February 16, 2010

SUCCESS!!!


I just finished sewing this top together. The black one is the one I made and the white one is the one I made the pattern from. It's not finished obviously, but I couldn't wait to post this. I have been very scared to sew this together! Every stage so far I have had some sort of hiccup, all of which I have learned tremendously from, but frustrating non the less. I have been doing every other project possible before this, but it was finally time to get busy. At first glance this looks like a simple project. When I took a closer look, I realized how different each piece is and how many sizes I had to make. I obviously got it backwards... but I was able to make it smaller and keep each pattern piece fitting together like it should! (Grading patterns is a skill I am still perfecting). I had to share my excitement with you and now I feel I can do any project headed my way.

February 6, 2010

Getting Organized

I am very lucky to have my own sewing/craft room in our two room apartment.(Matt gets his man closet on one side of the room for his biking stuff & I get the rest!!) But there never seems to be enough room so I am constantly looking for ways to be more organized and space saving. I have a big table that I love where I do most of my fabric cutting, but I always felt I had a lot of wasted space. I usually have projects where I need to keep track of many different sizes and lots of pieces. I found these tubs at Target for a steal and made labels for all the sizes I would need and put them under the table. I pin all the pieces together for one item and keep them in the coordinating size bins until I can get a tag sewn in. I also found out that the bins and drawers in the home office section of stores can be expensive, so I looked down the kitchen isle and found these tubs that are used for washing dishes for 1/2 the price! They work just as good and they stack when I'm not using them. I know this isn't rocket science but it feels good to come up with something that works so well for me!