Hey Sewcialists! What have you been up to lately? I haven’t been blogging as regularly as I would like but I have been sewing and planning a lot. I am slowly getting photos of all my makes, especially the dresses. I have four dresses that I have made so far this year and none of them have had their time in front of the lens. This crazy cold Indiana weather is making me not want to go outside. Yesterday I wore my winter coat out to dinner! My winter coat…in mid May! Ack! Today, I am sharing one of my March makes. Another version of Simplicity 1317.
I really do love this pattern. This is my 4th version, I believe, and I am still not sick of this pattern. I really want to make another long sleeve version because of all this cold weather we have been having, but I will hold off for now. For this version I made view E with an added 4″ of length. I have a pair of olive jeggings that I love and I wanted some tunic length tops to wear with them. I knew this pattern was a must to go with them. While not pictured with the jeggings in these shots, the colors do all work really well together.
I also added the waistband from view A/B/C/D. I prefer this waistband as a hem finish over just the turn and stitch hem. Plus, it gives me another opportunity to add the contrasting fabric, like I did here, to balance out the main print fabric.
Speaking of fabrics, all of these fabrics are ponte knits that came from the stash! The main magenta and taupe print is from a previous Girl Charlee Knitfix that I purchased off of a seller on Facebook last year. I used 1.25 yards for cost of $11.88. The solid color is called shitake mushroom brown, interesting name, is also from Girl Charlee purchased in 2014 during a Black Friday sale. I used 1 yard for a cost of $3.50. Total fabric cost of this top is $15.38 and another 2.25 yards are out of the stash.
All in all I really enjoy wearing this top, especially when made in a ponte.
Other than all the sewing that has been happening around here, I have been planning. Lots of planning. I wanted to share just a little bit about what I have in store for the summer.
To start, I am hosting the Stashbusting Sewalong for July with the theme of dresses. I am planning and prepping a series of versus posts for that month. There will be woven shirt dresses, knit maxi dresses, and fun novelty dresses stitched up with comparisons between the different patterns and fabrics I use. Melissa of Mahlica Designs did this series earlier this year and I absolutely loved it and knew I had to do it too. Right now I am getting all the patterns cut out that I plan on using for this.
I am also planning a learning to sew series to help out those wishing to learn sewing. I am a part of several different sewing groups on Facebook and have seen numerous comments from members about how they are intimidated by sewing patterns. That patterns are confusing and make the users want to give up because they cannot understand them. I hate that others feel that way, so I want to hopefully shed a little light for them. I have most of the pictures for the first series of posts ready to edit. It is a lot of pictures to go through and prep.
Lastly, I have started planning costumes for our annual trek to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. Besides Eric and I needing new costumes, I am also going to be making costumes for our nephews and their parents. It is a lot of pieces to make and I fear I have put it off for far too long to get it all done in time. My costume, which I have been pushing off for YEARS now, is most likely going to be pushed off again. Eric’s costume should prove to be a learning experience for me as it will be made with real leather and I have never sewn that before. You can for sure expect a post about that experience. After last year, my nephew decided he wanted to be Robin Hood for this year. Of course I am going to make this happen for him. Today I even pulled several fabrics from my stash to show him for his approval.
Until all that, I am working on a pattern hack tutorial of Simplicity 1062 for this week. Make sure to follow along on Bloglovin’ or through email to keep up to date on all of these upcoming projects and more. I would love to hear what you all are working on too. Please leave a comment with something you are excited about for this summer.
I’d forgotten that you’re hosting the June sewalong! I actually do have a dress cut out, which I very well may not get to before then, since I also have some alteration work for my sis in law. So maybe I’ll manage to be on theme with you!
I am hosting the July theme for dresses. Hopefully you can join in then too. But June’s theme is unselfish sewing so you can do the alteration work for your SIL.
You have a lot planned for this summer. I hope you can accomplish your big goals. I’m glad you like my VS. Series. It’s definitely in my plans to do another one.
Thanks! I really enjoyed your series. I hope you don’t mind me trying my hand at it too.