The Challis Chalet Flickr Group

Source: buddhainteriors.tumblr.com viaLady on Pinterest

Welcome Dear Readers to your stay at the wonderful Challis Chalet!  (Thank You Ms. Grievances for that wonderful alliteration) Honored guests will find our amenities just perfect for your stitching delights. We have sewing rooms equipped with the finest machines and Colette worthy studio light. We also have breakfast and lunch nooks on demand with the finest culinary delights.

Source: gardenrooms.typepad.com viaLady on Pinterest

  You shall find your rooms filled with champagne  chocolate, and a Jacuzzi tub to soak the tired and aching muscles that come with sewing the day away while chatting with you best sewcialist friends.

Challis Chalet invites you to show off what lovely choices you have brought with you, fabrics and patterns.  You can join the Flickr group here. Please feel free to open up conversations for knowledge you'd like to share in our wonderful "discussion lounge".

The staff here can't wait to see what you have in store for us! And don't forget to grab the badge for your blog. Just right click and save to your computer from here.

April Challis - A Focus Month

*see below

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for Spring. Here in The South the pear trees and azaleas are blooming but its not really Spring weather yet. At least for us. I mean, yes its been raining lots but its still getting *gasp* BELOW FREEZING at night. I'm sure that's driving the farmers batty.

So, anyway, this idea was thought up somewhere around the end of Jungle January. I was all bummed out about not actually sewing jungle themed fabric that month and wanted another one. Then I looked at the enormous pile of rayon challis in my stash and thought "Hey! April Challis! It kinda rhymes with 'showers'". Except, not, because apparently its pronounced "shall-eee" because its some crazy foreign word that doesn't pronounce all its letters (Don't start. I know English isn't innocent either. I'm looking at you, knife, knock, and eight). Then I thought, hey, this is America, we mess shit up all the time so I'm gonna say its pronounced "shallis". So there. Neener.

The best part is, challis is the perfect fabric for Spring because its soft, drapey, and comes in a million floral prints. But also, its good for Autumn weather, use muted colors and longer sleeves. Add tights and boots for winter. So really, its the perfect transitional fabric, that way both hemispheres of our little global community can join in the fun.

Do you want to join in on this stash busting theme of the month? If so, just right click on the image and save to your computer and then upload to your blog. Please link back to me in a post!


*I pulled this image off of Pinterest and tried to find the original artist with Google Image Search, to no avail. If this is your artwork please let me know in the comments so that I can give you credit. I am not aiming to make any money off of your work. Thank You.

**When I'm not pressed for time I'm going to attempt "grab code" buttons.

Predicting Spring Fashion Trends

Givenchy Spring 2012

All the cool cats will have a large glittering vagina on their chest.  I'm assuming this is a continuing trend of capitalizing of the Twilight Fandom *.

*My apologies to any actual Twilight fans out there. I grew up on Bram Stoker and Bela Lugosi.

Images of Spring

(Click to Embiggen)

This is my first Sunday off in... over six months! My schedule is changing to something like normal people have(but only for three months... work politics. OH GOODY). Which is good in that I have weekends off, bad that I don't get large chunks of time at once. So, today I am tweaking my muslin for the Great Vintage Sew-a-Long. I'll post more on that later. For now, enjoy this picture taken with my new camera. :)

I must be crazy.

I probably mentioned already, but I'm doing the Great Vintage Sew-a-Long of 2011. The pattern I chose is from the early 1940's and the inspiration was from a Ralph Lauren dress of Spring 2010. I can't tell you how many times I've altered this pattern but the copies I traced out now look something like Frankenstein's Monster. I'm about to do muslin #3 and it better damn well fit!

In other news, I need a needle board before I start on my cropped velvet jacket. Mom says she has one I can have, but that means driving 50 miles through Atlanta traffic. Which... I dunno, I find that drive stressful. But its really nice to have a Mom that has all these nifty tools. Though I have learned that using a thick terry cloth towel and having some natural bristle type brush to brush the pile after steaming and then finger pressing works too. Just, ya know, not quite as efficiently.

But aside from just being weird most of the time, I'm now considering joining Colette Patterns' Spring Palette Challenge. To quote one of my friends "wow... you are really into this". Everyone needs a hobby. Thing is, I have already started something like wardrobe planning and I want to get to it. I've pretty much given up on finishing my Lady Grey coat in any sort of timely fashion. I think the fitting/tailoring aspect is a little daunting. After this dress and the cropped jacket I think I'll be ready to tackle the coat. Maybe have it ready for next winter?

Hopefully my next post will have progress pictures and palette ideas for spring.

Revisting Old Inspiration

I admit it, I'm writing this at work. I know, I know. I'm a bad employee and setting a poor example. But honestly there's a network black out (I'm a Junior Sys Admin/Fourth Level Escalations for a LARGE communications company) company wide. Most everyone is on vacation and anything that is 24/7/365 is on skeleton crew so no changes outside of emergencies are being done. No upgrade, nothing... emergency fixes only. S0 I um... I'm testing to make sure customers can get to blogger.com! Yeah THAT'S IT! You believe me,
right?

*coughcoughshesfullofitcoughcough*

So back in Spring of 2010, which in the Fashion World (please note ironic use of capital letters) that's like eons ago, Ralph Lauren came out with this dress in his RTW collection. I just fell in love with it. He was taking inspiration from The Great Depression (these capitals are not ironic). I loved the blue with the red buttons, and the matching belt. I went in search of a pattern that would be a close match. And almost nine months later I found it. I bought the pattern on the left from Midvalle Cottage on Etsy. She has wonderful taste, especially for the 40's and 60's. And if you are in the market for vintage patterns for children, she has a lot of those too.

But in any case, I am quite pleased with this find and I am going to add it to my list of spring "To Make" dresses. This is going to be a spring and summer full of dresses for me. The pattern itself has three different sleeve variations, the short sleeved version will be the one I use. I think I might have to try the cap sleeves as well. I have the red buttons but now to find a blue print that I actually like. One that is small enough to work. And maybe I'll even be able to use some of vintage cotton thread. Not sure how wooden spools are going to work in my machine, though. I'm sure it will be OK. In any case, looking at these two pictures really brings home that there is such thing as "classic style". Taking a piece of advise from Tim Gunn (paraphrased, of course), if you want to do a vintage look but keep it modern, pair it with modern accessories and hairstyles. There's no substitute for class, that's something you feel inside.

Speaking of those vintage spools of thread, I did some stress tests on it to see if they were any more brittle than my modern poly thread. Nope, it took about the same amount of tension to snap either, so that's good.

That's all for today. Stay Fabulous!