Easter Sewing!

I finished up my Easter sewing this morning!

Yes, my sewing mojo has returned!

I made Michael an Easter shirt with his usual Simplicity 4975. Usually I make his shirts long-sleeve, but I made short sleeves for the first time on his Christmas shirt and they look great on him! Also, they cut my sewing time WAY back! So, I did the same for his Easter shirt.

I added more pictures of my dress to the pattern review for Simplicity 2642. I Frankensteined two different patterns together to make my dress. I changed the bodice and used view A of New Look 6809. It turned out great! I love the sleeve detail and the button closure on the neckline.

I'm feeling really good about Spring Break, now that I made so much sewing progress. Michael and I are going to The World Famous San Diego Zoo today, and then I have a relaxing week off work. :) I'm looking forward to making/coloring Easter eggs and then sewing with Kimbra and Ellie!

Happy Spring!

No mo' mojo

I've lost it.

My sewing mojo has left me.

I can't seem to make anything good right now.

It really needs to return in time to do some Easter sewing.

Rainy Weekend

Michael and I are in the middle of a wonderful rainy weekend. On Friday he and I both got AMAZING toys!

He received his Cannon 1D M4 and I was able to pick up my Morse 4300 from the shop. So he photographed my machine with his new camera as soon as I brought it home!

It sews like a dream!

Mark Bowen over at Rainbow Service Center is a genius! He replaced all the missing parts and rebuilt the entire machine in only 3 days! Plus he gave me the little felt spool cushions so that the top doesn't get anymore scratched! If you need a sewing machine fixed, go see Mark, he's the guru!

I made a comfy house dress first thing Friday night with a OOP 1976 dress pattern that used to be my mom's. Then I got up yesterday morning and made a shirt that needs a little tweaking around the neckline, and I started a cute pair of overalls for baby Ryan. I also cut out another shirt for myself and I have nightgown cut out waiting it's turn. Plus there are lot of other projects that I have in mind.

While I sewed Michael took some amazing looking HD video with his camera and he figured out the rails and the tripod and the shoulder mount. We've just been hanging around doing our thing while we enjoy the rain.

At one point he ran out to pick up some drinks and came back with a beautiful pink heart rose for me! What a wonderful surprise! I have the sweetest, most loving husband!

We'll see how much more sewing I can get done today...

Happy Friday!

Last night my mom and I were lucky enough to be offered a seat filling opportunity at the La Jolla Playhouse for Aurélia’s Oratorio. It was gorgeous. The show was written and directed by Charlie Chaplin's daughter and performed by his granddaughter. I thought it was like Cirque du Soeil meets Film Noir. It was very French and very fun. Everyone should see it!

I came into work today and received my rainbow pack of labeling tape! Our poor, poor supply budget hasn't allowed me to keep my usual rainbow of labeling tape stocked and I only had blue and green left. The rainbow pack of 24 rolls is over $100! But, the Biology supply $$ gods have smiled on me and I was able to get more tape. Colors organized in ROYGBV order make me so happy!

Now I can color coordinate the Enzymes lab and the stupid Cellular Respiration lab. Whew!

There is also a very small chance that this little pink lovely will be mine. It's a stupid thing to do, but the heart wants what the heart wants...

I don't even know what she is, but I already love her!

The Bacon family Christmas Angel

I finally finished the Current Treetopper Angel tonight while we watched the disturbing Dexter Thanksgiving episode. I wasn't too sure about the colors I chose at first, but Michael says they're pretty. :)

She'll take her place on top of our little tree in a couple weeks.

The Current Tree Topper Angel Round 3

 

I spent the entire weekend working on one of these angels for our Christmas Tree. This is my 3rd round of making one and it's a LOT of work!

My mom bought two of these kits back in the 80's when they were originally released. Then a few years back I found one on eBay and purchases a 3rd kit.

(Here's another eBay auction)

Her first kit, I put together for her when I was in High School, and she still puts it on the tree every year. A few years later I thought it might be cool to make her second kit for myself and I just glued rainbow-colored feathers all over her. It was a very cheesy 90's rave looking angel. The rainbow feather angel probably spent the remainder of her days in a landfill...

So, this weekend I decided that I should put the 3rd kit together. The kit really just includes the printed fabric and instructions. You have to embroider, stitch, and/or decorate her however you want. I like the embroidered/ribbon look which is what I did for my mom's angel.

This weekend I got as far as finishing most of embroidery on her dress and halo. This week I'll work on her wings and her face and hair. I'm hoping to have her completed by Thanksgiving.

Then we'll have our own hand-crafted Bacon family Tree Topper Angel.

It feels good to sew again...

I finally got my sewing room cleaned up and recovered from the wedding and surrounding events and I made Simplicity 2854 from some stash fabric. It's kinda dumpy and frumpy, but it was really easy to make and it felt good to make something without a crazy deadline (like a wedding). :) I added piping (which I made myself) to the button placket for a little interest. It's not a real exciting shirt, but I might wear it to work every once in a while.

Last weekend was Comic Con and we went for a little bit on Saturday. Michael's company SOE, had a booth there and they were giving out Batman and Catwoman masks to promote their DC Universe game. I was also really excited to get passes with our names on them that said "professional". It made me feel kinda important. We also went and visited with Tony Moran (AKA Michael Meyers), and his lovely and charming girlfriend Leandra. Comic Con was really hot and crowded and we didn't want to wait in line for Kevin Smith or Masquerade, especially since they're both already on YouTube. So we didn't stay too long. But it's always a blast to watch all the wonderful costumed freaks. I love all of them.

Bride's Gone Wild

Things are a little out of hand at the moment.

Criswell looks very disappointed at the state of my sewing room.

Wedding Dress Construction Has Begun

I started my wedding dress the day after Christmas. I'm starting with the petticoat, so it really doesn't matter that Michael is around for it, because it doesn't look like anything right now. I'll be documenting my dress construction along the way, but I won't actually put anything up on my blog until after the wedding.

I've just been hanging out on the couch watching movies and gathering 50+ yards of net with Judo's help. All by hand because my sewing machine won't have anything to do with it. It's lots of tedious work, but it's worth it because it's looking beautiful!

A Christmas Doll For Elliott

I found this retro doll pattern at Joann during the Veteran's Day sale. It's Simplicity 2729, a reprint of "learn to dress" dolls from the 70's. I'll post my pattern review with more details soon, but this is a really great pattern.

I named him Herbie How-to-Dress. Herbie has snaps on his shirt, buttons on his overalls, and laces on his shoes. I know Elliot isn't quite ready to start dressing himself, but Herbie can just be a good friend until he's ready.

I gave him a red shirt and plaid overalls because it looks like something Elliot would like to wear. You can trim his hair if you want because it's the same length hair as the girl doll, but I thought his hair looked good long and shaggy.

Elliot wasn't quite interested in Herbie at first. But then Jess made him clap, and Elliot decided to give Herbie a chance. After a couple claps Elliot was grabbing Herbie by his hair and looking for more clapping. :)

Herbie turned out a little bigger than I expected, but I think he'll be a fun doll for Elliot to play with. Boys do like dolls too even if they need to call them action figures. :)

 

Christmas Sewing Catch-Up

Christmas was great this year!

Michael and I managed to stay healthy (last year we were sick for nearly 2 months), and we both got lots of great gifts. Too bad someone hit his car in front of my Mom's house and just drove off on Christmas Day. Well, what goes around comes around...

Anyway, now that gifts have been given and we're all getting ready for the new year to start, I can start posting some of my sewing projects. Early in December we had a wonderful dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Castillo. Alex and Kimbra had their house decorated beautifully for Christmas and Michael and I took them some more ornaments for their tree.

Since this was Alex and Kim's first Christmas as a married couple, I made them a "Our First Christmas" ornament out of the wonderful Los Novios fabric.

They made a really great dinner with roast beast and potatoes and veggies. Kim made some wonderful homemade biscuits and she out-did herself with the spice cake for dessert!

 

Pumpkin Science and Dead People

I finally bought one of those beautiful Fairytale Pumpkins for Halloween this year. I just couldn't bring myself to carve it into a Jack-O-Lantern, so it's been sitting on the counter with other decorative squashes waiting to become pie for thankgiving. I cut into it Monday afternoon and look what I found!

No, those are not tapeworms! They're pumpkin seedlings! I let the pumpkin sit on my counter for so long the seeds sprouted right inside! How cool! They all had big healthy roots and a couple even had fully developed leaves. None of them had any color, though, because they've never seen sunlight. This is called etiolation. Science rocks!

I was very excited about my Fairytale pumpkin seedlings, and I thought for a second about trying to grow them, but I decided to just wait to grow pumpkins until Michael and I have some dirt of our own. At least I have pictures of them. They won't be forgotten.

After roasting my Fairytale pumpkin, I finally put my Dia De Los Muertos fabric to good use. Kimbra gave me the perfect apron-sized piece of some GORGEOUS fabric called "Los Novios" (The Lovers). I used my favorite apron pattern . And, as usual, I made it even simpler.

I bound all the edges in bias tape, and I also used it to make the neck strap and ties. I rounded the bottom corners, so the bias tape would go on easier and I added a pocket for my cell phone. Although the pocket is not too easy to find because of my ninja skills in matching the print! :)

First Christmas Gift Done!

 

Last night I completed my first Christmas gift for this season! I made a Ruby Doll for my Grandma. Ruby has turned into quite a sensation with the online sewing community. She even has her own Flickr group. In case you haven't heard of Ruby, she's an adorable little soft doll that was offered as a free pattern from the very talented Jhoanna Monte Aranez at One Red Robin.

I love stopping by the Ruby Flickr group every once in a while to see what kind of cute Ruby creations people have made.

My latest Ruby is a Christmas Angel for my Grandma. I added some sequin holly berries with felt leaves, I stitched some beads and sequins on her green shirt to give it some sparkle, and I gave her wings with a little bow-shaped button in the center.

 

Would You Buy This?

 

It's a Gothic Spider Bride costume made by me! I started this costume last year with intent to start up Boo Couture, my costume design business. But with being evacuated during the Witch Fire and then whole craziness of the holiday season, it ended up in the UFO pile. I finally put all the finishing touches on it last night, and I plan to try and sell it once I get some better pictures of it.

It's a size 16/18 gown (I need to take some more accurate measurements) with with a headband based veil. The whole gown is constructed from a polyester satin and trimmed with metallic rick-rack, tulle bows and plastic spiders. It'll look great with some goth makeup and fishnet stockings. I'm really, really happy with how it turned out. It's going to be hard to part with it. I hope whoever gets to be the Gothic Spider Bride for Halloween takes really good care of it.

 

 

Friday night Lindsey and Cornbread came up to our house for dinner. Lindsey made some wonderful pasta for dinner and I've been enjoying the leftovers all weekend! I wanted to put out some seasonal appetizers since it is now officially Halloween season, so I tried out my new eyeball mold. The green zombie eye dip is kinda like french onion dip and the blue zombie eye dip is garlic and chives. I just dumped some dip type ingredients in blender then added a packet of Knox dissolved in hot water. After the eyeballs set-up over night I painted the veins and iris with gel food color. The blue zombie eye dip was definitely the yummiest. Onion flavored eye ball dip is just a little too creepy for me. But the garlic and chives eyeball dip is a keeper and is fabulous on buttery Keebler Club crackers.

What's A Princess?

It doesn't matter how many new and different sewing projects I delve into, I learn something new every time, and I love that about sewing. Kelly and I are finally going to be Disney Princesses for Halloween. I say finally because I've had my fabric to make a Snow White costume since probably some time in the late 90's! And I've been holding on to an awesome out-of-print (OOP) Cinderella pattern that I've been dying to make for Kelly for almost as long. Our costumes aren't a secret this year. At least I don't think... (sorry Smelly!)

Anyway, in the process of starting my Snow White costume I have learned SO MUCH about fitting a formal dress to make an ordinary chick look like a princess. I've taken our Halloween costume construction as an opportunity to practice some new techniques I've been reading about for making formal dresses, specifically bridal couture. Now, in now way can I call myself a couturier, but I love reading about couture techniques and trying to learn some of them. It's amazing what a difference a little extra hand stitching and careful planning can do for a garment.

For a couple months I've been kinda thinking about my game plan for the construction of my wedding dress. I've read through lots of blogs, and looked through some wedding gown forums on pattern review. It seems that everyone is using Susan Khalje's book "Bridal Couture", so I had to buy it. I also bought a book by Susan Andriks about making the wedding dress of your dreams (I don't remember the actual title). This pair of books is all anyone needs to make beautiful formal gowns. They're both full of information, and each fills in any gaps the other may have left open.

I was able to use some techniques I learned from each book already in fitting my Snow White dress. I also learned a new interlining/corsellette method, and it all went together flawlessly!

I've heard style and fashion gurus make statements about how a well fitting garment makes any woman look beautiful, but I always thought "yeah, everyone but me". Yes, it's true, Stacy and Clinton do know what they're talking about. As soon as I got the bodice all boned up and lined I was able to just hold it up to myself and see the princess shape! AMAZING!

Now I can't wait to get started on Kelly's, and I feel totally confident that I'll be able to put together a gorgeous wedding dress for myself (even though I don't have a pattern).

Also, I found this blog that I thought was really interesting: Drawing Women

Costume Patterns

Every single one of my costume patterns are now in a slide show. Just go to my Costume Patterns page.

Elliott's Monkey

Jess and Dex and Elliot are back home!!

My mom had a little family get-together two weekends ago, and the Conrads were coming and bringing Jess and Elliot. I was so excited to see them because they had just moved back home after living in North Carolina for a little over a year. Elliot really is such a happy baby and I love to get to spend time with him and Jess. I wanted to make something other than clothes for Mr. E, so I found Simplicity 5310. They're neck pillows for older kids, but I thought Elliot could use it to snuggle with while he's playing on the floor. I happened to have some swirly orange polar fleece in my stash and some bright yellow craft felt squares. I always have fiberfill and I had safety eyes leftover from some teddy bears I made as Christmas gifts.

Assembling the monkey was pretty simple just a lot of little dart seams. The hardest part for me was making the ears round. Making an outside curve on a little tiny piece of polar fleece at 4am just wasn't as simple as you would think. But the monkey turned out really cute, and I was excited to give it to Elliot. He was much more interested in Mama Sheila's green heart-shaped sun glasses than his monkey, but I'm sure he'll cuddle with it soon.

The best part of this pattern is the nose. All the animals from this pattern have the same basic nose pattern piece. The contrast fabric is doubled and folded over the make real nostrils. This is so great because you can actually put your finger up the nose!

What Has Shannie Been Up To?

On Saturday I got to see The Strangers with Kimbra. Despite the rude old lady behind us, we had a great time. Kim made me an adorable purse out of butterfly chic camo, and it was stuffed with movie goodies. Kim is amazing!

I highly recommend The Strangers. The word that comes to mind is INTENSE. There's just some minor gore, but the anticipation and the creepiness makes this movie really freaky. If you like to be scared at all, go see this movie.

Sunday morning I got up to start getting ready for dinner with my Mama and decided it might be nice to have breakfast in bed with my Honey. I made pancakes with fresh strawberry syrup. But I was mostly proud of my little garnish. If you look real close you'll see some fresh home-grown parsley. I know it's not rocket science to grow herbs, but I germinated this parsley from seed and I have a nice little herb garden growing in a pot on the patio. Why am I so proud of this? Well, when you garden in containers it usually means you have to hand water them. I'm not so good at remembering to water things. Plants do much better in my care if they're on some kind of automatic watering system. But I've been taking good care of this pot and my pot of mini roses Aunt Deb gave us for Christmas. When our beta was still alive I used to pour the old poopy fish water into the plants and they loved it! Since the beta has gone to a better place, I save the water leftover after steaming vegetables and feed them with that. Anyway, we had a nice little breakfast in bed for Father's Day and the parsley garnish did a wonderful job of sprucing up the pancakes.

Saturday was also Kelly's Birthday. Happy Birthday Smelly!

She and I had lunch on Wednesday before they left for Cleveland and I gave her a dress made especially for her. I discovered that Simplicity has a few patterns that have cup sized pattern pieces. This is fabulous! I was able to make Kelly's dress not only to her size measurements but to her specific cup size. The dress fits her wonderfully and she looks beautiful in it. Now I just need to get a picture with her wearing it. The dress looks much better on Kelly than it does on my dress-form.

 

A couple weeks ago Kim and I entered the Vintage Pattern Contest over at Pattern Review. We used a free couture pattern offered at the V & A Museum in London. It's from their Golden Age of Couture exhibit. I went over to Kim and Alex's house and we had an all-day sewing marathon. Kim's adorable gatos, Roxy & Romy were a great help and Alex fed us good food all day.

I'll post pictures and lots more information about the dresses when the contest is over.

Baby Clothes

...And a quilt for Elliot.

Jess and Elliot were in town visiting a couple weeks ago and I decided I should give Elliot something made out his "Bravest Dragon" fabric. I actually bought the fabric last Spring to make his crib set. But, I'm lame and never made his crib set. I figured the least I could do was make him a beach-time jumper set and a little baby quilt. I bought New Look 6687 last year and never got a chance to use it. It's for little girls, but I added a pocket and omitted the ruffles to make it for Elliot. I use some navy blue and light green left over from a box of remnants Jessie's Grandma Mimi gave me. It turned out really cute! This is great pattern. It's one of those "spinning rack" patterns that you don't even have to look up in the book. I love to just grab a couple of those patterns on a whim. They always turn out to be some of my favorites. I'm sure I'll be getting lots of use out of this one.

 

I used mostly Elliot's dragon fabric for his quilt. I used more of the navy and the green from Mimi, and a little yellow check that I had leftover. I always use Warm and Natural for my quilt batting. It's thinner that anything else, and much, much warmer. For baby blankets I just buy the crib and craft size that comes pre-cut in a package. I happened to have some white cotton quilt binding in my stash, so I finished off all the edges of Elliot's quilt with it. The backing is more of his dragon fabric.

It was so nice to spend a little time with Jess and Elliot. Jessie is the best mom ever! And Elliot couldn't be cuter! He is such a happy baby. It's really cool to see Jerry and Gail with their adorable little grand-baby. I love you guys!

I also used New Look 6687 to make a dress for my friend Anar's baby, Ava. I made the dress in pink and white dots with the ruffles. You really can't get more girly.

Ava was just born in December, so I made size small. Hopefully it will fit her for the summer.

 

...and my camera is still missing

Have You Seen My Camera?

Somehow I've lost my camera. It's been missing for about 2 weeks. That's why I haven't posted anything. What fun is a blog with no pictures?

 

I took all last week off for Spring Break and I sewed up a storm. I took pictures of most of my stuff with my cell phone. But I'm still very sad about my camera.

For Easter, I made Michael a skull shirt in his usual pattern. He chose the fabric at Joann, and we found the cool sterling silver skull buttons on eBay. I wish I could get him to actually model his shirts for pictures, because they look really great on him! After making this one, we realized that this isn't really the best collar and front facing style. For his next shirt, (red/black Ninja fabric) I'm going to draft him a new pattern. I have a Lutterloh pattern for men with a collar stand and top-stitched front facings. I think he'll like it much better. But, he wore his skull shirt at Easter with my family. It looked really great on him, and he got lots of compliments.

My Mom's birthday was on Good Friday this year. We got her an avocado tree and Michael took us out to a fabulous dinner at The Crab Catcher in La Jolla. In addition to the great dinner, he had a dozen roses waiting for each of us when we met him at his office Friday afternoon! I'm such a lucky girl! I also made my mom a shirt with her signature Simplicity 4077. This time I used view D. It has 3/4 length sleeves with a really cute cuff. I used some Tracy Porter quilting fabric that I got for a steal after Christmas 2006. I've been saving it in my stash for something special, and I think a shirt for mom was just the thing. It's a really soft brushed cotton in light yellows and greens. I found some buttons that look like they are some type of shell in a light alabaster/green tone.

I really liked how the sleeves turned out. They were easy because you don't have to turn any hems! Hooray for no hems! I'm pretty sure the method for turning hems was invented by Satan himself. The cuffs are just doubled and sewn onto the bottom of the sleeve. Then I serged the edge to finish it, and pressed it up toward the sleeve. She loved her shirt and actually wore it for Easter. I made her an Easter dress (I forgot to take pictures), but I think pants and a blouse were more comfortable for running around helping the grandkids find Easter eggs at Aunt Deb's ranch. The shirt fit her great, and she really looks beautiful in pastel yellows and greens.

I actually did wear a dress for Easter. But I'm always more comfortable in dresses and skirts. Plus, I pretty much dress like a boy for work everyday. So, I wear dresses and skirts every chance I get. I haven't watched Project Runway in a couple seasons, but I think it's so cool that Simplicity has patterns inspired by the show. I used Simplicity 2951. Basically it's a empire dress that can be strapless, sleeveless, or has a couple different sleeve variations. I used the puffed 3/4 length sleeves and I used the pockets.

I used some$1/yd (my favorite price) green polyester. I actually like polyester. I don't know why I like it; I just do. Anyway, it's pretty thin, so I had the line the skirt. I used a bed skirt I bought to use as lining fabric for 95 cents at a thrift store. This is the second dress I've lined with it! I absolutely love this dress. It is so comfortable and easy to wear! Plus, it's super easy to make. It was so nice to just mindlessly follow the pattern instructions. I didn't do any crazy design changes and the sizing was perfect for me; no alterations! I think I'll make it in black eyelet next.

Hopefully I'll find my camera soon...