Somewhere over the rainbow

For some reason I've had it in my head for months that I wanted to make a rainbow striped skirt. I don't know why but I scoured Etsy forever looking for just the right fabric. This was not necessarily it, but it is cute, and this end of bolt piece was really cheap, so I went with it...

PS It's Michael Miller's Spa Scallop Stripe.

I originally thought I wanted a more a-line shape but there wasn't much fabric (like maybe 3/4 of a yard), so I went with a simple pencil skirt pattern with facings, New Look 6107. This is actually one of two pieces I've made recently from this pattern. The second is coming up soon.


 I can't remember now if the waistband is cut sideways in the pattern or if I just did that as a design element... Either way, I think it looks pretty cool. You can also see my polka dot facing, proving that I barely made it with the amount of fabric I had...

Happy Birthday To Me!

Pretty soon this beauty will be stitching together pretty dresses, pencil skirts and maybe the occasional pair of pants or a swimsuit on my dining room table. Can't wait to welcome her to the family!


Turning 25 on the 25th. I think that deserves a new sewing machine right?

Vintage Sheet Project

Found this recently through icandy homemade. It's from June of last year so I'm a little behind, but I think this dress might make an appearance a few times this summer in my sewing room. The lovely lady who created the dress and is modeling it here is Kayla from Freckles in April. This is literally 2 long skinny rectangles sewn together with a space for the neck, then folded over and sewn up the sides. So easy! And I love that she uses a vintage sheet since I have a few in fabric stash... Here's the tutorial. Now go make one for yourself!

Iris Shorts (That You Can't Really See...)

These shorts are really cute and really hard to photograph at the same time.

I've been wanting to make shorts lately because honestly every time I see a pair of shorts in a store they look like underwear. Seriously, do people wear shorts that short? Or am I just 100 years old? Anyway, I thought the Iris pattern from Colette looked great because the shorts are not too fitted, not too short, and have a pretty simple style (aka it wouldn't take me a year to make them).

What I'm Sewing This Winter...

I'm preparing for a social hibernation this fall which largely has to do with 2 estate sales I visited last weekend. The first I planned. I'm a frequent visitor to estatesales.net, always searching for a sale with sewing related paraphernalia. Like these 2 incredible ones last year... As much as I love my new job, it is a bummer to work Friday afternoons, which used to be my estate sale time. Now I worry that by the time I get there on Saturday morning, most of the good stuff is gone. Like at the first sale, I got a bunch of great stuff, but how much more great stuff was there on Thursday when they opened?


Anyway, the main score at the first estate sale was the piece of teal wool on the left side of the picture. You see, I've been dreaming of making a teal Lady Grey coat for at least a year but every time I think about buying the wool for it I stop myself. I've never seen it for below $15 a yard and I just can't bring myself to pull the trigger, especially since the pattern requires over 4 yards. I think this piece is around 4 1/4 and I got it for $1.50. AMAZING!!!! I also picked up a few lining fabrics and light cottons from this sale, one of which is a raspberry color that I think I'll use to line this coat. I'm planning on following Gertie's Lady Grey sew-a-long, complete with pad stitching and all!

What I Actually Wore This Weekend...

You may remember my post on Friday showing off my Lonsdale that I was planning to wear to a wedding this weekend. Many of you left super lovely comments. You are all fabulous and I love you for being such self esteem builders!

Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. Here's what happened and what I actually ended up wearing this weekend...

So the wedding was at 2pm on Saturday at a church in downtown San Angelo, TX. The fiancé was a groomsman, so he had to be there at 12:45 for pictures. Our hotel was a good 15-20 minutes away from the church and based on some strolling around before the rehearsal dinner the night before, the downtown seemed to have several cute shops, so I decided to get dressed with the fiancé, drop him off, park the car with my heels inside, don some flip-flops and spend an hour browsing before the wedding.

I hit up a cute dress shop and bought a fun necklace, then walked next door to a great old fashioned soda fountain, where one of the lovely ladies working there complimented my dress. Turns out she sews too so I told her all about Sewaholic patterns, so hopefully she'll become a new customer! Next, I headed to a cute antique store run by half a dozen ladies who reminded me of my grandmother. I was at the counter purchasing a great vintage tablecloth when one of the ladies complimented my dress. When I told her I made it, all the ladies came over to see it and asked me to show them the back with the cute bow.

I turned around and to my horror heard one of them say "honey that dress is really cute but its split up the back and I can see your pink underwear"! WHAT??? Oh, by the way, at this point it's 1:30, 30 minutes before the wedding. A few of the sweet women who worked there tried to help but it turned out the zipper had split open under the pull and it would not cooperate at all. I ran to the store's bathroom and tried to work with it to no avail. Luckily, the ladies had safety pins, so I pinned the dress back up and ran to my car, where I hightailed it to the hotel to change. Luckily I brought the following dress with me to wear to lunch with the fiancé’s parents on Sunday, so I didn't have to show up at the wedding in my jeans and I actually ended up only being 5 minutes late to the ceremony. In the end I think it was divine intervention. We danced the night away at the reception and the shoes I was planning to wear with the Lonsdale would have KILLED my feet. I went with a comfy pair of wedges to match this dress. Much better. 
Anyway, on to the dress!

I only wonder how many people in San Angelo saw my underwear before that lady pointed it out!

This fabric came from Etsy sometime last year. It's a 1940's pink cotton lawn with tiny white flowers with navy stems. I love love love it but had a hard time figuring out what to do with it. It was only 36" inches wide and I had about 2.5 yards, so I figured it would have to be a short, strapless dress. I ended up using Simplicity 1876, from the Leanne Marshall line. I used the top from view B and the skirt from view A. It went together really easily and I even got to use some techniques from Gertie's Bombshell course (namely, inserting boning and using twill tape to shape the cups). The only problem is I cut a size 10, hoping it would fit snugly and it's a little too big. I took in the bust seams along the top about 1/4 of an inch each, which helped a little but the waistline is still too big and makes me look wider than I am.




I was hoping I would be able to wear it sans belt, but I think it makes up for the too-big waistline. Plus, looking at the pictures, I think it's necessary to break up all the pinkness.