Pretty in pink. {Colette 1015 Violet}

Greetings pretty little robin’s eggs. A neighborhood robin nicely made a nest down low enough to the ground to give us a vantage point, so I’ve now seen robin’s eggs in their pristine, unhatched form. They’re darker than I expected!

So what do I have for you today, in this bleak blogger-less world? None other than a new garment to reveal! I’ve finished my sample of Colette’s Violet! I made up a straight size 18 (no pattern adjustments) from some lovely pink voile. The fit is a bit off, but not so much that it’s unwearable!

The Negroni shirt–version 1!

At last! Mr. Bug and I managed to get a few snapshots of the finished Negroni shirt! I had to darken most of the images significantly so that the details show a bit more. Also: the secret to getting Mr. Bug to pose… let him play with the hound during the photo shoot!

 

Colette. Sencha {minus} neckline view 1 {plus} Crepe neckline view 2 = new awesome shirt!!

I am the master of headline writing, don’t you think?? So here’s the deal. I recently finished (sort of) my long-neglected Beignet. This (as yet unpictured) Beignet is made of purple wool and has yellow buttons. That may change, the buttons are causing me angst. To ease the angst and hopefully make the buttons look better, I thought that making a nice new Sencha from my giant stash of voile was the correct next step (click here to see my first Sencha, made of a cotton knit!) I mean, the first step to fixing crooked buttons is obviously making a coordinating blouse, right?

I went with view 1 – the basic neckline. The results were unfortunate. High necklines are not my friend. Not unless I’m going for the droopy boob look and/or the slightly choked vibe. I found myself in the odd position of having to fix the neckline of my Sencha in order to get the buttons on my Beignet to look good. Sewing is such a strange hobby, isn’t it? I was inspired by my Crepe wrap dress, which has similar sleeves to the Sencha – cut as part of the bodice. I used a nice piece of pink chalk to draw a sweetheart neckline right onto the Sencha! And look! It worked! Gosh, I look happy, don’t I?

Men’s shirts. Clearly conceived by loonies…

OK. Perhaps a bit harsh, but I started work on the Colette Negroni today (I know, I know… first I jumped the gun on the Crepe sewalong, and now on Peter’s shirt sewalong…) and I am completely in awe of whomever thought up the crazy way of attaching the yolk. Also, symmetrical pockets and topstitching seem to be basic torture methods… Here’s what I’ve got after an afternoon and evening of intermittent sewing (what I’ve got, shirt-wise. I skipped the photo session taking pictures of all the steam burns on my hands. But I’ve got those too, my little chickadees…)

The Alexander dress… a border print Parfait.

Morning kittens! I went and made another dress again. I seem to be doing dresses in two’s… here it is! My first border print!

Finally… Parfait completed, modeled, left in a heap in the sewing room…

Not really a heap. Just going to for the shock factor. Good news for Snug Bug readers… I treated myself to a tripod that works… although I think my previous hair clip tripod was ingenious. For whatever reason (akin, I’m sure, to the phenomena that makes computers work when tech support shows up) a lot of the lighting and focus problems that I was having before went away with the new tripod! I still took most of the photos in bad inside light, onaccounta the sun setting at 2:30 p.m. or thereabouts. Hopefully, my photos will be less frightening over the coming months… But enough about that, here’s my finished Parfait. Shockingly, I like the dress and the fabric. More on that (and pictures!) after the jump.

Revisiting the Parfait.

Back to sewing. I made my alterations to the Parfait and am still not satisfied… to refresh, here’s the fine photo of the bodice of muslin #1 all laid out with my changes marked – remove the gap from the underarm area and add some length to the bodice in order to drop the empire seam. I know this photo is a crowd pleaser and am particularly happy with how this will show up in everyone’s blog readers, all cheerful and granny bra-esque!

The Colette Parfait, a muslin.

Hey! Remember this post? The one with the giant orange and pink striped turtleneck and a yet-to-be made dress to go over it by my recent pattern-designer-obsession? A few of you got it right – I’m making the Colette Parfait, a cute little dress with straps, buttons and what should be a flattering fitted midriff piece. Here’s my first muslin (sans-skirt – what’s the point until I get the bodice to fit?)

Mini bloomers… take two.

Alrighty… earlier this week I groused about the early sunsets cramping my picture taking style and I may have mentioned something about low light, home-made movies… just wait ‘till after the jump…

I made my second pair of bloomers – these ones are actually meant for me to wear! I altered the pattern a bit and sewed this version up in a knit (BTW… bloomers work well in knits, too!) The fabric is from the same Oliver + S line that I used for the pink ones… just yellow and stretchy!

I raised the waistband about 4” by slashing horizontally right above the hip notches and adding some wax paper (marked in pink below.) I also graded the pattern up horizontally by about 3” total by adding .75” to each pattern piece (marked in green below.) A note on the pattern sizing – my hips and waist are about 3” larger than the Colette size 18 measurements. BUT the pattern printed out a little on the small side – the test patch was 3.75 x 3.75”, not 4 x 4” like it should have been. So for anyone working through the pattern alterations in their head, I hope that’s helpful.

Mini-bloomers. Take one.

Here’s just a quick pic of some adorable mini-bloomers (the Colette ones. I swear, I’ll move on to a new pattern designer eventually…) I made these as a sample for the shop where I’m working. Aren’t they they cutest things you’ve ever seen?

Yes, sencha…may I have another?

Another day, another shirt. Four more episodes of Buffy. Today, I present my first version of Colette’s Sencha! I wasn’t so sure about this shirt, thinking that it might not be the most flattering cut for me. I like the finished product, though, and will definitely add to the rotation (with a few tweaks, of course…) Without further ado, here’s the shirt, worn with a denim skirt, boots and cable-knit knee socks. Probably how I’ll wear it the most, although it looks cute with jeans, too!

Beignet–the fit so far…

I had high hopes of a more complete post, but not only is my Beignet not ready for primetime, but this ridiculous daylight savings time is ruining my picture-taking mojo. Get ready for eight months of blog photos that resemble home-baked sex tapes. All blurry and bad lighting. Or at least, that’s what I imagine them to be. Not that I’ve seen one.

I’m slaving away on my Beignet. See? I rhyme! The picture taking I’ve managed has been spotty. I started out with a straight grading up of the pattern. I needed to add 3” to the size 18 at the hips and waist in order to get to my measurements, so I added 3/8” to each pattern piece (4 pattern pieces X 3/8” = 1.5”, X 2 = 3”.) Here’s a photo of the graded up pattern pieces**, I marked in the leftmost pattern piece in red where I cut and added the wax paper…

**Eagle-eyes will spy that the two left pieces are clearly graded up a bit more than the two right pieces. That’s because this photo is of the SECOND round of alterations, post muslin #1…

We have a winner!

Congratulations to Elle, blogger at It’s a Sewing Life and owner of the Jenna Belle Designs Etsy shop where one can find adorable little clutches and handbags! With flowers! And buttons! And monograms! Check out her blog! Hopefully she’ll come back and show us her finished mystery Colette Pattern…

For everyone else, thanks for sharing your photos! And SPECIAL thanks to everyone who acknowledged my love of the platypuses, although I have to admit, I still have no idea what one looks like. Not one actual photo of a live platypus. C’mon people…

After the jump, links to finished Colette patterns that were left in the comments…

Colette Crepe. Best dress pattern ever.

Well, at least this week! I finished my Crepe and am completely in love with it. Most exciting is that this is a straight-from-the box pattern – I did zero pattern alterations. I didn’t even drop the vertical dart point like I thought I would. I wanted to see how it went making the dress exactly as drafted. I probably will make a few changes for the next version, but I’m very, very happy with this version.

Cinnamon and crepes.

Back to my guessing game… Laurwyn, Karen, LAP and Tanit-Isis all get gold stars. Tasia gets TWO stars. Crepe is definitely in my future! And possibly Cinnamon as well. And yes, I was SUPER excited to see Gertie announce her Crepe sewalong.

Muslin accomplished, looks sort of nice as a shirt, doesn’t it??
 

What’s a girl to do? A multiple choice quiz.

OK folks, this working four hours a day is seriously impeding my, you know, messing around and blogging time. I’m low on blog subject matter. I was leaning towards a pictorial retrospective of Lucy the hound’s 30 months of life, but instead decided to head down guessing game lane. This time with some help. Here’s the hint. What am I making?