Works in progress

I actually like to finish everything I start and I haven't been sewing very long, so I haven't got a lot of WIPs. I do have a few to confess to though:

1: I am the kind of person who likes to start my To Do list with "1. Complete To Do list" so that I can cross it off as soon as I start work. This first entry is therefore a cheat, since the thing is already done and all I need to do is take a photo of me wearing it and post my review to Pattern Review. 

My main project this week (working very slowly due to the combination of my PhD thesis, Grave's Disease and general uselessness) has been to make one of the tops from New Look 6025.

2. I have all the pieces cut out for a Bonsai Bag.

The centre of my bag is a pair of sparkly shoes and the outside is stripy pink and purple and white. Sparkly shoes are kind of a theme in my bags. I really don't know when I'll make this -- maybe not until I've moved. It's going to be cute when it's done though.

3. I have the pattern pieces traced and sorted out for a Sunshine Top by HotPatterns. I've not cut anything out though, mainly because I can't get it clear in my mind whether I need to do a Full Bust Adjustment or not. I have some lovely red jersey to make it in, but I think I need to muslin it first. I do have the ugliest jersey in the world to muslin it with, but no matching overlocker thread.

4. I do not love patchwork. I mean, I see some quilts and love them, but most of the time I am pretty indifferent to them. Plus, what do you DO with more than one quilt, other than give them away? I can see myself making a baby quilt as a gift, but other than the one quilt I am making I don't think I'm going to get into quilting. But I am making one, in order to have it as a snuggle-under-the-blankie-on-the-sofa quilt. It's going to be an ULTRA SIMPLE quilt, using the Turning Twenty block, which only has three pieces. I am making mine using a William Morris print for the square, hand quilted to match the design, and then co-ordinating blue and green for the two rectangles.

So far, I haven't even bought the backing or the blue and green fabric (once my PhD is done, I'll go shopping for it. Everything in the world is being put off until my PhD is done) I have bought the print (from the factory shop for £1), and the batting, and cut out the Wm. Morris print squares. I also did a mini sized version of Turning Twenty using some (hideous) charm squares sent to me with my last Sew magazine. This whole piece is the size of one block of my actual quilt. I also hand-quilted two spare squares of the Morris print to see how it looked.




Abandoned: The other thing to talk about is my abandoned project. The May challenge on Pattern Review is the One Yard challenge, where you have to make an item with one yard of fabric. I got all excited and was going to make two things that made up an outfit: a basic straight skirt in black linen (which I might still do) and a crossover front top from Ottobre Woman 2008/2 in black with white tattoo roses.

I traced out the pattern (OW uses spirograph-like pattern sheets) in size 48, made it up into a muslin (in hideous puke green dye-experiment-gone-wrong muslin that I acquired in a bag of fabric), and went: oh, this doesn't fit. So then I tried again, in size 44 (theoretically I should be a size 42 using top bust measurements in Ottobre Woman stuff, but I thought I would want to wear something under the top so I sized up.

Then I attemped an FBA. Then I tried again. And then again. Then I went OKAY, GOOD ENOUGH, and made it up in a random piece of white polycotton, and the fit was STILL terrible. Why are there great cups of fabric under the arm, for a start? Why was it tight across my bust and then huge acres of fabric under the bust? Before I could fix it, I really started to think about how low cut this top is versus how, um, well-endowed I am, and I realized I would never ever wear it because I would just be too uncomfortable with how boobtacular it was.

Luckily, my new top (see point 1) is also black and would go nicely with a straight skirt, so I will still make my skirt (though not for the challenge) and have an outfit out of my efforts, if not the outfit I expected. And I still have my 1m piece of tattoo roses that I can use for something else.