6, 7, 8, 9.

Wow, 4 days behind again... I wonder how this happens... haha, well to continue my 30 Day Challenge here are days 6, 7, 8, and 9:

Day 6: Childhood memory. 

This whole picture packs in a lot of kid stuff for me. First, there's the couch that was in my parents house since I can remember, and since have inherited myself. And when I was in Kindergarten, my teacher had this stuffed elephant that she'd let one student take home for a weekend. His name was Elmer. Flipping cool elephant. Well, I just had to have one for myself (of course) and I'm not sure how I did get one. My parents must have found it for me and gave it to me for Christmas or something. One thing to note, is mine has a different inner ear color from Elmer. Or was it his blush color?....

Day 7: Something New.

Got this from Andrew for our Anniversary. LOVE <3

Day 8: Technology.

My favorite technology I own. I use it almost every day. :)

Day 9: Faceless self portrait.

Me in the Sorbetto Top I just made for myself (I added the sleeves). I'll talk more about this in another post ;)

Woo! all caught up! :)

<3 Kate

Day 5: Someone I love

Here's a pic of the man I love. We're celebrating our first wedding anniversary tomorrow. I'm gonna wear my bombshell dress to dinner. Then we're going to eat our wedding cake (FINALLY, they never served the head table at our wedding, I was super upset about it)

I took this picture on our little picnic next to the waterfall that's near our apartment. He brought me Subway. What a sweetie. <3

Day 3 and 4: Clouds+Yellow

So I'm doing another twofer here, just to make things simple. One more tomorrow and I'll be all caught up :)

So side anecdote of the clouds picture.. I went outside (I live in an apartment complex where all the front doors are outside, and all the garages are lined up in a row) and when I got even with the one garage that is always hanging open (they got lil kids in and out, so I understand) I looked up and snapped a picture of the clouds. As I was walking away, I saw the car driving up of the person who owns the garage, and as soon as she got out the car she's like "Can I help you??"..me, "No?" ... "You were standing in front of my garage"   "Oh, I was taking a picture of the clouds"..... and imagine me clad in all yellow head to foot... had to look strange. All I know is now if anything goes missing from the garage, the woman is gonna think it was me.... anyway, goes without saying that their garage was closed by the time I got back from my walk. haha.

Next photo (Day 4) I'm supposed to take a pic of my favorite color... which is why I'm wearing all yellow in the previous story...

I went to the prairie that's right next to my apartment. The yellow flowers I took photos of early on in the summer are  kind of dying, so there weren't as many as I'd hoped, but at least I was looking sunny. :)

Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 5+6: Someone I love, and a Childhood memory. 

<3 Kate

Day 2: What I wore.

 So technically, this isn't day 2... I'm just playing catchup for day 2. But you get a twofer since it's what I wore AND what I've been sewing. ;)

Jacket: Simplicity 2250
Top: H&M
Skirt: I made it, no pattern used
Shoes: Arizona
Necklace: A shop in Savannah.. it's some kind of tiger stone... :)

   So on a recent Joanns pattern binge (love the 99 cent sales) I found another fantastic one by Cynthia Rowley. I adore her patterns. She has such a good eye for simplicity in her details. But what caught my eye more than the main dress was the jacket pattern. So clean, so simple, what a great blank canvas. So, of course, I made it with awesome striped linen. :) :) And what better to pair it with but a striped shirt? ;) The skirt is something I'd made a while back but never wore because I did such a hack job on the hem. Today it was what went best with the outfit so I took the opportunity to fix the hem. And I'm glad I did :)


The jacket came together fairly easily. I made it harder by fell stitching the back of the bias tape, and catch stitching the cuff hem to avoid topstitching. I also added a layer of muslin in place of the fusible interfacing on the front piece after reading a few people's un-stellar results with it. I think it gives this fabric a nice weight with the added muslin. This fabric is super lightweight, and probably could have been lined, but I wanted to keep it a lightweight jacket. Also, the jacket calls for shoulder pads... which look ridiculous on me because I have such square shoulders already. So what I did was trace some shoulder pads and cut out some cotton batting instead. I used the real lightweight stuff, so it doesn't add any height, just some much needed support in the shoulder cap.

Oh! Also, I'd like to welcome my new followers! Hello! It's truly nice to have you here. There are a lot of blogs to choose from, and I'm honored you chose mine. :) Thanks for stopping by!

<3 Kate

Day 1: Self Portrait

It's a 30 Day Challenge!
Ok, so I'm late to the party, but today a blog I watch (WildOlive) posted about this, and it's something I've been wanting to do for a while, so here I am. :)
Over at Oh So Lovely, they posted this lovely pic, and challenged the blogosphere to take 1 photo a day.

It sounds like a fun group of photos to take, and I think I'm going to play catch up today. Or maybe just do 2 a day until I'm caught up.

Well anyway, here's my first pic:

And the jacket I'm wearing is a sneak peek of my next sewing post ;)
Have you done any 30 day challenges lately? did you learn from them? I'd love to know if anyone else is doing this photo challenge. :)

Perfect Fit Sarong Dress

I had a BLAST making this dress. It's kind of strange when I think about it though. I'm usually not one for all the hand sewing since I'm super impatient. I think having a great instructor, and having fantastic fabric to work with are great motivators. :)

It looks so simple, but a lot of internal work is put into it, just to make it flawlessly formed and fit to the body. Bust padding, self facings, easing and stabilizing the neckline, waist stay, lapped zipper, hem vent, and hem tape.... oh! and boning, how could I forget, haha :)

If you want to know more about it, you can watch the intro video, and if you want, sign up for the class. The best money I've ever spent on an online class, ever ;)

 This dress is made with: 100% linen outer, and cotton lining. Spiral steel boning, grosgrain ribbon (zipper guard/waist stay), regular zipper, satin ribbon (for boning channels), and lace hem tape for the hem.



















Here's a peek of the inside to see what I'm talking about:

On these pictures you can see the insides of the bodice before I sewed it to the skirt and inserted the lining, etc. On the right, a picture of the completed inside of the dress. You can see the zipper guard (pink ribbon), the waist stay (yellow ribbon) and if you look close enough you can see the boning in there.
What do you think? Will you give this dress a try? It's pretty much a fabulous dress to work on

:)

Hello all!
So a lot has happened recently. I started to draw and paint again. Just a little, not much. I joined 2 online crafting classes, and got a brand new camera. (super excited about that last part ;) )


Also I made these:

These are the Ruby shorts off BurdaStyle. I've had the pattern in my stash for a while, and I haven't had a good pair of shorts for a few years, so I gave em a shot. I'm really happy with how they turned out. I spent a little extra time with the embroidered stitching detail, and I'm glad I did. Usually when I make something, I want it to be done as fast as possible, but I'm starting to train myself to take it slow and really concentrate on producing something durable, and something that actually fits :)














Also I finally finished Cathy's dress. I made my own pattern for her dress by draping a basic toile on a dress form then fitting her a few times while making the dress. It took a while since we live in different states, but in the end I think it turned out well. She has a hard time finding dresses that fit her perfectly due to her height (6 ft) and long torso. I had a lot of fun making something for someone other than myself, and it was a good challenge for me. I still have a lot to learn about some dress construction techniques, but I'm glad to know that I can make something like this based on what I do know how to do. :)

The two classes I've enrolled in are The Embroidery Project: All in the Details
And Gertie's new class (I enrolled today, super exciting) Sew Retro: The Perfect Fit Bombshell Dress

So far the embroidery class has been interesting, but not really up to par as to what I had expected. There are some cute projects tho, and she's donating all her proceeds to send care packages to those in need.

I did only just enroll today, but I've been looking through some of the videos on Gerties dress class, and it's absolutely fantastic! It's an especially good deal for her readers, and the Craftsy.com deal for members going on for a week or so ($25 for any online class). The class is super high tech, and you can ask questions that leave a time stamp on the video, or take notes that will bookmark the video so you know what's going on. The best part is you can watch the videos at your own pace, and refer back as often as you like indefinitely. I'm looking forward to making the dress and implementing Gertie's techniques. She's a great writer too, so her blog is a great read (if you don't already follow her) ;)

I finally got a DSLR! I'm really happy that I can take some high quality photos now. I've always been interested in photography, and in some instances I think a photo is more appropriate than a painting.

I've also been posting a lot on my new Tumblr blog, The Lady In Yellow. I only post things/photos that I've done personally rather than re-blogging other people's work. However I do <3 a lot of things, and you can see those things here. Anyway, this is were I'll be posting most of my photos if you're at all interested in such things :)

Thanks for visiting!
Kate