Paisley Button-Up: Three Months in the Making

What I made:

Button-up top, Simplicity 2601

Fabric from Granny's stash (which you may recognize from the Good Ol' Fashioned Bloomers...and I still have enough yardage left to make a sundress!)

Wild hair and make-up-less face provided by an entire Saturday of sewing

Mid-head bang?

When I made it:
As the title of this blog entry suggests, I started making this top almost three months ago, in anticipation of Self-Stitched September.  Once I had the bodice pretty much finished, I tried it on and discovered that it was too big - but only around the waist section.  Since it's a double-faced waistband, fixing it would basically entail ripping apart everything I had done so far, and I just couldn't bear the thought.  I pulled it back out this weekend though, seam ripper in hand, and got the thing finished!  Don't want any UFO's (un-finished objects) lying around clogging up my sewing room.

What I like about it:
Probably my favorite thing about this top are the fabric-covered buttons.  They're just so cute and small and matchy!  Probably my least favorite thing is the fact that these fabric-covered buttons don't actually like to stay buttoned.  I'll be wearing a tank top underneath and doing a wardrobe malfunction check on the hour when I wear this to work this week!

The French Prince of Bel-Air

On the Champs-Elysees, born and raised
At Notre Dame is where I spent most of my days
Just smoking and napping and eating crepes all cool
And hanging with the pigeons outside of boarding school

When a couple of Germans, who were up to no good
Started making trouble outside the Louvre
I climbed the Eiffel Tower and my mère got scared
And said you're moving with your auntie and uncle in the United States of America

...

Composed by Brittany and Valerie, 1:56 PM, 11/05/10, for reasons that neither one of us can recall

The "55:46.72" Dress!

It's official:  The 1-Hour Dress can be done!  I'm pretty relieved that McCall's wasn't tricking me.  Or at least not directly.  Because this dress definitely still took more than an hour to make (more like about 5 hours, from cutting to being finished, which is about like a normal garment takes me), but it DID only take me 55 minutes, 46.72 seconds, to do the actual sewing on the machine part!

Anyway, here she is:

What I made:  

McCall's 6069, a simple little pullover dress, but with a real fancy neckline!

Printed jersey from Gorgeous Fabrics

When I made it:
Cut it last week, sewed it over 3 nights this week.

What I like about it:

Let's get this out of the way first:  POCKETS!

Secondly, as you may have noticed from my other clothes I have put up on this blog, or just from knowing me in real life, this dress is kind of a departure from what I normally wear!  And I think in this case, it's definitely a good thing.  I don't wear a lot of prints (which I have only just recently realized, and want to remedy), and I generally lean more towards fitted or structured clothes.  This is a fun little departure from the norm for me, and I like it a lot!  Plus, stretch knits = super, duper, dee-duper comfortable.

And how I wore it to work today (that back is slightly too scandalous for an office setting):

Fame

Scott (and his mustache) have been on TV twice now!

Second row from the top, right above the info bar, mid-clap

Second from the right of the aisle, directly above the word "With,"  red plaid (with me to the left!)

I expect he'll start getting recognized on the street pretty soon.

"1-Hour" Dress Update

14:41.43

 35:16.43

45:06.92

Just the waistband and bottom hem to go...it's going to be close!  I may have to really put the pedal to the metal for this last 14:53.08!

My weekend went a little like this...

Accoutrement.

Merriment.

Enjoyment.

Amusement.

Moment.

Engagement!!!!!!

Amazement.

Announcement.

Sentiment.

Entertainment.

(Most pictures taken from Heidi.  Read her beautiful and endearing account of her and Marshall's story here.)

The "1-Hour" Dress?

I bought McCall's 6069 a few months ago when I decided I wanted to delve into sewing some knits.  When the pattern arrived in the mail, I was pretty pumped when I saw this on the front:

A dress in one-hour?!  Sign me up for that!  You know how much I like instant gratification.

But then I followed the asterisk to the bottom of the page to find that it said this:

Trickery!  For a fleeting second I was upset that McCall's could try to pull one over on me like that, but then I decided to take it as a challenge (you know how I like those too), and see if this dress is, in fact, make-able, in just 60 minutes.

I grabbed a stopwatch (that is, I grabbed my phone and went to the stopwatch function) and got started.  I am only timing when I am actually pressing down the pedal on my sewing machine, taking the "sewing machine time" in it's most literal sense.  Here's what I've got after 9:09.43 of sewing time:

Think I can finish the rest in 50:50.57?  We shall see!