Finish-It Fridays: Week 1

On the docket this past week was a big finish and 2 little ones.

The big finish: My first year of Seminary. Finals are over and oh, has it been a whirlwind.

The little ones: Changing a halter dress into a strapped dress. 5 minutes and 2 lines of stitching later, I can wear a real bra with this dress, and stains that were on the wrong sides of the straps are hidden now. I anticipate MUCH more wear out of this now!

Also, I did the hand-stitching to fix a pencil skirt.

Not really picture-worthy.

What did YOU finish this week?

Kay has been working on a lightweight jacket... It's going to be pretty awesome!

Attack!

It's official, my sewing space has been taken over by UFOs... Un-Finished Objects. While cleaning up after not for a really long time, I laid them all out nicely and photographed them... And I was kind of saddened by the numbers and types of things that need to be done. SO many of these would be so easy!

-grey pants: hem

-wine skirt: Buttons and a hem

-McCall 5801: Collar and put it all together... Oh, and the princess seams from hell.

-blue knit dress: take in, shorten

-Easter dress: Take in properly, fix facings, add the contrast, make cute 50s-style bolero/jacket to match

-wine dress: The hem is pinned in... I just have to stitch it. And fix a belt out of the old fabric. And cut the old hem off and add my fun hem lace.

-Red pencil skirt: teeny little bit to take in at the hips, and it'll be GREAT for fall.

-Pink dress: Really, this could still be a work-in-progress. My self-drafted top didn't work well... at all. As in, it'll take a friend helping pin the things behind me after I elasticize some parts and do some other things to make it work... Great concept, it just needs help.

-2 pairs of pants to take in for a friend. He's too skinny and tall for his own good.

-a dress that really needs some strap carriers

-a bag for summer that probably shouldn't be counted as a UFO yet either... but that's beside the point.

THE POINT:

12 things. And they'd all be great additions to my closet(except for my friend's pants) and get worn on a regular basis. And I'm guessing I'm not the only one with this kind of pile. So confession time and motivation time. Anybody want to do a UFO challenge? I'm thinking of having Finish-it Fridays. Where you do your best to post a picture of something every Friday. We could all encourage one another! Wouldn't it be nice?? Comment below if you're in.

Luxembourg!

So one of my dancing friends has decided we need a "code-word" for every time I have something home-made on while dancing... And the word he decided on is Luxembourg.

So today, what with my last-minute-ness, I've got to finish this dress for a Luxembourg night. I'm using the pink baby rib knit from December so yay for stash consumption. It's along the same lines of the infinity dress, but not really. Same twirly skirt from the brown dress, and a 4" waistband, and a free-form cut-to-fit front and back, which really has to have pictures on the body... It's halter-ish with a fun crossover in the back instead of ties- makes it more dance-able.

So. Here's to finishing so I can show you guys pictures. On my body for a change!

Also, a quandary. Can anyone think of a place where I could order bra strap carriers online? I've discovered a lack of patience for sitting and sewing itty-bitty snaps to ribbon...

my sailor shirt

First, we're going to play pretend... and pretend this is green oxford cloth you see on your left.

Then, we're going to pretend it's the super-huge(read:17.5" neck) shirt I found at the thrift store, and not from Rusty Zipper.

After that, we're going to pretend I wasn't just distracted by all of that fun vintage-n

ess.

Now let's talk about my first refashion in toooo long. I used the aforementioned fun green shirt, and started with Simplicity 2593, which I have used before for this dress, which is now just missing the collar and is on the list of UFOs...

I changed the scoop neck to a v-neck, the gathers to pleats, and drafted and added the collar. I shortened the thing by an inch at the middle and just started at the curve to keep the hem. One more round of pretend, and then I'm done... We're going to pretend I took pictures of the whole process. Here is the finished product.

I'm really digging it as is, just about... I think if I made it again, I'd remove a little width from the center to make things stay up better with this wide neckline. As is, the plan is to add bra-strap carriers. I am really proud of my mitered corners, and the little detailed shot shows the first one, which is a bit iffy, and the last one, which was nice! My seams are also all enclosed somehow, and I am proud to say this shirt survived the washer and dryer without incident!

Hope all of y'all are having a good week... I hope to squeeze in some sewing soon so there's something for you to read about, but it's a busy week, and yesterday was crazy... I wrote about it over here at In a Nutshell, Life... the blog I started a while back about life outside of sewing. I made the choice to start that blog as a place where I can talk more about school and life without raining on the sewing parade. Check it out, if you wish... I post there on most days I don't post here.