My Sewing Space

A week or so before I made my dress, I worked on these two pieces for my younger daughter. My older daughter had an idea of what she'd like for new Christmas clothes and I found something similar enough on sale, so we nabbed that. If she had needed me to make hers as well, I'm pretty sure mine would not have happened. Both the vest and the dress are based on Ottobre patterns, but they're so significantly modified and mashed up that I'm not even going to name the specific patterns. The vest was very easy to construct, but the fake fur fabric was quite a nuisance. I'm pretty sure I spent more time cleaning up the fur fuzz than I did actually making the vest. It's fully lined and only has one hook and eye closure at the base of the collar. The dress is also quite simple. The main fabric is a semi-sheer polyester woven with sheer polka dots. It isn't as sheer as chiffon, but sheer enough to require a lining. I handled the dress and lining as one piece...

This vest was actually completed a couple of months ago, but I had very mixed feelings about it and it just hung out on my dress form for a long time. I finally decided that I needed to actually wear it to determine how I really felt about it. The fabric is a synthetic fur that I found in the clearance section at Fabricland. It looks striped from the pile being quilted in different directions. I liked it when I saw it, but knew that it would require a simple pattern for it to work for me. I chose to use Kwik Sew 3453 with a few modifications. I moved the pattern's forward shoulder seam to the actual shoulder, eliminated pockets and zipper, added a lining, and shortened the length a little bit. The fur made a horrible mess of my sewing room, but was otherwise easy to sew. I like the side panels on this pattern and chose to place the stripes on the bias for interest. This isn't as visible as I thought it would be. In my mind, the side panels came more to the front...

On Friday evening the Preacher and I stopped at an art show.  A woman that we know hosts it annually in her pottery studio.  Most of the art was her pottery, but she invites some other area artists to exhibit their work too.  One of the artists this year was a woman that makes things out of reclaimed fur.  The most common things were hats, mitts, and muffs, but there were also other things like slippers and fur-trimmed objects like purses.  The Preacher bought a pair of the mittens. They are rather unique.  The cuffs and the palms are soft leather and the fur is Alaskan Seal.  The inside is fur, too.  They are really warm.  They are also really big.  They don't stay on my hands (but they're not for me, so that's okay). Unfortunately, the artist wasn't there when we were, so I didn't get to talk to her.  The construction of the mitten looks pretty simple, but I would have had lots of questions for her about sewing fur....