Well, That Was Interesting

It's been over a week since I last posted, so I had a block of time yesterday to finish up another UFO, AND actually blog about it.  Only Blogger wasn't playing fair.

I did have it finished yesterday, I really did.  I just couldn't tell anyone about it!  (LOL!)

I have a couple of reasons why I hadn't posted for so long (and for why I do not have more finished projects), but they are pretty lame, all things considered.

First and foremost, The Sewing Assistant took over my sewing chair.

This may look like a sewing chair.  In reality, it is
actually a very expensive cat bed.
Could have fooled me.

Seems like he is psychic, sometimes.  Whenever I would start towards my sewing machine, there he was, climbing over the piano, through the cutout archway, over my machine, and curling up on my chair.  Emphasis on MY chair.  But that doesn't fly with the SuperChunk.  He'd move when it was Food O'Clock, but then I would be in the kitchen working on preparing his evening repast and taking short orders for whatever combination of teenage boys happened to be in the house at the time.  So our schedules were sort of out of sync, as far as getting any work done.  

But it probably was a good thing anyway, since I was clumsy enough last weekend to do this:

SPRAIN!

Fancy splint, hey?  I don't even have a good story to tell.  I was just.....walking.  On a perfectly level sidewalk.

Yay, me.

It was a little scary navigating through all my UFOs in my workroom with an unstable ankle, so I decided to take a few days off from sewing and let The Sewing Assistant have his designated spot du jour.  

But I was going crazy.  I must have read through about 10 sewing/crafting books and magazines in very short order.  Whenever I do that, I get hyper, have a hundred working ideas spinning around in my head, and want to drop everything and start letting the creative muse take over.  Normally, this happens right before bedtime (I know, I'm wired backwards).  Crafting books and magazines and I should never come within two rooms' distance from each other at that time of night.  It ought to be a law or something.  

This was in broad daylight, though.  Couldn't get out much, couldn't do much moving around, car was in the shop (that's a story for another day), couldn't take it anymore.  

Before:  Stretchy knit dress from the Assistance League

I'll be the first to admit my figure has gone the way of the dinosaurs - well hidden by layers and layers of time.  There was no way I could pull off a look like this anymore.  It even looked embarrassing on the dress form, and it doesn't have all the added padding that I do in certain places, nor does it have those.....upper arms.  If you are of a certain age, you know of what I speak.  But the fabric was lovely, bright, stretchy and forgiving and it had potential.  And it was only about $3.00.  

CHOP!

Right now my dress form is cringing.  She really
does not like being photographed bottomless.

Since I did most of the chopping while on the dress form, it was a bit on the uneven side.
Off to the cutting table to remedy the situation.
I love my rotary cutter.

And what to do with the excess fabric?  Why, make some sleeves to cover those....
upper arms.
What the hey, someone else already did the work - why not use the hem at the bottom
of the dress for the hems of the sleeves?

Here you can see the hems of the newly cut sleeves a little more clearly.

I decided not to unpick the hems of the original sleeveless openings - I knew I was going to have to fine-tune the fit of the newer sleeves into the armholes, so why risk having the fabric run while I was working on the fit?  The pattern I was using claimed that it was "close-fitting," so I decided to go by the pattern envelope sizing chart and used the size that was supposed to fit properly.  

Note to self:  never, ever trust the pattern companies.  

I should know that already.  I had had a severe disappointment using a previous "close-fitting" pattern in my customary size, only to have it turn out like a sausage casing.  Using very expensive knit fabric.  Bummed doesn't even BEGIN to cover it.  Someone really lucked out while shopping at the Assistance League (my treat).  So this time, I figured I'd best cut this one a bit larger from the new pattern, just in case.

This time, however, the opposite problem occurred.  The sleeve was overly large and flapped around like laundry on a clothesline.  

Note to pattern companies:  WOULD YOU PLEASE BE MORE CONSISTENT?  Thank you. 

Yeah, right.  Like that's ever going to happen.  How silly.  After about a half an hour of trimming, testing, trimming some more, and finally setting in the sleeves, the shirt was done.

After a bit of finessing, much better results!  

I played around with some extra fabric at the bottom of the dress form, just so she wouldn't feel so exposed.  I think my next project might be to cover the form completely for a more finished look.  If only my UFO list weren't so long already......