The No Sew Zone

Yes, it's a No Sew Zone around here right now. I haven't sewn a stitch lately. It's partly because I haven't had a moment to spare, and partly because I'm just not motivated right now. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do to jumpstart my creativity, but I may start something brand new.

In any case, since I don't have anything new to share, and because I don't like posting without at least one picture, I'm sharing this little dress from Savannah's Closet:

This is Savannah's first Christmas Dress, or the first dress she had made specifically for Christmas. As opposed to her First Christmas dress, which would be the dress she would have worn on her first Christmas. Okay, I'm confusing myself now. Anyway... I never really loved this dress. I wanted more color. Like a red dress. But this was the only small scale Christmas print I could find at that time, so this is what I used. I like it, it's just not one of my favorites. I'm pretty sure I used Ellen McCarn's Ultimate Yoke Dress Pattern, and the smocking plate is Gingham & Ribbons from Little Stitches. Savannah was about 18 months old when she wore this.

This is the first, and come to think of it, the last smocking design I've done featuring ribbon woven through it. I ought to try this again. It's kinda cute.

Well, I'm going to go thumb through some back issues of sewing magazines and maybe look through my smocking plates. I'm thinking that maybe a brand new project will get the juices flowing again. I know I should work on my Works in Progress, but sometimes ya just gotta do what ya gotta do to get motivated. Wish me luck.

Back to the Blog

Oh my, it's been over a week since my last post. I've been a bad, bad, blogger.

Actually, there just hasn't been much to blog about. I've been in a sort of sewing slump. I guess it's the holidays- you know, the cleaning, decorating, shopping, and general stressing that comes with the Christmas Season.

I do have smocked sleeves for Sweet Arabella and a lightening raid on Joann's yielded two cottons which are suitable for piping, so I plan to get back to work on that project and hopefully have it finished this weekend.

I've also done a few rows of smocking on Winter Garden. I decided to go with a light blue floss, because the thought of smocking 38 rows of trellis in white was enough to make me die of boredom before I even started, and because I just felt like I needed to "blue down" this fabric.

It's hard to tell in the photo, but the red is very strong in this print, and since I plan to use red ginham as an accent, I thought using blue for the smocking would be the best way to go. I guess we'll see.

And I really did make a muslin, just like I said in my last post. I still don't have a picture of me in it, so I'm breaking down and showing it on a hanger in front of my cluttered sewing room bookshelf.

This is Simplicity 3622, view C. You'll just have to look past the mis-matched calicos, and the fact that they make the dress look like a designer hospital gown. The real fabric is much prettier, however, when I went to cut it out earlier this week I found that it had a stain on it, so off to the washer it went. I was in the groove, though, so I went ahead and cut out view A, the long sleeved, V-neck knit version, and crossed my fingers hoping that the adjustments I made to view C would carry over to view A. I don't know yet because I have just barely started sewing it. It's on my list of things to finish up by this weekend. In fact, my iron should be warmed up by now, so off I go to press the neck seam allowance under!