Accessories Hop

Hi! I'm glad to get a chance to join in with Toy's Accessory Hop. If you've come over from her blog, thank you for taking the time to do so.

The accessories that I'm showcasing are items that I've found on the web that have caught my fancy, that I've thought would be practical from my life as a SAHM but still stylish. A couple are still in the flat fabric stage or still wound into a cake of yarn.

First up is this fabulous pair of shoes:

                                                                                   Source: zappos.com via Amy on Pinterest

I wore these this morning with a dark denim skirt, and a black long-sleeved t-shirt.



For a purse this season, I'm carrying this around:

                                                                                 Source: coach.com via Amy on Pinterest

Most of the clothing items that I have planned to sew for fall and winter are dark browns. And yeah, I'm a matchy-matchy kind girl.

Up next, is an infinity scarf that I have planned to knit - umm, sometime soon. I'm sure that as sewists we all know the "I'm planning on making this" saying. I may or may not get around to actually knitting it.

Chou Cowl by Crissy Prange

Made with this yarn by WollesYarnCreations

But, if I don't get around to knitting this scarf this season - I can wear this scarf/shawl:

I really love the fringe on this!

Or this infinity scarf:

Modeled by Hannah

How about this? To keep my ears warm, since I won't wear a hat? Only problem is that I can't crochet - yet!!!

         Source: etsy.com via IngridSera on Pinterest

Finally, what about a casual, throw-over my shoulders cape?

View CF (bottom image) without the ruffles in a felted wool from EmmaOneSock. I'll probably start on this when I get my machine back from the shop. The buttonhole sensor needed replacing.

I hope that you like what I've shown - can't wait to see everyone else's picks!

You can see Monday's picks here: Toy
Tuesday: DeDe
Wednesday: Mary
Friday: Victoria
Saturday: Angela

Foundations in Peace Giveaway

Kris over at Weird, Unsocialized Homechoolers is having a Foundations in Peace (Homeschool Edition) giveaway this week. Foundations in Peace is published by Dave Ramsey's company. Some of y'all may have heard of him? He became a millionaire in his 20s, went broke, changed his entire way of thinking about money and is once again a millionaire from hard work and staying out of debt. He and his wife pay cash for everything. EVERYTHING. That includes their cars, their house! and his business. Every bit of it is debt-free.

That's awesome.

Okay, so if you would like the chance to win the Foundations in Peace DVD set with two workbooks giveaway, go visit Kris here for the rules (you have to leave a comment).

The Jump Rope Dress - View B - Finished

The buttons I ordered from Etsy arrived today. I immediately sat down to make buttonholes. Guess what happened next? My machine has decided that it wants a short vacation at the repair shop. She must like Lance, the repair guy. ;-)

Christy with Quilt 'N Stitch tried to help me diagnose and fix the problem over the phone, but it was decided that I needed to bring her in. I had to make the buttonholes manually. I don't think I've made a manual buttonhole in over 15 years. They (the buttonholes) aren't perfect but still more than acceptable.

Debra is so used to having her picture taken and she also has a definite opinion on how she should be posing. I was chasing her all over the play area.

In action!

I do like it a lot more than I thought I would. It's a very classic, retro-styled shirt dress. Awesome!

Cheesy grin.

Overview:

Oliver & S Jump Rope Dress Pattern - size 3T
1 1/2 yards of Gray print (if using a contrast fabric for pockets, placket and collar - you only need 1 1/8 yard)
1 fat quarter of green dot
a bit of leftover interfacing
3 buttons
thread

Vogue 8636 - The Shirt

I. don't. like. this. AT. ALL.

Let us count the ways:

• the fabric is too thick - I don't like thick t-shirts (esp. when the temps are in the 90s)
• I should have added the neckband to yesterday's muslin - I would have seen that my bust darts are too low
• the neckline is too high - it's resting at the base of my neck
• even after adding 1.5" to the sleeves, they're still too tight (I think that might have something to do with the thickness of the fabric though - it doesn't have a lot of stretch)

It's a live and learn situation.

Vogue 8636 - Muslin

I went to the grocery store yesterday. I didn't enjoy it.

At this point, I'm needing a few basic everyday-wear shirts. Frankly, I don't think it's a very good witness when I shlep into the grocery store with a shirt on that has numerous holes at the belly.

Seriously, I wore this shirt to the store!!!!
I'm ashamed of myself.

So, for the next week, I'm going to focus on altering and sewing a few knit shirt patterns. Hopefully, I'll get a few TNTs out of the process.

The first pattern I pulled out of stash was Vogue 8636 - a Marcy Tilton design. It's a plain raglan-sleeved shirt with interesting neckline details (view D also had tucks around the bottom of the long sleeves). I'm making view C. It has 3/4 length sleeves (my personal favorite) and tucks around the neckline. I started with a size 16, grading out to a 24 at the waist and hips (should have gone on out to a 26 at hips). Then did the FBA I needed. I think that I should have reversed the order, and done the FBA first, then the extra at waist and hips.

Draglines everywhere! Okay, they mostly go to the hips (I did say I should have made that area bigger).

I'm not going to go any further with this muslin, instead, I'm going to start over with another fabric. The sleeves, while not tight, do not have any positive ease. I like positive ease! Especially around my arms. I'll add more around the hips and less at the waist..

The Jump Rope Dress - Part 3

The girls and I went on a last minute trip to see Cody on Friday. He was supposed to come home this weekend, some problems came up with work and so.... we loaded up and went to see him. We arrived back home in time for second service which was an anniversary service with dinner afterwards. No third service this week. Which meant I got a bit more sewing done today than I normally would.

I ended up taking off the first collar - the under-collar was peeking back out from under. I made another collar rather than rip the first apart. Only problem was that I forgot to interface the blasted thing! Oh well, I'm calling it a design feature. Yep, sure is, the collar is meant to be that flimsy. Yes indeedy.

All that's left is the hem and buttonholes and buttons. My local Hancock's did not have anything that matched the fabric (that I liked anyway) and that was the right size. BTW, does anyone else not like to use 5/8" buttons? I've ordered some buttons off of Etsy (love that place), but since they're coming from Canada, it may be a bit before this dress is really done.

Almost done - just needs a hem,
and buttons,
and buttonholes.

The sleeve cuff. Sweet.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this dress. It's not a knock-my-socks off kind of dress. Fairly conservative in a way. We'll really see when it's modeled.

The Jump Rope Dress - Part 2

Rachael, Debra and I spent this afternoon in town shopping. Of course, there were visits to the local quilt store and to Hancock's. From the quilt store, I brought home needles, a seam ripper, 2 yards of fabric and a couple spools of thread. If you wonder why I buy notions at the quilt store, it would because I get a 25% discount there. At Hancock's a stocked up on several Simplicity patterns that have been on my wish list for a bit.

I was anxious to get back to sewing on the Jump Rope Dress when we arrived back home - but of course, chores call. Children must be fed and bathed and put to bed.

Debra has started speaking of herself in third person.

"Debra wanna eat, Amy"
"I'm Mommy"
"Debra wanna eat, Mommy"

I originally wanted to use the green on the pockets, the collar and the button placket. I spent a bit of time on Flickr yesterday looking at variations of this dress and well, they made me second guess myself. So, I used some gray to make pockets and gray for the front placket. Ugh! They faded into the background of the busy print on the dress fabric. I ended up going with my original thoughts, ripped out the plackets and the pockets and re-made them with the green.

Kind of hard to see the placket, isn't it?

So far, I have a completed collar, pockets on the dress with plackets in place, and the front and back sewn together at the shoulders.

This is such busy print - I hope this turns out looking like it does in my head.

I'm going to try and get this finished tomorrow before Cody arrives home for the weekend. Or else, it'll be Monday before I get to sew again.