Sew Dance

So, clearly I haven't been keeping this blog up on a weekly basis lately. I've been writing and doing other things at my computer rather than watching TV and crafting. I did however just about finish the first page on Dragon Writer. And I cut out the fabric for the dress. Most of it's sewn but currently in a bit of a ball. I'll get around to finishing it eventually. But this is how I laid out my pattern using my figurines as weights.  

So, I made a tiny bit of progress on In the Garden, but I've gotten sick of the blues. Again. Thankfully this wasn't my focus for the week.   I made a shirt! Please note, it's a little damp as I wore it once before taking a photo so the fabric is doing some funky things.   I also finished crocheting the t-shirt I was working on. Or so I thought, the back is wider than the front and now I have to figure out how to fix it. Good news is the discrepancy is near the top. Bad news is, not sure where...

I think you can finally tell that there are people in this piece. I have *drum roll please* Two hands! Belonging to two different people! Is that a shirt collar too? (Ok, I'll stop) And this is the crochet I've been working on. The pattern was not written clearly at all for the joining round. They didn't take into account the lack of a double shell. It should be joined in the ch2 of the shells but to make everything else work, I had to join the front to the back between shells. Several times as after I figured out how to join them properly to get 8 unworked shells on each side, I realized I skipped half of the shell earlier in the round (thankfully I caught the mistakes before I got too far along with the sleeves. That would've been disastrous. And now for the title of the this post. I've started sewing again! Well, I've cut out pattern pieces to sew something. Still need to get out my machine(s). Any guess as to what this will become? I'l...

Hard week, not with a good outcome, decreased my stitching time. I got nothing done on Friday. That's not really the reason my weekly post is late. I finished page 5 very late on Sunday so I delayed it to now. At the beginning of the week, I did finish a nightgown. I made it from flannel so it'll be good for winter. Actually I cut the material back when it was still freezing. Also started a summer dress. I just haven't gotten back to it yet.

I'm late on my update again. I have a really good reason though. I spent Sunday finishing up my tailoring on my fringe dress and then made a shirt. I'm having trouble with the hem on the top otherwise I'd have a picture of it. I may make bias binding and finish it that way. On Thursday, I finished the over 2 stitching of my dragon. I then started on the over 1 Chinese characters. By the end of Saturday I had a little over one to finish so I decided to wait, thinking I could finish it up after I got back from the competition the next day. We made top 24 and the quarter-finals for silver latin. But given the amount of entries and how long it was between the heats, they were running in level order rather than finishing up newcomer/bronze before starting silver/gold, I didn't get home as early as I thought. Therefore, I had to finish the characters today. Now onto the backstitching! I did buy more fabric, but it was one piece of denim as I'm going t...

I seem to be a bit all over the place this week. Let me walk you through it. Sunday, I have declared this day to be for 'insanity'. I shall try and keep this up. So Monday, I picked up a new cross-stitch, Mystical Wizard. More on that later but here are the colors. Wednesday, I decided to work on one of my sewing projects. A 17.5" stuffed Christmas tree. I was going to make the 12" one but I had enough fabric if I ignored the included cutting diagram and got away with 1/8" less. But come Thursday, I was tired of my cross stitch. There's only so much I could take of stitching blue on blue, and mainly two colors of blue. Of course the upper left is the least interesting part color-wise of this piece. So I switched to The Accolade. I'll include the last photo I took of it (with my old phone) because I didn't get that many rows finished. But not bad for only two days.   And as today is Sunday, I worked on Insanity again. And...

It can take over even if I know I'm not going to execute it right away. First my progress on Grand Ball, then to explain the latest diversion my brain seems to be preoccupied with. Almost done with the first 25%. Tried to finish it today but couldn't. If I hadn't made a few scarves this week and been bothered by a cold, I probably would have done it. Also ended up cutting some fabric strips for my first quilt earlier. Anyway, recently I got a whole bunch of patterns. Of the costume patterns I picked up, one was based on 'Brave' and two were based on 'Once Upon A Time'. Now combine this with the fall season starting up, a show on Syfy I've been watching called 'Heroes of Cosplay', and the fact that I look bad in white, I ended up wanting to make one of the outfits the evil queen wears on the show. So, take this pattern: Which when compared to the screenshots from the show, are pretty close to what she's actually wearing, and th...

Despite the long weekend, I didn't get as much done as I thought I would. I think my main problem was I created a pinterest account http://pinterest.com/khascat/ if anyone's interested. Some things you've seen on my blog, I figured I might as well try and get a little more traffic to my blog by pinning some photos from here. I did get the majority of Sebastian's body done. Which leaves his legs and then the finishing back-stitching, french knots, and beads. Those won't take so long as they're concentrated on his head and the fan.   Tuesday morning, the cast of season 16 of Dancing with the Stars gets announced my opinion posts will be coming back. I'll be spending the rest of the weekend writing up a synopsis of either my 2010 NaNoNovel (Lost Princess) or 2011 NaNoNovel (Lantis) to turn into a script for one of my classes. Lost Princess lends itself more to a tv series, while Lantis is a movie or mini-series. I'm leaning towards Lost Prince...

Well, actually I have two. I finished Leopard Shoe Kitty. Then I managed to start and finish Queenie. Today I also made two Christmas stockings. Here's one before I added the name in silver glitter glue. Please ignore the crazy background of the couch it's sitting on. I also added a bunch of items to my etsy shop. Lots of different scarves and a few other items. Amazing what I can get done when I have lots of time on my hands. I may not have found another job, but I am going to go back to school for a Masters degree and a career change. So I will be looking for part-time work in January so I have some sort of income. I also need to think of other items to make as soon it won't be scarf season for a while.

I spent the majority of Sunday working on this dress. I hemmed the bodice and put the elastic in. I also created the collar and straps. I attached those and the bra. I also trimmed the excess fabric from the bottom so I could actually dance in the dress but not enough to cut the rose design off. This caused it to be higher in the front than the back. I'm really tall for a latin dancer so I managed to not have to cut any of the printed design off. I'm not sure how this design would've fared with a shorter dancer. Now I just need to make the skirt and attach the hooks to the collar and back strap. Something odd I noticed when I went to put the dress form on the pole, the knob to tighten the screw to hold it in place broke off. It's not thin plastic either. I need to figure out how to fix it before I make a smooth dress.

I broke down and ordered more fabric for my stash. It's a bit on the expensive side but I think it'll be worth it when it arrives. There's a European ballroom dress designer that I found while searching dress designs for inspiration (more on that a bit later). Farale sells one-off fabric sets with a design. I gave in and bought this design with all the fabric needed: I know it's not a picture of the actual fabric but I really like the design and it'll be one of a kind fabric. It's also called 'animal print' and given my favorite pattern is leopard... I also got the following fabrics from them as I found the pretty/intriguing. The last fabric (stretch satin) is going to be used for godets in a smooth gown. I just need to buy coordinating fabrics later. I also signed up for a 'speakeasy tour' of NYC's garment district to be held in late September. This tour is given by Mimi of Shop The Garment District . I believe this will help...

The larger stones I ordered came Monday so I spent most of the week adding them to my dress. Sparkly aren't they? 16mm square Swarovski crystals in crystal AB. I spent most of the week adding them to the dress. I have a solid row at the top and bottom of the dress and skipping every other one in the middle. I did this because I didn't know if I'd have enough to fill them in completely. Turns out I did but my teacher liked it that way. He currently has the dress and gauntlets to stone (hey, he offered) and I unfortunately didn't take a picture of the dress before I gave it to him. Well, better to surprise you when it's finished. Although he's gotten it in his head for me to make another dress, same design but different colors by mid-June. Right... First I'm doing the black velvet to go with that belt I have and I still have the sparkly blue/silver sequined dress to make. Just a little under two weeks until Tri-state. Eek! Because I finished stoning the d...

The cross-stitching on Frederick is finished! All that's left now is the backstitching. That shouldn't take me too long. As this project is nearing an end, any suggestions as to which WIP I should work on next? Also, when does a WIP become a UFO? I managed to get all four sides of the fringe sewn on my dress. Tomorrow will be spent hand stitching the strands that didn't secure themselves under the needle and the top of the sides to try and get them even. May need to add extra loose fringe on one side to get them to look the same. As the new season of Dancing with the Stars will start soon (cast announced Tuesday) I will be blogging my opinion on cast, dresses, dancing, and the drama that will most certainly prevail throughout the season. The performance shows should go up that night, but as I'm dancing myself Tuesday when the results show is on, I'll post that Wednesday when I manage to watch the show. HyperSmash.com

Frederick is stitched, even if the whole design has yet to be completed. Have to finish the books and bottom shelf. Then off to the back stitching. I've also included a picture of Onyx, my little black fuzzball who happened to be laying at my feet while working tonight. As for the dress, I've taken it off my dress form and have started to sew the cut ends. This is giving me trouble. First I've been evening out the fringe. Then I cut it, then I have to take those cut ends, held together buy just one flimsy strand of thread which will unravel if pulled, and arrange it under the already stitched down part. I've done the front and back, which were even on both ends. Now I'm working on the sides. One which is going short to long, and the other long to short. And somehow I have to get them to look even. *sigh* I did order the stones I need for it today. I probably should update you on my actual dancing. We have choreography for foxtrot and Vien...

I have attached the fringe. Didn't expect it to drape down the dress like that did you? Also, you can see the back of the dress isn't nearly as puckering around the zipper as it was in my previous photos. I probably should have fixed that before adding the fringe but alas. It worked out in the end. Below are the pictures of how I'm going to drape the fringe. I was playing around with it today and did remove some of the interstitial string that you see but overall I'm still playing around with it. Then there's Frederick. I have finished page 3/4 as seen below.