Off to New York!!

Wish me luck finding some beautiful fabric for my Vogue coat!

To tide you over until net week, here is a picture of my sewing helper T-Rex:

Once in a lifetime!

I am doing my back-to-school cleaning, plus we were having some friends over for dinner, sooo....the sewing, ahem dining room table, is clean! I was forced to move my hoarder-like piles and piles of sewing stuff.

This made me feel better today. lol. This is my nearly finished lined black pencil skirt. I hope to finish it today!

Plus I organized my tiny tiny closet. I had to buy a stacky thing for my sweaters and pants, I guess because I have sewn so many dresses!
Hopefully I will do some more sewing before NYC on Thursday! Yay!

Vogue 775 Muslin- the winter coat

Here you can see how the front is kimono sleeve, but the back is a set-in sleeve, with a dart going straight down the center.

Here is the waist shaping, since the front is one giant piece, with this little addition.
The front, which fits fine ( I was too lazy to put on a bra)
The back fits perfectly! Still has some ease, even with my arms crossed. Ignore the collar that I didn't baste down.
Doesn't the back look nice?
Use your imagination, with it pressed, in wool, it will look amazing...
Poppin my collar, lol.
So really, the only changes I made was to shorten the bodice by 1 inch and the skirt by about 3-4 inches.

My design changes will be adding 2-3 inches to make it have long sleeves, and to change the construction of the cuffs and collar. I hate when it calls for folded under seams- I know they're there! So I will cut doubles for all of that and fold the seams to the inside. Oh and make facings for the sleeves, so that I can wear the cuffs turned up or down with no visible seams!

It's going to be amazing! Sharpies and muslin- who knew how productive this could be? Now I feel confident spending a bit of money on really nice wool!

A New Orleans Original

Giant potholes, that is. You thought I was talking about a daiquiri, you wish! Please note, one is merely the LENGTH of a minivan, the other has the DIAMETER of a minivan. The one on the left is about a foot deep and the big one is well over a foot.

Andrew, doing a highly scientific depth test.
We used to have huge amount of fun sitting on the balcony and watching people violently grind their car against the ground, or slam on the brakes at the last minutes, etc. I justify my amusement by saying no one should be driving down a residential side street going over 30 mph.

And if you know anything about New Orleans, you know that it's been like this for months, and may never be fixed.... but I'll miss this city when we move someday...

Bleh

I have been totally unmotivated lately. I can feel my summer slipping away...back to work soon. I have an insane to-do list, and just the thought of it makes me want to nap and do nothing.

Projects I need to finish in the next week:

1. Coat muslin, fit, rip apart and decide how much fabric I need to buy

2. Black wool pencil skirt, waiting on lining shipment from Vogue fabrics

3. Skirt with inverted pleats made out of red and beige quilters cotton

4. Finish re-fashioning those vintage dresses. I started the flowered one, but between the needle jamming the fabric into the feed dogs and making the elastic violently tight on the one sleeve I finished, I lost my mojo...

Plus I want to think ahead to Halloween. Last year, school had me so stressed out I was grinding my teeth at night and I couldn't sew any costumes. I need to think of something awesome. T-Rex is going to be Napoleon Bonaparte, and I am thinking something like Vivian Von Dimples' costume, it's pretty stupendous. Like a beer garden!

Any great ideas for a Halloween costume? I will draft it myself, so I don't need a pattern...

It's...alive!! The Necchi, that is.

I got the Necchi working! All it needed was a little TLC. It has been cleaned, de-linted, and oiled in all possible locations. A little oil on the belt, of all places, and it was ready to rock.

I must say, this has taught me a lot about sewing machines. This is like my bike story. I have a beastly 100 lb vintage bike that I love, I love it so much I'm afraid to tinker with it for fear of ruining it. Then I got a less cool vintage bike at a garage sale for 10 bucks, and I learned how to clean up an old bike and tune it up and I sold it on Craigslist for 80 bucks. So then I could apply my knowledge to my better, beloved bike.

Now take that story and apply it to my beautiful, awesome Singer 15-90 and this weirdly green Necchi. Same thing. So while I got this guy working, I also de-fuzzed and oiled (for the first time, bad Molly!) my Singer. Can you believe I have had it since 2006 and never oiled it? And it runs like a dream...I love that thing.
Look at all the things that came with the Necchi. Three feed dog plates, several bobbin holders, the original manual (which you need because threading this thing is totally absurd), and bunch of feet, including one for sewing on buttons!!!!!! OMG, I wish the Singer did that. I hate sewing on buttons! This machine can zig-zag, so it can sew on buttons.

Now look below. What is that thing, you ask? It looks like an eye ball.
Why, that is the Wonder Wheel, of course. It does decorative stitches. Two bars ( I am missing the top one, which is longer) hook into holes on the levers that control the length of the zig zag and stuff, and then make fancy patterns, all by itself. I am tempted to buy some wire and wire cutters tomorrow and make one to try it out. I have pliers, I am crafty, I bet I could do it!!
Lastly, here are my stitch samples. So it works, doesn't jam and will be great for teaching kids to sew on. Even on "HI" speed, it goes a weak medium, so no one will puncture their fingers! hee hee.

Parting shot- we get to start decorating our rooms now, so I took some pictures. Since I had "The Cart" (say that in an evil voice) last year, and had to move through other people's classrooms all day long, I am psyched about having my OWN room!! AHHH. Now I can still be mildly jealous of the people who have enormous eight-window rooms upstairs, but I am still excited!!!

The back wall is inexplicably blue, and the front beige. Sorry about the lighting, it looks less prison-y in person!
Anyways, I'm excited about lots of things! Yay. I have been washing all of that free fabric and I must say, to each his own. I would not make a single thing out of any of this fabric, for my own garments. However, other people will like it, and it was free, and it will be great for the club!

and the Closer is on tonight! Yay!

Sewing Club

I have definitely decided to do a sewing club at school. From what I saw today, they are building one home ec room, but it is mid-construction, so I don't know if it will have sewing machines or not.

Hopefully some students will be interested and join- I didn't do this last year, so who knows.

In preparation, I asked on freecycle (a yahoo group where people can give or get things for free in your community) if anyone had sewing stuff to donate to a middle school club. I only got three responses, but they were all very generous.

One woman gave us a little singer box full of tiny spools of thread, one woman gave me a few patterns and four giant tins of buttons, and the woman today gave me four GARBAGE bags full of patterns and fabric. So I think we will be ok on supplies until we can do a fundraiser of some kind. How exciting!

I think for the first project we will be learning how to cut out a pattern and hand sew decently. I have received several craft patterns to make purses/bags. Does this sound too hard for a first project?

I also saw this online, which looks insanely cute to me- click click! Stuffed animals made from goofy drawings? Sooo cool.

There was also a pattern for a hideous fleece scarf with snipped fringe all over it. That would certainly be easy, but who wants a scarf in August in Louisiana? lol.

Any great ideas that would be super cheap and/or free?