Gathered Skirt

Today I thought I would do something a little different and finally move on from wedding related projects. I only have a couple more to talk about, and frankly, they can both wait. Instead, I thought I would talk about a skirt I finished recently.

I had some leftover poly-rayon "linen like" fabric from Jo-Ann's. It is nowhere near as nice as real linen, but it's also half the cost and doesn't have to be shipped to me. The color is much closer to Robin's egg in real life. I wanted to play with my ruffler foot and thought this rectangle would be perfect.

So first I cut out a waistband, then I cut the remaining fabric in half and sewed the two rectangles together using a french seam. Because of that, the skirt is a tad shorter than I would normally wear, but I wasn't sure how much fabric I would need and I didn't want to run out.

Next, I ran my length of fabric through my gathering foot. I set it to pleat the fabric every 6 stitches. I think I would have preferred more gather, but again, I wasn't sure how much fabric the gathers would actually eat up. 

After I gathered all the fabric I attached the waistband. I did so by lining up the center of the waistband with the french seam on the skirt, that way I could attach the zipper to the other side and have both seams be centered. (The waistband started off three inches wide, I folded up half and inch on either side and interfaced the whole thing)

After I sewed the waistband to the right side of the fabric I cut off the remaining fabric at both ends and attached the zipper. I used a clean seam to finish the seam on the zipper side. 

The skirt is cute enough and I had fun playing with the ruffler foot. The whole thing was a bit fast and dirty, for example, I machine finished the hem, although I still hand tacked the waistband to the wrong side to keep my stitches from showing on the right side.I also didn't measure a darn thing, which is why I'm not calling this a tutorial. But hey, the skirt only took about two hours to finish, I will wear it (actually I'm wearing it right now which is why I thought to write up a blog post about it) and now I want to play with the ruffler foot some more. If you have never used one, look them up on youtube. They are crazy looking feet.

Socks for the Hubby

Forever and a day ago (which in this case means Dec 9th, 2015) I started a pair of socks for Husband. I meant to give them to him for Christmas, but alas, I did not come even close to finishing them on time. Husband does like the leg of his sock to be long, but I don't think his socks are really all that much bigger than my own, but somehow I can whip out a pair of socks for me in about a week, but it takes me months and months to make him a pair. I think it might be because he likes such boring patterns that I get sick of them and just don't take the time to work on them.

Well, I finally finished this pair of socks on July 8th, so instead of Christmas socks, they became wedding socks. It was pure coincidence that they went so well with his gray vest and gray shoes. He is a man of muted color preferences. It worked out nicely, though. I used a light fingering yarn, instead of fingering weight so they came out a bit thinner than typical hand-knit socks, more like dress socks than work socks so they fit his dress shoes.

They may have taken me forever to knit because I got bored, but I am pleased with the finished product. The original pattern is Thermal Weasley's because I was going with a Harry Potter theme to socks for the year, and more importantly, I liked the broken rib stitch pattern, but I made some pretty extensive modifications to the pattern. I lengthened the leg by more than twice what the pattern asked for, and I changed the heel to a slip-stitch heel with a garter stitch edge, and I changed the decreases for the toe to make them more gradual. 

Husband must have liked them also because he showed them off to his Grandmother and Aunt and Uncle. I always love it when he brags about what I make him, it makes me feel like I've done the job well. 

Maybe I will start a new pair of socks for him now. With some luck I bet I could have them done by Christmas. 

Linen Vests

I was so caught up in trying to finish wedding projects that I didn't really post much about what I was actually doing. In addition to sewing my own dress, I also made vests for my husband and for our friend who officiated for us.

The vests are fully lined with bemburg rayon, the outer fabric is a mid-weight 100% linen from fabric-store.com. I've ordered from them a couple of times and their fabric is just delightful. Linen isn't particularly easy to work with because it likes to try and slip off grain and it unravels with amazing speed, but it's well worth the effort, I love the feel of linen. Husband's vest is just a bare shade lighter than our officiant. I think the colorways were Asphalt and Graphite.

Retrospectively I wish I had used a lighter fabric to line Husband's vest, but there really wasn't one available to me.

And you can see how quickly linen wrinkles in these photos. I pressed everything while I was sewing then I threw them over a chair to wait until I had better lighting to take photos and in just those couple of hours they wrinkled. Husband also didn't like how the pockets were laying on his, so I sewed them shut, even though those welt pockets took longer to sew than all the rest of the vest. 

Don't the boys look handsome wearing their vests though? I was nervous beyond all belief making one for our friend. I think it's the first time I've sewed a garment for someone other than Husband or myself and Husband had a less than enthusiastic response to his the first time he saw it (because of the wrinkles) so I was terrified our friend wouldn't like his either.

All in all, I am really happy with the finished result. I think it was just what they needed to look extra dapper without being too warm (which is also why they are in linen rather than wool or a poly blend). I just think suit jackets at a summer wedding would be torture.

So, expect a couple more wedding project posts while I get caught up, and then I promise we can move on and I'll go back to just whatever random pattern catches my fancy. 

Wedding Dress Again

I am very happy to say that on Sunday July 24th I got married! I feel like I have worked on nothing but wedding projects for months now, even though I know that isn't really true because at the very least I finished two sweaters this year. Regardless, I am now feeling a bit of a project void. While I try and figure out what to do next I thought I would share my wedding dress with y'all.

I could not be happier with how my dress turned out. The skirt is one that I made ages ago but never actually wore, it's a full circle so it had great twirl. The top I drafted myself based on the same pattern pieces that I used for the corset I have on underneath, but with the addition of a sweetheart neckline. Because the skirt and top were drafted at different times I actually forgot about trying to make the side seams line up, which is part of why I added the blue sash (the other part being because it looked cute). I doubt that anyone would notice the seams without me pointing it out. 

I felt big and poofy and slightly silly but also really beautiful in my dress, my mom and my husband both came near to tears when they saw me. (This is the first time putting husband in writing, oh what a tingly rush that is). The kids at the wedding all told me I looked like a princess. 

I also made my veil. I've never tried any millinery work before, but seeing as my dress what short and blue I wanted something that made me feel slightly more bridal. I used scraps of fabric from my dress and 1/4 yd millinery netting, plus a piece of lace that I tatted and a small round piece of buckram that I bought pre-shaped. I don't know if what I did was the "right" way to make a headpiece but it worked and I loved the results. 

I started by handsewing a random scrap of my wedding dress fabric (a silk dupioni from silkbaron.com if I haven't said that yet)

Then I trimmed the edges down to match the buckram.

Next I made a short piece of bias tape and I sewed it around the edge to finish it. 

Finally I tacked the netting down then tacked the tatting over top of it by sewing down the picots. Here is a photo where you can see the lace clearly. 

And here is a photo taken by a friend of mine at the wedding. 

Wedding Dress

Guys, guys, guys! 

I finished my wedding dress!

I am not going to post a picture until after the wedding, but trust me, it's really really pretty. I am way super happy with the way it turned out and it fits perfectly. Less than one month, then I will post pictures. 

Sweater Weather?

A couple of weeks ago it was 90 degrees out and I was totally desperate to do something, anything, that had nothing to do with my wedding, so I finished knitting a wool sweater.

It was way way way too warm to wear a sweater, so I put it on for, like, 30 seconds, snapped a picture and called it good. 

I haven't posted about it until now because I kept thinking I would take the time to take a better picture, but I haven't gotten around to that yet, so no good picture for you :)

Anyway, I am very pleased with the final fit of the sweater. It has a hi-low hem which I'm not sure I really like, but it is super duper comfy. I think of it as the sweatshirt sweater because it's that level of comfort, but just by being a sweater it looks 10x more professional. It's hard to tell in the picture because the lighting is terrible but it's a nice gray-blue color. The yarn is Brooklyn Tweed Loft (the fancy 100% USA made yarn I talked about a while back) and the pattern is Brooklyn Tweed Gable. It was a total snap to make, wonderfully mindless. All in all a great mental break from wedding projects.

Now that I've gotten it done I am throwing myself into wedding stuff with a renewed vigor and determination. I've got 1 month to get everything done

Bunting

Does anyone else ever think so hard about doing something that they forget to actually sit down and do it? I constantly forget to respond to texts because I already thought about my answer, but I don't get as far as actually writing it. Sometimes I do that with this blog too. I think in such great detail abut writing a post that I forget to actually write it down.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that I meant to write this last Saturday, but I forgot. Oops.

Anyway, the wedding project of weeks past has been bunting to hang from the ceiling. I'm particularly excited about this project because all of the flag fabric has come from either my grandmothers, my mom's, my future mother in law or my own fabric stash. So it hasn't cost me any money, and it also feels like a great, subtle, way to incorporate the other crafty women in my life into my wedding.

Originally I was going to sew together two triangles to get fully finished flags, but after due consideration, I decided that was far too much extra work, and what I wanted to do instead was use the flags to make a quilt after the wedding. I really don't want wedding items that are single use only and a quilt seems like a great way to reuse the flags and to have as a nice keepsake.

I was inspired by images like the quilt below. I want to link to the original source for this picture, but unfortunately, I can't track it back and I can't find the image on the original page anymore. Y'all know how Pinterest can be sometimes. It seems to come from a shop called Shabby Fabrics.

Anyway, making bunting is delightfully easy, especially with a bias tape maker and a rotary cutter and mat. Here is my giant stack of flags. I made a cardboard template for the triangles by drawing a horizontal line 7" long, then drawing a perpendicular line from the middle of that line, also 7" long. I draw a line from each end of my horizontal line to the end of the perpendicular line nad ta-da I had a triangle. The cardboard was nice and thick so it was super easy to run my rotary cutter along it and end up with hundreds of identical flags.

Next, I made 1/2" double fold bias tape. Sure you can buy bias tape, but it works about to about a buck a yard and I need around about 50 yds worth. Not very cost effective. Alternatively, Craftsy has a pretty good tutorial on making continuous bias tape. So for $5 ish I bought cheap white cotton and made my own bias tape. 

Having a bias tape maker really helps with that process because you don't have to fold everything by hand. You just feed the fabric through the fat end, and it gets folded on its own. you iron the folds while slowly pulling the bias tape maker down the length of your bias strips, like pulling a zipper. Bias tape makers make single fold tape, so you have to go back and fold it in half yourself, but it's still pretty easy-peasy. I've got a 1" single fold bias tape maker, so I can make 1/2" double fold bias tape. Bias tape makers are pretty darn cheap, but each one only does one size. You can buy them individually or in kits. 

Man, I could talk about bias tape for days. Maybe one day I'll write a post on bias tape and why it is 1) the most wonderful stuff in the world and 2) not just for quilters. 

Once I got my bias tape made I sewed it shut, tucking a flag in between the layers every couple of inches. Bias tape is nice and flexible so it will hang in pleasing drapes from the ceiling. In the meantime, I laid it out on my bed to try and get an idea of how it was turning out. (I don't think it goes well with my current bedspread/pillows. Haha)  I've finished sewing two eighty some odd feet long strands of it so far. I don't know the exact dimensions of our venue, so I'm just going to keep sewing until I run out of flags. I will probably end up with way too much bunting, but I would rather have too much than too little, and even with extra this is a super cheap project. Yay stash fabric!