Hi everyone! It’s time for another sewing pattern haul. I missed February’s pattern haul because I didn’t buy any patterns. In March, McCall’s and Simplicity patterns were on sale so I bought some that I wanted along with pattern I already owned but needed to buy new ones as back up or replacements.
In addition to this post, I also created a video about my pattern haul! You can see it here:
It’s been a while since I made a post about patterns I bought. Ok, it’s been over a year. And a half. *sigh* I thought about making a favorite patterns for 2016 in December, but I decided not to because life was so crazy for me that I didn’t keep track about what patterns came out last year. I don’t think I’ll be doing a favorite pattern post this year either, but I wanted to talk about Simplicity’s print on demand service.
I had my eye on several patterns available on Simplicity’s print on demand service for many months, but earlier this year bought one. This pattern eventually became available in stores a few months later. Since I had the print on demand pattern, I bought the store version and wanted to do a review of the print on demand pattern and the differences between the print on demand pattern and store pattern.
Disclaimer: I did not receive any compensation for this review nor was I sponsored in any way. I just really wanted these patterns so I purchased them with my own money. I also know there are other blog posts reviewing the print on demand service, but wanted to write a review myself because I wanted to talk about the patterns I ordered. If all goes as planned, I’ll be making a costume using at least one of the patterns I ordered.
The information in this post is current as of August 2017. Continue reading “Simplicity’s Print on Demand Review”
Progress on the skirt for Anna’s coronation dress was fast, but then quickly slowed down due to life, a virus I caught, and other projects I’m working on. Now that I’m nearing completion of the skirt, I decided to finish writing my posts about the skirt.
In the last post I made about the skirt I talked about the fabric I found for the skirt and an instruction error in the pattern. Since that is the most important part of this post, I’ll talk about that first.
What exactly happened was while I was cutting out the fabric for the light green skirt panels (These are the panels that go on both sides of the olive green appliqued panel) I saw on the pattern piece that ten panels needed to be cut. I thought that was weird because there are ten olive green panels in the skirt. Since the light green panels are supposed to go on both sides of the olive green panels, I thought I needed to cut twice that number of panels.
For my own amusement, I decided to try to cut out ten panels and see what happens. Since the light green satin (The name of the satin color I used is celery) I was using for the light green panels was on clearance and I already knew based off my own attempts to drape the skirt myself, I knew I needed a lot of fabric so I bought all the fabric the store had. This ended up totaling the twice the amount of yards the Simplicity pattern called for. Because of this, I knew that if I followed the pattern’s instructions and cut ten light green panels, I could always cut more without worrying about where to buy more fabric. Continue reading “Anna’s Coronation Dress- Skirt Panels and Pattern Fix”
Finally, I made the follow up post to my favorite sewing patterns from McCall’s! (Just in time for Halloween too) It took me longer than I wanted to type this post because Simplicity and McCall’s released even more new costume patterns for sale. This was driving me crazy because… well… I thought they would release them at once and be done with it. Instead they released them in phases. Since I cannot go to a store as easily as I could last year, it took me a while to buy all the patterns I wanted.
Since I’m currently reorganizing my sewing room, I was unable to take photos of all the patterns I bought and wanted to feature in this post. Because of this, I’m using pictures from Simplicity’s website to show what the costumes should look like. Continue reading “Favorite Patterns for 2015- Simplicity”
Lately I’ve been sewing costumes for this year’s Arizona Renaissance Festival. All the costumes I’m working on are complex and/or detailed and, although everything looks good and is coming together well, I became dishearten about the speed I was working on them. I thought it would be a good self esteem booster to make a simple sewing project and show myself that I can sew fast, sew very well, and the only reason why it takes me so long to make the costumes is because they are just that complex and has nothing to do with my sewing abilities.
Back in December, I found a reprint of a 1940’s Simplicity pattern for a skirt, pants, blazer, and shirt in one of Simplicity’s pattern books. The pattern, Simplicity’s 3688, immediately caught my eye. I had an idea to make a skirt in the style of the skirt used in a woman’s RAF World War II uniform, but I couldn’t find a pattern that was originally printed in the 1940’s. It irritated me because I knew there should be a pattern, but nobody was reprinting it or selling it. The skirt in the Simplicity pattern was the closest I ever saw to the RAF skirt so I bought the pattern along with blue twill to make the skirt out of.
I was able to finish the skirt this weekend and here’s how it looks…
The pattern was surprisingly easy to work with and the skirt fit was correct. Usually when I work with Simplicity patterns that are close fitting to the torso, I need to enlarge the pattern a size or more in order to allow room to fit over my hips. Even if there is a shirt in the pattern and the shirt fits me, I still need to enlarge the the skirt size. With this pattern, I used my normal size and it worked perfectly. I’m very happy with the pattern! The waistband of the skirt sits higher than I’m used to, but I like it anyway. I don’t know when I’ll be able to wear it for the first time, but it’s ready to go!
I’m planning on making the shirt that goes with the pattern and possibly the blazer as well. I don’t know if they will fit properly like the skirt did, but I’m hopeful they will. Right now the shirt and blazer are not a top priority on my sewing list, but possibly after I finish my Festival costumes I’ll be able to go fabric shopping and see what I can find.
That’s all for now!