Another Lawn Dress

What is a Lawn Dress?

It is a dress that you make with high expectations  but, in the end, it just doesn't meet the standards of polite company.

The dress that ends up on your back while you mow the lawn or weed in the garden not while flirting with sun tanned young gods at the beach.

I've made one before (see here for that post) and knew I could never make the same mstakes twice.

Once was enough!

A couple of weeks ago I decided it was about time that I made a dress but this time I would make one under the expert tuteledge of a real garment sewing teacher.  She shall remain anonymous as my failure should not reflect on her teaching skills.

We used Kwik Sew pattern 3151 and I chose a wonderful homespun orange striped fabric. 

 Don't they look nice together?

I love orange and thought the V-neck would show off a little bit of cleavage.

In the three classes we meaured ourselves, pin fit the pattern, sewed and clean finished the seams, inserted a long zipper, did a blind hem and made those cute little bust gathers.

 I waited until I got home to try it on.

BIG mistake. 

I should have tried on the bodice earlier in the process so that I could have seen that the arm holes are huge for me and the bust gathers too little for even for my modest boobs.

I could try to re-work the bodice as I have lots of this fabric but, as I was taking pictures of this dress on me for this post, I realized that the color looked awful on me.

I mean I looked like a diseased pumpkin.

Not a pretty sight... sort of stomach turning if you must know.

So now I have another Lawn dress... for mowing the lawn and weeding the garden and not for strolling on the beach during the hot summers here.

Again, if you see me in this dress in my front yard, just keep going and pretend not to know me.  You will be doing us both a favor.

On the other hand....I have some lovely white linen with little grey swirls on it that could be another version of this dress...hmmmm.

I'll keep you posted.

Sew Crafty Houston Craft Swap

Look at all this loot!

Need I say more?

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Today I had the distinct pleasure of delivering a wole trunk load of kid suitable craft supplies to Sew Crafty Houston so that the Mothers and Daughters Craft Club could create craft kits for the Star of Hope Mission. Sarah, the owner, thinks the stuff I brought doubled what they had already collected. The kits are being made up on Monday and I am sure the kits will be much used by the kids.

The neatest part about all this is that this project was dreamed up by the kids in the club. They wanted to do something for the homeless kids and, since they are way too young to volunteer their services (aged 6 - 8 years old) the kits were what they decided to do.

What a great idea! I am scheming with some folk out here in Kingwood to provide a similar service to the kids at the battered women's shelter or to other organizations helping displaced families locally. If we can properly assess the need I hope we can make this a regular project. My concept is to take orphan quilt blocks and/or other stash fabrics and make tote bags for the kids, fill them up with craft supplies and a quilt. I think most kids would enjoy having such stuff during a dificult time.

I'll let you know if this all works out. Wish me luck!

And for those of my friends up North... so sorry about the snow but you can be a little grateful that its a weekend so you can fully enjoy it!

Sew Crafty Houston

I dropped by Sew Crafty Houston today to drop off my Morsbags for their charity sewing effort. They are giving the bags to a local shelter for their clients and to a local food bank. Both receivers seem like great places with clients who can really use these bags.

I must have spent over an hour there just chatting with Sarah. The place is so energizing and, even though it was realtively quiet, you could feel the creativity oozing out of the walls. I got a chance to see the projects for the Kids Can Sew classes she will be hosting this year. These kids will be able to make whole outfits by the time they are finished with the classes. Even the very first project (a notions bag and a supplies bag) teaches usable skills, besides just sewing straight lines.

I also got a chace to see a Gocco unit and what it can do. I have been intrigued by these mini silk screen machines and will probably take a class there to learn more about it. The size of the screens is about 7" x 5" so you are limited in size but I think the toughest part will be deciding what to print rather than worrying about size restrictions.

I followed up with lunch at Niko Niko's before heading home for grocery shopping and a nap. What a great day to spend a Saturday - sharing a love of sewing, eating fun food and napping through a horror movie. I wonder if I will get the incentive to get that trim painted before Gustav raises his ugly head? You never know :-)

Trouble Over

The floor is completely installed and I really do love it. The flooring I chose is very rustic looking and should hide any problems that may come up with wear and tear. Heck, you can even see the pretend floor sander marks that I had on the floor of a 100+ year old house I owned may years ago. I have not moved back in all the furniture yet as I think I need to re-paint the trim. No matter how careful you are with this kind of installation you will get nicks and rubs on the trim. That should not take too long and I hope to get it done this weekend. What do you think?Until my knees are ready for the trim painting, I will be making Morsbags for Sew Crafty Houston to give away. There is a different 'Craft for a Cause' every month and these bags are ideal for using up spare fat quaters. This is an easy sew and the instructions are by someone who knows how to sew. I happen to have a lot of Texas themed fabric just looking for a new purpose than sitting in my stash.

Have a great weekend!!

Sew Crafty Houston Visit

I visited Sew Crafty, Houston's first sewing lounge, on Saturday afternoon. Its located in an old stone building in Houston's historic Heights neighborhood. There is very little off-street parking but the walk in the midday heat did not dampen my spirit. When I went up to the door, the sign said closed but there was a door bell so I rang it anyway. The closed sign was up as a class was in session but I think they will change that policy. Inside I discovered a completely renovated interior with white washed walls and bright lighting. I brought some ASG membership brochures with me and they were promptly put out for browsers. They are planning on monthly adult crafting evenings to include leal libations and a monthly sewing/crafting for charity event. The owner, Sarah G,, gave ASG a wonderful little write-up in her weekly newsletter so I hope we will be able to complement each other.

A class was just finishing up. The students were half a dozen young women who were embellishing little two pocket aprons they had just sewn in their introduction to sewing class. The sewing classroom had Janome's Sew Precise sewing machines with lots of space for spreading out your materials. There was another room with tables for other crafting. In this case, it was covered with aprons, ribbons, buttons and other embellishments that the class was working on. There is a lounge area that really tempted me to stay and knit. There is a kitchen as well which suggests that more 'water intensive' crafting is also a possibility for classes. The entrance area has a small selection of patterns, fabrics and accessories. I liked their little basic sewing kit that included a hem gauge... something I lose a couple of times a year.

I saw some patterns from 'Betsy Ross Patterns' and decided to try one as I had heard good things about them. First of all, production values are very high in this line of patterns. Each black envelope had a lovely black and white photo of the project. The instructions come in a nice booklet and the patterns themselves are printed on heavy duty white paper. Everything is explicitly stated and it appears that it would be hard to go wrong with these patterns. I picked up the simple tote bag pattern and, after a couple of changes, I came up with a pretty good bag. The pattern does not include a lining so I added one. The handles seemed pretty flimsy so I added some cording to them. I also added a hook to hold my keys so that I don't have to dig them out of the bottom of my bag and also added an exterior pocket embellished with an old embroidery of mine. Here's how it turned out (in all its wrinkled glory):

The exterior is an old piece of heavy weight linen and the lining is an old piece of dupioni silk. The praise for these patterns is not misplaced when it comes to the quality of the patterns but the projects are very, very simple even at the higher difficulty levels. I also wonder why anyone in this day and age would continue using 5/8" seam allowances when half inch are easier to do using your presser foot as a guide. The lack of a lining or pockets in this pattern are real negatives if a beginner wants to produce a high quality product. I may try another of these patterns but not until more interesting patterns are developed.