A little bit of everything

Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg

So I'm back from the family vacation in Florida. We had a great time spending two weeks of fun. We had a week of making day trips to St Petersburg and Tampa and spending time with family, and four days at the parks in Orlando.

We were thrilled to be home again but now it is time to catch up with things. This week DH and I are trying to finish getting everything we need for the remodeling of one of the bathrooms, the fun starts on Friday. I also have to start thinking about school supplies...where did the summer go?

I got a chance during vacation to do some knitting. I finished the back of the Square-Bodice Pullover from Interweave Knits Summer 2003. It is my first true lace knitting and it is going slow, when I get confident and stop counting my stitches I end up frogging.





I will be doing only knitting this coming week while the work in the bathroom is being done (family is doing the work and so the sewing room will be a guest room). I do however plan on doing some tracing of patterns and hopefully some cutting. Yesterday I started on Burda WOF 5/2008 121. I am going to eliminate the skirt wrap like Tany and Karen among others have done. I will make mine in a solid red jersey I bought from Kashi a while back.

I leave you with a couple of pictures from our road trip...yes we drove over two days and it wasn't too bad. We got to listen to two Terry Pratchett books, we all like his books and this way we can also have our own book club discussions. Carpe Jugulum was the favorite where we are entertained by the three witches that are regular characters in his books.

Pattern Review Simplicity 4076

I believe at least one of these views has been made by everyone in the sewing community. I chose the scoop neck top with cap sleeves because I needed a pattern that took one yard to make and I really liked this design (I actually bought this pattern for this view). This was a stable poly knit from my stash that came from EmmaOneSock a long time ago. I like the way it turned out and I will make it again with another one yard cut that I have.

Crabs, birthday, baseball and fireworks

We had a fun-filled weekend. My brother and his wife came to visit and we made the most of our time together.



On Friday night we had crabs. It had been a long time since I've had crabs and enjoyed them very much as you can tell from what was left.



We also celebrated my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday mami!



On Saturday we went to the Bowie Baysox game. We love these games, you get great seats for reasonable prices, great stadium with easy, free parking and a firework display. What more can you ask for?



Speaking of fireworks, my brother showed me the fireworks setting in my camera and I had fun taking pictures. I think I got a few good ones.

New Look 6723 Pattern Review

This past weekend was my brother's wedding so I finally got to watch the bride wearing the dress I made. She was thrilled with it, exactly what she wanted, she said, it sure fit her mood. She look radiant and happy and I'm glad the dress contributed it a small portion.

This pattern it's a simple princess seamed dress with a gathered skirt. She chose the sweetheart neckline version and no sleeves. The fabric is a beautiful silk shantung. The bodice is lined and the skirt interlined with cotton batiste. I added bra stays and a waist stay.

I made several muslins to get the fit right, some of it was done by looking at pictures and some by traveling back and forth. The toughest is always the bodice and I talked about my alterations in a previous post. All the changes were done to fit her body I found no fault with this pattern. The only mentionable is that the length is on the short side, on my SIL who is not very tall, the hemmed length hit her just below her knees.

I had fun making silk flowers to give her the option of adding them at the waist. She chose not to wear them but plans on adding them to her straw hat when he goes on her honeymoon next week :-)The single rose was made using the technique described in High-Fashion Sewing Secrets by Claire B Shaeffer. I loosely gathered the fabric to obtained the open rose effect and then I strung some beads and added it to the center.



These I made following Laura's excellent tutorial. I combined the silk shantung with a beautiful but horribly hard to work with silk chiffon.



Here are a couple of snapshots of the wedding day. My dress is Butterick 6582, and I was very happy with it. My brother wore a traditional Cuban guayabera, the temperature in New York City was in the high 80's with very high humidity and the church was not air conditioned :o