September Issues....

Peace.

This is my thoughtful time of the year. I keep wanting to buy magazine after magazine after magazine… But I’m showing restraint. I REALLY only NEED the Vogue. I save them. I have every September Vogue since 1998. I would have had more but I lost a lot during a move where someone else packed them and decided that they were trash. We no longer speak…. I don’t subscribe to Vogue… and I suspect they aren’t putting them on the newsstands until September. By then I will see everything that is inside it from other magazines. But I will still buy it and I will still love and cherish it.

I have already begun to start planning what is getting made for the fall…. And it’s really not what you might think. I work in healthcare, but I wear my own clothes. But I’m planning on changing jobs soon and I will probably need some scrubs. If I don’t I can’t envision my need to dress at the level that I do now. I also don’t wear pants… really… so I will probably need to figure out some dress-scrub options…. But I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

I didn’t really sew a bunch of things this summer. Do you know why? I have a solid wardrobe of basics in the trunk already. I only added the things that I really wanted. I would like to have that same experience for the fall… but I can’t. I don’t have “fall basics” ready to go like that. That needs to change.

The immediate plan is to go skirt crazy in the month of September. I need green, brown, teal, cream, brown denim and wine (maybe) pencil or a-line skirts. That will be the basis for my fall wardrobe. I have the other colors (black, blue, purple, gray, etc). I want that finished by October. This is Atlanta, and the weather isn’t truly fall-ish until mid October.

Other garments I’m considering include: bomber jacket, black denim jacket with a peplum, wrap dress, ponte knit black dress with a flounce on the bottom, and a bunch of new tops. I need new tops because my body has changed. Yes… I’m getting there. My body has morphed from a glass coke bottle in my teens and young adulthood to a thicker plastic coke bottle in my thirties to now an apple. No amount of p90x, dieting and running has been able to curb the progress. My mother’s ass showed up on my last birthday. Most women would hate to turn into their mothers and I am no different. What are you gonna do?

I made M6700 over the weekend on my new sewing machine that Precise bought me a few months ago. I’ve been scared to use it, but finally got my nerve up. Of course the Brother LB 6800 is better than my 30 year old Kenmore. It’s a learning curve. It seems to take a LOT of bobbin thread. I wonder if I should be using the same stitches on it that I use on my Kenmore? The fact that I lost the direction book doesn’t help. I assumed that I might lose the direction within 5 years, just not in 3 months. It’s got to be in the house somewhere. If I can’t find it, I’ll have to learn Spanish since I still have the Spanish direction book.

I haven’t posted pics of M6700 because everyone has made it. You know what it looks like. I do need to hem it more. I had already deleted 2 inches off bottom of the pattern and it still is too long. How’s that for short? And I did a 2” FBA that I probably didn’t need. I cut a 24 and could have gotten away with a 20. It’s just not my favorite dress.

So that’s me……


Peace

M6842

Peace.

I have been doing things in my sewing room. It’s hard you know. Precise has taken up DJ-ing again and uses the same space for his hobby. Since we don’t share the same taste in music, I strive not to be down there when he is. That makes it hard since we work the same hours. But this weekend I bit the bullet and went into the room while the God was mixing and made my slice of heaven.

Behold…....

(That's the back. the front pick got lost somewhere in the cloud and I can't retrieve it. the front has the print down the center)

I have been hesitant to embrace the full skirt trend. I’m a big girl and big girls look better in pencil skirts. B.U.T….. I wanted to try it at least. I have had this print fabric for years!!!! I found it in a thrift store. It came a big piece of fabric which I was trying to wear as a skirt. And a smaller piece that I wear as a head wrap. The smaller piece gets plenty of wear because it’s my favorite head wrap. The print is navy based. But I couldn't find a piece of navy dark enough to look right. But I bought several pieces of navy fabric to contrast it and it didn’t look right. I was wearing something black and I looked better with black so…

It broke my heart to cut into my printed fabric. I love it soooo much. But I get absolutely NO wear out of it the way it is or was. This way… I get a skirt out of it and a purse. That’s more mileage than it was getting. Shall we?

M6842...


Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it?
Yes it did

Were the instructions easy to follow?
I’m not sure. I read the directions and thought it was a stupid approach to the construction. So I did my own thing and it turned out fine

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?
I like that it was a full skirt. I wanted to experiment with that and color/pattern blocking. This came together FAST. From cut to completion it was less than 2 hours. And I was fooling around with Precise the whole time.

Fabric Used: cotton.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:
I don’t think I made any. I was gonna though. The finished measurements made it seem like I needed to add 6” within. But after I measured the actual pattern pieces I knew I wouldn’t need to.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?
Yes because it was upper easy. I went from cut to finish in less than 2 hours. Who wouldn’t want a 2 hour skirt?

Conclusion:
I do like it, but this particular skirt (a) does make me look bigger and (b)in it's current form is not really a good "work" look. That's ok. I wore it over the weekend to a cookout and then to the grocery store with bootleg converse. I'm satisfied.

I'll make it again but next time all one color.


Peace