Lost my mind? Or just trying to stay occupied?

Since I actually finished the dress, I decided to start some new projects. 4 in fact. Maybe 5? Since I STILL haven't found a job, I also decided to take a sewing class at a local community class. Part of the class is making a jacket, so decided to use a pattern I already had, and a fabric for the lining I already had, but I still needed the outer shell fabric. I'm making the Simplicity 3628 (Bought on sale for ONE DOLLAR! Yay for deals!).

And I went to the Textile Discount Outlet, OMG, room after room, floor after floor of fabric, trims, embellishments, buttons, thread, and bunches of other stuff I don't even know the name of. =) Went in because the class instructor recommended we go there to buy muslin, and I figured, I have nothing better to do, lol. So, drove my sister to school, and then went to Textile Discount Outlet in Pilsen. Turned out it was only 6 blocks west of the school I used to teach at (who knew!?). And it is a MECCA. I only made it through 3 rooms, and I was SUPER glad I knew (sorta) what I wanted. I went in to buy (1) muslin, (2) fabric for the jacket, and (3) a knit fabric to make a wrap cardigan. The knit fabric was only $1.50 a yard! And they had colors that JoAnn definitely does not. I found a great light wool blend for the jacket in a dusty purple for just $4.95 a yard. I also found some cute trim that I will use for the jacket instead of ribbon (maybe..I'm still going back and forth on this). The muslin surprised me, being $2.50 a yard (seems sort of pointless, since you just use the muslin to make a mock up of the piece, and then cut all over again to make the piece out of the real fabric, so it made my $4.95 fabric $7.45 (my mathematical, rational, logical, Gujarati, cheapskate side says, what, why? LOL). Anyways, I needed the muslin for class, so I got it now. Then I went to JoAnn fabrics (because they had a sale on patterns), and bought 11 patterns! I bought this super cute dress pattern, but I'm keeping it a secret, because (1) I want it to be a surprise for V-Day and (2) I may or may not have enough talent to make it, so best to keep it under wraps =)
By the way, the wrap cardigan pattern is Simplicity 2603.

In my 11 pattern madness, I bought a great pattern for a plaid ruffle shirt, since they are so in, and I figured it would be cute during the summer with a denim skirt. I bought the plaid fabric at JoAnn (mainly because they had it, but also since I was there, and I had a coupon for 50 % off). The pattern is McCall's 5929, and the plaid fabric is really close to the print in the picture - red background and yellow, green, and blue stripes.

I wanted to cut and sew it quickly tonight, but turns out I bought the wrong SIZE pattern - who knew?? Suckage. So main plan for tomorrow is to get a new pattern, since I got the wrong size for a couple different projects, including the jacket, which I need to cut out of muslin by tomorrow at 6 pm! So much for being on top of it.

AND (if you're counting, that was only 4 projects above), the 5th project is a strip quilt - a diamond colorful one, the pattern and picture is downstairs and I am lazy. I will post pics of it when I get closer to making it =)

Finally finished something!

EEEEEKKK! I finally finished the dress! Yeehaa! =)




It is SO adorable! The pockets are cute, the colors came out great, and I heart it =)

I'm gonna wear it out to a birthday party on Saturday night, and it should be really exciting.

I also got excited about clay, since it was on sale, and reminded me of my childhood. So I bought some Sculpey clay (40 % off), originally chose red and pink for a competition, and then got white figuring it would be a good addition, then added yellow and green to make some springy pendants..and added light purple, because, well, I love purple. Lol! Ended up trying to make something that might match the dress, but no blue, lol. So ended up trying some white and yellow, decided to add some green, and ended up with some cute stuff:

These are going to be earrings in a few days...


And my favorite is going to be a pendant, because I really liked how the shape turned out:

I also made some in just yellow:

Not such a good pic - here are some of the individual pieces, I'm going to add gold or silver chain in between and make a necklace.

And I made one as a pendant -

It'll probably take me 3 months to make them into real jewelry, although it took me about a month to actually finish the dress, not bad, lol.

Now, if I can just finish the binding on my quilt, I'd actually be up to date =) Then I could start some new projects - like a cute swingy skirt for spring! (Then I can go look for matching shoes ;)