I'm late, I'm late

The week does not end until tomorrow night, yes??

Therefore, I still have at least 24 hours before I'm in a rabbit stew regarding my self imposed one Simple Sewing Challenge, right?

Right.

It would be done already if my stays pattern hadn't come in the mail and set my little heart aflutter. I've already traced off the pattern and cut out my muslin.

I should probably do that post about my Davenport ensemble sometime soon, huh? And I still haven't located the fabric for pinky's dress, which has to be done this weekend, the fabric locating I mean as I intend to present it as my next Sew Fortnightly Challenge. I ordered up a yard of silk batiste, some voile for the fichu, and batiste for the lining and petticoat. As soon as it all arrives, I promise to provide pictures.

ARE YOU HAPPY, BEAR ALLEN???

She knows I love her.

One down, 26 to go

Well, it's a good start. I was only a few hours late, which for me, is right on time but here she is, the opening salvo in my regency wardrobe attempt. It's considered a bonus challenge, thus the #0. I thought about passing but why not get this party started off right, yes? It helped that I just happened to find a free and easy pattern. As suggested, here's the proper run down.

The Challenge: Starting Simple

Fabric: I used leftover fabric from a dress I made pinky two years ago. White silk taffeta from Joann's with a rose silk batiste from Baltazor. It's also interlined with plain cotton muslin as both the taffeta and batiste are wispy as hell.

Pattern: As I mentioned earlier, free and easy and here. The embroidery pattern can be found here.

Year: No idea but the style itself is readily seen when one googles little bags of the period.

Notions: I finished it off with some (not)silk cording and tassels from Joann's.

How historically accurate is it? Let's get something straight here. There is no way on God's green earth that I will be turning out ANYTHING completely historically accurate for this challenge. I don't even like to whipstitch or finish my hand so you best believe I will not be handsewing complete garments together. But aside from that, well, it's a little handbag. I guess it's accurate enough, machine stitching notwithstanding. I think the embroidery might not be the thing for Regency sewing but meh.

Hours to complete: I traced off the embroidery the day after Christmas and finished up everything around 3 am this morning.

First worn: I'm saving it for tea.

Total cost: Uhm, let me think. About five bucks, I suppose, including the $1.19 I spent on beading needles that I broke within minutes of getting home as my thread was too thick for the eye. Boo on me. The fabrics came from my stash. The beads are the half of those previously purchased for the advent scarf (yes, I'll update soon, gosh!). The embroidery floss is also from my stash.

And here are a few more pictures. First, of the back. The two other panels are plain.

And a peek inside at the pretty lining.

If you'd like to follow along with all my plans and attempts, you can check out my Sew Fortnightly Pinterest board.

Next up, little girl regency stays. 

I think.

They'll be good practice for my stays and I get to figure out how to size an adult pattern down for a rambunctious little girl.

I'm thrilled already.

No, really.

Kind of.

Hold me.

More than I can chew

I'm not sure how it happened, but I was puttering around the interwebs as one does when they are avoiding housework and came upon the website for a local museum, The Davenport House. How I've lived here for five years and never heard of the place, I can't quite explain but that's neither here nor there. The point is they have tea, regency era tea or whatever you refer to that period of time as here in the states when we clearly could no longer give two hoots about Georgie's craziness or the other Georgie's hot mess secret marriage or whatever it was he was doing. 

As it also happens, pinky is slightly obsessed with American Girl books. We ordered her the catalog and every time it arrives, she is breathless with excitement, skittering around the house with passive aggressive comments about possibly getting a new one or new outfits for the ones she has, or a bonnet, mommy, I can't have a bonnet, can I? Because I know I can't get the new dolls, right, mommy? Like that. And what about this newest doll?

Her name is Caroline and she is perfection in miss Pinky's little starstruck eyes and really, who can blame her when the little thing comes decked out in full 1812 awesomeness, amiright?

There might have been some Caroline books under the Christmas tree this year and it might have renewed her desperate need for a bonnet. But where on earth does one wear a bonnet circa 2013 (can you believe it's that already? ugh?)

Why, to tea, of course. At a house built in the era and later converted to a museum for the era.

Eureka!!

And so, as I do, I have committed to turning out period appropriate garb and escorting our whole wonderful ensemble down to the Davenport House sometime in March, me, the pinkster, Kirsten, and Samantha, resplendent in little empire waisted beauties.

Just when I was thinking of wavering, wondering what in the hell I'd gotten into, what should my eyes come across but that wonderful challenge from The Dreamstress I mentioned yesterday. Here's a refresher. There's a lovely little facebook group to pepper with all my questions since I've never sewn historical before. I'll try to make as many of the early challenges in regency garb as possible for well, obvious reasons. But after that, I'm considering attempting the Federal era.

Corsets for everyone!

Ahem, I mean stays, of course. They were called stays before circa 1840 or so. I'm not quite sure when it changed to corset but it was after both the Federal and the Regency eras.

So again, pray for me.

Everyone else is doing it

I really don't want to recap 2012. Suffice to say the year was full of highs and lows. Both my sister in law and I gave birth to gorgeous babies (if I do say so myself.) But we suffered two unexpected losses, that of my uncle, followed a few months later by the loss of my husband's father. Everything in between seems rather sedate by comparison I think.

The sewing/crafting front saw its own share of highs and lows. I blew threw a bunch of projects around Mayish or so but succumbed to a frightening loss of mojo and turned out nothing of great importance for the rest of the year. The living room is littered with false starts and so so completes. So we're just going to call that a wash and move on.

On the domestic front, I actually feel I did pretty good. I've still not managed any semblance of organization, nor have I made great strides in the housekeeping sector. But I did institute some traditions that are officially part of our routine. Friday Movie Night has continued merrily along, Sunday dinner is nothing short of a success, and Saturday breakfast, peteybird's brain child, has been a fantastic way to compensate for Mr Man's 60 hour work week.

But enough about 2012. Let's talk the new year. I'm thinking five challenges and ten goals. I could probably come up with some fancy reasoning but let's just make it simple. I want to do better. That's really all there is to it. I made some strides last year. I won't bore you with the details. But there's always room for more. Just don't expect some kind of weight loss/exercise plan. I'm not even. We'll save that for 20dead.

So, let's start with the challenges and tomorrow, I'll share the goals. How's that?

Challenge #1: Daily Blogging

This is one is rather easy as I already mentioned it before. I will be blogging daily. I have promised Bear Allen and Bear Allen will shove me down a flight of stairs and lock me in a dog crate if I don't comply. At least this is what her husband says is the consequence of disappointing captain reading pants. I'm really not sure but I'm not in the mood to test her. Okay, really, I'm just not in the mood to throw down on pregnant ladies and I'm entirely too forgetful to remember to save my beatdowns for post partum.

Challenge #2: Knit/Crochet for an hour a day

Can I just share with you how much I adore sitting down at the end of the day, tucking my legs and my dog underneath a blanket on the couch and just chilling out with something soft on my needles? Oh yes, I do. It's very calming, reflective, and just a great way to clear your mind and settle for sleep. This will also help me carve out some time for all the knit projects that often fall by the wayside when I get a glimpse of a yummy fabric or lustworthy pattern.

Yeah, yeah, you wanna know about that advent scarf, don't you? Well here's a song for you.

Challenge #3: The Dreamstress's Historical Sew Fortnightly 

Did you notice my new bloggie button on the right hand side of the page? Well, there you go. Here's a link where you can read more about the challenge in general but I think you'll agree an announcement like that requires its own post. You should also be aware that I received my winnings the day after Christmas and will be blogging about that soon too.

Challenge #4: Sew simple each week

Look, I'm swimming in stash, okay? It really and truly is out of hand. I started and stopped an awful lot last year and have very few things to show for it. I also need more versatile, more grown up, more coordinated clothes in my wardrobe so yes, I'm going to work on it. We're not talking complicated outfits. Just something simple and easy either for myself or for the spawnlets. I think a cute knit tee in a blue, white, and silver stripe will be just the thing to get me started. But I won't lie. I think this one will be my most challenging one to stick with. I'm sure Bear Allen will be happy to add this to her list of things to pester a hot mess about.

Challenge #5: Budget, budget, budget

This one is also a humdinger. I won't be blogging much about it, however as I'm just not feeling the idea of sharing my entire financial picture with the whole wide internet. Suffice to say, we make enough to live on and live decently I might add *if* we pay attention to how we spend it. I'd like to get on the front end of our finances instead of feeling like I'm always falling behind or missing something.

But there are benefits to thee ol' humble blog. For one, I'll be resurrecting the weekly menu segment I was doing earlier this year. The budget is pretty much the same, $125/week for groceries. The menu will usually consist of Sunday dinner, Saturday breakfast, two crockpot meals for those extra curricular days, and Friday's junk food make over.

So there it is and it feels so very brave and yet completely possible, even, dare I say it? Likely.

But if you know me . . . . well, wish me luck anyway, okay?

Pinky Promise

Stashaholism is real, guys.



Despite all the sewing supplies I'm sitting on and have purchased in the last month alone, I'm thisclose to some serious pattern and fabric binging.

In order to save my bank account, my marriage, and the backlog of crap I've still yet to sew, I'm taking to the internet to make a solemn promise.

I shall not purchase another fabric or craft related item be it books, patterns, or supplies until I have completed ten, that's right TEN sewing projects. And I said complete, not cut out, not kind of sort of, not half ass changed my mind but ten complete sewing projects.

First up, this New Look pattern.

I'll be wearing a gray knit version of this to church tomorrow morning.

Wish me well.

I might actually finish this challenge

It's probably too soon to make such a call but I can't help but feel optimistic about my chances.

Here's my first garment, the Sorbetto top from Colette Patterns.

Lord, I love a me a free pattern, let me tell you. I've made this once before as you will likely see during Me Made May so I decided to change it up a little. I went with a bargain basement white eyelet of mysterious fabric content that I pulled from the wallyworld clearance shelf a couple years ago. To help it fit better into my palette, I decided to be brave and smock the center panel. To accomodate the sitching, I placed the pattern three inches back from the center fold, giving me six additional inches to work with.

I marked my pleats on the fabric with a Mark B Gone pen in 1/4in columns and 3/8in rows.

Then pulled them up and tied them off.

Next came the smocking. I don't want to discuss how often I pulled out these stupid threads. This is only my third smocking project so trust me when I say I jack it up often. Halfway through, I finally got my rhythm and came up with a stellar row of stitching that made all the other ones look like they'd been done by Helen Keller on meth. So once again, I pulled stitches.

The waist is a little blousy for my tastes and some sort of mishap resulted in uneven darts that I didn't notice until after I french seamed the sides but overall, I really like this top. I especially like the pretty red gingham bias tape trim. It reminds me of this absolutely terribly ugly square dance dress I had the poor fashion sense to adore to pieces when I was about 7 years old.

Hopefully, I won't look back on this top and be horribly embarrassed as I am by that square dance dress. I can't even figure out how in the world a little black girl in Brooklyn ended up with a red gingham square dance dress. In fact, I had two, one red and one yellow. Maybe this explains why I'm so in love with my color palette.


God bless childhood memories.

Imagine this in red and try not to shudder.

Now I'm on to my button up skirt. It's two thirds completed. I just have to do the hem, buttonholes, and waistband which I hope to finish by tomorrow. After that, it's time to start cutting the dress. And wouldn't you know it, while in wallyworld, two and a half yards of red roses on white lawn just hopped right up in cart and refused to let me leave until I agreed to take it up. So there's an addition to my palette challenge.

It's that time of year

It's time for Colette Patterns' latest sewing challenge.

I completely failed the last one having made only one piece, a turquoise and black houndsooth maternity dress inspired by Joan Holloway from Mad Men. But as I need clothes both for Me Made May and so I can nurse an infant in public without given people tickets to the skin show, I figured I go shopping in the old stasharoo and see what I could make happen.

What I found was that once again, I have waaaaaaaaaay too much sewing crap. This can be a good thing though. Due to my vast fabric hoard I can pull together a cute little wardrobe without buying much of anything. Just don't tell my husband. Not only would he forbid me from buying more fabric (Horrors!) but he would probably call A&E. Then, next thing you know, you'd see me on tv sobbing over a pack of $.97 buttons crying about how I was going to use them for that seersucker top and my life has come to a sudden and tragic end now that Mr. Man has tossed that little bag into a huge old dumpster parked in the front yard.

Once again, I digress.

The fact of the matter is that between my stash and instant Burda Style downloads, all I needed to buy to complete this challenge was an invisible zipper, some yellow embroidery floss, and a handful of red buttons (which is why I would have cried had some psychologist, a camera man, and the Got Junk people coerced me into given up my button stash.)

Wanna know what I'm making?

1. The Sorbetto Top: a free download from Colette Patterns involving white eyelet and a smocked center panel

2. The Ladybug Skirt: another free download, this one from Burda Style with some blue chambray I picked up, not just one sale but end of bolt bonus from Joann's while on vacation in Florida. I'll be breaking out my freshly acquired, mad bullion embroidery skills to dot the scalloped hem with ladybugs. (shaddup, it will so be cute!)

3. Ruby Shorts: a downloadable pattern of the not so free variety from Burda style out of orange gingham seersucker that I've had in my stash for two years. I can't decide if I want to go with blue buttons or white.

4. The Jasmine blouse: also from Colette. I have some navy and white floral lawn that will be perfect for the main body and a navy linette for the tie.

5. Simplicity 2255, View C, a cute, button down blouse using a white fabric of questionable fiber content that shrinks like a mofo if you look twice on it but involves so cute a pattern that I can't help myself. There may or may not be a gingham facing.  

6. McCalls 6503, a new pattern and spur of the moment purchase that I picked up a few weeks ago. I loved it so much that I bought it from walmart at full, walmart price instead of waiting for a Joann's $1.99. It would not be denied especially as it will look divine in a red, white and blue print I bought on ebay for something like five dollars for 6 yards, including shipping.

So what do you think?

I've already begun the Sorbetto. The smocking is giving me fits but I am confident I will overcome. Look for pictures by the end of the week.