Work In Progress - Beignet

Here's a little sneak preview of my current work in progress, Colette's Beignet skirt:

This was supposed to be a project to use up the remaining denim from my Thurlows. I don't know if it's just me, but I usually end up buying more fabric and supplies just to finish up what are supposed to be stash-busting projects. No complaints, just find it funny. For this one, I had to run out to purchase red lining (because this absolutely had to have red lining), and the perfect red buttons.

Macy was kind enough to lend her fabulous tail to this picture.

I'm having fun just taking my time and enjoying all of the red topstitching on the denim. The only thing left is to sew on belt loops.

One more thing,

I'm not sure how well this will show up on your screen, but this is a shot of my blue stained fingers. I pre-washed the denim, but am still ending up with serious case of blue hands every every time I work on the skirt! Hopefully, this little added bonus feature of the fabric wears off after a few more washes.

When Good Covers Go Bad

With a mixture of shame, mild amusement and a perverse measure of pride, I give you Exhibit A:

Yes, this is the ironing board where all the magic happens. If I'm working with a particularly special fabric, I might put some paper towels down as a buffer between it and the rust stained splendor that is my cover.

Since my tailor ham and sausage project from a few posts back, I've been feeling a drive to complete a few housekeeping projects.  A new ironing board cover was definitely high on that list.

I used the great tutorial posted by the talented Sunni at A Fashionable Stitch.  I used the same Amy Butler floral print used for my tailor ham and sausage project. The tutorial calls for a layer of cotton quilt batting to be sandwiched between your top fabric and a bottom layer of cotton muslin. Well, all of my muslin is earmarked for other projects, so I just cut two layers of the batting.  In my mind, it made perfect sense.

I took off the old cover, removed the drawstring, and used it as my pattern.  As you can see, Macy was a big help supervising the entire project.

The instructions call for bias tape to be sewn along the edges and used as the casing for elastic.  I used scraps of the floral fabric to create my bias tape, but unfortunately did not have appropriate elastic.  I found some sturdy cotton yarn to use instead.

And now, I give you Exhibit B:

No more shame.  The cotton yarn didn't work as well as I had hoped; there are some puckers underneath and the fit is not as tight as I would have liked.  But, from the top I think it looks great and should work well. After a few uses, I may make a few tucks in the bottom to get a better fit, but I'll see how it works out first.

Watermelon Cambie in Action

It's been a while since I completed this project, but I haven't had a chance to post "action shots" of my Watermelon Cambie. If you're interested, you can read about the project here.

Ms Macy is not impressed by these action shots. She wants this photo shoot nonsense to be over so she can go eat her cat treats.

While it's technically spring, it's still freakin' cold in Chicago! This particular Cambie feels like more of a spring/summer dress to me. But, I was determine to wear it out on Friday and needed a way to style it to make it more weather appropriate:

I love the color, but it is a bit hard to figure out what other colors work best with this. Black seemed to be the safe and currently only choice, but I'm looking for other ideas.  Fuchia maybe? Go bold or go home, right?

Finished Watermelon Cambie

I've finally finished my Watermelon Stretch Cotton Cambie dress:

It feels great to cross off another project on "The List". This dress has been 90% complete for weeks. I only needed to finish hemming the lining and sew on lace trim (because I do love me some lace).

The details - This is the Cambie dress pattern from Sewaholic, View A.  The fabric is watermelon stretch cotton fabric from Britex. The dress is lined in pink cotton batiste and trimmed with pink lace. I cut a size 6 for the top and graded up to a size 8 at the waist.  I also did a sway back adjustment, which is standard for me on all dress patterns.

The lace trim is also from Britex. I originally purchased it last year when shopping for supplies for my friend's wedding dress.  I went a bit overboard with the yardage and had enough left over to trim the shell and lining hems: 

Is it lace overkill?  Maybe, but I don't care!

Another view?  Well, if you insist:

The lining is a pink cotton batiste, also left over from the wedding dress project. (If you haven't guessed already, the wedding dress was pink.)  I really love the construction of this dress. It's as pretty on the inside as it is on the outside.

 
And check out that zipper. I guess it's sort of a machine sewn/handpicked combo. I'm not sure what else to call it or if it technically fits into either category.

It's been very grey and dreary here, and not conducive to me swapping my sweats for this dress and conducting a proper photo shoot.  I'll try go get some action shots this week.

Macy is SO not impressed with any of this: