It's been a long long long while, BUT I am going to attempt a secret quilt. Details to come.

Salsa Saturday...

So a friend of mine and I decided to go to Nacional 27 for dancing (they do Salsa on Fridays and Saturdays), and I was going to make a dress, picked a pattern, and then went shopping with a friend and thought, heck, why not buy one. But nothing was quite right, however, found a great pair of shoes -

So figured, I already picked a pattern, let's just find a fabric to match the shoes!!!!

Decided on McCall's 6027.

Decided on View B

Funnily, the shoes she's wearing in the pictures are kinda similar to the ones I bought!

So far got done with a little more than half, still need to do the lining and finish up some of the grommets (the flouncy inset parts of the skirt). It's coming out pretty cute! Too bad we went to Nacional on Saturday, but when my sister gets back, I'm sure we'll try again =)

The front:



The back:



And zipper's are cool.

I'm still amazed that I bought a 4 yard long piece of fabric. Then I cut out pieces from a pattern. Then I sewed them together, and now I have half a dress! And it REALLY looks like a dress! Super cool.

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 ;)

Almost done

So, am hoping to wear the blue satin and black brocade dress for NYE. (So much for wearing it for the holiday party, lol) It's almost done. I kinda wish I'd chosen a black invisible zipper instead of a blue one, since the blue doesn't quite match..but it'll be hidden, and dark..lol. Just need to finish the armholes and ruffle. And it'll be a dress! Lol!

Now, what did I accomplish today?

I cut out 6 pieces out so far. There is a total of about 14 pieces. I cut out all the skirt pieces (except the pockets, because that is out of a different fabric). Tomorrow I'll cut out the blouse parts, which is a third fabric. I'll put together the skirt, and wait until Friday to get blue thread and put together the blouse. Then I'll put the WHOLE thing together to make a dress.

For the skirt I've picked a beautiful black brocade looking fabric:

I cut out the skirt pieces and labeled them (because this one is a little trickier since it has a pattern):

Then the same for the other side. Same picture, just LB and RB, lol. On to the black satin for pockets real quick tomorrow, and then blue satin for the top!

I'm also excited about making jewelry and a clutch. Yay. And, I'm going to make brownies at some point tomorrow, so I can send them to Denver for my brother. Busy day tomorrow =)

Ok, going back.

So, I had taken a bit of a break, after Horrors.

But, this weekend I have a holiday party to go to, and have nothing to wear! Lol. So I went back to my fave pattern, the dress. I want it to look like the one in the picture - the bluish purple color. But alas, my local fabric store does not sell damask fabric =( So I bought a beautiful black brocade, but they only had 1 yard, so I can make the skirt part in that. Then I'm going to make the top in a great blue satin. We'll see how it goes.

I also got inspired (and distracted by shiny things) in the bead aisle. I bought some pretty blue beads and then some turquoise beads, and some silver star/circles plus some chain and some earring backs, to make matching jewelry for my blue/black holiday dress. I'm glad I went on Monday, because it snowed Monday, stopped for a bit. Then snowed all morning Tuesday, snowed ice Tuesday evening, and then turned into rain (which I think finally stopped now, at 1:30 am!). So at least I have all my supplies (although I may need blue thread, but am waiting to get it, since I have a coupon and figured might as well save a little bit =)

Gonna start tomorrow. Pictures to come =)