Dress Making: The Fatina

My best friend from back home is getting married and I have nothing formal enough to wear to their very formal wedding.  To solve my problem I spent at least two hours combing Burda Style for a versatile, yet dressy dress pattern.  Now don't get me wrong there were a ton of patterns to choose from, some of which I already have, but I was looking for something simple and chic.  Something I could style a thousand different ways, and make out of every type of fabric on could thing of.

At the close of my two hours of "research" I finally decided on the Fatina.  It's a simple shift dress with lots of potential.  It meets all of my requirements and I can make one to wear to my best friends wedding and I can make one to wear out in my daily life.  I can also easily alter the pattern for a different look. 

Now all I need to do is find some fabric and get sewing.  Since I am going to spend a pretty penny on the fabric I may actually make a muslin. 

Pattern Sneak Peek

Here's a quick pic of the new pattern I will be releasing this Friday.  This pattern is Simon approved, all I have to do now is convince him to model it for the photos. 

Art of Hanging Two

I hope that all the buggies are out of my computer.  This week is a busy week for me and I can't have my computer catching things, but so far things are working well. 

We have been making improvements in our apartment this month and I am really excited about this one I just had to share.  The Hubs and I have been desscusing using vertical space in our apartment since its so small.  One of the things we need to address was our surf boards, and the lack of art on the walls. 

 

 

This is what we came up with.  Simon made some racks out of scrap wood to mount on the wall to display our surf boards instead os stacking them in the corner.  

 

 

 

Here's a straight on view of our wonderful surf boards.  I like that they are a part of our decor more so than just hanging about because we have no where to store them out of sight.  Mine is the yellow one.  Simon ruined me when I went to Australia and now all I want to do is ride short board, which is hard on the Jersey Shore.  The top one is a 7'2" and my little yellow one is 5'11",  This just makes me want to ditch work and go surfing.  

 

This week is full of fun and interesting things, a new hat pattern will be released on Friday in my Etsy Shop, and I will be starting a knitting stitch guide as a bi-weekly post here on the blog.  

Technical Difficulties

I updated some stuff on my computer, or I have caught a bug and now my computer doesn't want to do anything I ask of it.

This week has been a total flop. Between my work schedule and now this I've barely been able to post anything. Hopefully I can fix this and have things ready to go for Monday, or maybe if I'm lucky tonight.

Technique Tuesday: How to Wind a Center Pull Ball

One of my favorite techniques is knitting two socks at a time on two circular needles, and while I won't be talking about this techniques today it does require me to wind my yarn into a center pull ball of yarn.

There are a few pros to a center pull ball:
1.) You can pull yarn from the inside and the outside at the same time
2.) Your yarn stays protected inside more yarn
3.) your ball of yarn will roll around on the floor less keeping your yarn clean, and it won't become tangled around furniture.

How to start

first you want to find a place to hang your hank of yarn. If you don't have a swift or a willing partner to hold the hank the back of a chair or your knees will suffice.


Next take the dead end of the yarn and making sure it is about 10-12 inches long. (Your dead end it the end of your yarn and the live end is what leads back to your hank of yarn.)


Wrap the dead end around your thumb, making sure that the extra inches are hanging down the length of your arm.


Now you will take the live end of the yarn and begin to loosely wrap it around your index, middle and ring fingers or how ever you winding a ball of yarn.

Continue to wrap the yarn around your three fingers until you see a ball start to form out of the wrapped yarn. Slip your fingers out of the ball of yarn and continue wrapping the yarn around itself, being mindful of where the dead end of the yarn is attached to the ball.

when you are finished your ball of yarn should look like this:

Ta-Da! A center pull ball of yarn.

Welcoming Fall

I am excited to be back and officially blogging again, I am also excited for fall to roll in. Cool days and chilly nights, warm cozy knits and large mugs of warm drinks. To celebrate the coming of fall I went to my favorite coffee house the other day, ordered a latte and sat in the front by the shops large glass window. They already had a pumpkin sitting on the counter.

Look how pretty my latte looked.

Here is what I am working on, a beanie that my husband approves of. Once it is finished and the pattern is complete I may let him keep it. Which reminds me next week I will have a new pattern out in the world. I have a lot of plans for the fall, some new patterns, some fun tutorials, and maybe a recipe or two. On the blog I am planning some new Technique Tuesday posts, along with new stitch pattern posts, a Fiber Friday and even a resurrection of Vintage Finds Friday.

The fun starts tomorrow with Technique Tuesday.

Comming Soon...

In three days I will be relaunching my blog. I'm super excited about this. Nothing huge has changed I've just used these first two weeks home to get things in order for great Septemeber posts.

Check back on Monday!