19 years and counting

I am one year away of having spent half my life (we dated for 4 years, engaged for 1, married 19) with my husband, wow. To celebrate on Sunday we went to a wine bar; we love this place, it is comfortable with good food and delicious wine. Yesterday we went with the kids to the National Zoo; because of the high temperatures (90's) we concentrated in looking at the indoor exhibits. We managed to do all we wanted and came home to rest and get ready for the week.

My crochet dress is almost done, I'll post a picture soon. I hope to make a quick top this week, I'll see how my week goes.

Keep cool and keep on sewing!

Simple designs

Burda 4/2011

Recently the trend has been for extremely simple, and easy to sew garments. Burda Style magazine is showing this trend as well as all the pattern companies. While I enjoy sewing complicated construction garments I love the look of simplicity, in the right fabric they bring a certain elegance. These designs sometimes mask our body shape but I'm okay with that I like wearing different silhouettes. From the latest Burda I like this elastic waist pants, I know some of you will gasp at elastic waists, but how comfortable to wear these pants will be in the summertime!

Burda 6/2011

This simplicity reminds me of Claire McCardell designs. A while ago while trying to find out more about her I purchased this book; I bought mine from The Strand in NYC using their website, but not at the current prices! I think I payed less than $15 including shipping. I have enjoyed reading about her life and designs, and I just pulled the book out again for inspiration.

I'm in the middle of a non-garment sewing project that I won't be able to share with you for a while, but soon it will require hand sewing so I will be able to start on a new garment...You can bet it will be simple!

Vogue 1224 Tracy Reese dress

This weekend I finished this knit dress and wore it to work today. I love this dress but I had the hardest time getting a picture that showed what I was seeing;it is a grey and humid day, my hair is "on the frizz" and the camera did not want to be my friend. Anyways on to the review.

This dress has a high waist, I added my usual 1.5 in in the Big Four patterns and it sits above my natural waist. It is a very easy dress to construct what takes the longest is inserting the elastic and the elastic/ties. I will be shortening the length of the elastic in the neckline to close it in some. I also addded 4-5 in of length to the skirt (I'm 5' 6");the camera angle makes the hem look to be below my knee but it is really mid knee on me.



As you can see I added the lining in the skirt as instructed since my rayon knit is lightweight. I had a chance to play with my serger and reproduced the picot edge finish Ann showed in her blog.

I know my bright print prevents you from seeing a lot of details but this pattern is super cute!

Another almost identical pose...I need to be more creative when posing

Meeting up with Andrea

Photo courtesy of Andrea

So what is better than spending the day at Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival with a knitting buddy? Spending the day with a knitting buddy who also crochets and sews! Conversation was never lacking!!

Andrea and I met for the first time at Philadelphia's Pattern Review weekend a year ago, and we made plans to get together this year at Sheep and Wool. We both had similar plans as to what we were looking for so we kept each other in line ;-) The weather cooperated and we had a gorgeous day. She drove down with her knitting group and they had set up a space under the trees so we had a relaxing spot to meet and rest and chat.

This year the festival was the biggest by far, many more vendors than in previous years, I agree with Andrea that Ravelry has had a lot to do with spreading the word about this fantastic event.

I had commented on her blog about Burda 7866 and how I couldn't find it locally, so she brought me a copy! She was wearing her version of this pattern, and I really liked it. She showed me how she treated the neckline, clever girl!, I believe she'll share on her blog later.

I'm almost done with my son's pjs and I look forward to working on the Vogue 1224, but first I have to finish working on my planters since I bought my herbs and annuals yesterday.

Happy Mother's Day!!

What I'm working on

I am really excited how the skirt of the Vogue Knitting mag winter 06/07 is coming along. The yarn I'm using Gedifra Mayra is slightly heavier weight than the yarn that the pattern calls for so I played with gauge swatches to determine hook size and the size that I needed to chain for.

Below is a picture of the design,



I'm working on pjs for my youngest son, who after outgrowing his present pjs decided that I could make him a pair. So I'm using a pattern from my stash. The fabric is a cotton jersey from Fabric Mart.



I also have the pattern ready to cut Vogue 1224. I think you probably have seen this pattern made up by quite a few sewists and I'm sure the fabric is familiar too, it is a rayon jersey from Joann.



I don't have to work today until this afternoon so I'm catching up on housework and maybe get some sewing in.

Stay well!