More pink progress- alomost done!

Well with being back at work fulltime and free-time seeming to be in short supply I have decided to make today's post fairly picture heavy , in order to bring you up to speed with where I'm at with the pink skirt (Kwik Sew 3240 take three).

Sewing up the baby hem for the lining:

Pinning the skirt and lining right sides together using my ironing board (and its very ugly cover, really have to do something about that ...sigh....):
Lining and skirt stitched, turned right sides out and topstitched:

Sewing the elastic in using my zipper foot. Although you can't really tell its sandwiched in between the lining and fashion fabric of the skirt. I sewed the elastic ends together (to form the waistband) before sandwiching it in:
Sasha, my cat, getting affectionate with the table edge and keeping an eye on my work (quality control). BTW no I don't drink while sewing, that whisky tin is what I store my pins in- DH gave it to me :)

Hopefully in the next day or so I'll have my review done for the Stash 2009 contest and you'll be able to see the finished product!

Pink skirt progress

Well I have been madly stitching (in between trying to clean my fur ridden house and adjust to full time work again!) and have so far...
Found out that the lovely linen-like fabric that I picked up at Spotlight Osborne Park's closing down sale frays like crazy.
So I have had to get my trusty "C" foot out to zig zag the edges using my Janome MYexcel18W.

Here is a pic of my current workstation. Normally I am in the spare room, but due to entering the Stash 2009 contest (and hopefully sewing LOTS) I have moved to the dining room. Check out the table, it's antique English Oak, given to us by our lovely Perth neighbours Eadie and Paul :)

One down, one more to go.....

Yay -I have finally finished my black version of the Kwik Sew 3240 skirt!

I now have a basic black skirt to go out in AND have gained my first point for the Stash 2009 contest.

It took a little more fiddling about this time as I lined the skirt, due to the fabric being quite see-through.

Adding lining created quite a bit of bulk around the elasticated waist band, what with there being a double layer of fabric folded over. The result - teamed with the shininess of the fabric- is not as figure flattering (or comfortable to wear) as my first attempt.

Still part of making this was using up what I had in my stash, and it feels great to finally be rid of a piece of fabric I have had kicking around for years.

Unfortunately the pink version I am making next (which I have already cut out) will need lining too, so I am going to attempt to sew the elastic casing slightly differently in order to cut down on the boof factor.

You can read the review I posted here for this skirt-attempt on sewing.patternreview.com.

Next up the Kwik Sew 3240 skirt take 3- in pink! Then after that maybe a change in pace, or at least pattern :)

Progress!

I have almost completed my black Kwik Sew 3240 skirt for the Stash 2009 contest.
I decided to make view B, which has a lace inset at the flounce seam, for something different.
For the lace inset Kwik Sew has you sew the lace on top of the seam that joins the flounce to the skirt, then cut through the fabric (but not the lace!) underneath, turn the excess fabric back and zigzag along the edges of the lace (from the front).














The end result is a quite neat looking finish (I think) and applying the lace over the seam first means that you can make sure the placement is correct before sewing.

Luckily the lace a I chose had a little flower motif that I could line up along the seamline, making it easy to see if the lace was sitting straight.
I was hoping to get a thicker lace to use for the inset, however Spotlight seems to have a shortage in non-stretch black lace at the moment and this was the best/ most sturdiest feeling I could get.
Unfortunately after trying on the skirt I realised that the lace is a bit too "peek-a-boo" for my liking, with my white legs contrasting rather starkly with the black fabric. Sooooooo I think I am going to have to add a lining, which I will have to buy (so cant be included in the stash yardage).
Luckily I haven't sewn the elastic in yet....
I think with a thicker lace you wouldn't need to line the skirt- or if you don't mind showing a strip of your thighs :)














As you can see I like to use a lot of pins to make sure the lace and turned fabric really stays in place before zigzagging! I desperately need to get some more Japanese glass head pins from Wendy Gager's website (hopefully she sell's them online - I brought them instore before),as I am yet to find anyone who sells pins of the same quality up here. Currently I am resorting to using all my old pins at the moment to make up numbers and they are very blunt in comparison.




All pinned up and ready to go...err ...sew!