Feeling Brave

I'm not entirely sure what has come over me, maybe it has something to with the fact that the trousers that I purchased from a shop a few weeks ago were to big, picture pulling out the waistband and having space, but at the same time too small, picture same damn waistband feeling like its cutting you in half.  I have no idea how the heck these trousers manage to do both things but they do.  But you may already have an idea of what I'm about to say here but just incase you're not getting my drift.

I'm making trousers! Eeekk...

The crappy fitting trousers were the starting point but when I found this pattern on sale, it seemed inevitable

It's Butterick 5682 and I've started to make view E for some work trousers, that won't cut me in half while I'm at my desk all day.  I'm not doing to bad with them so far, I've even made a muslin (Shock!!), but when I was tracing the pattern there was one thing that really make me laugh.

This is the waistband piece and the writing on it says "This finished edge is 1 1/2" below the base of the neck" Errr... Butterick really?? Trousers?? 1 1/2" below the base of the neck?? I think not!


Anyway back to the trousers, the muslin fitted ok and just needed a small tweak to the waist since it was too small and would defeat the point of me making the trousers in the first place...

Moving onto the trousers, I've made the front of the legs

i.e put the pockets on, which may I add are awesome!  Remember my bird skirt? Welcome bird pockets!! (there is also going to be bird facing too!)

Hopefully the rest of the trousers will go together as well and I'll be winning.

Just what you need for dinner

We had some friends over for Dinner last night, something that we've not done before so needless to say we were a little unprepared for it. A random table (that came with the house 8 years ago), 4 chairs that didn't match, new wine glasses (because we didn't have 4), washing plates in between the courses because we don't have enough, etc, etc...  I guess we wouldn't get very far on Come Dine With Me would we? Haha.  Anyway a few hours before our friends were due to arrive I decided to make place mats, because who has dinner at a table without place mats?  With the seed in my head I sifted through the stash for some fabric and came across the Amy Butler fabric that has been sitting there for almost a year, cut 8 squares for coasters, 8 rectangles for place mats and wadding for the middle just so they weren't just 2 pieces of fabric sewn together. I suppose I could have used interfacing but I like the squishy and not too stiff effect of the wadding.

I'm rather pleased with them and they had the desired effect of making the table look like a real dinner table too.  Not bad for a random idea and an hour.

Raspberry Dress

Phew it's taken some mental doing but I believe I've finished the Raspberry Dress.  After posting about it on Friday night I made a brew and ventured to the dreaded task of finishing the dress. After trying it on I decided that although it is meant to be a loose fitting dress it just looked like a sack on me, and something somewhere was pulling the fabric in a strange way (Good spot there Rachel!).

 
I've not tried to fit anything like this before and all of the fitting I started to do seemed a little haphazard and not particularly helpful so I decided to rip out the zip and both side seams (I think I nearly cried at this point) and start again with the front sides as the back appeared to be fine. 

To fit I just tried it on inside out and pinned the dress until it looked a heck of a lot better, and wiggling out of the dress with it all pinned together made me realise that I didn't need a zip after all, I consider that a win!

It's going to look much better after a good iron, but I'm pretty chuffed with myself for actually finishing it!

Gym or Sew?

All day I have sat at work thinking "I will go to the gym tonight!" Then home-time comes and I just really cannot be bothered with it so I am resolving to get back onto the sewing wagon!  Tonight is going to be UFO night and I will finish off the dress that has sat around for a few weeks... (2 Months more like!)

It looks like it just needs a hem but I'm pretty sure that there will be some fitting issues which I'm not best pleased about since I've already put the zip in.

I'm also resolving to get some better lights in the Sewing Room, just the one overhead light bulb just doesn't cut it.

I'm Back

Oh my what a fantastic adventure we've had! I have thoroughly enjoyed myself over the last few weeks especially so on my Wedding day, it was perfect. A truly amazing day surrounded by most of our loved ones.

Las Vegas is totally phenomenal and everything is on such a grand scale its barely believable.  I think we visited nearly every casino on the strip and they are all magnificent and all so individual. LA on the other hand was a bit disappointing and looked nothing like I expected, although it may have had something to do with all of the glitz of Vegas tainting our eyes with the shiny lights. Ah well you can't live the high life everywhere you go can you?

Not a lot else to report at the moment, maybe I'll settle back into reality again or maybe I'll stay on cloud 9 for a while it's pretty up here.  Especially since the husband (yep it's still strange calling him that) just called and said he would pick up pizza and wine for tea, amazing!