cotton prints and everything nice,
and that's what summer sewing projects are made of

 

New Look #6483 in flowered cotton print

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Remember these groovy pajama bottoms I started over a year ago? I pulled them out of the sewing stash and was shocked to see how little there was left to do to finish them up. I'm feeling so much more comfortable with the sewing this year - with the pressing and pinning and stitching and such - that it didn't take me much time to get these back on track. I started out by doing a little fitting and resizing here and there. My big sewing accomplishment was adding the cuffs on the legs.

I had meant to spend my sewing time this week finishing off my summery top, but after sewing it all together and trying it on, it was clear that the facings were way too stiff and large. It felt like I had a light, little top on over some sort of football shoulder brace thing. So I decided to cut down the facings. Remember my pretty little facings? Here they are now.

I need to finish the edges on them again. But since I'm cutting and reworking the thing anyway, I'm thinking that the neck is a little too high for me. I may just open up the shoulders, cut a new neckline, piece together some scraps to make a new front neck facing and resew.

So much for the one-hour sewing project!

Ooooh, pretty finished edges.

These are the facings for my flowery summer blouse. Anyone remember this project from last summer?

As you see, I'm still warming up for my sew-along project. I passed the Burda one-dot test and this summer top here is supposed to be a "one hour" project. So once I have these two under my belt, I'm hoping I'll feel confident enough to tackle the Butterick top next. I want to see a few more finished tops and hear a few more suggestions before I get started on mine. Have you checked out the finished tops yet??

I've been so excited about my knitting projects this week, that I forgot to take time out to do some sewing. Thus, the summery projects haven't progressed that much since I pinned out the pattern pieces last week. All I've done is cut out the pieces and baste the side seams of the skirt together to check the fit.

I made it to the fabric store, though. I picked up this fun Butterick pattern, which I saw on pknitty's blog (love that name!). Originally I wanted to knit the Cleo top from the summer Knitty. I swatched a lot of yarns from my stash but couldn't find anything that really worked at that gauge, so when I saw the sewing pattern, I thought, heck, I should just sew one. Now I have to buy some fabric for it. I have cotton prints in my stash, but the pattern calles for georgette. Do you think I could try it with cotton??

Finally, my best find at the fabric store was this ribbon, which will perfectly top off my tiny tank.

New sewing project alert! I've cut out the pattern pieces and pinned them out for two summer projects from the new stash.

I realized I had enough of the purple striped fabric to make a skirt (one that will perfectly match my purple tank and the Phildar top when I make it). I still really liked the simple lines of the pattern I'd originally planned to use with the striped fabric, so I decided to use it with flowery fabric, which is my favorite from the new stash.

In old news I finished up the last of the curtains. I love the way the light glows when it comes through these curtains. The living room finally has that nice home-y feel that curtains always bring.