The Dress is Done

Well, prom is over and I get the dress done just in time. I started with a size 10. Need less to say I ended up adding about 4 inches to the overall length, and had to adjust the bodice. She really loved the dress, and said she wants another one for college (In case she has a formal to go to).

This is a front view of the dress. She is so much taller than all of her friends, that when she takes pictures with them she has a tendency to slump over to their height. (I remember doing the same thing when I was her age.)

Here is a picture of the back of the dress:

I can't believe it by the end of the month my youngest will graduate from high school! I must admit I will definitely miss having her around. My husband and I are working on finding a new way of life, now that there will be no more kids in the house.

Now I'll have tons of time to sew. My daughter has already given me a project. Snugglies for her and her college roomate with the college logo embroidered on them. If anyone is interested, I found a pattern at SNUGGLIE.

I know she's growing up because she even went out and bought the fleece for it, and cut it out for me. She said she would have sewn it, but didn't know how to turn on or setup the sewing machine. Before she would have never done that, she always said "why do I need to sew when I can tell you". Oh well, "TIMES, THEY ARE A CHANGING".

Guinan's in the house

A co-worker of mine retired, and is a very BIG Star Trek fan. So for his retirement celebration, we did a "Star Trek" skit written by my manager. I got to be Guinan. Needless to say I couldn't find a pattern so I had to make my outfit. The dress was McCall's 5512:

To make the dress I lengthened it to just past the knee. Also I didn't put lining in it, since this was one of those "only to be worn once" type outfits.

The hat is from Butterick pattern 3664 (OOP). Its View E without the Brim, and a large circular piece added to the top (A popcorn can tin was used as the pattern for the top). I used two layers of cardboard to give stiffen the top and give it shape.

By the way have you seen the news..., There's snow in Colorado and lots of it!

Custom Pattern Weights

I was looking for something to do, and decided I need some more weights to use for my sewing. I didn't want to pay the outlandish price that I did when I bought the ones from the sewing store. But I didn't want a bunch of metal washers either. So here's what I started with:

List of items:

1. 3/4 inch washers from local hardware store
2. 1 skein of embroidery thread
3. glue from my scrapbooking supplies (glue used for paper, metal, fabric)
4. tracing paper (to use for bottoms

Stack two of the washers together. I did this to give it some added weight. I also put a little glue between the two washers to hold them together

Begin wrapping the thread on the washer, make sure that the thread wraps are bumped against each other. Also, have the tail of the thread such that your wrappings are over it


Continue wrapping until the entire washer is covered. Then make a knot in the last loop. Finally place some glue along the side of the washer where the knot is. This will keep the knot from coming apart.

Your completed weights will look like this:
The one in red was done using pearl cotton thread, the other using regularly embroidery thread.

It only costs me 34 cents per washer; so it came to Approximately 70 cents per weights, and $7 to make a set of 10 weights. Plus it was something I could do while I was watching TV with the family.

My Spring dress

Well I decided to do something in a springy print. This pattern is Vogue 8555. I found a flowerful print at the quilt shop, and decided I wanted to try it out in this pattern:

It's very comfortable. I didn't have to do much alterations; I decided not to put the pockets in the dress. I do think I'll make it a size smaller next time though, I think the pattern ran a little large in the bodice. But I most definitely will be making it again.

Now for my next project:

Vogue 2891 for my daughter's senior prom; I've got 2 weeks to get it done! One alteration I've already got in mind is to bring up the back skirt some, so there isn't as much back out.

Wish me luck!

Free sewing pattern on Sewing Pattern.com

Well, I was just fishing around on the internet, and came across the following free patterns at sewingpatterns.com. The following patterns were for free (plus some others):

I requested the Mccall and Simplicity pattern. I'm going to print them tomorrow. The website uses what is known as "secure printing". You can only print the files, you can't save the patterns to a disk.

I'll let you know how it goes. By the way I'm prepping for spring, and just finished my first "spring print" dress. What better way to get ready for spring than to mentally prepare. "If you think it, it will come". I'll put pix up tomorrow.

UPDATE: 4/9/2010 - Well I tried to print the McCall pattern, and am not sure this service is worth it. First of all I can only print the pattern from the computer that I originally used when I signed onto the service (which rules out the possibility of me taking the pattern to Kinko's to print it, and believe me Kinko's is not about to let me bring my computer to their shop and get onto their network; nor do I want to do that). I could print it from home, but I have no desire to tape together 45 sheets of 8 1/2 inch paper to make a pattern. However, I did send their support organization an email to see if there is a way to print the patterns from another computer, without having them change my default computer. I was told that I would have to send them an email so that they could reset the account to allow me to print from another machine. This to me is inconvenient. It's better/more-convenient in my perspective to just catch a sell on the pattern at the store. This maybe worth it for patterns that don't have very many pieces &/or contains smaller pieces, say the pattern for the purse. But right now I'm not seeing it being practical for larger patterns like dresses, etc.

Additional update Arielle gave me a heads up on one of the patterns "McCall 5446"; while I was editing the comment for the update above:

"... I just want to point out that there's something funky with the armscyes in the McCalls. The Slapdash Sewist made it and she is not the only one, IIRC, who couldn't lift her arms while wearing the dress!!! Just a heads-up!..."

Thanks for the info Arielle! I was thinking of just picking it up at the store but if I may have these kind of problems with it then I think I'll spend some time on something more productive.