Jasmine blouse: Un-anchored by last minute decisions

Pattern: Jasmine by Colette Patterns

Skills acquired:

  • Understitching

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‘Cuz the shirt has anchors on it…get it!!  With this project, I finish up the last of the fabric I bought in Scotland back in 2014.  This was a nice white cotton with cute little pink anchors on it and I believe I even got it at a discount (although still not cheap).

The blouse came together so easily.  I highly recommend this pattern, especially if you are a beginner.  A dressy looking blouse with no buttons?  No zipper? Whaat?!  But yes, because it is cut on the bias, you can pull it right over your head like any other shirt.  With no button/buttonhole matching, it makes construction a snap.  And you don’t need snaps!

When I first started on this top, I had cut all the pieces for version 2.  Since the fabric had anchors on it, I thought having a sailor look would be really cute.  I even found some really nice navy blue fabric that I had leftover from another project that seemed to work perfectly for the collar.   I liked the sleeves on this version better too.   When I started to get ready to sew, I stared at the pieces for a long time.  I couldn’t decide if I really liked the navy ties after all and worried it would end up being something I didn’t want to wear that often.  I began to imagine it as a disaster, which may seem a bit much, but there is nothing more heartbreaking than making something you dislike with fabric you fell in love with.  The more I looked at the two drawings on the cover, Continue reading “Jasmine blouse: Un-anchored by last minute decisions”

Happy and plaid: the Dahlia dress

Pattern: Dahlia from Colette PatternsIMG_2585

New Skills Acquired:

  • Machine blind hem stitch

When I look at some of my projects from last year…

You Like Plaid

 

 

 

 

 

I do!  It may be a mini-obsession.  I do have some non-plaid projects in the works, but for now….

This dress has been sitting as a draft in blog forever.  I wanted to share this on The Monthly Stitch and even bumped it up in my project queue because the July theme was all about plaid. I rushed through all the hot sticky weather to try to finish this dress in time to post on the site and then…the blind hem stitch on my machine wasn’t working.  On July 28th.

Yeah I know I could have just hemmed it by hand, but I really wanted to try out a new technique.  And that was more important than trying to force a project into a theme.  It’s all about my learnings as a sewist, right?  (Back me up on this one)  So in the corner this dress went while I worked on other stuff, involving other non-blind hems.  I decided to pick this back up when my machine was properly repaired.  Welp, at least I can also get that button-hole stitch fixed too.

Clash of the Tartans

I bought this fairly light-weight tartan fabric when I was on vacation in Scotland last summer.  I had a picture in my head of the type of dress I wanted to make from it – something simple but also stylish that would really show off the plaid design.  The Dahlia dress seemed perfect – Continue reading “Happy and plaid: the Dahlia dress”