Spring sewing - the butterfly top from HotPatterns

I was at a meeting this afternoon and the location just happened to be close to a Hancock Fabrics. So of course once the meeting ended, I made a slight detour on my way home to purchase one of the newly released HotPatterns, "No Sweat Easy sew Butterfly Tops & Wrap Skirt".
And since I actually had a some free time this evening, I traced off the cowl neck version (shown on the right) and cut it out of a lightweight blue knit that was in the stash. (The knit was for a top I was going to make for my daughter - sorry kiddo! I promise I'll purchase something even better to replace it!)

There are only four pattern pieces, so I expect this won't take much time to sew up at all. That is, once I find another free hour or two.

I'm testing out this pattern line as I'd like to recommend it to my daughter-in-law, who wants to learn to sew. (Okay, she's not really my daughter-in-law, but I sure hope she will be some day! She's an absolute sweetheart.) If it is as easy as it appears I think there are a complete of styles in this line that she will really like.

On a completely different note...my DH and I were trying to come up with a cute and clever title for this post - maybe a song title with the word butterfly in it, but all we could think of was Iron Butterfly and the song "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"! Pin It

Treasures from my costume box

Another busy weekend in coming to a close. While I spent most of the weekend working at home, I did have a chance yesterday to volunteer at a library grand opening.

Myself and two other fun loving ladies donned retro gowns, sashes and tiaras and transformed ourselves into the Library Reading Divas. We spent a few hours greeting and chatting with guests who arrived to tour and use the new library.

Oh, did we have fun! We even recruited a few new Reading Divas for future events! After all, all that is needed to be a Library Reading Diva is a love of libraries, a big smile and the ability to not take yourself seriously. Of course a retro gown with sparkles and sequins, big puffy sleeves and a big bow on the rear helps also.

The need for the retro gown is what led me to digging deep into my costume box. Yesterday morning, while pulling my Diva attire together, I discovered that the gown I've worn for the past year is now too large. With only an hour to find something to wear (and no stores open) I pulled the costume box out of storage.

And look what I found inside! I had forgotten all about this dress. It is a lovely 1940s style gown that a friend gave me years ago. It has small shoulder pads, a fitted inset midriff, ruching at the bottom of the 3/4 sleeves, a long flowing bias skirt, a metal side zipper, and a lace trimmed bodice.

The lace trimmed bodice is complete with a large lace bow.

Unfortunately, while the dress looks great on, it is incredibly sheer, which is not the look I was going for.

As I didn't have anything to wear underneath it, this dress was ruled out.

The next era I came upon was a little black dress from the 1960s. This cocktail dress also had an inset fitted midriff, with a deep v-neckline, two darts in the elbow of the 3/4 length sleeves, and a large rhinestone and velvet trimmed bow at the bustline.

That is one big bow!

This dress has a concealed metal zipper underneath the center front placket. The bow is held in place with a hook and eye above the zipper and a black snap on the bodice.

While this is a cute vintage dress, it's better suited for dinner and drinks, not for doing Diva waves and kneeling down to talk to toddlers.

I decided to wear my retro 1970s sequined butterfly top with a long black skirt. While not exactly the old bridesmaid's gown look we usually wear, it worked.

After our volunteer time was over two of us headed over to a local thrift store so I could look for a replacement gown.

I didn't find a replacement gown, but look at the new treasure that will be added to my costume box! A 1970s era long gown. I swear a sewed a gown for my mother out of this exact same fabric when I was a teen. This floral gown is just as vivid live as it is in these photos. It has an inset midriff waist with a gathered v-neck bodice and slightly gathered long skirt.

I immediately knew it was sewn and not mass produced. It has an invisible zipper in the back, sew-in interfacing, and hem tape to finish the edge of the hem.

The bodice is trimmed with black lace.

And get this, it is lace from the package of hem lace tape! Is that too cute or what?

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Sewing? What's That?

I just "borrowed" the title of this post from The Seam Ripper (sorry Amy!) because it fits my life at the moment.

I work, work, work (at frantic pace) and then come home and run, run, run (at frantic pace) and fall into bed, get some sleep, only to wake up and begin all over again.

I haven't even looked at my sewing space in over a week - which is a long time for me. Even when I don't have time to sew I manage to sneak into the room just to peek at a sewing book, or a pattern, or to think about what my next project is going to be.

But today it hit me how good I do have it, even when I'm feeling overwhelmed with work and life.

I participated in a job fair today - representing my company. Which means I was one of the employed talking to hundreds of unemployed people who attended the job fair looking for job leads. Many were looking to change careers and most of the time it wasn't because they choose to, it's because the company they had worked for "restructured". (Been there, done that.)

It made be pause and realize how fortunate I am.

Yes, I'm incredibly overloaded at work, but I'm thankful I have a job. Not just a job, but one that I enjoy, and one with people I enjoy being around.

Yes, I'm incredibly busy after work, but not because I need to work two jobs to put food on the table for my family. (Been there, done that.) I'm thankful that I have friends to visit and a small group for Bible study and opportunities to attend fun meetings (like Clown meetings!) and time to volunteer on fun projects (like planning parades).

The meeting I had scheduled for this evening was canceled at the last minute. Which means I had some free time to catch my breath - AND time to visit the sewing room.

And that's where I'm headed to! Pin It

Writing children's stories from a poodle's perspective

Today I'm sharing a wonderful article that was written about a very talented and creative woman.

She is diabetic, lost her sight years ago due to the disease, and has had to undergo many surgeries over the past few years.

Now many of us might few that as a handicap, but not this lady! Recently she began writing stories. Not just any stories - stories written from the perspective of her rambunctious and energetic toy poodle named Rudy!

I have met Stacy through her husband. She really is a creative and kind soul. (And really smart! Believe me, when we have game nights, the girls make sure she's on our team when we play Trivia Pursuit!)

My family was one of the fortunate few who received the Christmas letter that began it all. I sure hope I kept it so I can say "I knew her when!"

Take a minute to read about Stacy and her poodle Rudy. If you like what you read, please contact her with your support and encouragement. I know she would be very appreciative.

The article was written by Erica Christoffer with Sun Newspapers. I've linked to the article here. If you are unable to read it, leave me a comment and I'll see if I can get permission to reprint the article on my blog.
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Wearin' o' the green

Yea,yea I know. It was yesterday. Where o' where does the time go?

Do you have an annual routine for St. Patrick's Day? I do (and it doesn't involve green beer).

1. Wake up and remember that it is St. Patrick's Day and I should wear green.
2. Look in my closet for something green to wear.
3. Remember that green and my skin coloring do not mix and I don't own anything green to wear.
4. Tell myself that this will be the year I sew a green item of clothing so I will be prepared next year.

Yep, same routine every year. Didn't find anything green to wear in my closet this year either.

My grandmother sure loved St. Patrick's Day. (In fact, she loved anything Irish. One of my favorite childhood memories was listening to The Unicorn Song by the Irish Rovers. when it was my turn to spend the weekend at her house. She'd place the record on her stereo record player and we'd sing along at the top of our lungs. Poorly, I might add....well, at least my portion of the harmonies.) You can bet that she always had something green to wear on St. Patrick's Day.

My grandmother passed her love of Irish onto my mother. When St. Patrick's Day came around we were bundled up and sent to school wearing at least one item of clothing that was green. I never knew why, I just knew I was supposed to wear green.
At least this year I remembered to wear my grandmother's vintage green rhinestone horseshoe brooch along with her tiny shamrock earrings. Pin It

I Love my Postal Carrier! Neither snow nor rain nor ...

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. (History of the U.S. Postal Service from www.usps.com)

Or in our case, neither snow nor rain nor driveway swimming pools.

The warm pre-spring weather yesterday rapidly melted the piles of snow in our front yard. Unfortunately, the combination of the frozen ground and the poor slope of our driveway created a shallow swimming pool at the end of our driveway. It was deep enough that if I wanted to get the mail from the mailbox I had to decide between putting on boots or climbing over the melting snow piles in my heels. I choose to wait and let my husband get the mail when he got home - hee, hee!

Apparently it wasn't too deep for our mail carrier because there was the box of sewing books I won off of eBay on my front step when I arrived home from work.

I do like old sewing books. I find them fascinating. The typesetting, the illustrations, the photographs, and especially the sewing instructions.

This particular box of treasures held two books from the 1940s and three from the 1970s. I didn't know Betty Crocker had a sewing book, did you?

Speaking of sewing books. Have you visited G Marie Sews' blog yet to post a comment regarding your favorite sewing book(s)? I'm sure you have, but just in case you've forgotten, consider this a reminder. She is looking for suggestions for a friend of hers who wants to learn to sew.

My tried and true sewing reference book is Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing. My copy was purchased at a second hand book store about ten years ago. I don't know how I got along without it as it is the first one I pull from my bookshelf when I need to look something up.

When I want a clear photograph of a technique, I pull out my The Complete Book of Sewing: A practical step-by-step guide to sewing techniques. This one is more basic and doesn't cover as much, but it can't be beat for the amount of photographs that accompany the text.

When it comes to sewing books on the topic of fitting I use four different books but Fit for Real People is usually the one I reach for first.

I have many, many more sewing related books. The bookshelf in my sewing room only holds the ones I reference on a semi-regular basis. The balance are housed elsewhere.

My other favorite sewing books are a story for another day. Pin It

Kwik Sew 3489 Update

I wrapped up the sewing on the Kwik Sew 3489 wrap dress a few weeks ago. And promptly tossed it into the back of the closet after trying it on.


It was so "blah". Not the fabric - I still like that. It was the shape of the dress. The waistline is rather large and unshapely. Not what I anticipated and not at all like the gorgeous version that Erica completed recently!

One side of the dress wraps underneath the other and ties at the side seam at the waistline.

The other side ties at the side waistline. No matter what, I can not get a tight fit at the waist.

I need to take the dress apart, re cut and then resew the waistline. I have almost five inches pinched out to get the tighter fit I was looking for.

Perhaps I should have stayed with my TNT wrap dress - Simplicity 9482.

After I redo this Kwik Sew dress I'll report back which I prefer and why. Pin It

Crafty book giveway at Adorn Magazine's blog

Last summer I came across a new magazine named Adorn. I subscribed immediately after browsing through the first issue. It was filled with great photos, cute projects, and plenty of how-to instructions. Here's an adorable apron project from their current issue.

The magazine filled with inspirational and information and they have a blog - www.adornmag.com/blog/. The posting for today was the announcement of another giveaway - this time the prizes are craft books - Plush-o-Rama, Sock Monkey Dreams, The Apron Book, Re-Creative: 50 Projects for Turning Found Objects into Contemporary Design, and Sew Easy Beading.

All you have to do is take a photo of a project you made from a past issue, post the photo on Adorn's flickr group, and leave a comment on their blog about your item.

Five people's names will be drawn as winners! How easy is that? Better hurry as you need to post by March 16. Pin It

Happy Belated International Women's Day

Did you do anything to celebrate International Women's Day (which was yesterday, March 8)?

A local organization that I am a member of held a makeup and toiletries drive for Ready for Success, a non-profit program that, in their words, "provides low-income women with new or gently-used professional clothing, accessories, and new personal care items suitable for job interviews and the workplace." I have until this evening to drop off my donation.

I was not familiar with International Women's Day until I received the notice for the makeup drive. I'm thankful that my member organization choose to remember the day and in such a way as to remind me how blessed I am to have not only have a job, but the ability to purchase the toiletries and makeup I want and to sew the clothing I wear.

In keeping with the sewing theme of this blog, here's a an article (first published in 2003) that discusses the women garment district workers in New York’s Lower East Side in the early 1900s and ties it into International Women's Day.

Read more about International Women's Day at http://www.internationalwomensday.com/. Pin It

There's still time to party at the The Ultimate Blog Party

I love parties! Don't you? I mean, who doesn't like to visit and laugh and eat and have fun?

But as usual, I'm late to the party. (It began March 2 and continues until March 9.) I like to think of it as being fashionably late. But I'm still welcome! As are you! Click on the Ultimate Blog Party button to the right to find out what this party stuff is all about.

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know that my name is Sharon and that I love, love, love to sew.

I'm also a mom. In fact, I was a single mom from the time my babies were 1 and 2, until after the youngest graduated from high school. I sure would have loved an online community of other moms to connect with when I was raising my two.

My daughter and son are both adults and living on their own (but still close enough for lots of family visits), and I married my high school sweetheart almost nine years ago. Guess I should have married him the first time he asked - but that's another story.

When I'm not sewing I have lots of other creative endeavors - scrapbooking, stamping, face painting and cooking are a few of them - but the one people seem to be the most fascinated by is clowning.

I graduated (along with my dad, Knufie the Clown) from Christ Clown College in 2005. We spent 60 hours learning about clown ministry and practicing mime, balloon animals, juggling and acting silly. I really, really, really excelled at acting silly.

I thought I wanted to be a whiteface (pictured above) but my inner clown said "no, you are an auguste!"

So Princess DD (Dizzy Dazy) was born. She's eight years old and the back of her gown is caught in the waistband of her bloomers and she skips a lot and flirts with twelve year old boys who get red in the face when she talks to them and she likes to make balloon animals. Little girls love her and are fascinated that she is a princess with pink hair.

Well, that's a little bit about me. I'll be visiting many bloggers that are hosting their own parties to learn a bit about them. Maybe there's another clown out there somewhere.... Pin It

Simplicity 3877 Dress

About a month ago, I decided my next dress was going to be the Kwik-Sew 3489 wrap dress. And it was. The wrap dress is completed and tossed into the back of my closet because I dislike it very much. It just doesn't fit me properly, so I need time to think about how to selvage it as I really liked the knit fabric.

In the meantime, I switched gears and decided to sew a spring dress from a woven fabric. I originally purchased this red/black floral print to use for Simplicity 4171. Instead I choose to use the fabric to try out a dress from Simplicity 3877.


I sewed view D (the pink one) only because I didn't have enough fabric for the faux-wrap, khaki colored one.

This is an easy pattern to sew. The front bodice has princess seams, the back bodice is cut on the fold of the fabric and is shaped with darts.

The skirt consists of eight panels each with a godet.

The zipper is located in the side seam. I choose to insert an invisible zipper. I think it gives the dress a cleaner line.

The full review can be read at PatternReview.

Too bad I didn't save the I used for Vogue 8315 for this pattern as I am having fit issues with the Vogue pattern.

I guess I will follow Erin's advice at A Dress A Day, and buy more fabric, even though the stash is overflowing. Because, as she states "You never have enough fabric." Pin It

Lazy Girl Designs - Handbags and a Blog Hop

Are you all familiar with Lazy Girl Designs? I've always enjoyed reading the reviews of the handbags on PatternReview but hadn't actually tried any of the patterns myself.

When Joan Hawley offered a one day only special on Valentine's Day, I jumped at the chance to buy one pattern and receive one free. The only "catch" was that you couldn't choose your free pattern - it would be chosen for you based on the pattern you purchased.

There were so many cute bag patterns to choose from. I knew I wanted the Bold Bags book but debated between the Gracie Handbag and Chloe Handbag, finally settling on the Gracie Handbag. The package arrived in just a few days and imagine my delight when I opened it and discovered the Chloe Handbag was my free pattern!

I dug through my stash and have decided to try the Chloe handbag from this piece of gray purple silk. The coordinated fibers are from my scrapbook supplies and the beads are left over from a place mat purse project that I submitted for consideration in my girlfriend's upcoming book.
For the Gracie bag I think I'll use these two coordinated pieces of pink polka dot cotton fabrics. What fun to carry a pink polka dot bag this summer!


I've been reading the Lazy Girl blog for a while now, and in fact, found out about the one day pattern special from her blog.

Beginning tomorrow, the "Day Z Dozen Lakehouse" blog hop begins. The details are on her blog (click on the logo) and it looks like it should be fun. I really like the Lakehouse fabrics - the big, bold flowers, the black and white coordinates, and the cheerful colors. Looks like I'll be stopping by the local quilt shop to big up some fabric from this line. I may even be ambitious enough to complete something by March 17 so I too can participate in the blog hop!
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Vogue 8181 knit dress and sewing an underam gusset

March in Minnesota and its finally snowing. Lots and lots of snow. So much that many businesses closed early yesterday (alas, not mine). When we woke up this morning the snow was still coming down.

Doesn't it look peaceful? I love the look of freshly fallen snow early in the morning before the world wakes up.

Fortunately, I already had today scheduled off from work as I'll be attending a women's retreat this weekend. That meant I didn't have to be up early fighting my way into work during rush hour on the slow and congested roads.

The heavy snow also meant the cancellation of many evening events last night, so I took advantage of the time at home to complete my knit dress from Vogue 8181.

This is an easy knit dress to sew. If you don't need to do any major alterations to the pattern you can probably sew it in about two hours.

However, no pattern adjustments no longer happen in my world, so I began preparing the pattern by doing an FBA. This pattern has an empire waist with a sleeve that is all in one with the bodice. This bodice does not have an actual dart (the dart is rotated to the underbust gathers), but I knew I needed a increase the dart as well as lower the bodice.

I pulled out my copy of Real Fit for Real People to verify how to do an FBA on this style of bodice.

The first thing I did was cut the sleeve portion off of the bodice. I then drew in my lines for an FBA, increased as needed, filled in with tissue paper and taped it all back together. If you look closely there is a pink line at the bottom left, right underneath the underarm curve. This is where I added the initial dart. I closed it and rotated it so that the fullness would be added to the underbust gathers.

Next, I increased the length of the front bodice so that the seamline would fall underneath my bust, not over it, and raised the v-neckline slightly.

Once I had the pattern adjusted and the pieces cut out I began the sewing process.

One of the first steps in this dress is to sew the underarm gusset. If you haven't sewn one before, the instructions included with the pattern might leave you a bit frustrated. Here's how I sewed the gusset.

• Accurately mark the gusset on the wrong side of the fabric. Next, sew along the gusset stitching lines to reinforce the area. This also provides a guideline to use when you sew in the gusset.

• Carefully slash the fabric between the stitching lines to the top marking. Do not slash beyond the stitching as this is the reinforcement for the gusset.

• After sewing the underarm seam and the side seam, pin the gusset piece to the underam edges matching the circles that you previously marked on the gusset piece and the dress piece. I don't pivot and turn as instructed in the pattern guideline. I sew each section of the gusset separately. The photo below shows the underarm gusset sewn in place, with the underarm seam at the top and the side seam at the bottom.

• The finished underarm gusset from the right side of the garment.

This was probably the most time consuming portion of the entire dress. On this particular dress I ended up with too much ease and ended up taking the dress in about an inch on each side seam. I'm not sure if it was the pattern (because I didn't flat measure before cutting it out and sewing it) or the alteration I made to the bust. However, after tweaking the fit, the dress was completed in under an hour.

The only embellishment I added was to the neckline. I sewed a narrow woven floral green and pink trim that matches the colors in the dress perfectly.

Now that the fit has been perfected I will be keeping my eye out for another piece of knit for my next version.

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