The Minoru Jacket

I finished my Minoru jacket the other day and I am very pleased with how it has turned out.

I used fabric from my stash and unfortunately there was not enough for the hood. The lining for the body of the jacket is a pretty floral cotton that I picked up somewhere for something! The lining for the sleeves is a silky material from Value Village.

The Crepe Dress

I finished the Crepe dress on Sunday afternoon, just in time to wear it for a nice Valentine’s dinner on Monday night at a local Thai restaurant.

It is a lovely dress to wear and really comfortable. When I make it again I will make the top one size smaller. It seemed to fit fine when I did the muslin, but I felt it was little big when completed.

Probably not ideal to wear boots with it, but this is winter in Canada!

I loved the Sew-Along. Gertie is an amazing teacher and I can not wait for her book. I enjoyed the video clips as well, made the sewing experience very enjoyable.

So what did I learn from this sew-along? What was new for me?

·       Underlining

·       Princess seams

·       Proper clipping and notching of curved seams

All in all a great introduction to Colette patterns.

Pendrell Blouse Finished

I have finished one of my Pendrell blouses. View A. Luckily I had peace and quiet while the family were watching the Super Bowl. I popped up from the basement at half time to have some chili and watch the Black Eyed Peas, then back down to my sewing room.

View B is almost complete, but am getting tired now and that is when I start making mistakes!

I have really enjoyed this sew- a-long with Tasia from Sewaholic and  look forward to her next pattern.

I have always been wary of sewing with silky fabrics, but this pattern made it so easy. So those two pieces of fabric that I bought early last year, and then thought  I’d never get round to sewing them, have been put to good use.

This pattern is definitely going to be used again and again. Next time I am going to try a knit fabric and see how that turn out.

Thanks so much Tasia!

View B and View A in progress

View A finished. this picture doesn't do it justice. I will press and upload a photo of me wearing it!

Sew-Along Updates

It has been a busy week, but I am up to date with the sew-alongs.For the Pendrell blouse, I cut out two blouses, view A and view B. I had purchased the material last year and only had a metre of each. Luckily after carefully measuring I was able to cut 2 inches off the bottom of the blouse pattern and I fitted everything in by cutting on a single layer.

For the crepe dress I had ordered some silk organza from Dharma Trading Compny as I wanted to try the neck edge stabilizing as suggested by Gertie on her blog. So that arrived and I was able to get that done. Darts stitched and we are now ready for the next step.

But now I have to quickly make an evening dress. I had seen a vogue pattern in the latest vogue magazine. Vogue 1208, an easy bias cut dress. I purchased silver/grey soft crepe backed satin and then a fun patterned silky material for the lining. The function is on Februay 5th, so should have time!

I did order the Negroni shirt pattern for the shirt sew-a-long. Originally the shirt was going to be for my husband, but one of my sons wants one, with one addition, a hood attached. I think that is doable!