New Year's Resolutions...2 weeks late

While everyone else was busy blogging about their New Year's resolutions or the fact that they don't believe in doing such things, I was wondering if I had ever bothered. I have, in fact, been wondering about this for all 12 days of this month and finally realized that without calling them "resolutions" I have been making them for the same 12 days past. So without further ado, here they are, better late than never

1. Sewing something for myself or my home at least every 2 months. Surely I can manage a mere 6 items per year, yes? I sew all day, almost every day and only ever make something for myself in a pinch (like the week before my show at the Frazier).

2. Pay off all of our debt. Not very interesting, I know, but very important. As far as the average American household goes, our outstanding debt is the size of an unpaid parking ticket. It's minimal and rather pathetic when compared to people with mortgages, car loans, credit cards and student loans, which I'm totally ok with, but it still needs dealing with. In fact, I wrote and mailed the first check today (pardon while I pat myself on the back a little more about this one)

3. TRY to keep up with the dishes. There are only two of us, is it really that hard?!

4. Be better about scheduling work so I'm not piddling around on the internet all week and then racing to get a million things done on Friday when I'd rather be cleaning up for the weekend.

5. Become a better blogger. This one I find very important. I follow a ton of blogs and find many of them to be very fun and incredibly inspirational (see resolution #1). I would like to get better not only about posting regularly but also figure out how to do more with Blogger. That is, if I can get over my hate for it. The other day I had every intention of writing what I felt to be a very good and interesting blog entry about a skirt for a friend and never got it posted. I got it written...4 times. And Blogger deleted it EVERY FREAKIN TIME, but only when I had quite a lengthy entry and was in the process of typing the last sentence or two. Poof! All that hard work, gone >:(

If any of you out there in Blogland have any suggestions, I'd greatly appreciate them. I also need to see about reformatting my blogger page so it's a little more me and has things were I want them...definately going to need a learning curve on this one

6. Expand my business. I had a fantastic first year of business, considering that I didn't try too hard to expand, was planning a wedding and making the gown, and doing lots of travelling. And let's not forget that going into this, I had no idea whatsoever about starting or running my own business. It's been a struggle at times, but I've never been happier and I have high hopes for year 2.

7. Seek out and attend more classes for sewing. We'll see how much this gets to actually happen because of the whole saving for a house thing, but in the very least I hope to make it PatternReview Weekend Philly if only to meet the wonderful, helpful and inspiring women who keep me company and help me out on PR as well as those whose blogs I follow.

8. My final (for now) and definately favorite: Have friends over for dinner at least one couple per week or two. Since Jim and I are working hard to get rid of our debt so that we can buy a house this year, we have stopped going out to eat. We used to spend a ridiculous amount of money going out to eat multiple times a week so that we could see our friends. Now, I love to have people over, cook, entertain and play games at home with friends, so why is it that we only seem to get together with friends when it means going out and spending money? This must be solved, and we're doing quite well with it for only working on it for 2 weeks. :)

Swinging at the Museum

So, I was going to be all clever and computer savvy and upload the video of Tuesday's performance here for all to see. Turns out, Blogger still hates me and I never could get the stupid thing uploaded. Compounded with a fight with my brother and I'm just not in the mood to keep trying. So, if you'd like to see it, the video can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiw27J_jDU0

Many thanks to my wonderful fellow dancers who helped me through this and rocked out on all of it! For any of you not familiar with what I look like, I'm the on in white top, brown skirt (recently finished but not yet reviewed) and red shoes...those shoes are hard to miss

Weddings and Waistcoats

No turning back now! I've cut the lace. As there is no other way to mark this lace, I devotedly followed Susan Khalje's suggestion of thread tracing. So I traced...and I traced...and I traced

And I traced!

The tracing and cutting out (with no proper seam allowances, just huge amounts of lace on all sides) is as far as I've gotten. I had grand plans of at least getting all the beads removed from the seam allowances last night, but that was not to be. We drove to E-town last night instead to have dinner with Jim's family and drop off the flower girl's dress. It was great to get to visit with everyone (though the kids were bitterly disappointed that we didn't bring Riley) but it did cut into my sewing time, which is kind of critical right now. I'll just have to truck on through tonight before I go bowl for charity.

There just isn't much available sewing time this week. Tonight is bowling for Junior Achievement, tomorrow is a Louisville Bats game (I have a hard time passing up free tickets), Thursday is dancing at Porter's and Friday we're driving to Brown County (about an hour and 40 minutes away to pick up the newest addition to my sewing room. Today I confirmed my offer to buy an industrial straightstitch machine off of craigslist. I cannot wait to go pick it up! I'm so tired of having to fight with thick fabrics and not being able to stitch down the designs on a jackets that one of my customers brings me. No more trouble on that front though. This little baby will sew through just about anything...now where to put her?!

I'll have to be sure to get this new little number put well away before she gets here since I have a feeling she'll need some serious cleaning up done. Meet Charley's waistcoat. This is the first (nearly) completed piece to his Mr. Darcy suit. I've already gotten (and gotten out) lipstick on it, so machine grime is not really a welcome addition.

All this little guy needs now are buttons and buttonholes and he's ready to go home. The fabric is some kind of jacquard fabric (probably from the upholstry section) that my customers picked out before they hired me and I lined it with white linen from Hancock. It's fully lined with faux welt pockets and a lovely stand up collar.
I'm rather pleased with the result of my 2 days of work. Still have to tally up the hours spent, but all in all a breeze to put together and a fantastically drafted pattern from Rocking Horse Farms. Having been accustomed to working primarily with the Big 4, this was an absolute delight and I will be looking first to Rocking Horse Farms for all my historical pattern needs. Everything fit, there was no fussing or tucking or unnecessary easing and the directions were short, easy to follow and quite to the point. Love it!

Death of a cave, birth of a sewing room.

As some of you may know, I've been more that slightly disgruntled with my sewing space recently. It's my own fault really, offering to share my sewing room with a friend just moving into town while she got settled. Buying new equipment before I really had anywhere to put it. Being spoiled from being able to take over my mother's entire dining room when I lived at home. You know how it goes.

But now...Oh, now it is wonderful! Friend got settled and moved in with a permanent roommate and Jim and I refigured some of our storage space. We dismantled the guest bed in my sewing room into two parts. The boxspring lives on its side behind a desk in our room (which is the catch all storage room, since we're the only ones who ever have to see it) and the mattress lives on its side behind my clothing rack in the sewing room. It is out of the way and takes up minimal space while being readily accessible in case of guests, as well as providing Westport, the king of the castle as he would like to think himself, a wonderful perch so that he can supervise while I iron and work at my table. Heaven knows what I would get myself into if it weren't for his diligent monitoring.

In other news, I've finished the beastly fur coat I had to repair for a new customer. All by hand inside a vintage baby seal coat. Anyone who's worked on old fur knows it is not a pleasant task. It's not like fabric. It doesn't self heal when you make a hole in it. This unfortunate coat is just too old to be worn and is dry rotting and splitting at the seams. I spent almost an hour and a half putting it back together, but as I worned my customer, I won't be holding my breath to see how long it lasts when worn.

Up next, it's time to figure out how in the world to pleat a chiffon bodice without going absolutely mad...not optimistic at the moment.

Upcoming Projects:

Recreating this evening gown from the end of Two Weeks Notice starring Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant. To be made out of black stretch velvet with gold filligre and gored in gold glitter organza for a new customer to wear in an upcoming drag queen pageant.

And for a swing dance friend, who may become my personal photographer, this vintage Anne Adams. The fabric is absolutely darling and both she and I can't wait to see how this dress comes out.

I read through the directions for this vintage pattern (which only has 6 steps) and I understand that it is to look kind of like an apron dress with an underskirt for the back and then the circle skirt from the front wraps around and meets at the center back. What I find a little perplexing is that there seems to be no instruction for attaching the front of the dress to the back except for where it buttons at the shoulders. The front has a tie that crosses in the back and then wraps to the front. The back has instructions for attaching seam tape to each side piece of the back, so am I to understand that you put the back of the dress on and tie those ties at the front waist and then put on the front dress and wrap the tie? We shall see.

Valentine's Day at last!

Phew! Two pair of Valentines pants done with no time to spare. I finished Jim's amazing plaid pants just half an hour before we needed to leave for the dance. Talk about crunch time! All week while I was working on these two pair of pants and still taking other projects, I was including at least part of Saturday as a work day. I guess I should have been more clear about that point with Jim, who waited until Thursday afternoon to announce that he had a Valentine's Day suprise for me that would take all day and was out of town. Friday night crunch time! Luckily, I was already doing the button fly on Jim's pants with hand-braided buttonholes, which can be done in the car. That is exactly what I did all the way to our secret destination. I fininished the second to last buttonhole as we were parking.

My suprise? The Newport Aquarium! Now, anyone who knows me well knows that I am a shark fiend. I count down to the Discovery Channel's Shark Week every summer and own multiple shark documentaries. The aquarium was great. We got all kinds of pictures of weird fish and frogs, some really beautiful jellyfish and other critters.

The very, very best part was the sharks. I got some really incredible pictures and some even better videos while we were in some of the little tunnels that the sharks swim around.

And then?! And then I got to pet some. I pet a shark! Several, in fact. One was really slippery but not slimey and it felt like it had a row of tiny little teeth down it's spine. My favorite was the 3 1/2 foot shark that felt like wet and velvety. I was in heaven and hadn't even gotten to go dancing yet!

The Louisville Swing Dance Society's "Let Me Call You Swingheart" dance was a huge success. The music was good, the dancing was even better and our new pants were a smash hit! The best part that my darling friend Emily, who was visiting from school just for the weekend, wore the 1940s style outfit that I made for her last summer. Needless to say, the dance seemed a little like a showcase for my work.

I knew I should have worn a black bra...

Back to Blogging

It's time to try my hand again at blogging, a long lost activity from high school to be renewed with more vigor. Life just keeps changing and getting better and better.


Super quick breakdown:


Getting Married in September
Growing and running my alterations and custom sewing business

Dancing and helping the Louisville swing dance scene grow
http://www.lindylou.org/
Learning and growing in my new role as domestic goddess/disaster
Playing mommy to Riley, the abominable yet terribly lovable Puggle

Whew, now that we have that out of the way...


What a week this is going to be! I have consultations to set up with two new potential custom garment clients. One is a bride searching for her perfect gown and one is a mother of a ring-bearer looking to recreate a suit that a great-great uncle wore in a wedding in the 1930s. Add to this the fact that I have two mock ups to finish and ship back to friends for Regency era ball gowns, research to do on vintage fabrics for another friend's retro clothes for swing dancing, AND finding time to work on my own wedding dress!!


It's time to get to work...after I help Jim finish off the Superbowl food.