Bohemian Mod Dress

I finished this dress yesterday afternoon. I was a bit daunted by the prospect of having to do the all-in-one facing, but that turned out to be the easy part. The hard part was the invisible zipper because my invisible zipper foot is worn out, especially when sewing on the left side. I had to use the seam ripper several times to get that right. It's a plastic zipper foot that has gotten a bit warped with time, so I'll need to get a new one. After I learned how to sew in invisible zippers, I never use the regular kind anymore. Since redraping the dress and making some slight alterations, it fits me perfectly. It will be great to wear once the warmer weather hits.

Spring Thing

I finally got around to sewing this dress project today. I kept putting it off because I thought it would take too much time. In actuality, it only took about three hours to sew up the bodice lining, as well as the bodice and skirt. Right after I took this photo, I gathered and sewed on the skirt. I plan on doing an all-in-one facing using this Burda tutorial. I had tried doing something similar for my final draping project, but didn't exactly figure it out. In a lesson learned from that final project, I also added some lightweight interfacing to the contrasting waist sections, so they get less wrinkled. I'll try to sew the facing tomorrow and insert the invisible zipper.

Crafty Weekend

After finishing the Avast sweater Friday night, I wasn't sure what my next project would be. I ended up working on lots of different things.

I spent an afternoon finally figuring out how to use the knitting machine a friend gave me almost two years ago! I practiced plain knitting and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. In fact, it was really fun. Click here to see my swatch. I plan to try using some of the punch cards next and practice two-color knitting.

Yesterday I ended up going to LYS Close Knit and its neighbor Bolt to get knitting and sewing supplies. I got some yarn to knit up a stuffed toy for a friend's baby shower, as well as a skein of bulky red alpaca for the Not Too-Too Beret from Knit and Tonic. I also bought the latest issue of Interweave Knits, so much time will be spent on deciding what sweater I want to knit first. The fabric I purchased is for a spring dress that I want to drape. The two fabrics on the left are by Jason Yenter for In the Beginning Fabrics. One is from the Bohemian Brights collection and the other is from the Floragraphix I collection. The Mod Dot fabric is from Alexander Henry. I'm leaning towards the Bohemian Bright as the main body of the dress with one of the other patterned fabrics and the gray as contrasting pieces.

Another project I started last night was a ripple afghan. I'm hoping I use up lots of stash yarn. Looks like I'll be busy for a while!