Back from paradise!

Well, I am officially back from vacation! I have caught up on laundry, unpacked the suitcases (and put them away), went grocery shopping and other various errands. I have unpacked a box of fabric that I received from the Fabrics & Notions group while I was gone (although it didn't get very far, just out the box onto the table where it still sits). I uploaded all of my photos onto my computer, managed to go through them and upload some of them to picasa online. Here is a link if you want to view them! Hawaii pictures

I have been catching up on my favorite blog readings. I perused my newest issue of bwof (not much I am overly excited about yet). I don't have any sewing inspiration at the moment. I have included two pictures from our trip here. The first is the sunrise from our balcony in Kauai and the second is the sunset from our balcony in Maui. Enjoy them, I sure did every day!

Time to go

This is a no photo post. I have nothing new sewing wise to share with you. I had hoped to complete a couple of bathing suits this week to take on our hawaii trip (we leave tomorrow for 2 weeks!), but alas life took over every last minute. I spent a lot of time this week with my Aunt in the hospice facility. She left us this morning. It was her time to go. So sad, though. She was diagnosed with lung cancer in May. We were her family, she had no kids, and her dh had passed years ago. She was supposed to go with us to hawaii. I am glad that I got to help her this last week when it was so hard for her to do anything, she will be deeply missed by many. I have to pack my bags today so we are ready to go too....life is always some sort of adventure. I depart for now, but will be back.

Jalie 2805 with a scooped neck

Here is my finished t-shirt! I didn't take a close-up, but I topstitched the neckline and hems with a contrasting black thread. I am pretty happy with how this turned out. I took about 4" off the neckline from the orginal pattern and bound the neckline using my binders. It is nice to have some variety. I use this pattern alot!! I am a t-shirt sort of gal. I downloaded the embroidery from the website embroidery library. I like the designs there and the costs are very reasonable! I need to look through my stash to figure out what is on the agenda. I know we still have many hot days down the road here. It doesn't usually start to get coolness in the air until the end of October or November. So with three more months of hot weather, there is plenty of time to still do summer sewing. I was chilly last night watching my dd's at swim lessons (they end at 8pm), I was thinking that it had to be in the high 60's.....when I got into the car, the thermometer read 75 F and didn't budge. I laughed at myself. It is all relevant to what we are used to!! I hope everyone has a good sewing weekend!

Work in progress

Here is the embroidery that I chose to go on this Jalie 2805 short sleeve t-shirt. This t-shirt is supposed to go with the wild capris that I made a little while ago. I thought I would continue the island motif onto the shirt. I used a mango colored sophia knit for this t-shirt. This is really a very stable knit to work with. It is a little bit thicker and lays very nicely when worn. This particular fabric is sort of two toned in color. The outside is almost more of a coral color, while the inside has two colors knitted together: an orange and a pink. I like the color alot! I cut the neckline deeper and plan to bind it. The rest of the t-shirt will be standard per jalie 2805. For those of you that embroider.....what do you use to cover up the stitching on the inside so it isn't scratchy? On a non-sewing related topic, I am ready for Hawaii! We have a little more than a week until we leave! I made my Hawaii weight loss goal of 20 pounds today! Yay! My weight goal for while we are gone for two weeks is just to try and maintain that loss!!

A sleeveless Jalie 2805

Here is my modified Jalie 2805. I cut the neckline about 2 inches deeper than the round neck version and I narrowed the armholes at the shoulders by about 1 1/2". I bound the neckline and armholes with a black lycra knit using my binder and coverstitch. I lettuce edged the bottom of the shirt. I had to stabilize the shoulders, neckline, and armholes. I started to seam up the shoulder and saw how stretched out it got, that I ripped it out and stabilized before starting again. After stabilizing these areas, I had no issues. Even with the ripout and stabilizing, this only took about 1 1/2 hours. I made it this morning and wore to a birthday party this afternoon!

Here are my promised pics!

Here are my pictures of the Kwik Sew 2884 swimsuit. She is having fun! I made a hair scrunchy in the fabric as well. You can see that the bottoms of this suit provide ample coverage.

I have my mind made up to make bwof 4-2009-122. I traced in out in a size 42, adding some extra for a fba to be sure the casing was in the right spot. I had this fabric below picked out and sent it to the washer and dryer because it had never visited them. It is a neat fabric. It has elastic in it making the crinkles. After the washer and dryer I laid everything out and realized I didn't have enough fabric to make what I wanted to make!!! AARRGGHH! So, I still wanted to use this fabric and decided to make a jalie 2805 with it....but I will make it sans sleeves and bind the neckline and arm holes with a black fabric that has some stretch to it. Here's hoping it comes out cute!

Time for a swim!

I decided around lunch time to do a swimsuit today for my older dd. I traced out the pattern (I needed a larger tracing....), cut out the material, and had it sewn up in 1 1/2 hours! How fast can you drive to the store and purchase a suit and drive back home?? This is kwik sew 2884 View B. I made this in a size 7 for my older dd. I got this fabric from the evil fabric queen. It is lovely fabric. I lined the bottoms of the suit (not called for in the directions). I usually line the top front of the suit, but this time I decided not to since this fabric is pretty heavy and dd doesn't have much to show through anyhow. If I were making it for myself, of course it would be lined! I took out an inch on the bottoms through leg to waist area, last time I made these, my dh said they looked too wide in that area.

I lettuce edged the bottom of the top instead of turning and hemming.

I added a little ribbon in the back of the inside top to indicate which way to put the suit on!

I will get a picture of this later today with a model in it! We have swim lessons this evening!