JCC Photos

In all the photos I am wearing the same lime green and black chunky pendant. This orphan from my costume jewellery drawer inspired me with the lime and black pieces you see here in my June Capsule Contest Collection. Lime is a new colour for me and I am really loving it because its fresh and bright. I am pear shaped and so I like to have dark colours in skirts/pants and have the bright items on the top to give my figure visual balance. This is the first ever button front shirt I have owned which fits, as nothing I have ever bought or sewn before in this style has fitted properly. So that's a great triumph for me and has opened a whole new world of shirt wearing for me. In order to concentrate on the shirt I used patterns I had used before for the other items and have created interchangeable wearable pieces I am very happy about.
As an added bonus the plain pieces form last year's JCC also work with this year's pieces.

*The pieces*
Orphan - Lime/black necklace - purchased

Knit top - Simplicity 4076 knot front top in very soft lime cotton stretch knit.

Woven shirt - McCall's 5522 blouse in a lime woven cotton with no stretch.

Pants - Burda WOF wide leg pants (Oct 2008 #132) in a black suiting fabric with nice self weave stripe.

Skirt - Loes Hinse 5007 gore skirt in black/white stripe polyester.

Emptying the room

I have the room about 1/3rd emptied so feel like I am finally making progress.

I am definitely going to have some shelving/mini drawers wall mounted within arms reach when sitting for all those small bits which get used all the time.

I am going to get some shelving in the cupboard which currently has a hanging rail and 2 shelves above and store my current favourite fabric in there, with my out of season/less favourite fabric down in the garage. I had just been storing boxes in the cupboard due to the lack of shelving and it was a waste of the space.

And I think the time has come for a really big purge, though I might need some help with that!. Maybe I can persuade YorkshireLass to come for the weekend and help me be ruthless with the UFO boxes. I have also kept a lot of my clothes from when I was bigger - especially ones I had made - in the hope I could recut them to fit me now. Might need to revisit those in the light of being a Clear and Warm person some of them might be too cool colours for me. I guess there are some very outdated styles as well in the UFO box.

Anyway have paused long enough, back to moving sewing stuff.....

7pm and the room is now emptied. Its taken me about 4 hours of quite heavy work including moving two bookcases and their contents.

P.S. The photos show the emptied room. I don't have a very wide angled len on the camera, hence all the shots!

June Summary

Here are the garments I sewed during June. All but the shirt use TNT patterns.

Top left: Apple green and white poly knit in the Jalie 2449 crossover top pattern

Bottom left: McCall's 5522 in a lime woven cotton with no stretch.

Centre: Burda WOF wide leg pants (Oct 2008 #132) in suiting fabric with nice self weave stripe.

Top right: Simplicity 4076 knot front top in very soft lime cotton stretch knit.

Bottom right: Loes Hinse 5007 gore skirt in black/white stripe polyester.

Interesting to see that I have used 5 different pattern companies but still produced a cohesive wardrobe.

Sewing room planning

After I wrote that post I had a moan at DH about the room, and he came up to the room with me and started suggesting different layouts using the current furniture. He also said we might be able to change some of the furniture next year if that still didn't work.
(When we moved we just reused all the old furniture but in different combos so I currently have his old computer desk which I frankly don't love but its a solid and relatively expensive piece of furniture that goes nowhere else!)

I sat down on my seat and told him what worked for me and what was frustrating and he made suggestions as how I could have things set up going forwards. So I think that will be good. He has a good spatial brain, and set his hobby space up so it works very well for him.

I particularly love the convenience of having spare machine feet, scissors, seam rippers etc to hand in these little drawers and will try to get some more of these and have them wall mounted to free up workspace.

Sewing Room - before

I am very fortunate that in the new house I have a double bedroom as a dedicated sewing room. It is not decorated to my taste though and so although I go in there and work on my projects I don't really love it. I'm not very good at sorting things - I get inspiration and work on a project but need to be better at tidying up afterwards. Here's how the room looks at the moment. I have mismatched furniture (which will have to stay :-( ) and decor which will be altered next week - the border will be removed and the whole room painted pale green.

The room is a real state I can see, and I'm not sure why that is. I think in part becuase I don't love it. For a while at the start even after the stuff was in the room I didn't sew and then the desire to sew overcame my dislike of the room, but I think the lack of love there has meant I have not treated the room very well.

Anyway I am using the opportunity to mend my ways, and as everything gets moved out for the decorating work to be done (by someone else) on Monday and Tuesday, I am going to sort through everything as I move it back into the room over the following few weeks.

I am going to have to keep all the furniture as is even though it does not match because that is what I have already but I am going to have less stuff out everywhere which should make for a more pleasant room especially with the new colour.

The new colour the room will be is called 'Apple Mist' which I think is a great description. It should be a nice restful colour to work in.

Anyway its a bit embarrassing seeing the state of the room, so I am off to make a start.

Sleeve ease

Chatting with Jenni tonight about the sleeve and armhole and decided to measure them all. Very revealing I have got 3 inches of ease! Apparently about an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half is the normal amount. Which kind of explains why I've had so much trouble getting the sleeve in the armhole.

Sewing room getting redecorated

I have now got a date for when the sewing room is going to be redecorated - next Monday and Tuesday. We decided to get someone to do it for us rather than try to do it myself.
I'm very excited about the redecoration. I've been using the room but the previous owners had it as a teenage boy's room and its currently painted dark blue with a gaming border (dice, cards etc).
The border is coming off and the whole room is being painted pale green.

So this weekend I have to empty all the sewing stuff and small furniture out of it. I promised DH that I will sort everything out and the 'new' room won't look like a fabric explosion happened (as is the current situation). He didn't look convinced but figured it was still worth a try.

On that basis July is going to be dedicated to sorting out the sewing room more than actual sewing LOL. But it should make for a more pleasant sewing/creating environment in future.

JCC deadline - just

Well I'm not happy with the sleeves but there was a deadline so I just had to go for it is as.
As sewing time is now over I will do the contest photos showing the shirt as it is, and then when its done I will spend some time removing the sleeve, trimming the sleeve cap a little and reinserting it.

Jenni helped me make a muslin of this and we made the armhole neater but the sleeve wider in some places (I have chunky arms) which I am sure has not helped things, plus this is 100% cotton with no stretch or give whatsoever - quite dense - pinholes and unpicked basting show.

Patsijean left quite a comprehensive note on my previous post of resources to consult. I do have the Sandra Betzina book already, so I will have another go after the contest to make the sleeves look nicer. Thanks for the help Patsijean, I just timed out yesterday evening :-(

Urrrghg sleeves

9PM
Right now a sleeveless blouse seems like a great idea.
For one its boiling hot and two I am having great trouble getting a huge sleeve into a tiny armhole.
I gathered the excess and it just looked crazy.

Its a shame as the sleeves are made up complete with beautifully top stitched cuffs and everything.
Maybe its time for a coffee and then I'll come back and look at it again.

I put the blouse on and put the sleeve on separately, pushed the sleeve up so the armhole is in the right place, and the sleeve cap is way too tall for some reason I can't work out. Think it would ruin it to cut some off the top?

10:30pm Updated to add
Sleeves are in, I decided a slight gathered look is OK and echoes the bust gathering.
Have also made all the buttonholes, so just handsewing the buttons now and I'm done.

11pm
Latest update
Here's the shirt with all the buttons sewn on. Each cuff also has 2 buttons though they don't show in this photo.

JCC deadline

Elizabeth (the organiser of the JCC) has told us that we can sew until the end of June 30. By July 7th (one week later) she needs to receive photos. She will then leave two weeks for voting. So that's very exciting, and means I should be able to finish the sewing on Tuesday evening.

Just realised I have only cut out one cuff for the shirt. Hmm which sleeve shall it go on?
(Don't worry I have extra fabric, just lacking common sense!)

The shirt now has a collar stand plus collar, and looks quite good. Each sleeve is constructed (sans cuff) and has a continuous lap placket thingy which came out quite well and some basted pleats.

Tomorrow I will cut some more cuff pieces, construct and attach the cuffs, attach the sleeves, make the buttonholes and sew on the buttons.
P.S. sandwiches for tea and sewing until midnight I think!

Lime blouse in progress

Here is the McCall's 5522 blouse in progress. Apologies for the hanger shot, but the fit of the bodice is good both front and back.
Quite a bit more to do to finish, hopefully will make the deadline OK.

(edited to add that Monday is our wedding anniversary, and we're planning to go see a film so I don't think I'll manage a lot of sewing then, so Tuesday will be the last day plus any last chance for sewing. That may not add up to shirt + photos so we'll have to see how it goes.)

June Capsule Contest - may not manage it

I've been doing other stuff in my life, work (a lot of work), spending time with DH, household stuff and church stuff. And I guess the sewing projects have just not been my top priority so I don't know whether I will get done for the end of the month.
As you know I sewed 4 items already but the print top and stripe skirt don't really work together too well.

I have a woven lime blouse in progress but I think that may be quite a few sewing sessions from being finished, so may not make the deadline for the JCC.

I had a lovely time today on the church quiet day - a contemplative day with no talking which is very restful if you are a busy, chatty person (like me). So I found that very restoring and a good way to reconnect with God.

JCC so far

As you can see the stripe skirt and the green/white print top will be a bit much together!

Had hair trimmed tonight and tried to tidy up a bit, and a teeny bit of work, so not managed anything more on the shirt.

Bedtime shortly - bye bye evening.

Next project

Today we had a family party/BBQ with my parents to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. It was lovely to see them and other family members.

I think I will have go at cutting out a blouse in lime green cotton tomorrow as its too late to start tonight. I am going to go for McCall's 5522 pattern (see pic) as Jenni (YorkshireLass - http://sewyld.blogspot.com/) helped me to fit this on a muslin and it should therefore be fairly simple to get a good fit in it.

Stripe Skirt finished

The stripe skirt made from my TNT Loes Hinse pattern (modified) is finished and I am pleased with it. It does not work with the green and white wave print top though so I need to sew either another top or another bottom to complete the JCC.

This is my only Loes Hinse pattern and I have definitely got good use from it. I have shortened it by 4 inches and also drafted my own smaller/shorter gores which I use instead of the original. There is a 4 gore version too but I don't like that as much and have only made it once.

I have heard good things about other Loes Hinse patterns, though not used any myself. The shapes seem quite simple, so they seem to work for many body types, and are things which can be made up in different fabrics for different looks. It is a softer style of dressing which doesn't suit everyone, but the patterns are quick to sew, so I could see that having several could be a great way to get a custom wardrobe quickly and simply.