Sweater Coat

I finished my sweater coat today, and I think the waist band is too low, but that is an easy fix.

Steampunk Halloween Completed!

So, aside from the finishing touches on the hats and utility belt, the costumes are done. I need to do a bit of sizing on my bustier and DH's jacket, but they will work for this weekend. My best friend is turning 40, and it's a spooktacular costume affair. If I didn't have a sinus infection all manner of things would be well.

reviews

Halloween Costumes

I have been making costumes for Halloween and did a pattern review for my husband's steampunk costume. http://sewing.patternreview.com/review/pattern/91784

I made one for myself as well, but I haven't written the review yet. I will post our photos once we get all costumed up for the party we are attending.

2012 and Sewing

I've determined that trying to work a full time job and finish a dissertation is conducive to neither sewing nor blogging. That being said, I should also point out that I did not finish the SWAP -- I didn't even finish cutting out the patterns for the SWAP! But I am going to.
It isn't that I haven't been doing ANYTHING creative. I finished some button towels that my mother-in-law brought from grandma

I knitted a birthday bunny for my cousin

and I made one recycled sweater coat, and started another

I ordered some sewing books with my Amazon gift card xmas gifts, so I should be getting the Colette and Burda sewing handbooks, as well as the Alabama style and sewing books. I am excited about those. I have long wanted to make this dress

So, as I am finishing up the final editing of the dissertation, I find myself dreaming of all the free time I am going to have, and what I'm going to do with that time! Sewing new things is high on the list, as is selling all these unwanted textbooks back to the book store, and ridding my house of all the clutter that has accumulated in my frantic rush to become a PhD.
Happy New Year and best wishes in creative endeavors!

I haven't been sewing

I've been cataloging ideas, but since we are replacing all the carpet in our downstairs livingroom and den with hardwood, I have been pulling up tack strips and sanding- but not sewing. I have to confess that I hate carpet. Hate. Carpet. With two large dogs, I feel like I get nothing done other than cleaning carpet. So, as our valentine's day presents to ourselves, DH and I started ripping out the carpet last weekend. Our hardwood came on Wednesday, but we are still leveling floors (a pain), but today, we begin to actually put the hardwood down. I am excited, but it is keeping me from some sewing inspirations like this little number from Alabama Chanin

I had a perfectly hideous yellow polyester that has a raised embroidery design similar to this. I tried to dye it red, but it came out salmon colored. Next, I'm trying a blue dye in hopes for a more purple hue. I have an eyelet that is also yellowish, and I was thinking of tea dying that one for the bottom part. I don't actually have any intention of wearing this, but I do want to make it. Does anyone else feel the need to sew things that simply seem cool, and have no practical application?

What does one make with orange lace?

I don't really know. I bought it anyway, of course. Fabricmart had this rosette lace on sale, and I simply couldn't pass up the...well the possibility of this very different fabric.

I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet. At first, I was thinking it would make a great skirt overlay, and I suppose that is still a possiblity, but I don't wear skirts very often. I'd like to, but since I teach in a public high school, I am often climbing on desks, and under them, and it isn't very compatible with skirt wearing. That being said, there are many things I'm looking to change, so maybe an orange lace skirt is just the thing...