Not Done- Almost Though

So those to dresses I was supposed to be making this weekend, well, um, yeah, and what had happened was. No excuses. I got a good bit of one dress done and was going to finish on Sunday. Instead I went to the Viking dealer purchased an Invisible Zipper Foot. She gave me something else to, I have no idea what it is for though. Anyone know? It looks like a tongue depressor.


Since I was in the area I stopped by my friends house. His mom had made dinner and they invited me to stay so I did. Yummy!! Then we went for a long walk around a lake near his house.

This is one of my best friends who I can tell anything and even though we don't talk a lot when we do, we talk for a long time. He offers such great insight on all situations going on and I am truely blessed to have him as a friend.

By the time I got home HBO was calling me so that was that. One dress almost done. Maybe I set my goals to high but I am not in the least disappointed. I got pretty far into the one dress and spent some great quality time with my friend.

Bodice Blues- Ramblings and Notes Butterick 5351

These measurements and sizes are made for who? Surely not me because on the Butterick patterns I am a size 9 (there is no size nine but I am smack dab between the 8 and 10), size 14, and size 16. What!!! If you are self-conscious these numbers will throw you for a loop. Since I love my body the numbers don't phase me to much. What phases me is I am 3 sizes instead of one which means beginner me is in for a treat to make this dress fit properly.

Prep Work
Fabric Prewash- check
Fabric Ironed- check

Pattern Cutting
Didn't cut skirt, taking to long to decide how much extra fabric to allow. Cut bodice. Forgot to cut notches. Actually, I cut them the first time and then rolled right over them with the rotary cutter. Nick in nail polish from rotary cutter. Booo. Sewing is going to be hard on my nails I can tell.


Accidently, popped blade off instead of opening. Took forever to find instructions to put blade back on, thought I was missing a piece since looking at instructions for larger rotary cutter. Searched my sewing area over and over for non-existent missing piece. Dug through trash for instructions. Blade back on, forged ahead.



Pattern Marking
-Don't like tracing paper, will try the pencils. Worked out well once I devised a method using my ruler and folding the pattern onto it to trace mark against straight edge. Uneventful, although later I found out I missed some marks. Not to hard to add them after the fact

Sewing
It's about time, this has taken forever. Not in a bad way though. A lot of prep work before sitting down at the machine. Bobbin wound, needle threaded, let's roll.

1. Sew bodice pieces together. No problem. Next
2. Gather lower edge. What? Gather? Off the instructions glossary, ummm okay. Off to the sewing book, makes more sense now. I have to buy this book. I'll try it first on a scrap. Not to shabby.

Took phone call from hubby. Gathering done. NOOOOO. Sewed the upper edge instead of the lower. Seam ripper in action. Will blame hubby for distracting me. Let's try this again. Did I just do it again. Seriously. I must be getting tired. There we go, lower edge gathered. Lets wrap this around me and see. Uh, there is no way this will fit. Seam ripper undo it all. ALL. Back to step one with some size alterations around the waist. Back to gathering. Wrong edge again. Delerious. Okay why didn't the instructions tell me to press these seams open.

Seam ripper. Wrong edge. Hamster wheel, I must get off. Think and concentrate. Lower edge, yes. Seams down, yes. Sew it, gather it, and hop off the hamster wheel. Did it really just take that long to do that?
3.Elastic Casing. This should be easy. Not to bad. Relatively painless until trying to turn raw edge underneath and sew. Let me draw some lines, press that down, make it neat.

Sew. Not perfect. Undo. Seam ripper. That is better. Insert elastic.

4.Stiching Elastic Down. Uneventful. Used my reverse button. Basted edges of casing. Done!!

I will not tell you how long these steps took but I am taking it in stride because I know I learned a lot in the process. I also cleaned up a little after I was done because it looked like a train came plowing through.

Sewing Weekend

My partner in crime Lani J has ditched me for some fun in the sun. What is a gal to do. Sew!!! That should keep me out of trouble for a while at least. Here are the 2 dresses I am hoping to knock out this weekend. View A on the B5454 and View D on the B5351.



Mind you I am a beginner. Actually I am whatever it is before a beginner but I like to jump right in and get frustrated and learn from my mistakes. Surely there will be a lot of that. Since these patterns are labeled easy and very easy I will either knock these out with ease or be looking around blogs and fourms for help.

Wish me luck.

Here it is, our new Husqvarna Viking Emerald 116
(insert cheers and more happy dances):

Yay, I am so excited. I can already envision some late nights starting and finishing projects. The dance Lani J did when we got it was priceless. It took forever to pick one and get it so the dance was more than warranted. While she did her little dance, I breathed an internal sigh of relief. Who knew the initial purchase of the machine would be such a daunting task.

My main concerns while shopping for machines were price, reliability, and scalability. I am sure any parent can relate to shelling out lots of money on their childs new hobby only to realize that 2 months later said hobby is extinct. That is where the price factor kicks in. How much do you spend on a new hobby? Then you have the reliability factor. Granted it is a new hobby, I still want to start off with the right tools. To me it is analogous to trying to run a marathon with ski boots on. The desire to do it is quickly tainted because the proper running shoes weren't chosen. I didn't want to taint the desire by having a horrible machine that was constantly jammed and breaking. Revisiting the "what-machine-to-get" predicament anytime in the near future was not an option either. The machine we decided on had to be one we would have for the next few years and would be able to see us through a range of basic tasks to more advanced projects as well.

Day 6: Practing Today. Full price, NO WAY!

Day 6: As we learn our machine we have begun looking for projects to start over the summer. Today, I successfully threaded our machine without using ANY instruction. We were previously working on strait lines, but today we decided to work on curves and squiggly lines. Very interesting task, as my mom, put the line facing the wrong direction. My lines weren't all so great either, but it's a working progress that we will eventually master.

We also "dragged" my sister into Joann Crafts & Fabrics to pick-up some sewing staples while we had three coupons for 50% off any regular priced items. When we arrived, all of the cutting supplies were already 50% off, so we could use our coupon elsewhere. We had told my sister we wouldn't be in the store for long, once we found out some things were 50% off and a fabric my mom had been eying was 60% off, sorry sister, we are going to look at these things. After being in the store 16 minutes after it closed getting fabrics cut, my sister was definitely ready to go. On this trip to the fabric store we didn't pay anything full price., not the one item. We didn't even use all of our coupons that are valid all week. We ended up purchasing a 24x36 self-healing cutting mat, two rotary cutters, a ton of fabric, a couple simplicity patterns for $1.99, and some other stuff.

The Beginning

Why do people want to begin sewing? Some want to make their own clothing or simply have a way to relieve stress, well in my case it's both. After years of looking for and buying clothes, I really don't love any of them, so I have come to the decision to buy a sewing machine, that way I can create my own wardrobe. What is better than making your own clothes, personalized and customized exactly the way you want them and spending your time doing something you love. We, my mom and I, have decided to create a blog to chronicle our sewing experiences and to share with those who have found us in the depths of the Internet universe. I am ready to dive in and learn the new world of sewing.

Day 1: Buying the Machine

Day 1: Technically this should be day 60, or about two months into our interest in sewing, but we will start from the very special day when we purchased our machine. We have been discussing getting a sewing machine since Mid-April, and have been looking for our perfect match since May, and have had some difficulties. First of all, we didn't exactly know what was necessary to have in a sewing machine for beginners, and if a feature was any much better than its alternative. For instance, we talked to several people about bobbins, whether to get the front loading or drop-in bobbin, finally we just figured we will learn our machine when questioning the little things. And how many stitches does a beginner need? Anyway we had decided to get a Brother from Walmart a couple days after Mothers' Day when they had told us they were sold out and will be receiving some new ones later that week. We go into the store to find out they are no longer carrying that model. So it was back to the drawing board for the two of us. We talked, well more so my mom talked, to different people about sewing machines. We once again found two sewing machine that I could try, one a Viking an the other a...who knows. But I tried the Husqvrna Viking and really liked it, so we bought it. I was happier than ever. carried it out of the store and placed it in the car and did what a soccer player might call their victory dance, except mine, according to my mom, was leprechaun-ish. Well anyway we have a sewing machine and placed it in our former dining room, that is now currently and always will be the sewing room. Now I am anxious to start a project.