A Spur of the Moment Small Sewing Spree

Thanks to the holiday I have a three day weekend to enjoy.  I decided that I was going to use some of my time to do some sewing to celebrate the end of the year!  I've had a few projects that I wanted to get done, but before the holidays I was too busy with holiday prep, work and life in general to actually get to it.  Now was the perfect time!

Late yesterday afternoon I got all the fabric cut out for a top, a sweatshirt and a cardi.  Then took my little stack of fabric down to my sewing room and set to work.  The first one I tackled was the Linden Sweatshirt from Grainline Studios.  This one has been on my to do list for approximately forever.  WHY OH WHY have I not made it before?!?!  Oh! Right!  Probably because I waited until November to actually buy it and then had no time for sewing (see above mentioned excuse).  I did add almost three inches to length to accommodate my longer torso and a bit extra out of personal preference.

I picked up the fabric on my way home from work on Friday when I popped into the local Fabricland for something else I needed.  It's ponte de roma and from the clearance bin that I thought was a bargain at regular price for clearance.  I was exceptionally pleased to find it was 50% and my sweatshirt fabric cost me a whopping total of $7.70!

Having finished my Linden (which there will be many more of I'm pretty sure!!!!) I decided to make the top next.  It's a... Molly Top.  Of course it's a Molly!  Do I make any other tops these days?  No.  I didn't think so! Ha ha!  I loved my v-neck version so much that I decided this one should have a vee as well!  This super soft, drapey fabric was from an independent shop out in Western Manitoba, The Fabric Snob.  I don't think she has this particular colour in stock right now - or at least I didn't see it at quick glance - but she's got loads of other gorgeous florals and her 10 oz solids are my go to for solid knits now, I love them so much!

I didn't get this one done last night but had set it at side when I got to the point of needing to do the neckline and the hems, so it didn't take me very long this morning to zip through finishing up this one and moving along to my third make of the weekend, a Blackwood Cardi.  I've been wanting to make another since I made my first Blackwood.  I even have another cardi that I'd sewed up about a month ago from a different pattern that's waiting to be taken apart and fixed up using the Blackwood because it couldn't even come remotely close to comparing with fit of Helen's pattern and I know that until I fix it there is no way it'll ever get worn.  I sewed up a long Blackwood for my daughter for Christmas and had some serious envy.  Good thing she wears a vastly different size than I do or she might not have actually got her Christmas present.  I was going to do a long one for myself, but alas when I bought the lightweight melange knit from Fabricland I was thinking short version and bought fabric accordingly.  Oh well.  Next one!

The other thing I did was to print off some fun labels for my newest makes!  Santa brought me a new toy for Christmas - a Silhouette Cameo 3 and it is SO MUCH FUN!!!!! It's like a label maker on steroids and then some.  I've been walking around speculatively eyeballing everything in sight for potential decals, labels and fancy cut paper.  During the holidays Patterns for Pirates put out a free file for clothing labels and I knew I had to use them.  I'm particularly fond of Size Sassy and Size Unique!  Take that society!  I refuse to conform to your ridiculous notions of sizing.

So not bad for a spur of the moment small sewing spree!  It felt great to be getting sewing done.  It also felt great to reduce the pile of fabric by three - goodness knows I've a long way to go before I make a slight dent in the stash, but it's a start.  (It turns out when I don't have time to sew, I just start amassing fabric at a pre-apocolyptic preparation worthy level instead.)

Well, it smells like my now traditional New Year's Eve roast beef is going to need some attention soon - it's been cooking for two and a half hours now and it's making me sooooo hungry!  Time to get the Yorkshire puddings prepped and start peeling potatoes I think!

I'd like to wish you all a very happy (and safe) New Year's Eve.  I hope that tomorrow's start of 2018 brings with it a year of happiness and peace for you and yours.

Wrapping Up One Week One Pattern

I'm not even going to bother with making excuses for not blogging or pretend that I might get back on some semblance of schedule with it.  But I'm here for the time being and I wanted to do a wrap up of sorts of my first experience participating in the One Week, One Pattern challenge, which is just as it sounds.  You choose one pattern for one week and either wear different versions of it, or style it differently or a mix of both.

The challenge was hosted by Sheona of Sewisfaction this year and if anyone can persuade someone to want to take part in something Sheona, with her bubbly, cheerful personality is just the person to do it.  I love her vlog posts and instagram stories and feeds.  She is down to earth and so easy to relate too.  So when she announced she was hosting this year, I couldn't help but join in.

I had a hard time deciding which pattern I was going to use at first, because there's a few I love.  I thought of making six more Blackwood cardi's, or maybe a few new Idyllwild Tees.  Maybe a couple more Anna dresses (but how would that work with jeans and steel toes five days out of the week?).  Finally I settled on the Sew Over It Molly Top.  I had five of them already, so I figured I could just double up.  Then I ended up making a Molly Dress the week the challenge was starting, and then another Molly top the evening of the second last day.  I already have two more planned.  Molly is definitely proven to be my go to tried and true pattern. It's such a simple make and I can whip one up in a little over an hour from cutting out to hemming.  The fit is spot on with just an inch and a half added for length, so it's a no brainer for me.  It makes me feel great being able to finish something easily these days when sewing time is so limited and I love wearing them.  It's definitely my number one "TNT" pattern.

I've been on the fence about the Molly Dress since the City Break E-book came out to be honest.  I have definitely wanted to make one, but worried that it would look like a nightgown, or just too shapeless on my figure.  I have some gorgeous Ponte that I'd ordered from Stitchy Bee a while back that I wanted to make a dress with, but no way wanted to waste it if the dress was a disaster.  So I bought some fabric from the local Fabricland on my way home from work one day.  Unfortunately I misread the price and it ended up hella expensive, especially for a potential dud.  Ooops!  I decided to forge ahead with it though with the intention that if it was a nightmare I could chop off the bottom and have a really soft and cozy Molly top.  I LOVE the dress.  It gets all the heart eyes from me.  I have no clue what the fabric is - it's soft and feels like a cross between a really fine sweater knit and a brushed poly.

I documented my week on Instagram - most photos taken with my tripod and remote on my phone, and the weekday ones were taken at 5:30 in the morning, so photo quality is a bit dodgy, but hopefully you won't mind my less than glorious photography skills.  Here's how my week went:

Day One - the brand new Molly Dress

 Day Two - a Molly tee - this one is probably my least favourite Molly.  It's a fairly recent make, and it's ok, but there's very little drape to the organic cotton jersey and it turns out it's not as great a colour as I thought it was when I bought the fabric three years ago, but it's great for kicking around in.

Day Three - one of my early Molly's.  I think this was the second one I made last year.  Unfortunately I forgot to add any length and it's shrunk so it's on the verge of too short for me to wear comfortably.  But it has silver threads along the edges of the stripes which makes me ridiculously happy, so I still wear it more often than I should and then spend the day tugging it down.

Day Four - My first Molly.  Oh how I love this top!  It's so cozy and soft.  It's made from a sweater knit and it's only issue is that somehow a mad case of static cling has got it's clutches on it and no matter how I wash or dry it I can not get rid of the cling from hell.  I've tried everything I can think of so if you have any great solutions, please let me know!

Day Five - A recent Molly.  I totally meant to make a cardi with this fabric.  But then I felt like I was in the doldrums with my sewing and had nothing to wear, so it became a Molly instead.  I may or may not live in this top.

Day Six - this was my third Molly.  At first I thought this jersey from Minerva Crafts was way to drapey and that the top looked way too flowy, but it took mere moments of wearing it for it to become one of my favourites.  It's such a great top for work.  Not too heavy, and a great layering piece.  It gets a lot of wear!  (let's just ignore the wrinkles - it probably should have had a date with an iron before I took a photo in it.)

Day Seven - last but not least my newest Molly top.  This is a short sleeved version.  I thought I'd mix things up and make a v-neck on this and now I'm obsessing about a long sleeve v-neck Molly.  I could live in this top every day if it wasn't weird to do so.  

In retrospect, I suppose choosing the Molly Top wasn't the most challenging thing given I really do wear them all the time, especially during the work week.  It felt almost like cheating it was such an easy choice! As I mentioned I'm planning a Molly Dress with the Ponte from Stitchy Bee and I have a great monochromatic grey floral jersey that I just ordered on a black friday sale from The Fabric Snob that is pretty much screaming at me to become a v-neck long sleeve Molly, so clearly I'm not done with the pattern just yet!   

I have some other projects I'd love to tell you about in the near future, but not sure when I'll get the chance to be back to blogging, so who knows when it'll happen or if it'll happen.  I sometimes feel like so much time has past that there's not much point in writing about it anymore.  So I guess I'll just play it by ear and see you when I see you.  In the meantime, I hope this finds you all happy, healthy and enjoying life to it's fullest!

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