Saturday, August 14, 2010

Finally sewing again...

It's been a busy winter and even busier spring, so I'm just finally setting in to whip out some dresses of the patterns I've been..."collecting."
This is the fabric:


It's a 30's inspired lawn that looked perfect for summer. I'm using an old late 30's, early 40's Advance pattern which is one of the first ones I purchased when I first started being a pattern hoarder, or a pattern whoreder, which ever you prefer.




It's the version without the jacket. That middle panel has two corner seams that have always proved to have nemesis-like qualities when I am concerned. I'm not very good at this, and that's exactly why it took me seven times to put the panel in and take it out to get it sharp, symmetrical and just not looking sloppy. It was so frustrating that I had to stop in the middle and take a nap, I was so exhausted. I finally got the panel in somewhat satisfactorily, and I'm loathe to mess with it any further in pursuit of an uncertain (and elusive) perfection.

So here we are at the current state, and I think it's looking cute on the model--not so sure how it's going to look over my fat ass. Not as cute, definitely. Thank God there are no buttons to gape open like toothless spaces over my planet-sized belly. No, I'm not pregnant. I ate a deep-fried avocado chicken ball in Texas two weeks ago and it's still hanging around.

So yeah. I get how lame it is to post half a dress, but I have been feeling like a poseur, buying patterns, finding fabric and producing nothing due to my work schedule. So this is mainly for myself to prove that over the course of the year, maybe I can produce a sleeve. And by the time I have to dig paths in my house because it's full of "BEAUTIFUL FABRIC I GOT ON SALE" from floor to ceiling, I can finish one dress before the paramedics have to cut a hole in the roof and pull my dead body out with a strap under my rigor arms because there are too many sewing notions for an adult sized and non-mole person to make his way to the crapper, where my body is.

Seriously. What am I supposed to do when fabric.com has stretch bengaline for $2.49 a yard and I have a 30% off coupon? AND FREE SHIPPING? Am I NOT supposed to get every color but lilac and rose? Did you miss their promotional dupioni sale? I didn't. Wash dupioni and throw it in the dryer. You won't believe what a soft, textured fabric is created. Very Victorian, almost. Thank god they ran out of Vera Wang and Ralph Lauren, because things here were getting sketchy, as in "I think this houndstooth would be fine in the crisper drawer in the fridge as long as I camo it with lettuce, and this silk faille would do very well hiding in the piano bench." I'd simply rather have a house unnavigable by EMT's that make dresses out of friggin sheets from Goodwill. The bengaline dress is up next from a Lutterloh pattern from 1941. And oh, what surprise there was for me in THAT book of patterns. It starts with "Heil" and ends in "Holy Shit!"


That's all for now. Happy Sewing, my fellow whoarders.

5 comments:

  1. I just have to say what a great fashion sense you have. You would definately be on UsWeekly's annual best dressed list and NOT on their "What Were They Thinking" end pages.

    BTW, I drove past your town twice last weekend on the way to and back from Coos Bay. All I have to say is that it's a long ass drive.

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  2. That fabric is awesome with that pattern. Good match. Now I want one.

    Kristin

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  3. doing really well on that dress, can't wait to see it finished.

    I know how you feel about the fabric, I am currenlty on a self imposed fabric purchase ban.

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  4. I have to say that your comments about being trapped in a house full of fabric and patterns reminds me so much of myself that I laughed until I almost cried, so funny! Rest assured that there are other people out there who obsessively stash sewing stuff like some sort of fashion conscious squirril.

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