FO: Clowning Around Hazel

"Clowning Around Hazel"

 

Just the Facts:
Fabric:  44" of a poly/cotton given to me by a quilter FREE!
Notions:  Thread, zipper, and interfacing, all from stash $1.00
Pattern:  Colette Hazel
Year:  modern ~2012 I think
Time to Complete:  about 5 hours over a few days
First Worn:  September 29, 2013
Wear Again:  probably
Total Cost:  $1.00; yeah, I'ma go with that

 

 I think this is going to be my last hazel for a while.  This is my fourth one in 5? 6? weeks.  I do love this pattern, but it is time to branch out.  It was really windy out when I was taking the pictures, so excuse all the crazy hairs in advance.   :)

 

This fabric is part of that quilter's destash that I blogged about a couple weeks ago.  This was 42" or 44" of a poly/cotton (I'm guessing) fabric.  The fabric is very similar to the blue and white striped Hazel I made last month.  I'm still so in love with that first Hazel.  Perfect fabric and pattern pairing and I wear that dress at least once every two weeks.  Anyway...  I cut the skirt with vertical stripes and the other pieces horizontal.

 

I'm not in love with the horizontal stripes on the back.  I kinda think that was a mistake, but such is life.  I think it just makes the pattern a little too busy.

 

I also wish I had taken more notice of where I was putting the skirt pieces on the fabric for cutting.  There is just the tiniest stripe of blue on the sides and it is similar for the back.  

 

Oh.  The fabric is a bright green and navy blue.  I HATE the way these colors look on me together.  It just feels so clownish.  That's why I'm feeling so meh about the FO.  I wish I could love it, but win some, lose some.  Whatcha gonna do?  The colors really remind me of the Riddler from Batman.

 

I like this Simpsons version.  And it's really good illustration when you can identify what cartoon this is from based on the illustration style.

 

And I just might have found my Halloween costume for this year.

 

Back on topic...my bust darts are a little wonky on this one.  I have some points going on.  I also have a couple firsts in this project.  This is my first garment using my new serger!  I bought the Brother 1034D.  It wasn't my first choice, but it had a lot of reviews and I really couldn't spend $400-500 for the one I really wanted with fewer Amazon reviews.  I have to call Brother about a missing spool cap thingy.  It was a giant pain in the ass to get the serger out of the box because it comes prethreaded with regular sized spools of thread, which had become all tangled together from the missing spool cap thingy.  /rant  I found it fairly easy to thread once I got through the tangled mess.  There are diagrams right on the machine that show the step-by-step threading process.  It took a few seams to figure out the tension, but that's good too now.  Yay!  New toys are fun no matter your age.

Another first was a lapped zipper I installed with the use of the Craftsy class "Mastering Zipper Techniques."  It's free, so click over there and learn some new zipper techniques.  My lapped zipper kind of sucks.  I worked so hard to get all my stripes matched up, which I did, only to have the whole thing turn weird when I added the facings.  So annoying.  It was perfect.  I had it all zipped up at the top and looking good and feeling proud.  :( Stupid facings.  It was another nightmare with those facings too.  Because I used a lapped zipper, I couldn't put the facings in as per the pattern instructions.  I ended up folding the zipper edge of the facing in to match the seam allowance and stitched the facing on as usual from there.  After I had the facing attached at the top and before understitching, I pinned the facing edge to the zipper edge and stitched down the sides, matching the stitching from my lapped zipper.  I stopped at the waist seam though.  Hopefully you were able to follow that.  I like the look of the lapped zipper and I will be using that style again for sure.

 

Gawd I hate this color combo on me.  So much that I decided I needed ONE MORE COLOR!

 

This color is not accurate at all, but I thought the colors were fun and wanted to include them anyway.

  

You know how everyone has a certain garment they love and they buy one in every color?  This cardigan is mine.  I bought them about 10 years ago.  I have 6 or 7.  They are falling apart though and this makes me sad.  It's a silk cardigan that looks like cotton.  From Express.  Remember when the clothes at Express were actually things you could wear to work M-F?  I miss those days.  My wardrobe used to be 1/3 Express and 1/3 J. Crew.  Not anymore.

  

I'll leave you with the silly picture of me attempting to button this damn cardigan.  It takes me at least three tries to button it, but those buttons don't come undone once I do!

That's it for this post.  I FINALLY! finished making my pattern adjustments to the Laurel top and I am ready to cut out my fashion fabric.  I hope I have enough fabric leftover to make bias tape for the neckline.  I didn't take that into consideration when I bought the fabric.

I just realized I barely squeezed in another FO for the month.  Go me!

FO: Garden Party Plaid Hazel

"Garden Party Plaid"

 

The Facts
Fabric:  Green, Pink, and White Plaid Quilter's Cotton - 3 yards $12.88 (It says I bought 2 yards on my receipt, but I'm sure I measured more fabric than that.  The fabric girl at Hancock must have put it in wrong.)
Notions:  Invisible zipper, cotton batiste, thread from stash - $3.00
Pattern:  Colette Hazel with a Colette Chantilly skirt

Year:  Modern
Time to Complete:  I'm guessing 12 hours.  I tried to match the plaid and spent some time hand basting
First worn:  September 15, 2013
Wear again?  YES!
Total Cost:  $16

 

 This is my third Hazel  and I wanted to do something a little different with this one.  I love the skirt on the two chantillys I made previously and I had enough fabric to make the bigger skirt this time.

Why does the self-timer hate me so much?  Here's the back anyway.

 

Sometimes I borrow my friend Ryan's yard for a change of scenery.  He lives in the "city." It's so bright at my house and hard to get good pictures.  I'm experimenting with that.  Ryan's cat could see me from the sliding glass door as I was taking pictures and she was desperate to be outside with me!

 

This skirt has the proper amount of twirl.  It's perfect!

 

A better view of the back and not taken with the self timer.  I took some pictures around 10am and some around 6pm to try to find the best light.  The afternoon pictures turned out much better!  The downside is I'm all wrinkly at the end of the day.

 

 This is a good picture to show the plaid mismatch.  I had a lot of fabric, but not quite enough to get all the skirt pieces on the fabric in the same direction.  I put the front side panels upside down to fit on the fabric.

 

But those upside down side panels totally get lost in the folds.

 

The other change I had to make for the Chantilly skirt was to move the invisible zipper to the side seam.

 

Look!  A prop!  I picked a few pears off the trees in my yard.  I will be making lots of pear foods in the coming months.  Pear pie, pear cookies, chicken and pears...and whatever else I can come up with.

 

These pears are so good.  They are way better than any I've ever bought from the store.

 

I hand-basted the dart line to make sure the stripes lined up how I wanted them to.  And a secret:  sometimes I use the selvedge when I'm cutting my fabric.  It ends up in the seam allowance anyway.  Ssshh.

 

It was worth it and they did line up just right.

 

I hand-basted the two back pieces together too.  They aren't perfect, but they look pretty darn close.  I ended up unpicking that left side seam you see here to put in the zipper on the left side.

 

Here's an even better view of the mismatched pattern placement.  I'm calling it a "design feature." It looks like it was intentional after all.

  

Fabric close-up!  I picked this up at Hancock fabrics in Savannah last year. I intended to make a strapless dress with it, but I decided I prefer dresses with straps as they are more work appropriate.

 

The Chantilly skirt pockets are smaller than the Hazel ones.  This is a good view of the invisible zipper with the pocket on the left side.  It's quite clever how that side seam pocket comes together.

 

Invisible zip.  I need to add a hook and eye because it is a bit lower than I prefer.  Also that white fabric. . . 

 

. . . I couldn't tolerate all that mess going on at the waist seam.  I made a bodice lining in white batiste and slip stitched it in place.

 

Magic happy lining to cover that crappy-looking seam allowance.  I zig-zag my seam allowances by the way.  I don't have a serger (or didn't until I bought one online yesterday! I hope to have it by the end of the week).

A new, fun dress to start the second half of September!  Enjoy your week everyone!

~elle

 

 

 

FO: Cherry Blossoms Dress

I'm just churning 'em out!  It took me probably 6 hours to put this together, most of which was spent lollygagging about on my day off.  It must have taken me 3 hours to sew on the straps, put in the zipper, and finish the hem.  Craziness.  The hazel is so easy to make, especially since this is my second version and I already identified the adjustments I need.  I'm going to start using the sew weekly format for giving the details of my projects.  I like it!  I also like prints (more than I did a couple weeks ago...)!!

"Cherry Blossoms"

(totally should have shopped that band-aid out...oops)

Just the Facts:
Fabric:  1.5 yards of a quilting cotton from JoAnn's (purchased at the same time as the fabric for my Sew Weekly Reunion project.  Funny how fabric comes in pairs, isn't it?) $7.94
Notions:  Thread, invisible zipper, and interfacing, all from stash $2.00
Pattern:  Colette Hazel
Year:  modern ~2012 I think
Time to Complete:  about 6 hours over two days
First Worn:  September 3, 2013
Wear Again:  Yes!
Total Cost:  $9.94

 My hair is wet.  Deal with it!  This shot provides a decent view of the side seam pockets on this dress pattern.  I am so amazed with how quickly I can put one of these dresses together.  It's 10 pattern pieces and takes such a small amount of fabric.  Colette is just killing me dead with all the awesome.

 

Another thing that doesn't exactly kill me, but still makes me weirdly happy are pinked edges.  This is what I trimmed off the strap edges.  I used to sit at my grandmother's sewing table and cut paper with her pinking shears when I was a child.  And now I know why those pinking shears don't work as well as they used to.

 Posing for pictures is so weird.  I always manage to look like a giant goofball in at least half the photos!  "Let's see what the oddest way I can think to contort my body looks like!!"  You can't tell from these photos at all, but there are little rainbow thingies on the fabric and I put some of them in different directions than others.  I know exactly how that happens too.  I put the pattern pieces that need to be on the fold face-up on the fabric and some of them really need to be face-down (or I flip my fabric, but that won't happen).

Fabric close-up!

 

Sorry that one is so blurry.  Self-timer is not my friend.  This photo could pass for a close-up impressionist painting, no?  Maybe a Renoir? 

You can tell that the straps are just a touch too long.  It's something I just know is going to happen.  My straps seem to grow as the day goes by.  I'll take the straps in about 1/2" before I wear this the next time.

So that's my latest creation.  I'm glad I live in Florida and have a few more months of good weather left this year.  This month, I am really going to push myself to make a draft of the Clover pants and finish making the adjustments to my Laurel shirt.  The fashion fabrics I chose for both of those matches even.  Hooray for a new outfit!

Have a great week, 

~elle