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Posts Tagged ‘sewing’

Summer Skirt: Fiji Umbrellas

Monday, April 27th, 2009

The weekend went fast – because I was busy! I did lots of braiding. I’ve now redone 65 of 105. Need to finish by Friday, as we leave for California on Saturday morning. We cooked out for dinner both nights. It was nice having friends join us!

On Sunday, I finally made a trip to the fabric store to get what I needed to make some summer clothes. I wanted to make a simple summer dress (no pattern needed for that) and some skirts. It took a while to find just the right pattern for the skirt. I didn’t want anything with a bulky waist (no elastic or draw strings.) I went with a pattern by Burda in their “Young Fashion” collection (view B here). Though doing a faced yoke (the waistband part of the skirt) with a hidden zipper is harder than elastic, it will lay smooth under a shirt.

I bought two types of fabric with matching zippers for skirts to start with. Last night I made the first one… And, I love it! I used A Fuji Afternoon Umbrellas for the fabric. I had to give myself a quick refresher course on hidden zippers, but I didn’t have to seam rip once. That’s good for me!

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Burda 8176 Skirt

Burda 8176 Skirt
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My next skirt is going to be a grey one (I don’t see that fabric online.) I want to get it done, and possibly the dress, before we go on vacation. I could seriously live in skirts and dresses all summer if I was able to. Skirts don’t work out well at the doggy daycare, though. :P

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Posted in Crafts, Photos | 3 Comments »

Friday? Friday!!

Friday, April 24th, 2009

I love my job (Art, technology and dogs. Perfect!), But I’m always glad for Friday! Even more exciting: our long-awaited vacation is just one week away! We are going out to California, though we have no plans yet.

As usual, I am redoing my braids for the trip. But, this time, I am 1.5 months later in doing so and the itch is driving me nuts! I didn’t want to redo them in March only to have to re-redo them in April, so I’ve suffered through the wait. Also, I’ve kept my hair strawberry blond with a bit of red mixed in since autumn, so I am switching back to my natural blond. I have 29/106 done so far and want to get to at least 70/106 by the end of the weekend.

Tonight we are heading to the mall (fun, fun) in hopes of finding me a sweater for the trip. All I want is a long-sleeve, button-down, brown (and maybe black) cardigan sweater for chilly nights on the beach. Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is, because everything I find is either not brown (brown matches most of my clothes, black would match the rest), not long-sleeved (why bother? sweaters are supposed to warm you!) or they are zip-up hoodies (too casual – I need something that can be dressed up too). Hopefully I’ll find something before we leave for California, but I’m not holding my breath that I’ll find something tonight. If you have any suggestions as to wear I should look, leave a comment or send me a twitter tweet thingie to @punquin.

Old Sweater3467932365_2d5ea15782

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Speaking of cardigans, I decided to do an upcycle/remake project. I took an old K-mart crew neck sweater from my donation pile and refashioned it into a cardigan. I think I will move the button slightly, but I’m too lazy to do it right now. I wore it yesterday, and it turned out really cute. The sweater had been way too short on me (like 7″ above my belly button!) and the neckline unflattering. Now it is really fun to wear.

It’s going to be really hot this weekend – around 90° F on Sunday. I don’t mind warm/hot weather, but our heater/air conditioner wasn’t working and I was worried about the dogs. Luckily it turned out to just be a power switch that was shorting out. The price they charged to replace it was kinda rediculous, but at least we are ready for the heat wave.

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Posted in Crafts, Daily Life, Photos, Vacations | 4 Comments »

Quickie

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

I’m about to head to bed, but I thought I’d write a quickie post first…

The weekend went fast! Saturday dan had a hair cut appointment at 10. I tagged along then we went to Home Depot to get 16 bags of mulch on sale. Dan spent the day working on our biggest planter bed out back, while i cleaned inside. Laura came over that night and we got some dinner (mm, bean tacos!). We did some work on our party decorations and played some Rock Band 2.

On Sunday, I went with Laura to a brunch/jewelry sale party thrown by a coworker in Arlington. I am on a budget and was not allowed to order anything. Laura was awesome and ordered me some pretty silver earrings with a $10 gift card she won. After that, we drove around trying to find gold wrapping paper to decorate the party photo booth with (check!) and stopped for burgers (make mine a veggie) and fries. Back at home, we worked on more party decorations, and I got the photobooth covered in the gold paper while Laura figured out some work scheduling stuff. When she figured out that she wouldn’t be working on her birthday, I gave her the little gift I had made her (see below). Danny had gone to a Caps game with our friend/neighbor Dan, and they came home so we could all play Rock Band 2 together for a bit.

Yesterday was uneventful – a work from home day. We had our tax appointment in the evening. Glad that is over with! Today I was back in my office. My day was unproductive because of computer issues. I use a hand-me-down computer there (as all my desktops have been) and it has strange partitions/hds. OS X is on a 17 gig drive, another 17 gig drive is split in 2 equal parts, and a 40 gig was split unevenly. It was all very strange and with ever OS upgrade the main hd filled up more and more. Now I get “startup disk is full” errors every time I use big programs like Photoshop. It was making work impossible today. So I emptied the 40 gig drive’s partitions and repartitioned them to be 1 again. Then I used a utility to make an exact copy of my OS hd to it. It took a long time, and I was unable to work during it because my startup disk kept getting full still. I was scheduled to help up front in the doggy daycare 5 – 7 pm anyway. It was all done the copying when I got back to my desk. I rebooted to my new startup disk and quickly tested Mail before heading home. It seems like everythign is working perfectly.

Okay, this has gotten long! Big shout-out to the birthday girl, Laura! Look out for a post soon about all the fun decorations we’ve been working on for her party on the 18th. I’ll leave you with some pictures of the present I made for Laura and the practice piece I made for myself.

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Stephanie's Bag

Stephanie\'s Bag
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My finished bag!

(Click here for the photo gallery!)

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Posted in Crafts, Daily Life, Geeky Stuff, Photos | No Comments »

Finished Costume!

Sunday, October 7th, 2007



Top and Pants, originally uploaded by punquin.

Despite fence painting most of the day, I managed to finish the bulk of my Halloween costume tonight! I still need to design/sew the thing that will wrap around my ponytail. I have to find or make some jewelry that matches (including a tikka). I have to get nude-colored undies for underneath the pants. My genie lamp is on order.

Now I just have to work on Danny’s costume! I am hoping for minimal sewing on his. I need to go thrift store shopping…

Front View

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Posted in Crafts, Photos | 19 Comments »

The Top is Done!

Thursday, September 27th, 2007



Genie Top, originally uploaded by punquin.

I finished the top tonight (and started the pants)! I had some trouble getting my sewing machine to do button holes until I took it apart and messed with it a bit. The ribbon I bought off of eBay 2 days ago arrived so I was able to add that already.

I took tomorrow off because I worked all day Sunday and we have a mile of backyard fence to paint. So tired. Long week.

Ribbon AddedButtons & Button Holes

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Posted in Crafts, Photos | 5 Comments »

Costume

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007



Top Almost Done, originally uploaded by punquin.

Here’s what I have of my Halloween costume so far… I’m too tired to write anything else! My work week started Sunday morning.

If you don’t know what it is, click the link for more pictures in my Flickr.

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Posted in Crafts, Photos | 10 Comments »

Purple Rain Costume

Tuesday, October 17th, 2006

Purple Rain: Costume Sketch

So, I can’t remember how the idea cam up, but a while ago I told Danny that I would sew him a “Purple Rain” era Prince costume for Halloween. My schedule got so crazy for a while that it didn’t look like it was going to happen. Yesterday I decided I was going to make it work.

Yesterday evening I went to the fabric store and bought a costume suit jacket pattern, purple suede-like fabric (I wanted something with more structure than cheap velvet – the nice velvet was $20/yard), interfacing, purple silky fabric (for a neck scarf), silver buttons, and leopard-print ribbon (guitar strap).

After dinner, I measured Danny and started cutting out the pattern. I sure hope it fits! He was at the top end of one size, but there was a pretty big jump up to the next size. If it is too small, I’ll need a new pattern and more fabric so I can start all over.

Purple Rain Prince
Purple Rain Costume

I stayed up too late sewing, but I really wanted to get the top third of the jacket completed (minus sleeves). The whole collar/lapel/sholder lining area was tough! My seam-ripper was my best friend. I finally got the collar sewn in without any seam puckering, and I pinning the lapels and chalked in the shape I wanted for them before heading to bed. This morning I spent 15 minutes sewing the lapels and pressing everything. I think It looks great so far. I am just really nervous about the size…

Yesterday I won 100 pyramid studs on eBay. When they arrive, I will cover the right shoulder with them. The buttons I chose look like something Prince would have picked – if Prince had to shop at Joann’s.

I am letting Danny chose what kind of prop guitar to get. I sent him links to three kinds – inflatable, a life-like rubber one I could custom-paint and a realistic kids’ guitar that plays riffs at the push of a button.

I need to order a jheri curl wig and a ruffle shirt today. With the pirate craze, it is easy to find fru-fru shirts. Heis just going to have to wear a pair of his own black pants. The coat is all I’ll have time for.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments »