Simplicity 8146: Hawaiian Sundress

Back to School season is around the corner but we are still in summer mode. New batik summer dress. The pattern: Simplicity 8146. I can’t get over all the cute matchy-matchy on this one! Misses’, child and doll- this pattern has it all. Instructions: For the doll they want you to use the same construction method as the child/miss. Ok […]

2022: The Year I Became a Quilter

I have to chuckle at the title of this post because it’s true. 2022 was the hardest Test in my personal life so inevitably it affected my Sewing goals. I had a great start to 2022 in garment sewing, including creating a personal sloper- and then suddenly Sewing took a different direction. Let’s quickly review my 2022 goals and if I made […]

Goodbye March! Kermes Dress

Woo hoo! My Kermes dress is complete! I’m really glad I decided to focus more attention on self-drafting because this dress is my favorite one yet. I like it so much I want to make another version. I’m really pleased with the successful draping and also the last minute decision to install boning. Kermes has a lot of heft and […]

Self-drafting Shenanigans

A big goal of 2022 is to continue to learn draping and patternmaking. Surely I own a princess seamed bodice somewhere in my pattern hoard, but I am finding that draping is much faster than flat pattern adjustments from a commercial pattern. Mandy the Mannequin is my twin, so I don’t have to do any SBAs, shorten the bodice length, […]

Simplicity 1873: Monet Dress

Well my January project is finally done….in February! Lol I put my holiday reading into practice on this dress, with lots of “firsts” in couture techniques. Committed to using stash fabric, I used stash brocade, which was a win…until it wasn’t. The dress is a “Monet.” Now this certainly isn’t a dig on Monet, just that the dress looks much different […]

Celebration Dress: That’s a Wrap!

Continuing with our contest tradition, The Viking and I had quality bonding time while taking pictures of the Celebration Dress. We shot “on location” in rural PA during our Thanksgiving weekend visit to my in-laws. It was about 34 degrees with a blustery frigid wind but that didn’t stop us from having a fun time. The Celebration Dress is so […]

Anniversary Contest Celebration Dress: A Long Tale

My inspiration for the Anniversary Contest comes from the Dolce & Gabanna Summer 2021 Runway, first seen in the Inspiring Fashion Forum on PatternReview. I wrote about this back in December and since I’ve been into quilting lately I knew this designer dress would be perfect for a Barginista Fashionista challenge. My Celebration Dress is my favorite thing I’ve made […]

Quick Update

Hi everyone! Just popping in to give a quick update on all my projects so far. Halloween quilt: I was finally able to take home the Halloween quilt top from my (former) workplace where it was on display.  I had hoped it would be put on the longarm at work but I will need to finish this one at home. […]

Wiksten Shift Dress

*This blog post is a long time coming- I apologize in the delay! For some reason I was unable to get any good pics of this Wiksten pattern over the last couple of weeks. After working on small projects it’s time to sew garments again!  I really like having a break where I don’t have to worry about fitting. Small […]