Better Late Than Never! The #redoctober Hawthorne!

From the bottom of my heart, I'm so sorry it took forever to get photos! 

So like, this has been finished for weeks. In fact, I finished it the day before Halloween except for the cuff buttonholes. And I have five or six makes, including things I made for the kids, finished PRIOR to this dress than I have yet to take anything but cell phone photos of. I'm seriously slack here.

But you love me anyway, right?

Pattern: Hawthorn from Colette Patterns
Fabric: rayon challis from fabric.com
Notions: 14 Shell Buttons from Lyanwood  $5
              Interfacing - stash
              Thread -stash
Amount of Fabric: 3.5 yards x $7
Total Cost: 29.50
Time To Complete: Five hours. Largely because of the cuffs and the fact that my first collar I stitched and pinked the WRONG SIDE and had to redo it.

Ok, so on with the show!  Somewhere around my 2TB hard drive are process photos but I didn't feel like hunting for them. I started with the size 14 and did a 4 inch total FBA. This is actually my third one but the first one with 3/4 sleeves. And my first time doing plackets! And they came out OK and I can't tell you just how happy I am about that. Oh, hey, I do have photos of that. I was very happy I decided to use light interfacing on the challis because they were fiddly enough as it was. Here's what I pulled from Instagram.

I block fused whole pieces on top of a towel with silk organza as a pressing cloth. The towel is necessary to keep from ending up with shiny patterns from the metal mesh of the ironing board.

I had to do a bit of correction with the lines after the fact. I have to say that the tutorial on doing plackets from Colette's blog has, by far, been the easiest to understand.

Top stitched goodness!

And here they are in all their finished glory! Pretty right? I used matching buttons for the plackets because I didn't want that red to be broken up. Oh, and I added pockets to the skirt because everything needs pockets. Ok, More photos!

Its Llladybird post Number One!

I should mention that I have found my new favorite place to take blog photos. I hadn't used it before because the doors to the storage area under the sun room (aka my sewing room) were rotted and falling apart. The Mister and his brother replaced them this spring. The wall is south facing and gets great afternoon light.

The fabric on this dress makes me super stinkin' happy. For realz. I was grinning like a fool the whole time. When I got most of it done and put it on my dress form I was like "Is this an old lady dress? It sure feel like it could be!" But the lovely sewcialists talked me into not giving up. Its all about making yourself happy, amirite?

And I shall leave you with my second favorite photo of this series. Did anyone else finish red makes late? What do you think of the Sewcialist color themes?

Llladybird Post Number Two!

This November

Hey y'all, what's going on in your world? We heading into what I call "The Holiday Season" where there's lost of present making, giving, receiving, food galore, and no small amount of stress that comes with it all. Which is why I'm here to let y'all know of some Goings Ons around Teh Interwebs while I procrastinate cleaning and cooking so you can be in the know too!

First and foremost, I would like to announce that the Sewcialist's Movement now has its very own blog! We hope to eventually embed it within sewcialists.org to compliment some other exciting developments in the works, but for now you can find it in the Firehose aggregater. Have you signed up to be added yet?

Also, as had been bantered around on social media, people seemed to like the idea of having a color theme every two months. Probably because its super laid back and also narrows down your choices of "What do I make now?". Well, if you want to participate and it is still a Red Themed Month (which goes through November, FYI), now you've got your stash narrowed down to a less overwhelming choice. Am I right? I know I am, because that's got to be why so many of you participated in #SewRedOctober! Keep 'em comin' folks! We're posting a second round up of separates and then try to do again at the end of November. Our next color theme is #SewGreenDecember and February is up for suggestions.

Up next is our Grunge Sew Along. Yours truly will be doing an inspiration post soon on the Sewcialists blog to help you get inspired. There was a lot more depth to this than most people think, and a lot of it was rooted in music. I'll save the rest for that post, but I created a pandora station which you can listen to here.

I think that's it for the community participation projects now. I'm finished with my big secret sewing project and can now move on to the holiday sewing. I also have a huge back log of projects to photograph. As I stated in my last post, my life has been a whirlwind of doctors and tests. I have a few more things to get checked but the treatments for my back has improved my pain by about 50%. It takes a bit more to trigger break-through pain but I find my strength and stamina has not caught up yet. I learned the hard way I couldn't dive in head first. Lesson learned, so I'm back to slow and steady.

So what is everyone working on now? Are you planning on making gifts for the holidays? Traveling? Hiding in your blanket fort? I'm thinking of constructing a blanket fort around my sewing area and hanging a "Do Not Disturb" sign. Or maybe just turn off every electronic thing I own and read all day in bed. I deserve some rest!