I’ll try to post some recent projects, but if you enjoy seeing what I make, I’d recommend following me on Twitter. Really, its a fun place, and its perfect for people with ADHD tendencies like me. So here you go, retweeted off color humor and all: www.twitter.com/Mrs_FroyoDroid

http://www.orangeblossomaccessories.com

It’s mostly hair accessories, but I plan to add more as I go. I really enjoy making these!

I just haven’t felt like blogging – or sewing – lately. I’ve started an accessory business called Orange Blossom Accessories, which has been taking all my free time. The website will be up soon. I’m doing mostly hair bows to start with.
But there will be a lot of sewing on the horizon. I’m very happy to announce that I am getting married late next year! Since I have a small budget and a lot if time, I’ll be DIY-ing everything, including my dress, the maid of honor dress, and 3 flower girl dresses! Wish me luck!

This is Kwik Sew 3900, dubbed “Olivia’s Organizers.”  I don’t know who Olivia is, but she’s on to something.  These organizers come in 4 sizes: extra small is 4″ x 4″, small is 6″ x 4″, medium is 6″ x 7″, and large is 8″ x 9 1/2″.  All can be made with fat quarters or 1/4 yard for the XS or 3/8 yard for the others of fabric, lining, and interfacing.  I used a thick, heavy interfacing as called for.  It works well, but it made for some difficult construction at times.

Here are the finished organizers.  I made 2 large, 1 small and 1 extra small:

I use them to hold pattern envelopes, press cloths, serger accessories and zippers for upcoming projects.

The envelope shows these hanging from a cafe curtain rod, but I wanted to use the fabulous $3, 39″ Bygel wall rails from Ikea.  This meant I needed to modify the casing piece to detach in the back so the pockets could be attached and removed as needed:

Attaching all those sew-on snaps reminded me of how much I hate those things!  It took longer to sew all 8 of them on than to sew the actual pockets!  Anyway, the pattern calls for the casing to be cut from just the outer fabric.  then the short ends are folded in along the fold line and both long ends are enclosed in the upper back seam.  As you can see, I cut a second casing piece from the lining fabric, sewed them RS together on the short ends, serged the top edge of the long end that is not enclosed in the seam, and sewed on the snaps.  Very simple modification!

Hopefully you can click on it to make it bigger.  I even labeled everything so you can do the same in your sewing area if you like it.

Here are some close-ups:

I saw this recycling bin and immediately knew it would be perfect for storing my ham.  I then had to explain to SO what a pressing ham was.

The wall pockets I made.  I just winged this based on what I wanted to store in it.  It’s mostly for my needles so I could see them without having to dig through a box to find the size and type I need.  I also got over my fear of double fold bias tape and edged the tops of the pockets and the outside edges. I used handbag interfacing as the backing.   The SO helped me with the grommets.  He also hung everything up for me so it’ll actually stay.

My spice jars that I keep my buttons, hooks, snaps, and other tiny notions in:

My obligatory “history of Death Row Records” shot glasses that I put notions for upcoming projects in.  The 2 pac one, not shown:

Here is Kwik Sew 3900 in action, which I’ll do a separate post on.  I changed the casing to snap on and off in back so they could go on these rails.

Would you believe that I used less than a yard of the cream and black print fabric to do all this?  And other than buying the red cotton from Ikea for $4/yard to line the pockets and the Ikea items labeled in the first photo, I used supplies I already had.  So, I got rid of some clutter too!

What I like the most, and SO agrees with me on this, is that even though so much is stored in plain view, it looks neat and cohesive.  This is very important because this is right in our living/dining/kitchen area.  It just shows what you can get with a little planning and a trip to Ikea!

I finally got around to making this the other day.  I’ve seen a couple tank style maxi dresses on blogs (Stacy and Erica B in particular) and thought I might like one too.  I have a shorter tank dress that is really flattering, so I set out to make a longer version of it using this pattern as a starting point.  However, my skills are not that great, so I decided to first make an unaltered version for my daughter first.  She needs more clothes anyway.  I added the optional flounce because she’s 7 and 7 year olds love that stuff.

One weird thing about this pattern is that the front and back bodice are the exact same piece, making the front and back of the dress one in the same.  This is perfect for her, because she is always putting her clothes on backwards.  However, I won’t be doing that on mine.  I also realized after making this that the waist inset really needs to be in a contrasting fabric, otherwise it just gets lost.

So, I am in the midst of altering the pattern for my dress, so stay tuned.

The uninspired line drawing makes it easy to overlook, but as I said before, jean jackets are a classic.  As soon as the pattern arrived, I got to tracing.  This time, I remembered to track the time it took to make it, which I always mean to do when making stuff but always forget.  From start to finish, it took about 10 hours to complete, and I loved almost every minute of it.  Everything but the collar and buttonholes.  My machine seems to enjoy making shitty buttonholes.  And I just suck at collars.  I always make those snips on the upper collar in the wrong spot and it looks like crap.

Hopefully you can click on it to make the photo bigger, so you can see how I barely messed up all that topstitching!  All those little pieces that made up the jacket, boy were they fun to put together.  Maybe someday I’ll figure out my fit issues and make one for myself.

Everybody got to pick a bag.  Twas fun.