Sew Very Cheeky

Back in April, I was at Stitch Sew Shop in Alexandria and found a bolt of Nani Iro's Lei Nani Double Gauze in Navy, and fell desperately in love with the fabric. My friend was with me, ostensibly to control my mad fabric buying habits, and instead encouraged me to buy it. It didn't help that I already had a pattern in mind - the Magnolia, view A, by Deer and Doe. I'd been meaning to make it for a while, and this gave me the impetus. The lady at the cutting counter at Stitch was very helpful - the Nani Iro gauze is 43" wide, and doesn't have full even bleed bleed across the bolt, as you can see below. The shop had already cut the pattern out and had it on file, so we took the bolt, and laid out the pattern pieces  to estimate how much additional yardage I might need to fit the pattern on a smaller width fabric. I still somehow wound up with an extra couple of yards. I remember buying an extra yard for prudence, but at least my friend who was with me can now use the...

In May, I dropped by Finch to pickup something I had ordered that had arrived, and found that they had new fabric in, which is always dangerous. Does it matter that I have a backlog of sewing projects to complete when there's shiny new fabric to be had? No it does not.  The fabric to catch my eye was this lovely nearly sheer white, pink and grey striped light weight woven fabric. It has a lovely hand feel, and drapes very nicely. Because of how sheer it was, I worried about what pattern to make, and the lovely finchettes recommended the Elodie Dress by Closet Core , with a slip underneath. I don't know of a slip pattern out there, so we decided to lengthen and modify the Ogden Cami by True/Bias and make a slip out of a lovely grey fabric that was also in stock.  Closet core has written a guide for adjustments for the pattern. Closet core patterns are based on a B-cup, and instead of doing a true SBA for this pattern, I used the alternate method for a small SBA - using the si...

My brother in law is very hard to shop for. He loves coffee, but we've gotten him too many coffee themed gifts in the past (it honestly also feels like a cop-out at this point). He loves being outdoors, kayaking, camping, and birdwatching, but there's not much I can get him that he and my sister don't already have - or might not want anyway. He's not really a things person - functional things yes, knicknacks no. He reads a lot, but with my luck I'd buy a book he already has. While at Stitch Sew Shop in Alexandria, I happened upon the Newcastle Cardigan pattern by Thread Theory . It's a lovely men's sweater and feels very sophisticated and professorial - and seemed very much like my brother in law. I decided to make him a sweater.  The newcastle has many options for construction - I decided to go with a contrasting yoke and back piece with the shawl collar.  I happened to be buying fabric to make the Toaster Sweater for my mother and sister (more on that in ...

  One of my very best friends stated she wasn't wearing pants while working from home. She said it enough that it became sort of a meme in our friend group. She also doesn't really wear pants in the summer anyway - she's like me, and wears skirts or dresses. It's hot and air circulation around your legs is lovely. Anyway, it became a running joke. Enough that I decided to make her a pair of pants for Christmas. Said friend group has a private discord channel to talk and another one of our friends made custom emojis for, which I then turned into a poly crepe de chine on Spoonflower . I really like the drape of the fabric - I only wish that spoonflower had a non-polyester option. I chose the Jalie Simone Wide Leg pants  because they're a very loose and casual fitting pattern - which is great when you're making pants for someone as a gift and you can't put them on said person to fit them. The back waist is elasticized and it has a lovely tie detail in the front...

 I have a friend who loves Baby Yoda. I mean, I do too, he's adorable, but she really loves him. Enough that when a mutual friend of ours was at Joann's and discovered this sweet baby yoda knit fabric (he's napping and it says "power nap" I cannot with this), she called me thinking of this friend. We then conspired to make her this shirt with the fabric. We bought the fabric first, (or rather, the friend did, then gave it to me) and then stumbled upon the Chai Tee (the pattern name still makes me giggle) from Liesl + Co.  I then sent a "how to measure yourself" guide and asked for measurements "for no reason whatsoever" to my friend. I know, I'm sneaky. And subtle.  Then I waited. And waited some more. And then wound up sending her a tape measure because she'd lost hers and I wanted to make the pattern before new years. Patience is not my strong suit when I'm excited about something. Measurements in hand, I cut out the correspondin...

 The first dress I ever sewed was a knit fabric back in December of 2019. Though I'd made multiple quilts at that point, and even quilted a full size quilt on my tiny little Singer Fashion mate, I felt supremely confident in my ability to tackle the Gabrielle  Dress by Seamwork .  The pattern is listed as a beginner pattern, which also helped my confidence. I loved the princess seams, cap sleeves, and back detailing. It turned out surprisingly okay, considering I had never worked with knits, didn't know how to adjust patterns, how to do a bust adjustment, and I'm still not sure how to fix the fact that the back of the dress slightly gaps. I used an unfamiliar machine for this dress, as I sewed it mostly at my parents house, and borrowed my mom's machine.  My mother helped me view the fit issues on the back. The dress is intended to be made either with or without a serger. I assembled this dress with zig zag stitches and lots of seam tape for the top stitching. I had ...