I made a 4T for my son who turned 4 last May and is in the 50th percentile for height and weight.  I really proud of it and I was pleased to see that Alex loves it too.

For myself I decided to go as Red Riding Hood.  For the cape I used Simplicity 5840 and for the dress I used McCall's 4948.  The cape was featured previously, but here is the whole effect...

And just the dress...

It's a little big because in my rush to finish I decided this wasn't going to be the first pattern alteration I made.  This was only my second zipper and I hate them with a fiery passion.  It looks fine though.  Especially since no one is going to see the back since I will be wearing the cape.  I was going to hem the cape to a length closer to the dress, but decided the longer length would work fine.  I used Gingham for the apron and broadcloth for the sleeves and top (the same cloth I used for Buzz's jumpsuit).  Since I have a boy and I have never made myself a costume before these are The Girlest Sleeves I Have Ever Made.  Very puffy.  Cute though.

When I decided to do this costume the companies hadn't come out with their patterns for the Autumn yet.  Imagine my surprise and frustration at seeing McCall's 6187 which is a Red Riding Hood costume.

Lastly we have my husband the Jedi. 

I didn't make him pants because I ran out of time.  I suppose I could run out to Joann Fabric and whip something up, but I'm not going to.  ;p  He and I agreed the pants don't matter as much as the top.

He's always wanted to be a Jedi.  Last year the plan was for him and Alex to be Jedi, but when I was shopping for fabric he had an opinion on what kind of fabric he wanted me to use.  This year he was not consulted and broadcloth was once again used.  I am a fan of broadcloth for costumes because it's what my own mother used every year.

I am extremely glad these are done, but kind of frustrated that they took me so long that I'm probably not going to make Alex another Disney shirt before we leave.  That's fine though, just means he will get to celebrate more when we get back.