What a challenging week!  I am having problems with my email and it will not upload my pictures so this will be a somewhat boring post... but I need to keep a record of my progress or lack of it :-)

I think after re-cutting my bodice and back pieces that I may have cut them too big.  I was trying to make it smaller because the back was absolutely huge on the one I cut out first and so I cut it all down hoping that it would not look like a bag with large boxy arms... now I have a strange fabric bunch from my breast to my armpit and it seems to fit but does not look great... sigh... maybe I am being too picky, but I want to make clothes that I want to wear so I am trying to do it right.  I will post pictures as soon as I get DH to help figure out why my phone will not email me pictures anymore.  I have put the bias binding around the neck and stitched the bottom together... If it fit it would be a bit more exciting.  I am using an old sheet for the muslin so maybe the buldge in the armpit/breast area would go away if I used a different fabric?  This is all so new I just don't know!  The first muslin fit in the front bust pieces, but the arms shoulders and back were big enough for five of me... but the front fit fine without weird bulging .  So I thought by cutting it all down a touch (two sizes) I might get some reasonable arms and it might all even out... still leaving an inch and a half of extra length for the full bust adjustment but taking out the extra 1/2 inch to front width.  I will leave this one as is and see what happens with an added skirt hanging.  I think maybe I should have left the width?

Fairy Good Start

It seems I was wrong about fairies.  I always picture them as happy, busy little magical people-like creatures with wings... They always look like perfect people too; so I guess I must have imagined them living perfect lives.  But as I was playing my harp late at night and my husband was breathing his not-quite-snore type sleep breathing in the room where I played... I thought of the misconception often bestowed upon an instrument and thus bestowed upon it's player.  Harps for instance have an ethereal stigma placed upon them.  Not entirely wrongly so.  They sooth by the very nature of the sound that they make and the vision they are just sitting there.  So it would seem that we are ill-fitted, my harp and I.  An odd couple of sorts for the simple fact that I am no angel and no fairy playing beautifully in the woods with perfect fair beauty in sound and appearance.  I am working desperately to get the fingering right on my little Sylvia Woods beginner version of "Drink to Me Only" and the man that should be entranced by me is sleeping heavily completely unaware of my existance in the room.  But I am slowly learning to play my beautiful harp and I am reaching for goals!  

Another way I differ from fairies is my clothing.  The beautiful petal-like creations that gracefully adorn the perfect bodies of the little fairy people that I imagined are not what I dig through my dresser for when I wake up in the morning.  It mostly matches, highlights my unfairy-like parts and says more about the sale rack I found it on than who I am or like to be.  So I am sewing.  I am learning to sew.  As a Mom (something else I don't think I have ever pictured a fairy, but would not trade them my Mommyhood for all of their perfectly imagined fairydom) it is often in five minute spurts.  But there is determination to my simple rows of stitching and Someday soon I plan to wear my very first home-sewn item of clothing.  At first it might not be beautiful, nor even very pretty; but the goal is to sew more than fairly well some day... fairly well just needs to be the first goal :-)

So why am I wrong about fairies?  I might not be, but I might... There just maybe some fairies out there with a less than picture perfect life and figure... Maybe once I reach my sewing, harping and gardening goals I will write about those little imperfect misfits, but probably not :-)  Instead I will just comfort myself knowing that I am not alone in my not-so-perfect life playing not so very well (while reaching for better) and seem ripping out like a pro even though I have not gotten past stitching the bias strips and stay stitching yet.

Truthfully I take great pleasure in each little stitch that I have pressed... my bias binding is actually cut on the bias for the first time in my sewing life :-)  And my faultering playing is soothing and healing to me... even if it puts my love to sleep :-)

Here are some pictures of my humble beginnings for any other less than perfect fairies out there who may be encouraged by them... or perfect fairies who just need some security in their stellar doings and beings, that is ok too :-)

The Diane Kimono Dress by Sew Serendipity is the pattern I have chosen for my fist clothing project.  It has a very seventies hippie feel to me.  I thought it would be simple as a first project but then I needed to do a full bust adjustment in a kimono style cross front dress pattern and not one place that I could find online or in the couple books I was looking at addressed this.  So I waved my fairy want and then I cut the original pattern piece about 2 1/4 inches up from the bottom and spread it 1 1/2 inches down to add some length above the waistband and then spread it 1/2 inch to add to the width.  I just added to the length the 1 1/2 inches on the back pieces and left the width the same.  This is my muslin so we will see what happens. 

 Here is some bias tape that after several seam rippings (due to it being a super long while since I last had to make any)  brings me much pleasure :-)

These are the fabrics I have chosen for my muslin... the bottom one, a soft green paisley on white is actually the main fabric and the floral is the bottom band and the belt.  The green is the waistband and bias tape binding.  They were my finds at our local thrift stores :-)  I love sheets!  Very Up-cycled chique in a hippie kind of way!  Now to make the kind of magic that gives more time in the day for sewing :-)

Yes, I am a Mom and yes, we did read a fairy story this morning about a little mouseling who finds the best magic is something we can all do with a little effort and I highly recommend the book to anyone who might be interested (no I am in no way affiliated with this book nor anyone who wrote nor illustrated nor printed nor sells the book... it is just a sincerely sweet children's story)  :-)  But either way, thank you so much for reading my ramblings!