Checkerboardskirt

Not so much crafting or sewing going on lately.. Things have been a bit busier than I can wrap my mind around. While I digest my ideas and obligations..here's some random news. I've been asked to come up with some clothing designs for a guy at work's side project, so I'm pretty excited about that. It's called Teaching Young People Obligations. I can definitely dig an organization/company that has the goal of bettering the community. I wish their acronym weren't "TYPO", but what can you do.. I don't know how serious he is or how far he is into planning this potential clothing endeavor, but this could be a great way to expand my (meager at best) portfolio. I'm going to probably start brainstorming on this this weekend. On a completely different subject, I have come across several deals recently that I thought I'd share with any other frugal junk-eaters in the area: Mrs. Winners (Nolensville) charged me $3.47 for a #1 meal that says it's ...

Today brought the completion of another garment that's been almost done for..long enough for me to wonder if it would still fit. Admittedly, I'm a little rusty on zippers (unintentional pun alert). See below the first try's "zipper butt", a phenomenon which occurs when pieces of fabric seemingly (not a pun, but wishing it were) the same size end up vastly different sizes when applied to a zipper. The result is a weird bunchy pocket of fabric on one side of the zipper.. nogoodnik. Other than that, this was quite the quick finish. The only way I'd be more excited about this dress would be it were maybe made of cake. Yeah, a cake dress would rock. This one's cotton though..still cool. My final aim for this dress will be to have it fit when it's warm enough to wear it outside..

Amidst my shirt related excitement, I completely forgot to post this yesterday: ..more later!

Gigantic Western Button-Down Shirt is done!! The cuffs on the sleeves proved to be pretty cumbersome, but alas, it is done. In honor of the completion of this project, I might knit something from my never-ending yarn stash..

I found this partially finished shirt in my UFO stash, and rekindled my love for the retro-tack fabric. All that it was lacking was a hem and having the facing stitched down. It's a pretty flimsy tissue knit polyester fabric, so it was a bit of a struggle to get all of the stitches so come out right, particularly the zig-zag stitches of the hem. Because this shirt was for me and I wasn't in a particularly anal mood, I didn't take any measures to unsew any imperfect stitches. I can not wait to wear this thing. Heinous or awesome? Hein-awesome. In other news, to my complete horror, I may have lost my zipper foot. I realized this while trying to complete another UFO: a summer dress, which only lacks the zipper. This missing zipper foot may be one more step in the direction of my dream machine . (If they still have it at Hancock.) Probably doesn't fit anymore. Also, the Giant Western Button-down Shirt is looking pretty shirt-ish. I'm almost done. Thankfully, it doe...

Happy new year. So, I'll keep this update short: By totally ripping her idea off, I made this: It turned out pretty nice. Also, extremely simple idea; you should try it. gold silk shantung, beads, fabric glue, headband. In a strange turn of events, I've done some real work on the Giant Western Button-down Nightmare Shirt. Though it's been a little scary and a major source of procraftination*, I am quite pleased with it so far. I'm not sure how this happened, but it's almost done. Because I made this pattern from tracing an existing shirt, there were several areas that I wasn't very confident about, including the yoke around the neck, everything about the sleeve, and a few other crucial seams. The sleeve fit into the sleevehole perfectly, much to my surprise. You can see below how the yoke did not fit perfectly with the shirt front lines. Unnervingly, I won't know if I did the collar and neckhole right until I try to install them. I'll either triumphan...