My New Dressform!

Well, I finally got a dressform! I'm so excited. It just arrived today so I haven't had too much time to play with it. I still need to do some more adjustments to it. As you can see, my daughters wasted no time playing Project Runway with my dressform.

The dressform is a Dritz My Double Deluxe that I ordered from Joann.com. They shipped my dressform super fast! I ordered my dressform with standard shipping on Sunday and it got here today, Wednesday! They had a sale where all the Dritz dressforms were $129.99, so I jumped on the opportunity and got the nicest one they had. The dressform is also able to be set up off-center on the pole so that you can drape pants.

It will be so nice to just put the outfit on the dressform instead of having to try it on several million times while still sewing the outfit. Also, I won't have to bug my husband anymore to help with fittings. Not that he minds, but still, I'd like not to have to interrupt him constantly with fitting help. The dressform also makes a nice place to store the garment I'm currently working on. I'm also looking forward to being able to do some tissue-fitting. I have very limited sewing time, so I don't normally do muslins. Now if it's for a special outfit, then yeah, I'll do a muslin.

I tried the duct tape double thing, but really hated it. My husband wrapped me up in duct tape and I hated every minute of it. It smelled really weird and I hated the feeling of being trapped in tape. Cutting me out of the form was also nerve-wracking. My daughters, however, loved the process and thought it was the funniest thing they've seen. I figured I'd try it though, after all, if it fails (which it did) then at least I have a funny story to tell. Non-sewers especially find the story extremely weird. I didn't care much for the look of the form after it was done. The top especially was inaccurate. That could just be due to us not doing it right. Even so, I don't want to re-tape myself whenever my weight changes. I'm currently dropping weight, so I would have to redo the double every so often. Blech! No thanks!

I'm really anxious to use my dressform for the first time. Now I just gotta finish up my daughters' dresses so I can start tracing my pattern. I plan on doing this dress:
I'll be doing the sleeveless version with the long scarf. I'm doing it in a black/white/red fabric I got from G Street Fabrics. The scarf will be red. I really should post pictures of the fabric I suppose. It's getting chaotic here now with the girls, so perhaps later I'll post fabric pictures.

It's raining here. I love rain! Perfect sewing weather. Now to just find some sewing time....

Friend's Dress a Success!

Well, that pose says it all! My friend Janine's dress was a success! I still can't believe I sewed it. I'm actually kinda numb from shock. I should have been jumping up and down for joy, but I would just stare dumbly at the dress and ask myself "I made that?" A lot of praying was involved in making this dress, so I certainly won't steal the credit here. Thank you, God! This picture of Janine is just too cute! Such a cute sassy look! And she looks absolutely beautiful in her dress.

This project was intimidating, but I learned so much from it. I got some experience working with chiffon, which I had never used before. I also got the chance to sew for someone else who has entirely different fitting issues from myself. Since I was panicking so much the whole time, I'm also not nearly as nervous anymore sewing dresses for myself. I've gained so much confidence from this project. Possibly more than I need considering I'm planning a majorly challenging project for Christmas. It's so much scarier to sew for someone else because you don't want them to be upset if things go wrong. Which, let's face it, they often do! Especially if I'm the one sewing. I know the disappointment I feel when my outfit is ruined, so I wouldn't want to do that to someone else, especially a great friend. Also, this dress was for a wedding and not just any ole wedding, but her son's wedding! Yikes! So I'm extremely grateful that things turned out great and Janine was happy.

At the wedding someone saw Janine in her dress and asked "So, you decided not to go with the dress your friend made?" To which Janine told her that she was wearing the dress I made. Needless to say, the lady was truly shocked I sewed that. So it was a great feeling.

It meant a lot to me to do this for Janine. She's done so much for me and probably doesn't even realize it, so I wanted to give something back.

Chaos continues....

Well, I did finish my bathing suit to match my baby daughter's bathing suit. It turned out great and I was very happy with the results. I still need to take a picture of me in it and write a pattern review. I'll post a picture on my blog later when things aren't so insane.

Right now I'm working on an unexpected project: a top and skirt for a friend of mine to wear to her son's wedding. I think I'm insane because I really don't have time at all to work on this, but so far I'm getting it done. She is tall and was having such trouble finding a great dress for the occasion. As she's a really great friend of mine, I wanted to help out. So we went pattern and fabric shopping and I got to work. These are the patterns she chose:



For the shirt, we're doing the version with the short sleeves and narrow collar. The collar, sleeves, and peplum are all in a cocoa color chiffon to contrast the lighter color crepe fabric of the shirt. For the skirt, we're doing it in the cocoa crepe fabric and we're doing view A without the sash.

The deal was that if my friend Janine doesn't like this outfit, she has to tell me honestly and also not be mad that it didn't turn out the way she wants it. In turn, I have to promise not to be mad if she doesn't like it. Having said that, this is still really nerve-wracking and a lot of pressure. However, I'm happy to do this for a wonderful friend.

It's a whole other ballgame sewing for someone new. It took me quite a while just to figure out how to get clothes fit on me. So working with a new body and all new fitting issues is quite daunting. We tried the top on Janine yesterday and it looks like a good fit, which was a relief. My main concern with this project is getting a proper fit.

Also, I had never worked with chiffon before. While I love the feel of chiffon I absolutely hate sewing it. Really, really, really hate sewing it. Especially hemming it. I tried all the methods suggested out there: narrow hem (both with and without the special rolled hem foot), rolled hem on serger with and without fishline. No matter which I used, it took away the airiness and flow of the chiffon. This was especially the problem with the collar. The collar needs to stay light so it folds and ruffles nicely. So I hit PatternReview and Google some more for research and discovered a hot knife method. Since I'm working with polyester chiffon, I could melt the raw edges of the hems slightly to seal them off and keep them from unraveling. This worked perfectly to keep the fabric nice and light. Then my collar wasn't lining up right and I discovered this is due to chiffon being evil to work with. Also, a mystery spot appeared that I couldn't get off. No clue how it got there. ARGH! So I cut a new collar out and plan to get it put on today.

Once I get past the shirt it'll be smooth sailing. My goal for today is to finish the shirt by tonight. The shirt has more fitting issues and the chiffon is difficult to work with. I'm pretty mad at Vogue right now because when they say "semi-fitted" on the envelope, what they really mean is "not even remotely fitted". The shirt muslin was SO LOOSE on Janine. It made no sense whatsoever. Why pay good money for a pattern if it's wrong?

Ok, now I lost track. A Kim Possible commercial just showed up on tv and my IQ plummeted. So anyway, I'll keep you updated as to my progress for anyone interested in following my insane adventure.

My New Friend

This is my new friend. He's kinda creepy actually. He's pretty big and gave me a surprise the first time I saw him just chillin' on my front porch. I was trying to get a close-up picture of him, but failed due to me being a big baby. I'm not at all squeamish about bugs, but after seeing how fast this spider moves, I had visions of it latching onto my face after annoying it with a flashing camera. It didn't help that when I was trying to take his picture, I could see the glare from his eyes. Yikes! So my husband was kind enough to get closer and get a closer picture for me. As you can see in the photo, our spider is currently consuming a large moth.

I was concerned that the spider may be poisonous so I looked it up and discovered that it's not. You can never be too careful with kids around. Especially since it lives on the front porch. Turns out it's a species (of which there are 100) of fishing spider. So I'll just let him live on the porch rent free. He seems happy hunting.

Also, I discovered a deer tick on my leg yesterday. Not cool. My daughter got Lyme disease from a deer tick and it was awful. She's fine and recovered now thankfully. So now I gotta keep an eye on my leg for the telltale bullseye rash. My yard scares me.

Working on My Swimsuit

Well, I'm chugging along here working on my swimsuit. I'm trying to get it done in time for tomorrow's trip to Hershey Park. My plan is to spend half the day lounging about the water park. The boy shorts are completely done. The top is almost finished. I was sewing like a champ! My baby took a nap and I actually got just about all the sewing done on the top.

I ran into a problem (of course!...grrrr) with the shelf bra. It's not snug around my body. I have no clue why this is, but it probably has something to do with my ridiculously large chest size. I'm really hoping that I can take in the elastic on the lining and that will fix the problem. I'm also getting really annoyed and discouraged at trying to sew anything for myself. It always goes wrong!

I sewed a medium size for the top according to the bust measurement. I'm thinking that what I should have done was sew the smaller size. I don't think my ribcage is a size medium. It's just my silly bust that is.

Overall, I love my swimsuit although there are silly mistakes in there due to not getting any "alone time" to sew and not being able to properly concentrate on things. Trying to sew anything with three kids is pretty much impossible. I have no idea how I get anything done or why I even attempt doing this.

Hopefully, I'll at least get the suit to look decent enough to wear tomorrow.

How Many Inches In A Yard?

36. The answer is 36. Let's see, when would this tidbit of information be important? Oh gee, I dunno, I suppose if you worked at a fabric store this would be something you should know. ARGH! So yeah, with employees like that no wonder Hancock Fabrics had to file Chapter 11. I really need to go check out G Street Fabrics. I wonder if their employees know what a yard is and understand basic fractions.

I'm currently working on this top (Kwik Sew 3378):

I just barely had enough fabric for my shirt after I changed around the way the pattern pieces were laying. Hence my mini-rant about fabric cutting. So whenever I get fabric cut I guess I have to babysit the cutting people by measuring the fabric right there in the store. Sad really.

I'm hoping to get this shirt done soon as I even have a skirt I just made to go with it. The skirt is mostly done, just need to hem it. It'll be exciting to have something to wear that actually fits since I lost 20 lbs. I must admit I haven't been as productive due to my new laptop. I've been relishing having a computer that isn't slow, so I've been playing Half Life 2 on there. If all goes well today and I can find some time, I'm hoping to get my shirt sewn. My goal is to have my outfit done in time for church on Sunday. I just hope I sew the shirt right. I have no luck with clothing for me.

My Mother's Day Weekend

It was awesome! My husband Tim worked so hard to make the weekend absolutely perfect for me and he succeeded. He started off the weekend by fixing our pond waterfall for me and improving our vegetable garden.

On Saturday Tim and our girls presented me with my mother's day gift:


A NEW LAPTOP!!! WOW! I didn't realize I did a good enough job to get THAT present! Boy was I shocked. It's fast, powerful, and even has some cool extras like a webcam, full number pad (important for accountants...hehe), and sweet lightning design. Now the lightning design was picked out by Tim and our two girls. Although if my oldest had her way 100% my laptop would now be covered in cute flowers. It's a decal that my husband put on my computer. It took him 20 minutes to get it on there. He's an extremely patient man, by the way. He did such a great job that the design looks painted on. He got the decal from Decalgirl. Funny enough, when I first opened my present and saw it was a laptop, the first thing I thought about was getting the purple lightning decal from Decalgirl.com. Then I pull out the laptop and there it is: my decal already on there! So now for the first time I have the fastest most powerful computer in the house. My prior laptop was ancient and dying, so this laptop is amazing to me.

On Sunday morning I woke up to breakfast in bed. It's definitely confusing waking up and being offered breakfast on a tray. I loved it! Then we go to church where my husband had another surprise. This time it was for all the moms at church. Tim had purchased roses and had a kid at church hand a rose out to each mother there. Later of course, we went out to a nice dinner with his mother and family as well.

It was a wonderful weekend. I'm still kinda in shock from it all. I love my family so much and to see how much trouble they went through this weekend because they love me was so touching.

My only worry now is Father's Day. Mother's Day is a tough act to follow! What in the world do I do for Father's Day?!