Skeletons in the Closet

My life is a wreck again, so I don't have anything new to show off.  (I am going to try not to go on hiatus, but I make no promises.)  Instead, I am continuing with the McCall's run with another It Came from My Closet entry.  This one is 5050, kinda-sorta view E meets A.  The fabric is a perennial Halloween favorite from JoAnn's.  Who could say no to dancing skeletons?

The pattern is rated as average, but I knocked it out in an afternoon.  I did deviate from the pattern pretty significantly: I skipped the lace cut-outs on the sleeves, replaced the elastic necklace with a drawstring ribbon one, and added a little opening for the ribbon (I used the buttonhole foot).  I opted for the shorter version of the blouse, but in retrospect, I think I would have preferred the longer one.  The lace I used on the cuffs was shorter than what the pattern called for, but I felt too much might distract from the fabric pattern.

The underbust gathering is done with elastic enclosed in bias tape.  I used the scraps to make my own, as I usually do.  The only atypical part of this pattern is that the sleeves themselves are part of the neckline.  It's isn't hard to sew; it just isn't something you see all that often.

Even if you opted for the lace cutouts of view E, this pattern probably shouldn't be rated as average.  Views A and B, which feature gathered cuffs on sleeves would probably also be pretty easy.  D (tiered sleeves) and C (gathered mid-sleeve) look more difficult, but I would still rate this as a beginner-level pattern.

Using the leftover fabric, I also made a bandanna to wear with this.  I'm told it makes me look like a spooky hippie.

Hold Your Hearses

I must apologize for being AWOL most of the summer.  I've been posting, of course, but those have been mostly It Came from My Closet! posts (as is this one).  My only excuse is that my allergies this year have hit me the hardest of my entire adult life.  I don't know if it's the heat, or the drought, or something else altogether, but this summer has been an absolute misery.  I can deal with the sniffling, coughing, and sneezing, but I can't cope with the itching and extreme exhaustion.  Normally, I just pop a Claritin and call it a day; this year, one isn't even close to strong enough.  I've been taking two, but since it's a steroid, it severely interferes with my sleep, which only adds to my exhaustion.  And ragweed season is still to come.

Well, onto the post.  The quality of these pictures isn't so great; the batteries in my camera were dead, so I used my cell phone instead.  Also, light was poor and I was in a rush.  On top of that, I am a poor photographer to begin with, but you already knew that. I mentioned this fabric back in His & Hearse - it's Eerie Alley by Robert Kaufman.  Pink isn't my favorite color, but when it comes to hearses, any color is acceptable.  The lining and underlayer comes from leftovers of the - you guessed it - Daisy-Head Mayzie costume.  I think everything I've made using the leftovers has been mentioned by now, so hopefully you won't have to hear about it again.  (Unless, of course, I post the actual costume.) I can't remember if I bought this specifically to make Simplicity 3956 or not.  The pattern does not list cotton as a suggested fabric, but it does suggest handkerchief linen, so I figured that was close enough.  In retrospect, cotton is a little heavy considering that it is lined and layered.  If you want to make this in cotton, probably one layer would be sufficient. On the printing of the pattern I have, nowhere on the outside of the envelope does it say the fabric is to be cut on the bias.  Once I made the decision to actually go through with this, and I had already deviated by using the "wrong" fabric, I wasn't going to let a little thing like a bias-cut layout stop me.  It might be prudent to go up a size, as I did, if you use this method.  (For those who don't know, fabric cut on the bias is stretchy, so the extra ease of going up a size makes up for losing that.) This pattern isn't super difficult, but it does have some tricky bits.  The lining was finicky - more than linings usually are.  Due to the gathering and matching up the tailor's tacks, not to mention the ravelly nature of cotton, it was a bit frustrating.  I prevailed in the end, obviously, but I would suggest that only those already experienced with sewing linings and gathering tackle this one.  Probably good for an advanced beginner or an intermediate. You think I would have learned my lesson after the trouble I went through with the other hearse fabric - namely, blouses like this are obscenely low-cut on me and gap in the front.  I hand-sewed in the privacy panel in the front.  Because it isn't sandwiched between the outer fabric and the lining, it doesn't look as nice as I would like.  It isn't worth taking the whole blouse apart to properly sew in the panel, but if I did this again, I would certainly take do so. In other news, though I haven't had the energy to trek up to the sewing room, I did mange to work up enough to do something I have wanted to do for a while: I got my nose pierced over the weekend.  I would take a picture, but at the moment, my camera's batteries are still dead, and my phone's battery is nearly so. Thanks for your patience over the summer.  I am hoping things will improve once the worst of the season has passed.

Pac-Man Fever

I fully intended to post part II of It's a Jungle out There, but I haven't finished it yet.  I have made progress on it - I cut the binding today - but it hasn't been quilted yet.  Too much stuff came up this week: late nights at work, an unexpected trip to the vet, running errands, etc.  And then yesterday I just wanted to unwind from all that, which consisted of a a nice picnic with some friends and then eating brownies while watching MST3K.  So instead, I have another edition of It Came from My Closet! (though, in truth, this comes from my husband's closet).

He should know better by now than to dare me into sewing him something, because I will respond with something like "okay, what color do you want that in?" When he jokingly asked me for Pac-Man PJs, I went to eBay on my fabric search.  This was before the Geeks Gone Wild Pac-Man fabric was released, and I found nothing that fit the bill.  This left me with the choice of either buying something custom from Spoonflower or the like, embroidering fabric with my machine, or doing appliqués.  I didn't think embroidery would stand up all that well to the stress of PJs, and he told me straight up not to spend a lot of money, so Spoonflower was out.  Appliqués it was. While I might have skill with a needle and thread, I am not the world's best artist.  I know some people can free-hand their custom appliqués, but I am not one of them.  I did the designs on paper and then pinned them on the fabric as patterns.  For the things that were circular in nature (Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man, pellets, etc), I traced whatever was round and of appropriate size.  I think the big Pac-Man on the chest might have been the lid from a pot and the eyes were from a candle snuffer. Pretty much everything else was much tougher, and I made multiple patterns before I settled on one that I liked.  I think the damn banana (top picture, bottom right leg, which you can barely see) gave me the most trouble (which is probably why it is on the bottom on the pajama leg). The final touch was putting Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man smooching on the butt area.  I thought this was hilarious, but apparently some people don't share my sense of humor. Overall, I am happy with how these pajamas turned out.  It was a lot of work, and I wouldn't have done it for anyone else except him. :)