Einstein Dress!

   I'm super excited to share what I sewed up last night! It ended up way better than expected, though I had to alter the pattern a little to get it the way I wanted it.

   This dress's pattern is McCall's 6754, the black fabric I used on the sleeves and bodice is some lightweight jersey knit fabric I found on eBay for $4.50, and the bottom half is of some fabric I designed myself!
  

   When I first joined Spoonflower, the first design I uploaded was this vectorized image of Einstein. And seeing and working with the fabric in person, I can say it totally turned out better than expected! The background on the fabric (which is the organic cotton knit) was supposed to be black, but it turned out dark grey. That's my only complaint about it, and shortly after my fabric was shipped, Spoonflower actually started making the organic knit with "blacker blacks and brighter brights". My luck, right?

   I unfortunately didn't take any process shots of making the dress. I finished it in an hour or two, and I kind of really got focused on sewing. Sorry!

   So the only alterations I made were to shorten the skirt of the dress, because I can be my own worst critic and decided only to order a yard of the Einstein fabric just in case I somehow totally messed it up! So I shortened just as much as I had to to get all the pattern pieces I needed cut from it.

   I also made a little 'belt' out of the black jersey knit because how the skirt and bodice joined bugged me a bit since the colours did not match. It's a little hard to see in the photos, but it's just a strip of fabric that I sewed on to lay over the seam.

   The last thing I did was decided not to add the elastic strip to the dress. I felt the dress looked good enough without this and it would probably be more comfortable without a piece of elastic over the widest part of my stomach, haha.

   So that's it! That's my dress! And I love it! Here's a few more pictures to share. ;P

   So, what do you think? Pretty spiffy, right?

   What type of fabric do you think I should design next? ;D

   P.S. I posted a ton of photos of Einstein and my other little kittles, in case you are a cat fanatic like me and would like to see. :)

Pet Portraits

   I make out a little list of goals for myself to reach at the start of each month. It helps keep me from falling into a lazy slump!

   This month, one of the goals was to take, print, and frame portraits of each of my cats (well, all four of my cats and Lucifurr, who's not mine but lives with me. His owner can't keep him with him at the moment and I love little Lu lots, so pictures for him too!)

   My mom came up to visit and left early this month, she taught me to crochet and taught the cats about their new favourite toy: yarn! Especially yarn I'm trying to work with, haha. I decided all the photos should have a yarn theme.

   I know it seems like a silly goal, or a "crazy cat lady" thing to do, but this is my family. And one day all I'm gonna have of them is photos and memories, so those photos and memories are important to me. :)

   Here's why I'm posting: I took too many photos! I want to have two photos per cat, but I picked out the best of the shots and I still can't choose two each! So what do you think? Any shots stand out to you? Wanna help me out (or just look at how cute my little ones are)? ;P

   Each photo links to the same photo on my Flickr, but larger and without the little title on the photo.

   So, what do you think? Any gems here? Or any that just aren't good shots?

   Also, I know this is a 'sewing blog'. I've kind of more been using it as a creative outlet and a way to share my other creative outlets. Now including photos! But if you feel it doesn't fit, just let me know. I won't be offended, and I love feedback. I'd like to have a blog people like to visit!

My First Jacket!

     I finally, finally finished my very first jacket! I posted previously (kinda) about it before it was finished. :) It's certainly far from perfect but it's the largest project I've tackled so far and I'm happy with how it turned out. There may be things I go back and make better later, however.

     The pattern was McCall's 6531, and for it I picked out some very soft brown fabric for the lining (this wasn't part of the pattern, I just worked it in myself) and an army green kind of canvasy fabric. I am not yet very good at identifying different fabric types, so if you can tell me what these are specifically, I'd appreciate it!

    So, the first thing I did was make a muslin of my jacket. I didn't want to waste any of my fabric and I wanted a perfect fit! Making the muslin also let me know which of the pattern pieces I needed to cut extra of in order to make my lining.

   I stitched together my lining and was just super happy with how well it fit and how good of a job I had done so far! :D Yay me!

      I had a helper, of course. ;)

     After I sewed together the same pieces in the sturdier outer fabric, I was a little less excited. Once again, I picked a little poorly with my pattern. The armpits are kind of saggy? But that's okay. Purpose number one was personalized warmth, and it's achieved that and some. However, next time, I think I will look more closely for non-fitted sleeves/armpits.

    So, now I have a new jacket that may have some flaws I wish I had not made and a few errors in judgement as well, but I still love it. :) It's my first jacket and I'm sure it will keep me plenty warm!

    Mind the strong that I missed, haha. It apparently also doubles as a cat bed.

   Hope you guys enjoyed my blog! If you have any tips or pointed on sewing a better jacket, or sewing in general, I'd love to hear it. I am still fairly new to sewing. ;P

My Jo Ann's Adventure (and photos!)

   So, yesterday I got the fabulous idea to bus to Jo Ann's, which is fairly nearby where I live so not really a big deal in and of itself, at 7:30 in the evening with no jacket. Up here, 7:30 is already dark and cold this time of year. But since it had been such a pleasant and warm (well, not cold) day I figured it would be no deal.

   Of course, the bus was fifteen minutes late! Haha. But I got to Jo Ann's, struggled through the list of things to buy for my jacket pattern (McCall's 6531). Before this, all the patterns I've done have been fairly straight forward, not requiring much other than fabric and thread. My most adventurous up to this point has been jeans, with the zipper, jeans buttons, and interfacing. They were still fairly simple, but picking out things for this jacket was a bit of a challenge for me. What exactly constitutes a "large" snap, for example? They are not packaged in sizes of small/medium/large and for someone who has never bought or sewn snaps before, it would be nice to give an actual size or range of sizes! Hope mine are large enough!

  So, I was at Jo Ann's until about 8:30. They close at nine so I leave and look up my bus time. 9:20! Ugh! I should have brought a coat! I wait in Barnes and Nobles until nine and spend the rest of the time curling up in my shirt and regretting that I didn't charge my phone. Waiting twenty minutes for this bus in the cold without a jacket and with a dead phone is hell! But I got home just fine and immediately hopped into my kitty pajamas and crocheted and little bit before bed. :)

   This morning I woke up in the mood to take photos! I am definitely not ready to take photos of myself, so I decided to take photos of the goodies I got on my adventure last night. :)

   Kind of a mundane subject to take photos of, but hey. I'm not exactly thrilled that I spent $80 on all these so I might as well get some fun out of them! I am also very excited to get started on my jacket!