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.

Focusing My Attention

Going away from home gives me a chance to clear my head and examine my habits from a different perspective.  Since we drove not quite three thousand miles in the last six weeks I've had plenty of re-thinking time.  It's useful for me to stop and re-evaluate, especially when I am at a distance.  I am definitely a person easily distracted and my sewing projects this fall and winter have reflected that scattered approach.  I didn't have any show and tell for yesterday's ASG meeting but I did make a public commitment that I was really going to make "focus" the theme for the next month and see what I think about my efforts.  I am doing the program for May and am going to present the various forms of fabric flowers that I have used to embellish my clothes over the last few years.  Seemed like an appropriate early May topic and it will also make me finish a project that has been simmering in my head for at least two years now.  
I bought this simple pale pink sweater at Chicos and when I got it home saw that it almost perfectly matched some silk chiffon in my resource center.  I've pulled out all the pale pink fabrics I can find along with a collection of buttons and this week I'm going to get this project out of head and done.

I wanted to make some floral embellishments but just never sat myself down to test alternative ideas....after all, there's always another Pinterest picture to look at which sends me to that new website which has such interesting links and look it's almost time for lunch...oh that reminds me, what are we having for dinner?  Isn't there a recipe should I try from all those other bookmarks and wow, it's probably time to walk Lucky again and why haven't I adjusted the harness that I tried to make him but wait I also wanted to make a small cross body bag for my phone when I walk and where's that Pinterest picture of the bag that I liked so much?  Oh, look, doesn't what she's wearing resemble the tunic that Sarah Veblen helped me fit....wonder where I put those pattern pieces? And so it goes....
Is it any wonder that I have a million ideas, a scrambled brain and not so many results?  Where was I?  Oh, yeah, focus...
I am heading to my sewing space just testing fabric flowers for the next two hours.  More to come....

Ottobre Top

A lot of vacation but very little sewing happened on our fabulous Florida and southern state trip.  I packed my machine and plenty of projects but we had such terrific weather that I only stayed inside to stitch up this knit Ottobre twist top (an old TNT pattern from maybe five years ago) 

We have already booked our place for next March.  Not sure if I will pack my machine and so many projects.  Perhaps I will actually design one of those wonderful Alabama Chanin garments with its hours of hand sewing and have that to work on in case of less than lovely weather.  11 months to make that decision.....

Sewing readers can stop and move on since I also wanted to post some more photos of our carefree stay in Florida and our slow trip back to Baltimore this week.  The best part of the trip was reconnecting with Florida friends....just two of them from our daily dogpark morning visits.

 

Mr. Lucky and I left our rental house on Monday and mapped out and interesting sightseeing trip while heading north.  We stopped in Macon, GA to see its huge cherry blossom display throughout the town.  There are more than 300,000 trees amidst its restored downtown area and beautiful suburbs.

Some Macon GA cherry blossoms

Outside of town we visited one of the most interesting sites I have seen in North America.  This is a prehistoric site with many mounds from a village of more than 2000 people a few thousand years ago.  Unlike area of Europe, these sites are frequently forgotten in the US and this was a terrific visit and so educational.

from the sublime to the ridiculous....We headed out to a large lake outside of Macon and had dinner at this fun spot

Wow, we love southern cooking:

From Macon we drove to Augusta, GA where Mr. Lucky played a round of golf at a lovely municipal course and I rode about 12 miles on the local greenway trail along the Savannah River

Now we are in Virginia and I am heading out to the my local ASG meeting while Mr. Lucky plays golf nearby.  Then it's back home and time to unpack.  See you back in my regular sewing room soon.....

Swinging into Spring

Thank you, kind readers, for welcoming me back to the blogging world.  Most of my time away had been nice break from the winter photo shoot challenges for these new sewing projects (my house is old and dark, particularly in low angled winter sunlight.)  I decided in mid-February to start sewing something for our upcoming Florida trip and this new cardigan pattern is the result.  

Vogue 8819

The fabric is a soft rayon knit from Fabric Mart.  I almost included it in my recent fabric giveaway since I have found that these rayon knits stretch too much over time for my liking.  But I loved the tropical colors so much that even if I only get one season's wear from this lightweight jacket, it makes me smile whenever I put it on. The back seams are hard to see but they have a great triangle piece that provides a little swing in the back:

I think I might make the entire band twice as wide on my next version.  One very nice pattern detail is a curved back collar piece that hugs the neck nicely.  

Size for me is a small at the neck and shoulders and a medium for the body with no FBA since the front is on the bias.  I also raised the front waist seam 1 inch since I am very short waisted and it was previously hitting at an unflattering puffy tummy location.
All in all, a very RTW like pattern.  I have some striped knit waiting to strut its stuff in this design.

Now that I am just about caught up on my meager winter sewing projects I can also share another reason for recent blogging silence.  President's weekend in February was our last visit to Western Maryland, just after a huge snowfall, brief melting day or two followed by some more snow.  But I bundled up my warm clothes for a fun weekend with our hosts and had another wonderful visit, even enjoying the local Winterfest festivities on Saturday.  

In front of the lovely local bookstore

Ice Maidens

The day before the concussion

Sunday was grey skies with snow showers so my girlfriend and I took Lucky the rescue dog out for a walk.  Streets were plowed and cindered so silly me left the house talking and forgot my winter weather accessory....my hiking pole.  After about 1 mile of walking we turned back down a side street that hadn't been plowed and there was ice under the new snow.  Both feet flew out and I cracked the back of my head on the ground.  I didn't black out and got up and could walk the short distance back but we did go to the hospital where I had a CT scan and yes, a concussion.  No bleeding, no loss of consciousness, just a big lump.  All this wouldn't have been a problem except that two days later I was lounging back home, feeling just fine but I took it easy by writing emails, reading blogs and my latest library download for hours and watching some TV, even sewing a little.  Yikes, that evening, headache!!!!  No one said don't do that with a concussion.  Now I know.  It was about four days of a dim room and no reading to get that headache to stop.  But at the very end of the month we were able to still pack up and drive here to southwest Florida where the sunshine, warmth and vitamin D has made me feel like myself again.  It's been a pure delight to catch up with friends, enjoy biking, kayaking, swimming and reading on the lanai while palm trees sway and birds sing.  So here's the Vogue 8819 cardigan in our rental house backyard:

Vogue 8819

The swinging back

Vogue 8885 from my previous post

Sunshine, warm waters and good people, the cure for just about anything that ails me.

Here's hoping that you can bask in the warmth of friends and family and also revive your spirits with a sewing project when needed.

Vogue 8885, A Hidden Gem

Where was I?  Oh, yes, telling you that I was cold as heck this winter so I wanted some new warmer but stylish layers.  Mr. Lucky is a weekend volunteer ski patroller out in Western Maryland and in the evenings there's usually a gathering at a local restaurant.  Now, "apres ski Western Maryland" is not apres ski Aspen or Gstaad.  No chichi designer duds there on the

border with Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Yet I am at the age where going too casual just makes me look older and unkempt.  I took up a sewing challenge this winter to find some cardigan patterns to add to my sewing repertoire for just such evenings.  I already love Pamela's Patterns Draped Front Cardigan and McCalls 6444 and now here's the first of two.
Vogue 8885 in red merino wool from Fabric Mart

Vogue 8885, mid-February

The pattern version I made is hidden in the lower left corner and seems to be featured as perhaps a bed jacket.  Experience has shown me to look at the line drawings and I liked what I saw, especially that cute back peplum detail

The lapels on the merino wool tended to roll and look narrower than the pattern picture but that seemed like a relatively insignificant issue to me.

I especially like the shoulder princess seams in this pattern, front and back and this cute back peplum.

I sewed the first version from this ugly peachy fleshy color but wonderfully comfortable bamboo knit from Fabric Mart.  You can see the lapel width better on this one since the raw edges don't roll like they do on the merino.  I discovered that it does make a warm and cozy but lightweight bed jacket, perfect for reading in bed on winter nights.  And here's what I was reading in early February:

If the cover doesn't get your attention then a story about a dead woman who either committed suicide or was murdered by her husband might interest you.  It made for a good discussion and was a page turner but I'm not sure I would have read it if it hadn't been our book group selection.  I also wanted to enjoy more than I did Wally Lamb's latest, 

We Are Water  His writing is still beautiful and poignant but the pace was slow and the changing perspectives, which I usually enjoy, seemed contrived.  I'd give it a 3 out of 5.  Might have been my dark winter mood but it didn't have the strength of his previous books.  

Next post, another new cardigan in the sewing queue.