Busy Weekend

Shot of Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen.

Home Sweet Home, or more like home town.  This weekend Simon and I were in the Finger Lakes.  Well we drove there spent the night and then on Friday drove up to Rochester for my best friends wedding and then we spent Saturday with my grandparents for mine and my grandfather's Birthdays. 

The wedding was fun we drank, eat and danced the night away.  I also got to wear my newest dress, the fatina shift dress.

I'm short and the mantel was tall.

I finished hemming it Wednesday night.  This dress made me realize how short I am.  I had to hem about five inches off the dress for it to hit just above my knees.  It I hadn't cut off all the excess fabric and had hammed it where it asked to be hemmed I would have a dress that would hit me mid calf.  Which I find and unflattering hemline on such a fitted skirt.

I got to hand out with my family and see my two besties from back in my high school days.

We clean up really well.

We left on Sunday and no trip to the Finger Lakes would be complete with out a stop at my favorite yarn store! 

Finger Lakes Fibers, Watkins Glen NY

It was a great trip, but I think we are more exhusted after the trip than we were before.  We came home, unpacked, picked up some groceries, and the promptly ordered Mexican.  Then we slept.  

Dress Making: Completing the Fatina

Ugh, the finishing on this dress makes me want to wear a potato sack to this wedding...ok I wouldn't actually, but I was about two stitches short of just wearing my LBD.  Here's the break down of what happened.  If you read Monday's post I was finishing up the neckline which when I was finished sewing it looked like I had sewn it with out my contacts in.  So my one day of finishing turned into two days of hand sewing. 

On Monday I finished the arm holes and the neck line.  At first I had resigned myself to hand sewing these, but then I thought the actual pattern calls for it to be machine sewed it will be faster and look just fine.  I was incorrect in this thinking.

Here's the "wrong side of the neckline"

A shot of the right side of the dress

On Tuesday I finished the Obi belt and am extremly happy with how this came out.  I think this part of the project has inspired a tutorial for latter either this month or the next.  The duponi silk was a dream to sew!

This belt is super long.  It measures about 134 inches

And now with one day left I am on to my second round of hand knitting the hem. I am so close to being done I can taste it.  The dress is about 50% hand sewn.  I don;t see that as a bad thing as all of the hand sewing was for the finishing. 

 Here's my hem line all pinned and ready for hand sewing.

But after that I will be finished.  No more alterations, no more seam ripping and resewing.  I tried the dress on with out the belt yesterday, to get the right hem line and I am in love with this dress.  I am going to make a second in a wool for the winter, and maybe even one in a cotton for the spring!

Dress Making: The Fatina, Muslin & New Fabric

I finally finished the muslin for the Fatina shift dress.  It was a bit of a pain.  First of my fabric choice sucked but that's what I should have expected from cheapo fabric.  Second the way the pattern is graded from the waist to the hips was a bit comical.  This photo above is the finished muslin after all the alterations I had to do after I sewed it the first time.  I was going to keep this as a fun shimmery silver dress, but it would be more of a headache to finish the damn thing.  I am however thinking of turning it into a pencil skirt. 

I have finally decided on the fabric for the finished dress that I will be wearing to the wedding.

While I was at the fabric store searching for something to make that muslin out of I found this beautiful eggplant purple cotton stretch.  It's gorgeous and the photo doesn't do it justice, but the green obi belt will really stand out against the purple of the dress.  I'm planning on started today by cutting out the fabric. 

Dress Making: Fatina

Fatina Pattern all taped together

 I was very productive this weekend, and managed to print and put together and cut out that pattern for the Fatina dress.  I am second guessing my fabric choice though.  Below are three differet silks.  The bright green and the bronzish one are duponi silk, very structure.  The gray is silk chine and unlike the duponi it is drape and floaty and I am not sure if it is right for the pattern. 

Some of my fabric choices.

I also need to find some cheapo cotton for a quick muslin.  The patten isn't difficult at all to make to I know I can whip my first on up in about an hour so now it's just deciding on which silk to use.