Flower Power

I'm previewing the weather maps and packing for two upcoming trips this month.  The first is a wedding weekend on the South Carolina coast.  I've shown the alteration I am making to the RTW dress I will be wearing but this is another dress that I just finished that I plan on wearing to cocktails on Friday night.  It's Burda 6247 that I fit last fall and the fabric is a ottoman textured slightly stretchy poly/rayon/spandex blend from Fabric Mart.  I stitched it up at the winter sewing retreat and basted together the side seams.  It was a very good fit (after making the extensive alterations that Sarah Veblen had marked on the original) and I simply tucked it away to finish later.  

Burda 3247

This week was the time to turn it into something to wear.  I put an invisible zipper in the back and then had to decide about facings or lining or bindings.  The weather in SC can be quite humid so I decided to skip the stretch poly lining that I had planned.  I could have drafted an all in one facing but decided to do a simple, lightweight bias facing on the neckline and armholes.  I tested a few black fabrics in my stash fabric hoard resource center and selected a very lightweight black cotton.  I made my own bias tape then stay stitched, trimmed and sewed the bias tape to the edges.  

There's a lovely youtube tutorial that I found one evening if you'd like terrific advice and instructions from Liesl Gibson on Creativebug.  

I hand stitched my facings on the inside since I now have a smart TV in my sewing room and was enjoying "Bomb Girls" on Netflix.  Yes, I am really getting into this 21st century thing;-)
When I wear this sleeveless dress I will also wear a jacket or bolero to cover my upper arms.  When I put the black sweater on it turned a tropical fun print dress into something too somber for a festive occasion. 

Not as festive as I would like

 I decided I needed a fun pin to brighten up the outfit.  Of course my first thought was, "I can make one."  Mr. Lucky and I are heading to NYC for a day trip next week.  I figured I would just pick up some cream leather and follow the Pinterest directions to learn how to make beautiful leather flowers and of course after making some practice flowers my efforts would be special enough for this wedding...and, and, and.  You could tell where I was heading...Pinterest "fail" and last minute panic.  Another way to put pressure on myself in a busy month.  When I had been looking for diy leather flower directions I decided to hit the "shopping" option on Google.  Look, Jane, people are selling already made flowers!!  That lead me to the Etsy site where I had fun shopping and marveling at people's creativity.  Long story to say, wow, look at these gorgeous flowers that came this week.  

I bought two flowers from Leas Studio  in Riga, Latvia. Great communication, fabulous price, speedy service and delivery and absolutely the perfect answer for this outfit.  I could be making leather flowers for years before I could reach this level of artistry.  

I'll take wedding weekend pictures of the outfits in action and let you see the results later this month as part of #MeMadeMay17.

A dear friend who reads my blog asked me to share my Me Made May17 outfits so here's a week's recap. Pardon the repeat if you are already one of my friends on Instagram.

Tabula Rasa jacket as a duster and Margarita top

Simplicity 2603

An early stitch and flip jacket with a M&S Schmalberg flower from NYC

Much embellished TRW sweater

Magic Pencil skirt from Pamela's Patterns

Another hidden pocket infinity scarf for my upcoming European trip and Margarita top

A McCalls sheath dress and fabric flowers from Affray ribbons appearing at a delicious and enjoyable tea given by Donna,  a member of my wearable art group

Hope some fun projects are brightening up your days.

Blossoms and Books

Spring is here in Baltimore and my newly embellished sweater is in bloom....and a few of the flowers are blooming in my yard and neighborhood as well.  Yes, thanks to keeping my efforts focused this week I was able to complete this project and will be wearing it tomorrow to visit the Washington DC cherry blossoms themselves.  

Spring in bloom

Flowers were stitched to knit base then basted to the sweater neckline....looks like I won the Kentucky Derby, doesn't it?

Flower laden piece pinned to sweater before trimming and basting

Back is just as embellished as the front.

This project took longer than I anticipated.  I wanted this full, over-the-top look and that required a lot of flowers.  One of the lessons for me is to probably double how long I think any particular project will take.  I gave myself the week to work on this one but it took probably 18 hours of work to create all of these flowers, stitch them in place and baste the neckline.... and that was definitely more time than I had anticipated on Monday.  
Here are the flowers I made on the third and fourth days:

....and I still needed to make half a dozen more to fill in some gaps during assembly.

For this batch I used some wool roving that I needle felted onto a fabric base.  I used a hand needle felting tool from Clover and then my Viking needle felting machine.  Not much of a difference in the results for this project.  I love the texture and subtle color shifts from the needle felted roving, something that may not show up too well in my photographs.  

Wool roving placed on top of silk chiffon

Hand needle felting the wool roving

A new "fabric" to cut into a flower shape

Needle felting by machine onto a polyester base

Wool roving needle felted onto the pale pink polyester base fabric

After creating several needle felted bases I cut out flowers freehand and also with two of my Sizzix dies then added beads for some sparkle and contrast again.

I am happy to have this project work out as I had imagined it...and to have it out of my head and into my wardrobe.  I think it will be wonderfully festive for the start of spring.

Since I am catching up with projects that have been in my head for a while, I'd also like to catch up with my reading for the last month or so.  Our March vacation meant I had lots of time to just enjoy warm weather and great books.  In order of preference, here are the books that caught my attention:

Every bit as good as the reviews and word of mouth have said.  Can hardly wait for the book group discussion on this one in a few months.

I enjoyed this one tremendously and even did a phone in call to my March book group while I was out of town to hear what others thought.  Very touching story and quite interesting that he writes exclusively for young adults.  

So short but so enjoyable.  I have Anna Quindlen's latest book on reserve at the library but came across this little gem.  If you a reader you will probably just enjoy hearing another kindred spirit share the love of getting lost in good books.

Yes, yes, highly readable and I can understand all the hype.  Perfect vacation book.

I just love Bill Bryson's books and this was no exception.  Babe Ruth, Charles Lindbergh, the Mississippi flood....how could he make me care about all of these topics and more?  Another winner from a wonderful non-fiction author.

Another light vacation diversion.  I read it when I was laid up for the last few days of our Florida trip with a terrible cold.  Thank you, Amy, for an entertaining read.

Oh, I so wanted to love this book.  After all, I love Jane Austen, I love Joanna Trollope....but I just have never loved the original Sense and Sensibility and a modern re-telling was even more annoying.  I may not go as far as one Amazon reviewer... I'm delighted to say I got this book free - and even then it was too expensive...but I did wonder why she wanted to update this particular novel.  I'm just annoyed that I will have to wait a while longer for her next "regular" novel.
Right now I am in the midst of Diana Gabaldon's An Echo in the Bone.  I somehow missed the news that this summer will be the start of the Outlander television series but a friend filled me in last night.  Oh, might have to re-read that one just to enjoy the whole experience again.
Speaking of television, thank you Nancy and Alison, for your suggestions about Firefox and the Acorn TV subscription idea.  I might just stop my Netflix account and change to Acorn.  We had to take one of our Apple laptops in to the Apple store yesterday.  Turns out that I put a CD into the drive and it is stuck there.  Nothing worked on our end nor could Apple people remove it....from our "vintage machine."  So we can't even download Firefox unless we buy a new computer.  But to get Hola I'm thinking that might be a good purchase this year.  As for British television, one of the terrific benefits of being back in Baltimore is access to the 24hour a day WETA UK channel which is broadcasting so many wonderful shows all the time.  Two of my very favorites are New Tricks and Hustle.  But now to get busy with an entirely different project for next week.  Mr. Lucky and I are hosting a Downton Abbey tea at our home next Saturday.  It was our church auction offering and we have a dozen guests coming that afternoon.  I am not sewing any costumes but I will be baking up many treats and will share pictures after the event....as well as some surprises along the way.  
Here's hoping you have something fun up your sleeve in or out of your sewing room.

Still More Flowers....

Yesterday's crop of flowers took me a long time for a smaller result than day one's curled edge poppies.  I did new three varieties but after pinning them in place on my sweater, I still need some more varieties to make it as full and extravagant as I want.  I have an idea but it will mean a trip to Joann's this evening.  Stay tuned to see the next pink flower variation.  In the meantime, here's where the sweater stands so far and some details about the flowers.

Flower extravaganza in progress but plenty of gaps to fill

These wrapped flowers looked so easy and they probably are when made with a strip of quilting cotton.  But this rayon crepe was so slippery to handle that each one took me fifteen minutes.

Front

Make a knot, then twist, pin, wrap and repeat....and keep re-wrapping the slippery fabric......then sew in place from the back

Back

Silk organza from this month's Vogue pattern magazine instructions

My silk organza flowers don't resemble the picture because I used three layers and didn't paint mine....but I did use the cutting instructions:

The unpictured silk chiffon flowers were the easiest but still a little fiddly.  They were just 14 or 18" bias strips 1 1/2 wide, doubled over then hand gathered so they rolled into a flower shape.  I used pale, pale pink pearls to make them sparkle.  
I have enjoyed watching episodes five and six of The Great British Sewing Bee on youtube while working on this project.  We are an Apple computer household (although a very old operating system of theirs) and I wasn't able to download the Hola system.  I am waiting anxiously until that great system is available to MAC or ipad people since we happen to love, love love British television.  I get annoyed that the so called BBC America channel seems to only broadcast about a half dozen shows....and the GBSB is not one of them!!  I do love Gordon Ramsey and the episode today just happens to be a repeat about a local Baltimore restaurant.  But really, I want British television.  I am grateful that have been able to watch episodes one, two, five and six so far but would gladly pay to see the whole series.  I've heard about the American casting call and know that there are so many wonderful people out there in sewing world who would do a marvelous job.  But what I love about the GBSB is its gentility and fairness and I am less than hopeful that American producers can (or would want to) translate that touch to a US show.  OK, enough of my soapbox.  I have my daily walk, gardening, phone calls, emails, a cauliflower curry for dinner and then that run to Joann's.  I can see a final project at the end of the tunnel.....

Flower Power in Progress

Yesterday was a darn productive two hours in my sewing space.  My flower sweater embellishing is well on its way to completion so let me share the progress so far.  
First I had to decide how to support the embellishments in this knit sweater.  It's meant to be worn as a single layer sweater and is such a pale color that I know I will want to wash it more frequently than my previously embellished cardigans. This is a pale medium weight cotton poly knit remnant that I draped around the sweater, hacked off then created a rounded shape which I lightly interfaced.  I'll stitch all the flowers to the knit then hand baste it on to the sweater base so I can remove it when washing the sweater.

These first flowers are cut from a half yard of crinkly poly from Joanns in a similar pale pink.  I cut five circles in descending sizes, from 3 1/4" in diameter to  1 3/4".  I cut 11 sets of circles then curled the edges by holding them above the candle flame.  Keep a bowl of water next to you just in case....  Stack the five layers, stitch together and in this case I used some buttons and have pinned them in place on that knit base.  I like the look so far.  

In a sewing room related question, one of my friends wanted to know about the cutting surfaces in your sewing rooms.  I have a large cutting mat that is supported in a piece of plywood that rests on three large old greeting store card storage drawers that I use for pattern storage.  The whole thing is mounted on large wheels so I have some flexibility in moving it around my room.  Here's how I fancied it up the summer before last:  Sewing room makeover  I love having a permanent cutting set up and appreciate the space I have for it.  As we consider downsizing in our future, that part of my sewing space would be the greatest sacrifice and one that I hope I don't have to make for many years.  How do you cut out garments?
Next, more flower variations and a finished project to celebrate being back in Baltimore.

I Just Couldn't Stop....

There are several intriguing projects in my sewing room but I just couldn't stop sewing this Vogue 7717 pattern. Here's the latest one, my Doris Day version. I added rick rack from my stash along the shoulder seam and around the neckline....rick rack seems to '60s in my memories.  I must have been influenced by last week's Turner Classic Movie nightly tribute to Doris Day films. I've always loved her singing, most likely because one of my very early childhood memories is being at a drive-in with my parents and brother. He and I were in our PJs and I'm sure I dozed off during the big screen showing of "The Man Who Knew Too Much" but I recall waking to hear Doris singing Que Sera, Sera. Loved it then and still love it today. A fun more innocent time in my life but I have no desire to turn the US or the world back to the '60s and their own unique problems.

I wore it last night to my delightful book group meeting which was filled with wine, good food and engaging conversations.

Here are the directions for the fabric flower on my shoulder:

cut five 4" squares of fabric

fold wrong sides together and baste along two of the edges

pull the basting stitches tightly together to form five curved petals

Stitch the five petals onto a firm backing fabric scrap.

Add embellishment and sew to garment or add a pin back.

Index card and painter's tape

And my sewing machine is back in full working order.  Last month I packed it up for the local neighborhood sewing group meeting and proceeded to lose the bobbin cover in transit.  I had to figure a way to Tim Gunn it (Make it work, people...) so here's my solution.  

This past week the part came in and we're all tidy once again.....and I'll be super careful next time I transport my baby anywhere.