Pencil Skirt Draft-along

 Just a Tuesday evening quickie... (heh. Sorry.  Gutter.)

Anyone following along with Justine's Pencil Skirt Drafting posts?   I don't know how I missed these!

photo by Sew Country Chick

You can get caught up and play along with Justine on her blog!  As soon as I get some decent sleep I'll play along too!

squared

I've been in a state of non-creative blah-ness since all the Christmas giftiness ended. That always happens after the frenzy of crafting. We can blame Shannon for this new bout of stitchery! We are doing a bit of a sewalong (Normally we agree on a project and then she stitches up the whole damn thing while I am still in the thinking about it stage, hopefully to follow along at some point. You know, one of those kind of sewalongs I do so well at.)

Except HA! Not this time Shannon! I actually SEWED A LONG! Here's a peek of what I got done today:


We're doing a quilt-along. See, I only really know one other person as enamored of quilt fabrics and mix/matching prints as me, and that's Shannon. And since my girl Lu won't let me sew much for her from those fabrics any longer, it was really only a matter of time until the quilting bug bit me! Lucky for me, Shannon & I are two halves of the same nut because we both decided we were ready to try quilting (again) at the same time. (We do this alot, btw.)

We're using this super easy pattern from a couple of other blogs that we're calling "Flea Market Fancy" because, well, that's what those other blogs called it. You can find the directions & measurements here: Crazy Mom Quilts

I'm using a lot of my favorite prints in this one, ones I call "juicy color"prints. I've got two basic colorways going, pinks & blues. But in yummy hot pinks & lilacs and turquoise & seafoams. Today I finished piecing the 10 "blues" blocks.


Don't they look like a pile of candy lying there on the floor? Since most quilting bloggers name their quilts, I've just got to jump on that parade. I've been calling this one Candy Dish. Because it's YUMMY.

Can you see all my favorites popping up in there? Some Amy Butler, and Sis Boom, and Heather Bailey...and assorted other prints from stash. I should have waited two days and I could have used this yardage in the stash contest over at PR. Whoops.

Other than piecing 10 blocks (and yes, Shannon already has her 20 blocks pieced & sashed. But who's counting.) I watched 6 of these:

(ooh, hungry zombie Shannon, are you watching?? Holy cow on the Gaeta-ness.)

And 5 of these:


And did 3 of these:And had 2 of these:And sucked on about a hundred of these:


And now I'm going to have some of this & veg some more in front of the tv:

Simplicity 3887 - Redux!

I probably have 150 patterns I want to make...and that's not counting all the BWOF stuff I drool over every month! In my brief week at home (I leave for Nashville at 4:30 a.m. tomorrow!) I waffled from one BWOF pattern to another in indecision.

Then inspiration struck with this adorable top by Amanda, who makes the darn cutest things ever! I don't have the particular McCalls pattern that she used, but I remembered that my similarly styled Simplicity 3887 had the same hem treatment AND flutter sleeve as options! Woohoo!

I used a poly knit from Gorgeous Fabrics for my version. If you remember, my last S3887 was out of a crinkle gauze. I thought that my ample booty probably needed a body-skimming knit to be able to wear the elastic-cased waist treatment. The length is perfect on my dressform, but after running back & forth for the camera timer, the casing does ride up a bit, causing a shorter look. I still like it!


The neckline gave me fits. I thought I was gonna have to quit it! First, the sizing runs large on this top (and my issue was partly due to the knit too.) I knew this from my last one but forgot until it was too late. I started with an 18, but really could have used a 14 at least, for the neckband pieces.

After sewing the neckbands together, I pressed the raw edges together with Steam a Seam instead of basting, because the squiggly, wiggly poly knit was not playing nice. The SAS worked great until I pressed a big old glob of it on the front neckband! I never did get it out so had to start over on the neckband (a half hour on the net, a half hour trying all the net fixes, and an email to Adrienne later.)

Keep in mind at this point I'm still not remembering it's not going to fit anyway.

Finished the top except for casings, tried it on...and the neck was a mess. Way too gapey and drapey. We're talking on the verge of cowl neck here. After working on that darn neckband TWICE I threw caution to the wind and made a dart in center front & back. (This was easier than taking up shoulder seams, because I had already understitched.) Perfect fit.

So that the neckline didn't have an unsightly bump at the CF and CB, I slit the dart and topstitched from the front in part of the pattern (so the topstitching wouldn't show.) You can't even see it from the right side of the top. Looks like crap on the inside.

Crap neckband save.

But the sleeves are so cute! They could be a tad bit longer I think, but I was a little overzealous with my casing turn-up. Slippery poly booger. I even resorted to a plain old zigzag for the casing hems!

So the moral of this story is...even when you're yearning for amazing, fashion-forward clothes, and you want to try all the patterns calling you from your stash, sometimes all you really want to do is SEW. And that might just mean pulling out a previously-sewn, easy favorite.

Ok, I'm off to Nashville until Saturday. Toodles!!

And Introducing....

New ME piccie. See it? Over there on the left?

Taken last month at a conference. That's why someone else's forehead is sorta in the way....almost in danger of being stabbed by my pointy chin. AHHH!!! :P

Most of you already know I'm one and the same, but for those who didn't, I changed my profile name from jemima bean to angie.a. Now it matches my PR name (which just so happens to be my real one.)

Huh. I guess I can no longer use my split personality disorder as a crutch. Dang.

Although now things should get really ineresting as no one is going to recognize me out there when I comment on their blogs. Hmmm. I could probably have fun with this, eh?

When I started this blog, it was called Jemima Bean because that's the name of my teeny tiny children's clothing & toy biz on the side. I hoped to use this blog as a marketing tool.

Of course it ended up being my sewing cronies hangout instead.

So the point of this rather pointless post is that when you see me out there posting as angie.a, hopefully you'll recognize my face. Or my name. Or both.

lurv you all,

Feelin Froggy?

Sorry, Shan, I couldn't resist :D
(and EW on the creepy bucket full o'frogs, huh?
Can we add multiple frogs to our Screamer list?)

Yes, my friend Shannon has finally bit the bullet and joined us in Blogville. You can visit her HERE at Frogs in a Bucket.

Fair warning...she sews and smocks circles around anyone I know. I mean seriously, you're going to be intimidated by her precise stitching. Er, well, I am.

But I love her anyway (mostly because she's a sci-fi-loving geek like yours truly. And really....there just aren't enough of us. )

(Are there?)