Weekend Project: Round Up

If you're ridin' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there with ya.

Cowboy Wisdom from cowboyway.com

There's a whole herd of projects trailing along behind me that I need to show y'all. First, I finished my Mother's birthday present - a blouse in stringed instrument fabric - perfect for a professional musician who plays violin and viola.

I'm not sure how well you can tell from these pictures, but the blouse has a very flattering shape - with vertical darts in front and in back.

I really hope it fits her! She's taller, but much more slender than I am - I doubt she has 5% body fat. (I try to reassure myself that I could last longer on a mountain top if our plane crashed, but then it occurs to me that I would also be closer to the top of the list of people worth eating, so I think it's pretty much a wash...)

In general, I liked the pattern - the only bit that gave me fits was setting in the sleeves. I do this all the time and generally don't have much trouble, but I set in each of these sleeves several times, and am still not really happy with the result.

Next up, a quick and easy project from my queue - aprons for the wait staff at our favorite restaurant. I banged these out in a couple of hours, start to finish. They had to be black, but I added blue trim for Val and red trim for Itzel, to make them special.

Here's a close-up of the trim and my new label. (Once again, blogspot took it upon itself to flip this image and I can't get it flipped back...)

Finally, an update on Ana and Juana. Our sewing lessons continue to go very well! Ana has completed her pajamas, robe and matching slippers. Today she banged out a pillowcase in the same fabric! ;)

Here are her slippers, or "pantuflas" in Spanish. (I've never tried to make slippers, and was pleasantly surprised by how nicely they came out.)

Juana has been working on a halter dress. The original pattern was for a blouse, but she wanted it lengthened into a dress. The only steps left are the back zipper and the hem. (Here she has it on over her clothes - I'll get a better shot when it is finished.)

Finally, Ana made a cute little bolero jacket last week. The main fabric is black with little sparkles. She lined it and added a big sparkly button. She put a lot of work into modifying the fit of the lining until she had it to her liking (i.e., tight) and then I showed her how to use the lining pieces as the pattern for the fashion fabric.

So, that's it for this week's round-up! I've been working on my pants - using the pattern that Susan and I made following instructions from an article in Threads magazine - and they seem to be coming out really well! I can't wait to show you! Next week... :)