2012 Sewing Review

I am so late to the party, but I just finished posting my last creation of 2012 a few days ago. This year is a year of unproductivity sewing-wise. Most of the items I made were fast and simple. I did started knitting a lot more, thanks to my pre-birth boredom that made me finally sit down and understand knitting terms.

Well, at least my Project started : project completed : project often worn ratio is pretty OKAY this year:

25:22:17

I got a bit adventurous in the middle of the year and started two dresses with my precious silk. And Murphy’s Law upholds – projects with the most expensive fabric is project likely going wrong. They ended up fitting very weird, and not even presentable as failures here. (Okay, in truth I am so sad about the ruined fabric that I rather not look/think/blog about them).

2013 has proven to be a good year to start though! I have completed another machine knit sweater and it came out exactly the way i wanted! I cant want to force hubby to take some nice photos to show you!

Amazing giveaway at Invisible Flower!

I just won my first blog giveaway at Invisible Flower! I started reading her blog very recently and I love the dresses she sew! The giveaways are amazing and very nice for people with 32-36 bust it seems, or for people who knows how to re-draft. Go check it out!

Now I am mentally adding the bottom left dress to my list of things to sew this year! <3 <3

Purple Silk Button Up Blouse

Its official — I love silk blouses! I made this one over about two weeks, finishing it just in time to wear to work. It is made from a classic pattern, after I had made a muslin for it. I french seamed everything, and put on buttons!

The silk was quite slippery to cut, but once cut, sewing it wasnt as bad as I remembered. Perhaps its because I actually used a polyester thread this time, along with a size 9/10 needle. Despite the thin needle, it still snagged the fabric a tiny bit as it punctured, but I am okay with it as its not very visible:

I dont really know what kind of fabric to call this silk fabric. It is not a charmeuse, as the fabric is the same weave front and back, and it is not as shiny as a charmeuse. It actually kind of have the same texture as the super cheap lining made from acetate, but much much more comfortable and not much fraying either. I interfaced the collar stand and the cuff, but did not interface the front two stripes for buttons &  button holes, as I want the blouse to remain flowy in the bodice.

And I am very proud of the fact that every seam is french seamed, including the armhole!

The style + color is a little too mature for me, to say the truth. But I meant to wear it under sweaters anyways, and its perfect because its so thin and slippery and comfortable, I can layer it under the thinnest sweater with ease!

I just love it! I think I need to make more silk blouses. Perhaps with flowy ties next time. Or a crazy floral pattern. hmm! more things to add to my to-make list!

Looking back on 2011 and forward on 2012!

I know I am a little late to the party, but I finally got some time to reflect back on my sewing journey in 2011, and post about planned project for 2012!

In 2012, not counting any projects for Kaylee or hubby or utilitarian projects (hemming *blah*, curtains *blah*, wallets, baby stuff… etc), my ratio of cloth sewn : cloth completed : cloth worn often  is….

28:26:25!

Not half bad I might say. I might have erased an UFO or two from my memory, as I am sure I had more failures than just two. There’s this top that I only wore once, the weather just got a little too hot for polyester knit that is double layered, and it wasnt exactly my style. But I will keep it around for the next pregnancy. Other than that, almost all completed garments got some pretty good wear out of them. So even though my rate my sewing had slowed down to one every 2 weeks, especially given that there was only two coats… wait, there’s three. why do I feel like I havent sewn enough coats? I have an unhealthy obsession with coats it seems. I also completed two knitted sweaters once I learnt how to knit and machine knit. It was a good 2011! I saw Toferet’s charts here and i just had to make one for myself:

In my defense, dresses are just the most comfy thing for a pregger!

Anyways, I have a lot of plans queued up in 2012 so far in the following order:

1. Silk blouse (50% there)

2. horizontal stripe wool skirt

3. boy pants for someone else

4. tan tailored jacket with elbow patch

5. fitted coat with grey 100% wool I found in hancock

6. sweater with horizontal cable

7. grey jersey draped maxi dress

8. one more flowy blouse in silk or rayon

9. flowery rayon maxi

10 black lace top/dress (undecided)

11. green jersey dress in a vogue pattern

only a few dresses, I am proud of myself! In a life before Kaylee, I’d probably make all those in 2 or 3 month. But I think this year it will take FOREVER, if I stick with them. The good/scary thing is, all the projects planned are from my stash… I should really stop buying fabrics!

I am not going to make anything for Kaylee until she can walk. She had out grown the few things I made for her even before I had a chance to make her wear them. When she cant yet sit up on her own, footed overall just seems like the most comfortable clothing for her. She is growing very fast too. She just turned 3 month, but she is wearing 9 month clothing already!  While she is not too chubby or skinny for her height, I dont want to make things for her ahead of time just yet. Anyways, I am looking forward to her different stages of growth. She’s already a lot of fun now! Here is a cute picture of her playing/talking with hubby:

Fun Sewing Project #2

(From the chive)

functional and cute though i sure hope she has an under-layer to sit on.

Jersey Spring Dress

Hello readers! I am sorry that I havent updated this blog for so long. I’ve been doing so little sewing lately and had nothing to show off on this blog. Other than my almost none-existent sewing life, I had been quite busy and there’s so many new things going on.

The biggest news of them all — we are expecting a baby! perhaps you have already guessed from my “I can also wear this for maternity” projects that I was somewhere close to maternity. I am currently 15 weeks pregnant with a little kicky baby. I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl yet, but from some of the ultrasounds our friend spotted something that looks like a penis. It is certainly too early to tell, so either that is the umbilical cord, or the boy is REALLY “blessed”

I’d been lucky enough to experience only nausea, and never threw up in the first trimester. Though for month 2 and 3 I had never been so pooped out in my whole life! So instead of sewing and watching shows, I’ve been just laying on the couch and watching shows. Finally the break came a week ago — my energy rushed back and I finished a jersey dress I’ve been day dreaming about for weeks.

Oh, and most people say, you can “make it work” with your old clothing in the first few month of pregnancy. That is so not true for me. Since I like fitted clothing and hate sewing jersey, most of my things are fitted and not stretchy. And even though the baby isnt very big in the first few month, the gas sure makes your tummy extremely bloated. I tried to “make it work” with my regular jeans and pants to work, by putting a rubber band through the button and loop and wearing them zipped down. But I just feel so… undignified in them. I have such a sweet baby daddy though.  One morning I was fuming over how I don’t have anything I can wear that fits and is comfy, and hubby said without a batting an eye, ” I guess that is the price you have to pay for being so beautiful”.  What a cheeseball  Luckily, with pregnancy also brings an intolerance for heat (for me). Its warm enough these days for me to wear skirt and dresses while my coworkers are still in their sweaters

[I wonder if I look way too big being in 15 weeks, I have only gained about 3 pounds so far, as I had lost 10 pounds in the beginning due to nausea and inactivity. The photo was taking in the morning before I have any gases or food in me too! My theory is that I don't have enough tummy muscle to hold the baby in, and that there's just not enough room in my petite bodice!]
I love that fabric! I made it a little longer so that when I am big, the front hem would still be decently covering my thighs for work. Of course, I also made it such that its fine to wear it when I am not pregnant as well! I am sure it would take a while to shrink back to my normal size afterward. The shell is made of a rayon jersey, it feels very cool in my hands and extremely drape-y. It is also quite see through, so I attached a shell layer with some remnant jersey material I had. I used the bodice pattern from burda 3/2009 dress 102 , but ditched the skirt and the sleeves, waistband, zipper, and back seam… It actually looks like the recent burda 02/2011 101 pattern a lot.

Oh another new thing in my life? We re-did our backyard! We had been working on revamping our weedy back yard for a few years now — hubby cut down a lot of useless, weedy trees, and we planted a lot of nice fruit trees. I was going to put in lawn + sprinkler ourselves too, but the lack of energy due to our pregnancy just made me give up and hired someone. We sure are glad we did, even though it costed much more than doing it ourselves, i get a lot more relaxing weekends in our  finally green backyard!

What is next? Another jersey dress. I have some old jersey material i never used and I want to try making this maternity tank dress from LOFT:

Wish me luck! Its so hard to motivate myself to sew something in jersey!

Fun Sewing Project #1

No I did not make this, though I sure want to make one, it is cracking me up

Goodbye 2010, hello 2011!

Post Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! I want to thank you for being such awesome readers – I had not expected so many of you to follow my blog and so many of you graciously commented on my posts. Thank you!!!

2010 had been a pretty great year in terms of sewing. Counting all my creations since the beginning of the year, I had made almost 20 pieces of clothing, and 6-8 pieces of accessories.  I probably abandoned about 5 pieces of projects that was not documented. Out of the 20 completed pieces, I wear 18 of them almost regularly. This is a great ratio of pieces attempted : pieces completed : pieces worn (25:20:18)!!! I still remember that in the first year of my sewing career, i would have something like 40:20:2 ratio!

I am still trying to push myself to document more how-tos. Sometimes, in the heat of sewing, you just forget to take pictures! I am getting better and better at taking photos myself, so hopefully 2011 would bring more how-tos to this little blog!

hmm! I should mention my sewing related christmas gifts — a very generous gift certificate to my local Hancock store from my good friend Andi;  tons of fabric as my christmas gift from my hubby (Fabric review coming in the beginning of the year);  The Art of Manipulating Fabric from my less-evil-twin-sister:

I swear, she gives the best Christmas presents! Two years ago she and my hubby got me a subscription to the burda fashion magazine, last year she and another pair of friends got my screen printing kit, and this year, this awesome book! I think you should expect some summer dresses with interesting texture next year!

As always, my other sewing goal for next year is to get as many girls hooked onto sewing as possible. I think this year had been a great year in terms of that — I got at least 3 girls started on sewing, and one of them seems quite hooked! *evil snickers*.

Anyways, happy new year! Looking forward to a great 2011, keep sewing!

Two Cuties

I promise you that I had been quite busy ever since my obsession with qipao. Thanks for your comments! I was obsessing over them some more after you pointed out some interesting pieces. In fact, i *just* finished making a qipao! However, we havent taken a picture of it yet, so I will have to wait a bit before showing it off!

On the other hand, I did pick up these ceramic goodness I made in the past two month at the art beat. For my birthday, my less-evil-twin-sister took me to a pottery class to re-learn how to throw pottery. I had so much fun that I went to a local shop afterwards to make more pots and stuff. So here are what I made — a little cute bow, and a cupcake holder!

They are not perfect, but I love them! If you are in the bay area and want to play with pottery, I highly recommend those pottery places — the teachers for both classes were very helpful and knowledgeable, and its great to bond over a slimy piece of clay with your close friends!

The Fashion of Copying

Saw this video today and thought it is really interesting and very entertaining, very much worth the 16 minutes:

While I do not think that all industries could follow the lead of copyright-free fashion industry, she does make quite a compelling point. I am not sure if fashion = pattern fashions, as burdastyle had been advertising itself as copy-right-free. I am glad that in our sewing circle, copying = highest form of flattery!

Are you convinced, readers? Shall we give designers at forever 21, or maybe even Ann Taylor a break?