Royal Wedding

Oh yeah, I watched it and I'm not ashamed! I'm most definitely NOT one of those Americans who is annoyed by the Royal Wedding coverage! I caught a wicked case of Royal Wedding FEVER!

At the crack of dawn this morning my mom, sister and I woke up, snacked on two breakfasts of scones and tea,

then cake and champagne,

in our pjs and sighed over Kate Middleton's stunning beauty... I ofcourse adored her dress, (such a great choice!), but...

I really loved Pipa's dress! Sooo pretty!
Ofcourse the best moment of the whole wedding was when Will first saw Kate and his face lit up... Sigh. I always thought I would marry him as a little girl but, I guess in the end, the best woman won!

Scrunchies? Really Burda?

Now don't get me wrong, as a child of the 90's I wore my fair share of scrunchies, but, for me at least, they went the way of the dinosaur around the time I stopped being obsessed with JC from NSYNC (although Justin Timberlake turned out to be a sleeper hit for me, didn't start to love him until my 20's). I don't care how cool the American Apparel girls are, the scrunchies don't do it for me...

I'm all for hair decoration (i.e. headbands, hats, fascinators, scarves) but a rubber band wrapped in relatively unattractive fabric should forever remain holding up Mary Kate and Ashley's ponytails in their 90's music videos about sleepovers. Do you hear me inappropriately aged American Apparel models?

I adore Burda and usually find their designs to be modern and cute but today, the pastel scrunchie has confused and repulsed me. What are you thinking Burda?

Free Pattern Month !?!?!?!?

Sooooo excited about Grosgrain's Free Pattern Month!




I looked over the list of pattern contributers a few days ago and a ton on my favorite bloggers are on the list! Today's contributor is Adey from The Sew Convert who I completely love! She's one of my favorite contributers on The Sew Weekly. Her pattern is a kaftan top that seems super simple and cute! It looks like something I could throw together in one night. Maybe something to work on soon, but in the meantime, there's a new pattern tomorrow!



Photo and logo from Grosgrain

Whipped Butter

Party People!

This first dress I made without a pattern in a few hours the night before my best buddy Brit's going away party in August. I now jealously stalk her on Facebook and drool over all her gorgeous pictures of Turin, Italy. So proud of my girl for getting her masters in arts administration in such a beautiful city! The dress is made of a teal jersey from JoAnns and I just kinda of cut some pieces and tried to make them fit, then cut some more pieces and fiddled with it until it worked... It actually is not too great looking close up but I wanted an easy, fun dress to wear out dancing and it fit the bill. Haven't worn it since but I think it will be good for going out in the hot Texas summer.

(An end of the night pic with my BFF Estrella, too bad the wind is not cooperating!)

This next dress I made for last year's Halloween. I found the fabric at JoAnns in the Halloween section and loved it, so I tried to figure out a costume around it. It's basically a bunch of black ribbons of fabric sewn in a wave pattern on the base fabric. After thinking about it for a while I decided it sort of looked the the body of a butterfly, so I made a tube dress and bought some cheapo wings. It's super itchy so I underlined it with a black satin lining fabric. I used Burda 7460, which went together really easily, the only issue was the thickness of the fabric plus the underlining. I also made shoe clips and a mask (it's covered in glitter which you can't tell from the picture). The boyfriend and I had been at a college football game all day, so we dressed up, hung out a bar for an hour or so and then called it an early night. We're notorious for leaving the party early, almost always to go home and go to bed! I often joke that we're 80 year olds trapped in 20-somethings bodies!

Finally, this dress is definitely in the top 5 favorite items I've made. It was made for New Year's Eve 2010, celebrated at the Zilker Club House in Austin, TX with 2 of my girls from college. I really wanted a solid sequined dress that was a little slouchy and not too tight. (I think Heidi wears something like this for New Year's in an old episode of the Hills). This definitely was the standout dress of the night considering almost everyone else wore black! The fabric is from Etsy, underlined with a grey lining from JoAnns and I used another Burda pattern, 7512, to get the slouchy look I was after. This dress was such a challenge! Sewing sequins is pretty much a nightmare of epic proportions and the construction of this dress is a little funky. My main problem with the finished project is the pooch created around the midriff area. I knew from the pattern that the dress would be pretty baggy there but the stiff sequin fabric made it more obvious than I thought (I went through a ton of pictures to find one that didn't make me look pregnant!). However, despite the weird bulge and the itchiness of the sequins (even with underlining) I love this dress! I really wanted to celebrate the New Year in something different and fun and this dress ended up being perfect and I got tons of compliments!




Thanks for indulging my trip down sewing memory lane. Happy Wednesday!

MMM Days 28-31: It's Over!

Day 29: Made this dress from New Look 6968 with a stretch cotton from JoAnns. I cut an 8 and the top fits perfectly but the bottom is a little baggy in the front so I'll have to make some adjustments to the darts. Other than that I think the pattern is really great so it will probably become a go-to. I also have a ton of this fabric left so it might also become a skirt or shorts or a jacket. Or all three...

PS This is by far the best finishing I've ever done on a dress! I kept telling my co-workers I wanted to wear it inside out so they could see how gorgeous it is inside! Maybe this will be an on-going trend...

Day 30: Same as Day 23, the top another pattern I really like, the base shirt is well drafted and I can play around with a ruffle or a tie. More of these to come...

Day 31: Finished off with a re-fashion I wore several times in this challenge. It's an easy dress in the mornings when I'm running late and it's always comfy. Thanks to the elderly lady who donated this dress to a thrift store for me to find!

Whew! Challenge over and man was I challenged! However, I really think MMM was a great motivator to get sewing projects done! I also wore several things I hadn't really worn in the past because I didn't think they were perfect but I made them so long ago that by now I don't remember the mistakes!

I've also learned that I have tons of dress and very few separates. I love to sew dresses because they're pretty but I definitely need to work on the tops, skirts and pants. I have a ton of vintage shirt patterns and a few printed satins to turn into tops so I think that will be next on the list...

Now that MMM is over I'm going to spend this week and weekend uploading vintage patterns to my Etsy shop, working on some separates and organizing my fabric. I'm also going to work on posting more on this blog and stop being a lazy blob on the couch when I get home from work. Off to drink wine and make mushroom pasta bake!

Happy Tuesday!