AlisaBenay

Moved

2007-08-01T15:02:00.000-06:00

I've officially jumped ship & moved over to wordpress. You can find me at www.alisabenay.wordpress.com

Big News

2007-08-01T08:41:00.000-06:00

I've just been invited to appear on a fall episode of Get Married as a featured designer. Some of the other designers they've had? Melissa Sweet, Anne Barge, Badgley Mishka, among others. Number of viewers per episode? 92 million.

I'll fly to Atlanta most likely the first week of September to tape. I originally called them to find out about local vendor advertising on their website www.getmarried.com and ended up having a wonderful conversation with Kris Bush. We talked about my current business model serving individual brides as a custom designer, and also about the launch of my new line in fall '08 (or sooner, watch for details) of corseted, historically inspired gowns that will be available for custom sizing. She loved my story and wanted to be able to present a new designer in the midst of a launch to their audience. All of the Get Married designers featured previously have been established designers.

So I'm off and running before I've even made my first sample! I'm excited beyond words and will keep you posted as things happen.

Wedding pictures of Iris

2007-07-25T09:24:00.000-06:00

This last picture just got put up on the website.

dresses, dresses, everywhere!

2007-07-18T08:37:00.000-06:00

I know I've been AWOL lately, but here's some pictures of the reason why. All these are just my snapshots in my extremely messy studio, so please, as always, no looky-looky at the background. Keep your eyes on the prize.

I've de-camped from my studio for the summer & am sewing upstairs in the "dining room". We don't "dine", so it's a computer/piano/bookshelf room, really. I can keep a better eye on my kids up here. After school starts, I'm going to completely dump out the studio & paint, put in shelving, etc., so I've really not talked myself into going down there to clean it up. If I'm just going to dump it out next month, what's the point? It's going to be light turquoise/mint green with small pink accents & lots of built in shelving with little fabric covered buckets/ small curtains. I'm excited to be getting it done, that's for sure!

Cheryl: Mother of the bride, June 16th wedding

She had a very clear idea of what she wanted, right down to the color.

I underlined the entire gown in silk chiffon, then lined it with china silk. There is a fully boned bodice made from silk taffeta inside the gown. I use spiral steel bones because I think they are so much more comfortable than anything else. I ran out of boning casing & didn't realize it until it was too late to order more, so I made Cheryl's boning casing out of bias taffeta. Not as stable as the cotton casing, but it's only a dress to be worn either once or just a few times.

Detail of the bodice. I hand picked "princess" lines to keep the chiffon from puffing up.

The back of Cheryl's dress. We only had a picture of what she wanted the front to look like, so the design of the back was just what we made up.

The jacket for Cheryl. In this picture you can really see the front darts. The dress is made from sandwashed silk charmuese & I struggled with the front darts to the point that I ended up replacing the entire front skirt panel. Not fun, let me tell you, but when my name goes out there on something, I want it to be as perfect as possible. I'm still not totally thrilled with the darts. If anyone has better tricks up their sleeve let me know.

Jessica: August 12th wedding I fit her in because I just really wanted to make this gown. There are certain ones I just can't turn down!

The back of Jessica's dress. This is just the muslin, but I happened to have extra blue laying around, so used that for the sash. I'm doing a full foundation underneath with underwire cups. I've not done a foundation with the cups before, but it went together nicely & only needed small tweaks to the fit. I'll used the spiral steel boning for everywhere but the cups & use multi layers of taffeta channel stitched for the cups. I'll show that to you when I have it done later this month.

The front of Jessica's dress. I'm going to open out the fabric over the fullest part of her bust about 1/8th inch on each side just to let some of that tension out. She's really concerned about her small frame & large bust, but I think this design really enhances everything well. As of right now, we're planning on applique-ing (how do you spell that?) small blue flowers around the hem. We haven't decided on a particular flower technique, so she may balk on that at the last minute & just applique the sash.

Iris: Latin themed wedding on July 14th

Her dress is an interpretation of this gown:

Where Iris's gown goes into the waist I had to do differently than the picture because of her bust size. There was just no way to drape & gather the lace over her bust & then not attach it into the waist seam.

Whew! All that & I didn't get pictures of Rachael's (July 7th) finished dress. She's on an extended Carribean honeymoon, so we'll see those pictures maybe in August. I also didn't get pictures of Carrie's gown (August 12th). I'm also doing Carrie's 4 bridesmaid's dresses. So, lots more pictures to come, but if I don't come up for air until next month, you know where I'll be.

thunderbirds

2007-05-30T15:42:00.000-06:00

I took the kids out to see the Air Force Thunderbird show this afternoon. I think my pics look just the same as last year, but here's the best one from this year:

It's hard to get pictures, you just point ahead of where they are & click & hope you get something. They do pretty much the same show every year, so I need to remember next year to take a picture at the very end of them flying what feels like 20 feet over our heads to head back over the stadium & up into the mountains.

Rachaels dress

2007-05-27T15:40:00.001-06:00

I just got done with a fitting & thought you might like to see the dress. This is a very unstructured silk chiffon gown. You can't tell well from these pictures, but there are 2 layers of chiffon at the hem, one about 8 inches higher than the other. There are 14 godets all together.

I love how I've caught her admiring the gown.

How to mark darts when you can't use chalk

2007-05-27T14:54:00.000-06:00

I've been working on a silk chiffon dress this past week. I thought I would take a few pictures of how I mark dart placement when I just won't take the risk of putting chalk or air/water erase marker on a fabric. A sheer wedding gown is THE place to be paranoid that your markings just won't come out, even though you've pre-tested the method.

First of all, I'll start by saying that I almost never use commercial patterns. What you'll see in the following pictures is why. Every now & then, I'll go completely insane and think, "oh, this pattern is SO CLOSE to what I want, I'll just use the pattern and make a few corrections. If the amount of butchering done to the patterns in the following pictures doesn't frighten you, it should. It frightens me. It would have been simpler to start from scratch on alpha-numeric paper. This is actually two separate patterns laid on top of each other because I wanted the top of one & the bottom of another. I'm insane, I know.

O.K. I'll number this so it flows smoothly:

1) I lay the fabric on my ironing board wrong side up and then lay the pattern piece on top of the fabric. I secure with pins through all layers into the ironing board just outside the dart area so that nothing moves around. It's exceptionally hard to see the fabric here because it's a single layer of 8 mm china silk, but trust me, it's there.

2)I slice down the center of the dart in order to be able to move it out of the way. Then I fold back the pattern paper and place a pin where the mark is.

3) here, I'm holding both sides out the way in order to position both pins. Dang, when did my hands get wrinkly?

4) Holding back to place the center markings. You can see peaking out of the bottom that I've actually placed the point position pin first. It's just one more pin to keep the pattern from slipping around.

5) Just slip the pattern paper away (it's not pinned to the fabric anywhere) and you've got pins sticking into your fabric.

6) pick up a placement pin from one side of the fabric and slide it into the exact hole left by the pin on the other side of the fabric. In this example I'm taking the left hand center position pin and putting it right next to the right hand center position pin. Usually I'll take the right hand pin out and pierce the hole left by it, but I didn't think it would show up in a photo. I know it looks like I'm moving right to left, but I've moved around to the other side of the ironing board. The dart point is actually just out of sight on the top of this photo.

7) Here you can see the pins lying flat after having gone through both markings.

8)Now, pick the fabric up and start to pinch it together along the dart fold.

9)Don't let your pins come out! Now that you've got the fold pinched up, put a pin through a tiny amount of fabric just below the dart point pin, securing it to the ironing board.

10)put the pins through the fabric perpindicular (sorry, can't spell that) to the folded edge.

11)Now place a line of pins along your stitching line, connecting the previous pins

12)put your needle down through the fabric just above the top horizontal pin. backtack.

13)Take the horizontal pin out, start stitching. I snag the pin head of the vertical row of pins with my right hand fingernail and allow it to slide out of the fabric as I'm stitching.

14)When I get to the other horizontal pin, I stop & make sure that my sewing machine needle pierces the exact hole left by this pin.

15)Now just sew down to the point of the dart. This is probably a complete no-no somewhere in the annals of good sewing, but it's what I do because it works. I sew to the point of the dart, making sure that my sewing machine needle pierces the fabric at the exact same location of the last dart, then allow my sewing machine needle to make another stitch off to the right of the fabric. I then pull my fabric out of my machine & tie a triple knot loosely in the end & clip leaving about a 1 1/2 inch tail. Don't ask me if it's pretty, but my dart ends never snag and never pull out.

Hope this was helpful.

Did I mention you should live here?

2007-05-27T14:43:00.002-06:00

I took these from the parking lot at my kids' school. What can you take a picture of from the parking log at your kids' school?

You should live here. Really, there's just no good reason not to.

Look closely at the bottom of this one. You can see Garden of the Gods. They're the large brown rocks sticking straight up out of the ground. It's a 20-25 minute drive away.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

2007-05-23T20:32:00.000-06:00

Because, surely, it's not actually SNOWING on May 23rd. I mean, c'mon.

Draping a person, my "first draft"

2007-04-11T08:13:00.000-06:00

There was a question over on FI (subscription required for forum posts) about the process used in custom design. Everyone has their own method that has come about from years of experience. My process starts with a custom drape. I started doing this about a year ago because I would take an extensive list of measurements & use those to draft the toille, but always found there was a measurement or two I didn't have on hand. So I started doing a "quick drape" just to help me double check the client's body shape.

THEN, low & behold and article appears in Threads about how to do this. Dang. Can I tell you how many times I open up Threads & find an article about how to do something I already do. Jeez. Where's my ingenuity? Why don't I ever think to submit articles to Threads? The only thing to article writer did differently than my method was to start with a "poncho" made of the muslin. I was using two pieces of muslin pinned together. So I co-opted that. :-)

The question raised was: How do you drape on a real person, since you obviously can't push pins into them?

First of all, there will be no looky-looky at my seriously messy studio. I've got a plan in place for shelving that will actually hide all my crap, but haven't yet found the time to do it. So keep your eyes on the client!

Start with a length of muslin long enough to go over the body. Not sure how long that is? Take a tape measure, start at the butt, go up over the shoulder and come down to the hips in the front. Make it wide enough to cover the hips from one side to the other side. Cut a little "T" shape for the neck. I'm never too fussy about how wide this is, but if you want a more precise neckline, you're going to have to be a little careful.

First pin up the shoulder slope. Then smooth the fabric over the side of the bust enough to pull up the grain line so that it is horizontal to the floor. Pin in the side bust dart.

Next pin in the darts under the bust. This is actually a combination of two darts from what would be a traditional block, if you can get your head around that. It's the bottom bust dart AND the front skirt dart. Take in the dart all the way to just above hip level.

At hip level on this client, the darts don't end in a point. Her gown will only be fitted to an empire waist, so I really didn't need to be fussy down there with her. If I did want to make the darts end in a point, I would need to find the point where I wanted them to end (follow the dart fold all the way to the level where you want it to end, mark it with a sharpie), then swing the excess around to the waist. So there would be a horizontal line of pins going from the under bust dart to the side of the waist at the waist line. I'll try to do this on my next pin drape to explain it better (I've got one coming up in a couple of weeks, stay tuned)

Notice on my client that the points of the dart aren't exactly perfect. For me, in what I do, this isn't really necessary at this point. I use this drape only as a starting point. But if you wanted to make custom blocks that you would make more than one pattern from, you would need to get a little more fussy than I am.

Now go around to the back & pin up the back darts. You may also need to pin out a small back shoulder dart at the back of the armscye. I find this is just different with every client. If I do pin it out, I'll transfer it to a true shoulder dart later on. (putting it up angling into the shoulder seam, instead of going into the armscye). My reason for moving it is that in bridal wear, I'll end up usually cutting it out when doing the actual design.

The last thing to do is the pin up the sides. After I've got all my pins where I want them, I'll mark with a sharpie one side at the side and shoulder, unpin that, cut the shoulder apart & just let her slide out of it from the other side.

When I get to the point of laying this out to transfer to paper pattern, I'll document that as well. If I'm not clear on anything, just let me know & I'll try to explain it a little better, or take more pictures next time I do a drape.

Easter in Colorado

2007-04-11T08:06:00.000-06:00

O.K. apparently blogger has changed something since the last time I posted. I just uploaded these pics & all I've got is html. Hope this works. I seriously do not want to have to load my pics to photobucket each time I want to make a blog post. ugh. Maybe that's just the way it is.

Anyway, this is what we woke up to Easter morning out here in Colorado.

My Celebrity Look-alikes

2007-03-19T13:34:00.001-06:00

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

DONE!!!

2007-03-05T14:58:00.000-07:00

Anybody want to know what 2 1/2 straight months of pattern making looks like?

Notice Booba peering over the work. You have booba in your workroom, too, right?

So anyway, my camo project went out the door today. I meant to count the pattern pieces, but forgot. Or well, just got busy washing puke out of bed sheets last night. I do remember that we got the UNLINED jacket down from 32 pieces to 26 pieces. As soon as her website is up, I'll post a link.

I feel like throwing a party. Because, really, I need tequilla & it's just not cool to go on a tequilla bash on your own. You should come over. I've got puking kids to keep us company.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program. This month you'll meet:

*Lauren: my oh-so-precious little earth-mama
*Carrie: on the lace hunt, we'll find it Carrie, hang in there!
*Cheryl: mother of the bride who hired me even though I think she had to move a basket of Kevin's dirty underwear off the sink in the bathroom during initial consult (note to self, um...clean up a little better next time you know a client's coming over!)
*Iris: wedding with a latin flair
*Rachael: the artist & my personal favorite dress design this spring

I think I'll also post some tutorials of a sort on pattern pratices & tools. I'm teaching at Textile-O-Phile this month & keep getting questions about why I do certain things & where I get all my equipment/tools, etc. Sometimes I really feel like I've got one foot in both worlds. (home sewing/design). This past weekend I went on a sewing retreat with the Denver PACC chapter & met some really inspiring women. I'll post more on that later.

So stay tooned, folks!

Eye candy

2007-02-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I find something that just blows me away. Check out this girls' pendants. What a gift. Read the history page, too. I think this one is my favorite:

Suggestions?

2007-02-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

Anyone want to hazard a guess on how the pocket is actually sewn together on this puppy? I'm trying to add this type of pocket to the camo patterns I'm working on. I'm assuming this is a variation of a lapped zipper. I just can't wrap my mind around the order of construction (including the bag on the pocket...I think that's where I'm stumped)

Illness

2007-02-05T11:57:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the eye dr. The shingles has re-appeared. Anyone got a spare cornea they'd like to give me? Mine seems to be on the fritz.

Quentin (4) woke up this morning crying. He said while he was sleeping a bug crawled in his ear and is "liffin' in my bwane" (living in my brain). He has a headache and fever and won't take any medication. Two minutes from the eye dr.'s office this morning he puked all over the car.

This past Thursday night I spent at the ER with Zoe (6). She woke up at 10 pm screaming and writhing in pain. After an hour of that, I called a friend to come sit with the other 2 kids, and took her in. Turns out she's very very constipated. We made it home about 5 am. That was fun. I'm sure the bill will be delightful as well. Dang. We just got Quentin's ambulance ride paid off.

Of course, all this happens when Kevin is out of town. Can I tell you how behind I am on the camo patterns? It'll be late nights this week. Gotta love those.

Drowning in Camo

2007-01-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

Well folks, I'm going under for a while. My camo gal called last week and the remaining part of our project, which we thought we had 3 months to get done, has to be completly finished in 5 weeks. Oh, and we added one more pant style. Yikes. Nose to the grindstone time.

Oh, and just a note to any would-be bridal clients:

I love you all. You're great. It's such a blast to get to make wedding dresses every day. I try my best to make your dream gown a reality. But.....

I cannot duplicate this dress for $300. Sorry.

Back to the gloves

2007-01-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

I'm finally back to the glove post. I must say, they've turned into a show stopper. "OMG, those gloves are divine! Where did you get them?" just seems to follow me down the street. Well, except for my one friend that said they looked like I skinned kermit the frog, but really, ptoeey on her, right?

Now it's off to find the perfect coat fabric to go with these. I sketched a darling coat that my flight attendant was wearing on our flight back home in December. Not the best sketch, I know, but in my defense I had sweaty sleeping kid on one arm and was trying to sketch little bits here and there as she came down the aisle without seeming like a crazed stalker in need of attention from the air marshal.

Her coat was in black wool. Really, not my style. Won't match kermit, either. I need a print that's not completely outrageous, but that is thick and durable enough to be an outer coat layer (thinking about lining it with minky swirl fur). I'm really considering going with a drapery fabric. I've been know to do this before (use drapery fabric for things that are not classified as "drapes"). Not Liesel VonTrapp, so just don't go there! I'll just know it when I see it. You'll be the first to know after that.

Wait, this was about gloves, right?

Did I say it was a sewing post? Maybe I should have more accurately said it was a sewing related post. Someone sewed them. It just wasn't me. I've been up to my eyeballs in camo around here.On this first picture, you can see there is a small piece (about 3/8 inch) between the glove piece and the back hand piece. This really adds to the fitted-ness of these gloves. They allow the hand to have a better ability to stretch the fabric as the fist closes than just one seam would.
On this picture you can see (well, you can see my little heart-breaker in the back...can you tell from this picture that his eyelashes touch his eyebrows?..., just ignore him for the moment) that there are individual pieces that make up the inner finger. These run up and down the inside of each finger with teeny-tiny-made-by-little-glove-fairy seams at the intersection and top of each finger.
Last of all, the most interesting part, the thumb piece. If I were to guess, I'd say there is a little cat's eye shaped dart between the thumb section and the inner glove section.

Thanks for stopping by to visit with me and kermit. We'll give a shout out to miss piggy if she stops by. I'm off to work on Rachael's toille. You'll meet her next week.

I've been tagged ....(and I promise I'll get back to the gloves!)

2007-01-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

I've been tagged by Mary Beth at The Stitchery!

O.K. hmmm...5 things you don't know about me. Dang, I already told you about Toad Suck, right? Too bad, that would have been a good one to pull out of a hat.

1) I never sew for myself. Wish I did, but there are dishes in the sink and butts to wipe. Maybe someday!

2) I grew up in a very biblebelt-ish town in the south. Think Footloose. There were parts of my education that were greatly lacking until I went to college. Like?
*I didn't know what homosexuality was. Not 'I didn't quite grasp what was going on'. I had never heard of it. Then I went to a very socially liberal college and lived in a co-ed arts dorm with girls and guys on the same floor. The first time I saw 2 guys kissing, I couldn't figure out what was going on. So my wonderful and very flamingly gay friend Tad gave me my second birds and bees talk.
*I never really wore a bathing suit in front of a boy until my mid 20's (dang, what a waste of some darn good looking legs!)
*My town was (and still is) dry. No alcohol sold what-so-ever. None of my friends drank. None of our parents drank. I was never around alcohol until college. Marijuana, either, for that matter.

3) My husband & I decided to get married 8 days after we met. 15 years later, still the best decision I've made. Worst decision? Not going through with the actual wedding until 1 1/2 years later. Should have done it right away.

4) I'm 34 and still always the youngest. I'm one of the youngest moms I associate with at school. I'm the little kid in the room when I'm together with sewing gals. I'm the youngest of our 'grown up' friends, which all somehow end up being Kevin's age or older (he's 5 yrs older than me). I keep thinking someday that'll change, but I've been thinking that for a long time. It gets old sometimes.

5) I wish I could sing. Can't carry a tune in a bucket, but would give my right eye to just be able to belt it out. (o.k. maybe my right eye is currently a poor gift, it being the one with the shingles and all...you make me sing and I'll think of something!)

o.k. I've got to go. I'll tag 5 people this afternoon when Quentin isn't standing so close to the mouse (he's got a habit of hitting the little red 'x' when I'm not looking and deleting everything I've just typed!)

the 6th, and most important thing you don't know about me....

I have a lump on the roof of my mouth. Think 1/2 of a silly putty egg. I never knew this was not a normal part of the body until my husband found it one day. Things get caught on it and it gets scraped often. One time, about a year into our marraige, a pizza crust scraped it and left a little tiny blister. I was trying to look at it in the mirror when hubby wondered across me. Here's how it went:

hubby: "umm, what are you doing?"
me: "I've got a little blister in my mouth that's driving me nuts"
hubby: "let me see it.....HOLY CRAP IT'S HUGE!!!! HURRY WE HAVE TO GET YOU TO THE HOSPITAL!!!!!!"
me: "uhh...really, it's not that big."
hubby: "IT'S THE BIGGEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!!!!"
me: "ummm...what's going on? Oh, do you mean the big bump in my mouth? that's always been there."
hubby "let me pop it."

well, I was supposed to tag 5 people, right? Everybody I read has pretty much been tagged! Ummm...I tag: Holly, Diane, Leisel, Gail Marie, and Amie. Ha! I thought of 5 people!

The perfect glove... An actual sewing related post. Hold the applause, please!

2007-01-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

I found the perfect pair of gloves. I used to own the perfect pair of gloves, but I lost one of them at a MOPS meeting (yet another thing to add to my list of why I quit MOPS). The perfect pair of gloves just lacks a little something when there is only one.

I found these at Dillards the other day.
I love Dillards beyond words. My personal theory is that it has something to do with the smell. (I say this because in reality, I don't actually buy that much there) Do you know the smell I mean? Every single Dillards on the planet smells exactly the same and they rig those silly swinging doors to work somehow that the smell just hits you full force right in the sniffer the minute you open them. I grew up shopping at the Dillards flagship store in Little Rock. I lived about 1/2 hour north of Little Rock in a town that didn't have any real department stores to speak of (well, there was JCPenney, but it was only big enough to sport 4 parallel parking spaces in front of the store...and does JCP really count for a 'shopping experience'? We only ever bought underwear there) The smell of Dillards takes me back to day long shopping trips with my mom that always included a smothered steak lunch at Frankies and a stop at the end of the day at Baskin Robbins to stuff as much of our booty as we could in one bag so it wouldn't look like we bought so much and a double decker for the trip home.

It's very hard for me to find gloves. First of all I have unusually large hands. How do I know this? Because almost every pair of ready made gloves in existance doesn't fit me. Apparently they sell well and therefor fit someone which would make my hands larger than, well..yours. (I also happen to know that my head is bigger than the mass populace. This was discovered in a millinery class in college. Don

Are you lost here? I'm so stinking mad. Blogger just ate 1/2 this post that took me 1/2 an hour to make. I swear I'm on my way to Wordpress any minute! I'll finish about my gloves later. Jeez.

The line

2007-01-07T18:48:00.000-07:00

For those of you that saw me on CNN, FOX NEWS, THE WEATHER CHANNEL, and the local Colorado Springs station being interviewed about the line at Denver International Airport (in which I was standing)...here it is:

I tried to draw arrows with photosuite, but it came out as a .dmsp file and blogger wouldn't upload it. That's the end of my technical expertise.

It actually starts somewhere unknown out in the west terminal (DIA has two terminals, each with maybe 2 dozen airline counters). We were lucky enough to arrive before it headed out in that direction.

What you see down below is the TSA line snaking it's way towards the checkpoint.
It crosses the bridge between the 2 terminals out in the plaza here. Between these two poles is where I was interviewed.
Then it comes down this side of the plaza (the back side of the east terminal)
Then it heads up this hallway and takes a right at the clarinet player.

Yeah.

I just said that.

There was a clarinet player hooked up to loud speakers... to help calm nerves, I guess.

It takes a right up ahead and goes to the actual line in the ropes after this, but things started to move quickly at that point and I was too busy trying to listen to instructions and heard my 3 kids to take pictures.

I can't believe we made it through that and past the TSA checkpoint and made our flight in plenty of time. We arrived 3 hours early so that Kevin would have enough time to make it back to the Springs before the storm hit. We made one of the last flights out before they started shutting down (12/28/06, the 2nd blizzard, not the first).

My Christmas list...just in case you need to get me that last minute gift

2006-12-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

**Bernina 730E $8000
**Evolve New Wave Serger $2500
**Feet for Evolve $1000
**Other stuff I'm sure I'll need
with these two machines $1000 (better plan for, just to be safe)
**Cameo from Wild Ginger $3000
**Silk Fabric, paint, lace, etc. for my new collection, being launched later this year $1000
**Design-A-Knit Pro version 7 $500
**Some additional do-hickeys to go with my knitting machine (I'll address the fact that I'm going to start knitting with it again in my New Year's Resolution post) $500
**Yarn for knitting ...let go with $500
**Laptop I'll need to work with
all these machines $1200
**Professional shelving for my studio $4000
**New lighting for my studio $1000
**Wood floor for my studio
including installation $750 (just a guess, not for sure about this one)

Really...I'm just a simple girl with simple needs.

By the way, if anyone wants a Pfaff 7550 with tons of additional feet and the users guide, just let me know. Mine is about to get pitched out the window. We are no longer on speaking terms and I can't get quality work done with my current anger level at just seeing it sitting around my studio learing at me. I think it would be "better suited" (a term my sorority used) with a different partener.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas....

2006-12-21T15:25:00.000-07:00

My camera battery I dead today, but I did grab a couple pics off the gazette website. They're small but I think you'll get the point. This storm is breath-taking! We've been under Blizzard and Avalanche warnings here since early yesterday morning.

Here's our family Christmas tradition:

We make paper gingerbread men to count the days from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Every year they're different. Most years they have a daily activity on them. When the girls were little, they didn't have things written on them...they "talked" to me and whispered in my ear what the daily activity was. Of course, back then it was so easy. Saying "you get to take a bath today!" would make them squeal with happiness.

The yellow one with the hat is "Jose". He told us he wants to stay and be the one to see Santa come down the chimney (across the room). The red guy next to him is superman. He's mad at the bad guys.

I'm a happy hooker

2006-12-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

Don't know if you remember the alpaca sweater I made Kevin last Christmas, but it was frought with problems. First and foremost...it sheds. I know Kevin well enough to know that alone puts it off the "I'll actually wear this" list. Second, there were design issues and the sleeves are just way to long (and grow more when on) and would need re-making anyway.

So...I decided that the yarn was just too expensive and yummy feeling to not just frog the whole thing and do something with it. I started looking for a pattern for myself with the following criteria:

*bulky yarn pattern
*pullover sweater I could wear alone (so I don't have to de-shed a shirt underneath every time I wear it)
*trendy (hard to find in a bulky pattern)
*close fitting (my personal style, I just hate things that are baggy)

I about fell out of my chair when I found this pattern:

It's even in the exact same color as my yarn!

I rock.

Plain and simple.

From my previous experience with this yarn, I'm counting on this working up pretty quickly. So maybe I'll even have it done over Christmas break.

Which is cool, because here's what my mom's getting me for x-mas (including the yarn!) that I want to get started on very soon:

I'm making it in dark lilac alpaca/silk elegance. Yummy.

O.K. so.... (drum roll, please!)....here's my two ACTUAL FINISHED OBJECTS!!!!
That's me trying to figure out how to take a picture of a something on my person. This is about the best picture that came out. The lighting in my studio is horrible and I couldn't quite figure out how to angle the camera right in the mirror, but I think you get a good idea of the sweater. (someone do a tutorial on self picture taking, please!)

It's a mock rib and I really like how the design came out. Also, it's just super soft to wear. The sleeves, which I frogged in the first place because they were too small around, actually came out bigger around than I meant for them to be, but I'm leaving them as is (and, um...don't tell anybody, one sleeve is 1/2 inch longer than the other one!)

And here's the lace shrug. I'm thinking about turning this in to Knitty.com as it is entirely my own design. We'll see if I get around to figuring out how to do that. You can't see the lace really well in these pictures, but there's a ruffle lace that goes all the way around the neck and back and a different lace at the sleeve openings, more of a flat leave patterned lace.

Ooo, with the poor picture quality, you can't even see how bad my eye looks! It's my right eye where the shingles are (yes...still) and the inner part of the "white" is really all red. Oh, and I think I need a haircut.

My Superhero

2006-12-11T20:29:00.000-07:00

I just this minute walked into my kitchen from putting the girls bed and found this. He's 4. That's really just all the explanation you need.

Also, just to prove I have been sewing:These are Quentin's beloved "Flash Poe-jammas". When he was 2, we were out of clean pajamas one night and just had these in the back of the drawer. They were at one point hand-me-downs somebody had given me when Olivia, our oldest, was a toddler. Both girls wore them only occasionally when they were 2. When we found out we were having Quentin I pulled out everything of the girls that could be saved back for a boy. That amounted to a few white socks without ruffles and an old Toad Suck t-shirt and these pajamas. (Um, o.k. are you back from the Toad Suck site now? That's a real site. It's the annual festival in my hometown. No kidding. Just let me know if you need a t-shirt this year.)

Anyway, on the night in question, Quentin absolutely would not put these on because they were not super hero related and in his world clothing options consisted (and still do!) of 1) super-hero, or 2) naked. So DH convinced him that they were "flash" pjs. He's worn them for nearly 2 years now and they are coming apart at the seams (as well as about 3 inches shy of his wrists and ankles). I gave it a good shot at mending the very large hole in the knee, but it just really didn't work.

Luckily, I found these at Hanna Andersson:
They are #2 on his Christmas list, second only behind the Batman Sword with a button.

on the mend

2006-11-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

My eye, henceforth known as "stupideye", is somewhat on the mend. So back to regular life I go! My eye dr. says that he's never heard of someone my age having shingles in the eye. I always was the trend setter!

Rumer has it I'm not sewing much lately. At least that's what I've heard. I did decide to "do a little straitening up" in my studio before I get started with all the camo. Didn't want the camo to have little bits of dupioni and beads, etc. stuck to it. Well, "a little bit of straitening up" turned into... I decided to re-arrange the entire room. I would attach pictures, but it would make you wince! It's not pretty.

In the interest of sewing vicariously, here's some of the blogs I seem to keep going back to:

Behind the seams I have serious machine envy of Gigi!
Hooks and needles Love her sense of personal style, makes me think about wearing something other than jeans!
KayBee's unique blog
Pins and needles
The sewing divas

and then, really who's day wouldn't be complete without The fashion incubator?

I've probably got about 25 other blogs in my folder, but don't visit them as often. These are the ones that make me wish I'd have thought seriously about having children in my teenage years instead of waiting until my late 20's. Really, if I didn't spend so much time wiping butts, I might could sew like these gals, too!

My house exploded, and other interesting 'tails

2006-11-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

That's the theory I'm going with. (that the house exploded)

This is a current picture of my "dining" room. We don't "dine". So it's really a catch-all room: computer, bookshelves, piano, etc. ...Except right now it's holding mounds and stacks and piles of all the stuff I'm trying to sell on ebay. Want some fleece? go on over to Ebay my user id is alisabenay. This is all that remains of my line of fleece art-t0-wear that I tried my hand at last year. Cute stuff, but I just couldn't go to the trade shows to sell it with 3 little kids and I missed working on my bridal wear.

Anyway, there won't be much to blog about sewing wise in the coming weeks. December and January will be devoted to working on the hunting wear project and b/c it's propietary, I won't be posting any public pictures. Also, I'll be selling off all things not nailed down on Ebay!

This is the other 'tails of interest. Ponytails that is. It was for "crazy hair day" at my daughter's school.

Oh, and one last thing. DH (on the right) just interviewed Afif Safieh, the Palestinian Ambassador a few weeks ago. You can read about it here.

Shingles

2006-11-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

That's what I've been doing for the past couple of weeks.

No...not shingling my roof.

I've had shingles.

IN MY EYE.

Have you ever heard of that? How seriously dumb.

I did get lots of vicodin, however. Oh, and I've lost 10 pounds in the last 2 weeks. I've pretty much just been laying around on the couch letting everybody wait on my hand and foot due to the nausea, dizziness, and general extreme pain my eye. One day, I even had to have Zoe (6 years old) tuck in Quentin (4 years old) for his nap because I just couldn't make it up the stairs. It was pretty sweet, actually.

No, I did not take pictures. Sorry, you'll just have to imagine. I'm still a little sensitive to light and tired as all get out, but otherwise on the mend.

Back to the hunting project. Maybe I'll actually get that done one of these days.

2006-10-31T18:12:00.000-07:00

Um...yeah, that's my living room in the background (and Quentin on the couch sucking his thumb). After I got this thing pressed, on the dress form, wrapped up mummie style in my king size bed sheet, and got her downtown...I made it back to pick up Zoe from kindergarten with one minute to spare. So...the pics were taken in a hurry, but I know you guys have been dying to see it, so here it is!
There's a tiny bit of wobbly fit at the top of the bust area. I would kill to get my hands on someone who has several years experience making corsets to mentor me. I'm totally self taught and there are things that just don't always work for me, the area being the most troublesome.
The four areas where I printed words say "fashion", "haute couture", "chic", and "modiste"
Again, some areas of stress I would like to learn how to eliminate, a corset should look like you've been shelacked (sp?) into into it.
My favorite part (the back view) !

I think you get a really good feel here for the print. The swirls and letters were batiked with Batik EZ from Crafters Pick, then I used yellow and green in Jacaurd Dye-Na-Flo, then went back after that was dry and added small areas of teal and burgandy. Then washed out the Batik EZ with warm water, let it dry and stamped Jacaurd Luminere in Burgandy and Gold.

I also dyed the silk dupioni under the skirt bright orange, then dyed the silk organza burgandy and treated them as one fabric. It gives a nice shimmery effect to have the 2 contrasting colors.

Yeah, that didn't take 4 days or anything. But seriously, when I saw the final result it made me squeal. It's so cool to look at something like that and say "I MADE that!"

"Coming of Age"

2006-10-31T08:53:00.000-07:00

That's the title of my piece for the Past, Present, and Future show for FAC Modern. There were quite of bit of "modifications" made, as I put this entire dress together in 5 days. The flowers over the shoulder, the tulle on the skirt, the shrug....all bit the dust. I am actually very happy with the print. On Monday, I had just white fabric. By Thursday, I had dyed and printed every color you see on this dress. It's all 100% silk. I made it to fit my model and she's not quite the same size as my dress form, so I'm not entirely pleased with the way the fit looks on the dress form, but I'll live. As soon as we're able to do the photo shoot, I'll have those pics up as well (had to cancel that Friday due to the snow)

Update, I've tried to upload these pics for about 20 minutes and blogger just won't do it, gotta run to Quentin's paint class, I'll try again later this afternoon!

It's blizzarding!

2006-10-26T12:55:00.000-06:00

We're in the middle of a 'blizzard watch'. I took these pictures a few hours ago, it's been going strong since then as well. It's hard to tell right now if it's snowing, or just blowing around.

Oh, and here's a bonus picture of the peak taken a couple of days ago while waiting to pick up my daughter from school. People travel from all over the world to see what I get to see every day. I love it here!

To sew or not to sew.....

2006-10-12T13:44:00.000-06:00

O.K. well, it's more like, should I sew some more?

I've been invited to submit an art peice to FAC MOD, our local Modern Arts Museum for their first annual Holiday show. It's such an honor to be invited, but I just don't know if I've got the time. The peice has to be submitted by Oct. 30th. Here's my sketch, if I do it:

O.K., this was a lightning fast concept sketch, now that I look at it, I'm thinking you probably can't tell anything about what I'm thinking. The top would be silk with batik and stamping in purple, orange, burnt umber to look something like this in print. Then the skirt would be layers of tulle with snippets of other tulle going from darker to lighter up the full skirt. There is also a victorian style drape across the top of the skirt, gathered in the back with huge tulle gathered flowers. Remember, this is an art peice.

My con list is a mile long: not enough time, will have to push back the hunting patterns, don't have the money to buy the materials needed, too much on my plate right now (Daisy scouts, Arbonne, etc.), and on and on and on.

The pro list is just this: It's FAC MOD. Really, what kind of nut would pass that up?

Lest you think the cobbler's kids are shod...

2006-10-08T15:50:00.000-06:00

I never do our mending. I put it in a box under the sewing cabinet and think I'll get to it when I get a break in my schedule. My "schedule" being the few hours of sewing time I eek out between every other blooming thing going on while trying to raise 3 kids under the age of 8 and keeping our domain from being declared a natural disaster area. So I just walk around telling people I make couture bridal gowns hoping they don't look down and see that my pants legs are 2 inches too long. Here's something I wrote recently about said pants and thought it would be good to list here as well:

"ON BENDED (RIGHT) KNEE I COME"

These are the right knees of my jeans. Only the right, never the left. You figure it out, I've got too many fish to fry to contemplate the deeper meaning of one-sided holey britches. (Quite frankly, I've had enough of "one-sided holy" anything to last a lifetime.) I have 2 more pair in the same condition that would have made this picture, I'm sure, more compelling, but they went AWOL for the photo shoot. Swallowed up in the belly of the house monster (you know you have one, too) there to live until it sees something so vile and disgusting it will regurgitate them in a most inexplicable place. I expect that to be by the end of the week based on the condition of my kitchen counter as we speak.

I apparently spend quite of bit of time on my hands and knees. Make no assumptions about my piety, as I certainly make no assumptions about yours (and, I might add, love you just the same). It's more likely from washing the kitchen floor with 409 and a rag as yet another incident of "oops, sorry mommy, I may or may not have just placed an entire gallon of orange juice somewhere other than my 8 ounce Dora cup" is going to make my socks stick to the floor and I'll be stuck in the kitchen forever (which is my second worst nightmare) if I don't get this cleaned up. I would buy more jeans, but the size on the tag needed to adequately cover my back porch frightens me almost as much as the house monster.

New pics of Arika!

2006-10-08T15:43:00.000-06:00

I just love to see great pics of my brides! These just came from Arika this week and look really awesome. I've got them together in a photo collage, but can't figure out how to post it here. They'll be up on the new webpage in a couple of weeks, I'll link to it when it's up.

Picture this

2006-10-05T14:43:00.000-06:00

**Update** you can see better pics of Brooke here

I'm having trouble getting my clients to give me their pictures. Does this happen to other people? It's just frustrating to need a picture of the client actually in the dress in order to get a good quality photo for my portfolio and not be able to get that. They all say they will get it to me as soon as possible. ....Then I get nothing. I'm going to start charging a picture deposit included with the initial deposit. Fully refundable when I get the pictures. I'll let you know how that goes. I'll be ready to go live with my new webpage (online business card) in about 3 weeks and REALLY need my pictures. We'll see what I get.

On to better things.

My garment is up on the American Sewing Guild site. I'm the 3rd and 4th pictures on the top line.

I finished Brooke's dress:

In the end, I think 2 things bother me about this dress (and by the way, please tell me I'm not the only person who says there is something wrong with every single thing I've ever made).

1st) I think the seams in the self could have stood to have been opened just 1/8th on each seam. The stress around the waist is not from ill fit. I'm pretty certain it's from the outer fabric just not being big enough to stretch around the foundation.

2nd) I used coutil for the foundation. I really thing in hind sight that it's just a bit too heavy handed for this satin. Brooke was on a very tight budget and ended up using the Casa satin from Joann's. I think it's just a bit too thin to sustain coutil underneath.

3rd) (yeah, I know, I said two things....) The puckering over the butt area happened because Brooke ended up wanting a mermaid style dress, when originally it started out as a traditional shape, much fuller over the hips. I would have planned the inner workings differently if I had fully understood what she was looking for (she wasn't being fussy or anything, she just saw how she wanted it different after she has seen the dress on herself).

Other than that, I've been doing alterations lately. I DON'T DO ALTERATIONS. Except...people I know keep asking me if I can do just this one thing.....and I really need the cash.

I start on my hunting wear line pattern work next week. (it's not my line, I've just been hired to do the patternwork). I'm really ready to move on to something other than ripping out seams. Did I ever tell you that I don't do alterations?

Snip, Snip, Snip

2006-09-05T12:30:00.000-06:00

Cut today: (pictures of all garments to follow in later posts)

*Holly's dress: organza layer of satin, full '50's style cocktail dress, to be finished before Sept.23
*Sylvia's nightgown: very simple gown for a dear (60?70? year old) lady who called me up and asked if I could make her a gown from a pattern she's been using for over 25 years. The lady who originally made the pattern and all the other gowns just passed away and Sylvia needs a new seamstress. Who could pass that up?
*Kelley's pattern: Kelley is my favorite person. She babysat for me all summer for no cash on the agreement that I would make her custom fitted shirts. I trade hour for hour and owe her right now about 21 hours of shirt making. We've just knocked out the last kinks on the muslin and are ready to go to production.
*Brooke: under layer for bridal gown to be finished by this Sunday. Got the whole thing made and you can see her corset layer through the top. The corset is white and the gown is cream. I'm adding a white underskirt to even out the color.
*CBD: skirt, jacket, top, hat, and purse I'm making to list on the Custom By Design section of EBay to see how well I might do with some of those projects.

Whew, my hands hurt from all that cutting. Now to get to sewing, this will be a busy month getting projects out on deadline.

Arika's pictures

2006-08-30T14:11:00.000-06:00

Just got this picture of Arika at her wedding. I think her dress came out great!

Brooke's wedding gown

2006-08-27T18:24:00.000-06:00

I have several pics from the process of Brookes wedding dress. I'm very frustrated with how blogger loads my pictures (always at the top, never where my curser is) so I don't know how many I'll actually show you before I start cursing.

Brooke is having a simple garden wedding. She wanted a formal gown that reflected the casual feel of the intimate outdoor wedding. Here's how it's going:

This is the coutil interlining. My opinion is that almost every gown should be able to stand up on it's own if you hold it at the waist. My gowns consist of self/shell underlined in silk organza (yummm...I love what silk organza does for a gown. The crispness, the body, the full look of the seams, the swish when you walk...), then the coutil layer with spiral steel bones and grossgrain waist stay, then the lining. Sometimes I put a layer attached to the bottom of the coutil with netting to fill out the skirt. That just depends on the style.

Here's the progress on the shell:There are obvious issues with the fit over the bust. I think I cut the self and the under lining the same instead of remembering to make the self 1/8" bigger per seam, which is what I usually do. Also, it's not clipped on the curved seams yet.

This is the "bustled" view, forgot to snap a pic before we pinned up to measure for the bustle hook. I'm hoping that the addition of the waist stay and grading will take out the stress lines pointing towards the waist in back. The pins over the hips are due to Brooke wanting the skirt more fitted on her hips than originally planned.

Another fitting for this one on Wed to determine:
* if the take up at hips is enough
*to look at edge finishing samples
*to re-visit the puckers over bust after minor alterations have been made
*to determine if waist stay and grading to enough to eliminate waist stress in back
*exact zipper placement

Sewing snafu

2006-08-12T18:31:00.000-06:00

Oops. This happened to me yesterday. I'm totally
embarrassed. Olivia's best friend Karen spent the day with us b/c her
mom works at the school and had to work today. When she came to pick
up Karen, I was down in the basement working on a fitting with my
babysitter Kelley, just sewing and chatting, blah, blah, blah.

Kelley is a saint. She's babysat my kids all summer long when I've needed to run to the store or whatever, maybe a total of 25 hours over the summer. She's done is totally for free and I'm exchanging sewing business clothes for her. She's a size 6 and wears a 34F bra. She loves button down tops, but obviously they don't fit her. I'll blog about her muslin tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm just down in the basement sewing away on her muslin, trying it on her here and there and all of the sudden I realize that Quentin (my 4 year old) sounds like he's talking to someone upstairs. Then I realize it's time for Karen's mom to be here. oops!
So I go up and she's just sitting in my living room chatting with
Quentin (who I've not paid attention to for at least 45 minutes, just
left him watching tv while I worked with Kelley). I think she may
have been there 20 minutes or so already. Then, get this...I don't
know where the girls are. OMG. Well, I had told them they could go
play at the neighbors house about an hour before and the neighborhood
girls all move from house to house, nothing unusual, but really not
what I needed right then. Then, (oh, I'm not done yet), when I do
find them, they're all red in the face, too hot or sunburned, couldn't
tell right away, they'd been jumping on a trampoline at the
neighbors). I'm wondering if Karen will ever be aloud to come back!
I think I could get some bad mom award for that one.

Ya know, when you get in that sewing zone, all else just melts away!

What am I doing wrong?

2006-08-11T07:55:00.000-06:00

I just spent an hour looking through all the other sewing blogs I've bookmarked. What I can't figure out is how you people have soo much time to sew. Why don't I? O.K. O.K. maybe spending an hour blogstalking isn't the best way to have spent an hour. Maybe I could have been sewing. Well, not really. I currently have 4 children upstairs slamming doors, screaming, and trying to get the littlest one to streak buck naked down the street. It seems that retreating to my sanctuary in the basement might be somewhat neglectful.

I want to sew! I can't wait for school to start Monday, maybe, just maybe...I can actaully sew then. A friend asked me if I was excited about the kids going back to school. I said "somehow 1 1/2 out of 3 just doesn't really feel 'there' for me yet"

Olivia (8) = 3rd grade
Zoe (6) = Kindergarten (um, for the 2nd time, we'll not talk about that)
Quentin (4) = home with me. preschool was too dang expensive.

So, this is where unprotected sex has gotten me. :-) No sewing. Only naked little people running down the street. Well, at least my lifes got flavor!

Navella's placemats

2006-08-07T16:43:00.000-06:00

My dear 76 year old friend Navella asked me to make her placemats to match her new lovely decor. umm....in January. They've been on the back burner for so long, I can't believe I finally got them done. I love a finished project just sitting there all lovely. Here's some pictures of the process, including my neat little trick for burying the french knot after hand stitching the bias binding.

Anonymous posting

2006-08-07T16:41:00.000-06:00

I've had to disable my anonymous posting b/c I'm getting spammed.

Summer's almost over, what I've been up to (obviously not posting!)

2006-08-07T15:35:00.000-06:00

I've just realized that I've really only posted a couple of times this summer. How is that possible. I've had a running blog post going on in my head it seems like constantly. Summer is so chaotically insane around here. I'm 34, my kids are 4, 6, and 8. Between swimming lessons, trips to the mall (air conditioned, our house is not...welcome to Colorado Springs), neighborhood kids trucking in and out the door, peanut butter sandwiches, playgroup, and some strange virus that just won't leave our house...there apparently hasn't been much time to post.

School starts Monday. (wait, I have to get up and do a little dance...o.k., I'm back) I can't wait to get back into the regular routine again, especially my sewing routine.

I've had a series of professional dissappointments lately. I've been searching for contract sewing work. I've done this in the past. It can be somewhat tedious, but I consider it like wholesaling. It's a larger amount of cash for less effort in advertising.

First, a children's wear designer in Houston contracted me to work for her. She sent me an extremely vague sketch that my 8 year old could have improved upon, asked me to just "interpret" the design. I asked her a million questions and she continually said "just do what you think is best". So I sent her the finished top:

This is a really bad picture, I don't have a child size dress form. Anyway, when I sent it back to her, she was EXTREMELY angry that I used 1 1/2" ruffles instead of 2", that the skirt portion was 14" instead of 12", etc., etc. She also said my sewing skills were sub-par and refused to pay me for either the design work or the sample sewing, or any of the notions I used. Lesson learned. Contract sewing= contract in writing first.

Next, I had a local company contact me about making re-usable menstal pads for them. Yes, very strange indeed. We had an initial meeting and everything sounded like it would run smoothly. They were a start-up company and I even gave them quite a bit of advise and access to local networking avenues that they didn't know about. Then I told them I would charge $20 per hour. They completely freaked out and backed out of the deal. I'm not a sweat-shop. I really don't know what they were expecting.

Next (yes, it just keeps going) I was in contact with a western wear company that made shirts for equestrian shows. She was also a bit of a start-up company (she had been producing small scale locally, but was looking to launch into the national market). She sent me to web sites that were selling $800 shirts and asked if I could duplicate them. She sent me some sample fabric and her pay scale.

Well, you can't see the details very well, but it's a very basic top. The problem is that it's an extremely stretch knit. She didn't want the front zipper opening or the underlining for the collar or cuffs interfaced. AND she insisted that the seams NOT be serged. Really? Amazingly, I ended up spending 2 1/2 hours making this top. I'm really not for sure how that happened, but there it is. I think I spent more time working on it b/c it wasn't properly interfaced. It had little sparkles all over it and I spent at least 30 minutes cleaning that up out of my studio. Then I looked at her pay scale. 10 bucks. (stunned silence)

She sent me another shirt as a sample and the craftsmanship on that was about the worst sewing job I've ever seen. ...and I've taught beginners. Here's a portion of the hem on her sample:

I really just can't be involved with a company that is not going to attempt to be professional. She seems like such a nice person and I wish her well, but I just can't do the work for the amount of money she's willing to pay. I've had a bit of a family emergency going on and really won't be able to do anything other than the work I've already got scheduled through sept, so I've pleaded off working for her.

Lastly, I've had a bit of some success. A woman from Gunnison, Colorado contacted me about doing some design work for her. She's wanting to make hunting apparel for women. She's an avid hunter herself (as well as her young daughter) and has limited sucess finding clothing to fit while she's hunting. She really sounds on top of her game as far as what it takes to start a company and I'm really looking forward to working with her. I'll let you know how that's going as we go along.

I've also be doing massive alterations. Ugh. I hate alterations. I remade a bridesmaid dress for my babysitter. It's strapless. She's a size 6 and a 34F bust.

Here it is...like a monster with it's fangs laid open, ready to eat me. Such cheap fabric. I hate alterations.

I've also had several contacts about bridal sewing lately. This is actually my chosen profession. I love making bridal gowns. Pardon my saying so, but I'm very good at it as well. I offer my clients quite a bit as far as services. I source fabric for them, often purchase it for them. I purchase everything else for them (thread, zippers, buttons, interfacing, lining, coutil, spriral steel boning). I do all the patternmaking for them, often working just from a picture. I do a full toille to work out all the details. I make a full corset interlining of coutil and spiral steel boning.

I usually spend about 1/2 hour on the phone with these people educating them on what I can offer them. 75%-80% of them never call back. That is so frustrating. It all seems to hinge on price. I really feel that I'm extremely reasonable. Apparently they do not. I'm working on a website that will hopefully do most of the educating for me. We'll see how that goes.

Hopefully, I'm back to posting regularly again. I really enjoy reading everyone else's posts about current projects and use-ful gadgets. I'd like to contribute something to the greater creative sewing community out there, even if it's just a little something.

Happy Sewing!

ASG

2006-07-05T20:36:00.000-06:00

I placed as a runner up in the ASG competition. Very cool. A nice thing to add to my resume.

ASG

2006-06-08T20:57:00.000-06:00

Simplicity pattern company called me this morning from New York. I'm a finalist in the American Sewing Guild contest. Cool beans.

Arika's sarong, part 3 (the fabric never lies)

2006-06-05T07:26:00.000-06:00

These are the pictures of Arikas sarong at our final fitting. Oddly, I don't think you can get a real accurate feel for this outfit from these pictures. I had pinned up the back as best as possible without having anything to pin it to, but I think it slipped a little before we took the shots.

In the first picture, the only difference is that there will be a bit more midrif showing. In the second picture, the excess fabric hanging was cut off and a fake knot was sewn on.

Arika called me after taking home the finished outfit and said that the top is slightly too tight on the blue layer. I know exactly what happened. The top is cut on the bias, as when working with the bias, goofy things happen. This dress was completely draped, no pattern used at all. When I pinned up the place to cut off in the back (seen in the second picture), I just took my scissors and cut about an inch from the vertical lines of pins to allow for seam allowance. When I laid both layers out flat to inspect the shape, there was a small piece that jutted out at the top. I assumed that I had cut in error and somehow missed this piece (I wish I was able to sketch in this program to show you better). Anyway, apparently this piece was needed.

As my instructor Helen Joseph-Armstrong would tell you, always trust the fabric, it never lies.

Better pictures of Rachel's dress

2006-05-26T13:17:00.000-06:00

I got these from Rachel a few weeks ago. The only problem I see with the dress is that there is something going on with the tension on my machine. You can see that the seams going down the gussets on the skirt look a little "pickled". They should be perfectly flat. I can not seem to get this through to my repair guy, and I can't figure out how to fix it either. I've tried everything I can think of. I've probably just abused the maching too much. I'm dying to upgrade to the Bernina Aurora!

ASG competition outfit

2006-05-26T12:58:00.000-06:00

Well, I've officially entered the American Sewing Guild Creativity Contest. I entered the "most interesting wardrobe" category. My concept was to create 2 outfits around one top for easy change from daywear to a night out. I'm extremely casual so the "evening wear" outfit is about as dressed up as I ever get.

I sat on the fence about doing it for the longest time, but then the prize of a new serger made me decide to go ahead and do it. My serger is 20 years old if it's a day and I'm pretty sure is also bipolar.

These pictures came out really well. Kelley took them at the park behind her house. There was a rather large flock of geese the children were chasing (I've cropped them out of the background, thought it might be more professional looking!) and yelling things to me like "mama, is this duck poop?" The story of my life....I'm going around trying to appear like I've got it all together as a professional and in the background there is always someone yelling about poop!

I don't know why I had in my head that the ASG was not a very professional group. Maybe I had the Home Sewers Association mixed up with them, but I was thinking they were non-professional, "homey", quilters and crafters. When I started looking at what they offer, I was really impressed. In fact, I've joined the Denver chapter b/c it was the closest and am somewhat bummed that I can't make very many meetings. It is a very well put together and thought out high class group of ladies. I've read through the conference booklet and would love to be able to go to that. The classes had me drooling. My hope for the competition is just to be able to make a finalist position. I'm not entirely pleased with the results of my entry and will give myself a little more time next year to think through the design process.

The main problem is the jacket. I had a really cute idea, and somehow it just did not turn out the way I wanted it to. I think one of the biggest problems was that I decided to add gathers at the bust and it just really threw everything off from the turned back facing to the button hole placement.

The skirt came out pretty darn cute, but I don't like how I look in it. That is perchance due to the fact that I'm about 40 lbs overweight and think nothing looks good on me right now.

The pants need help in the crotch curve. I HAVE to find someone who can help me fit a pants pattern on myself. When fitting pants, you really need to look forward in order to not affect the drape. This is not helpful when trying to fit yourself to not be able to look down!

Anyway, it's all done and I hope to hear from them in a couple of weeks one way or the other.

Arika's sarong, part 2

2006-04-30T15:29:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I fit Arika's sarong, but completely forgot to take pictures. I'll continue the visual after her next fitting, in 3 weeks. Here is the result of our fitting session:

Things to be decided at the fitting:

1) how much fullness is really wanted at the neckline

The amount of gathering at the neck actually worked out extremely well. I will leave it as is.

2) line of bodice edge (going from neck, under arm, to back)

It actually followed the same line that is did on my dress form, very simple.

3)how short to make the bottom of the bodice (i.e. midriff showing, or not)

We decided it "bunched" up a bit too much and I will cut off about 3 inches

4)whether or not to finish the sides and bottom of the bodice together

I'm going to finish these separately, let the top sit on the dress form for a day or two and see if the chiffon layer stretches any differently than the under layer, but I'm fairly certain that we can leave them separate. They will both be pulled back to the "fake knot" closing in the back, so I don't think any drooping will occur.

5)width and length of sarong skirt and solve problem of bulky knot

The chiffon layer was definately too wide and I will be cutting about 10 inches off the width before finishing it. I think this will go a long way to solving the bulky knot problem. The turquoise layer was also about 6 inches too long. I cut both of these layers intentionally too big before the fitting so that we could determine exact measurements on the body. I find this to be a much better way of finding the end measurement. Often the client will make a different decision when seeing the actual fabric on herself than she would have with just discussing options.

6)edge finish technique, samples to be shown

Arika liked the roll hem my serger does and I will use that for almost all edges, matching colors of thread to fabric.

At the next fitting, most of the dress will be completed. The sarong will be cut to the size we determined in our first fitting and the edges will be finished. Arika will be able to see if it fits just as she wants.

The armhole edges and bottom edge of the top will be finished and we will be determining the placement of the gathers at back to put in the "S" hook swim suit fastener and placing the fake knot over that.

The casing size for the neck edge should be determined by e-mail once Arika has selected her beads for the necklace that will hold up the top. This will be completed if I have that information and we will see the effect with the necklace.

Oops!

2006-04-29T14:05:00.000-06:00

I was doing an alteration for the girls dance studio (Don't get any ideas! I don't do alterations, this was just a quick favor in exchange for Zoe's new tap shoes). The front desk staff put the costume in a bag and just handed it to me with the instructions "make the crotch 5 inches bigger". When I opened the bag there was a little scrap of fabric that matched the costume and was just perfect for what I needed. After I turned it back in, the mom called me and asked if I had seen a "hair scrunchie" in the bag. I said I hadn't, then she described it as a long strip of fabric matching the costume! Oops!

Arika's sarong

2006-04-27T16:58:00.000-06:00

These are the pictures of Arika's sarong. Arika is having a beach wedding.

They aren't in any particularorder. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to layout several pictures on a spread in blogspot. You'll have to just scroll up and down and follow along.

The first and last pictures are of the beggining of the draping process. There will be turqoise fabric under the bodice as well as the skirt, but I stopped taking pictures before I got the turquoise bodice cut and draped. Arika may want a little less gathers at the neck, but I always like to have too much fabric and be able to cut away excess, than to have less than the client wants.

As I went around the bodice with the draping, I figured out that, layed out on the bias, I would be able to go all the way around to the back with one piece, instead of having to insert a side seam. I'm very pleased with this. (you can see this in the next to last picture). When I did the cut-away and tied the knot in back, I discovered that the knot is very bulky. Arika & I discussed this in our original consultation and she's open to using a swimsuit bra hook (the "S" shaped kind) and using a fake knot to reduce the bulky look in the back. This will also allow us to pre-determine where the gathers at the back will lay, rather than Arika and her attendants trying to fuss with it right before the ceremony. While the material is chiffon, the bulk comes from the embroidery and sequins.

There are 2 pictures that show the skirt as well. The same problem occurs with the bulky knot of the white layer. I have cut both the turquoise and the white layer extra big in order to really decide what we like, so we may be able to reduce the bulky look of this knot simply by making the sarong less wide.

Things to be decided at the fitting:
1) how much fullness is really wanted at the neckline
2) line of bodice edge (going from neck, under arm, to back)
3)how short to make the bottom of the bodice (i.e. midriff showing, or not)
4)whether or not to finish the sides and bottom of the bodice together
5)width and length of sarong skirt and solve problem of bulky knot
6)edge finish technique, samples to be shown

Tara's prom dress

2006-04-24T09:12:00.000-06:00

Here are the pictures of Tara's prom dress. Tara called me on April 6th and asked if I could have a prom dress made by April 22nd? After talking with her for a while, I figured out that the design she had in mind was not all that complicated and that she was willing to pay an appropiate fee for doing the dress at the last minute, so I squeezed her in.

Normally, I help my clients find their fabric. Once I know what design their dress will be, and we know what kind of fabric will work well with it, I begin looking at internet sights and forward those to the client so that they can obtain swatches. There are also a couple of local fabric stores I will send them to well informed about what they are looking for. Tara, because of the time crunch had to find her own fabric. She found a couple of fabrics at Mill Outlet that she absolutely loved and was able to get the rest at Joann's.

This sketch in the picture is what she drew and brought to me. We decided on a different hemline, but other than that, stayed true to her sketch.

There are a couple of things I would have done differently had I had another week or two. The first decision we made was to avoid a back seam on the skirt so that the seam wouldn't show at the bottom of the skirt from the front. This meant that the zipper would end at the bottom of the bodice instead of going down into the skirt. The dress went over her, but JUST BARELY using this method. Doing it again, I would have just made the seam in the back.

Something goofy happened with the top layer of orange fabric on the bodice. No matter how much I smoothed it out, it came out wrinkled looking when she put it on. The fabric was an incredibly thin gauze silk. I think maybe it need stabalized with an iron on interfacing. I don't think I'll work with it again if I can at all avoid it.

I was able to use 2 new techniques in this dress that I haven't tried before. One was the beaded hand-picked zipper and the other was running an elastic "suspender" through the straps to hold the dress down securely at the neckline. These are both in Threads articles, I'll find which ones and update the post in a few days when I can get back in my studio. (we're having construction work done in the basement).

Over all, it was great to collaborate with Tara. She has some sewing experience and definately had her own sense of style. This was a very fun dress to do, even if I got it done at 1 am the day of prom. (the pictures are of Tara at 9 am, she had come over in her pj's!)

Pin the Fire on the Dragon

2006-04-17T14:48:00.000-06:00

I made this poster to play "Pin the Fire on the Dragon" for Quentin's Knight Party for his 4th birthday. He didn't get it when I was making it and went up to put on his dragon costume. He said "I da dwagon, you makin' my fi-wa?" The little blue squiggles coming out of the dragon's mouth is where Quentin drew the dragons "fire" himself before I got it laminated (or "lemonated" as Olivia said).

The Cookie Monster Cable Saga continues....

2006-04-17T14:00:00.000-06:00

Where are the sleeves to my sweater? Yup, frogged 'em. After I got the entire thing made and had all the seams sew together.... I decided the sleeves just didn't work. A meriad of problems began with these:

*too small around the wrists
*too short by enough to be noticed
*decreased too sharply (causing a "twisting" effect where the cables met at the seams)

So I thought about it....and thought about it some more....and then decided to just do it (frog it, that is). This sweater has been more about discovering the zen quality of learning to knit again (which I haven't done since aunt Leta & I made a basketweave purse when I was 10) and learning to like the process instead of the end result (which is what has kept me away from the needles for 20 plus years). I also decided it was a heck of a lot of work to put into a project that I wouldn't wear. I don't wear things that aren't comfortable and I wouldn't have worn this with the sleeves the way they were.

So, when's it going to be done? Maybe in time to wear when the weather turns this fall. Maybe...My needles are itching to start some other projects.

I've already bought yarn to make the girls some darling coordinating cable sweaters from Debbie Bliss. The middle yarn is actually a very rich plum purple. I can't remember the name of the book the patterns came out of. I'm cheap and just copied the patterns I wanted out of a book at the library. It's really great, soft, very loud colors of cotton and I'm itching to get started. Typical Alisa style, I'm going to color-block these sweaters instead of making them all one color!

I've also got my eye on a shrug pattern to go with the sleeveless dress I've got sitting in my closet waiting for it's debut at this year's conference. I may put down the cookie monster cable yet again to do the shrug. After all, I need it sooner!

O.K. I'm closing this post. I just had to run TWO BLOCKS down the street after a ball that rolled away. I am SO out of shape.

Rachel's Prom Dress

2006-04-16T14:53:00.000-06:00

This is the Prom dress I made for Rachel. Rachel initially contacted me through my add on Craigslist.com. We were several e-mails into talking about her dress when I figured out that she did NOT live her locally in Colorado Springs, but lives in St. Louis! I told her it would be possible to do the dress long distance if we had enough time. She absolutely wanted a copy of the dress Charlize Theron wore to the Golden Globes, but wanted it in yellow satin.

I'm really hoping to get some pictures from Rachel of her in the dress. It wouldn't fit on my dress form, so I had to just pin it to the front to get the pic. There ARE supposed to be wrinkles across the bodice part, but they wouldn't pull out and look right just pinned to the dress form. I'm also not terribly happy with the look of this design in satin. Although I did line it with organza, I'm still not happy with the slightly "bubbled" look around the skirt fullness.

It has a complete inner bodice with several spiral steel bones, including boning over the bust part. I was concerned about the tightness of the fit with it being strapless, so included bones to hold up the curve of the top as well.

It's been an adventure making this long distance, but it's nice to know that it is something I can do.

In a month

2006-04-15T15:47:00.000-06:00

A month has gone by. We've been incredibly, unbelievably sick. Flu, strep, ear infections, bronchitis, possibly mono. Ugh. I thought we would never get healthy again.

This week I'm making a prom dress for a local girl who called me up last week and ask could I make her dress by April 22nd? It'll be a tight week. Rachel (pictures to follow later today) sent back her dress and needs a bit taken out at the hips. Shouldn't be too much fuss. I'm trying to get the girls a dress made for easter tomorrow, just a simple little sundress from the flamingo and kitty fabric grandma bought them at Mill Outlet.
I'd also like to get Navella's placemats done. If I get all this done, I'll have tons of pics by the end of the week!

Wish me luck.

The Bug Quilts....explaining myself

2006-03-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

Why, you ask, would I have chosen the cookie monster cables for my very first knitting project when normal people learn to knit scarves, then felt bags, then socks, and THEN attempt a sweater? I'm posting some pics here of my first quilt. Maybe this will explain how insane I am. I don't seem to be able to just get a pattern for anything and follow that. I'm really an outside-the-box kind of gal. Patterns are never what I want. When I use them, it's merely for launching purposes.

The bug quilts came about during my 3rd pregnancy. Knowing that after the baby was born, our girls would be sharing a room and bed, I went looking for something fun to decorate it with. I decided I really liked the loud colors (lemon, rasberry, lime, orange, etc.) and wanted a bug theme. There were several ready-made bug comforters out there, but none quite what I wanted (read in between the lines...none were quite loud enough!) So I thought to myself, "self, you know how to sew, surely you can figure out how to quilt" I got out my sketch pad, colored pencils, and graph paper and set out to make matching quilts for my girls. After I got the tops put together, I realized I didn't really know how to "quilt" all the layers together. I took it into my local quilt shop to see if they could help me out. I distinctly remember their stunned faces:

"THIS is what you did for your FIRST quilt?????!!!!!"

Anyway, after 16 months (give me a break, I had 3 kids under 4 yrs old at the time!) both quilts were done. The only differences are the blocks in the center are personalized to each girl: monkey for Olivia, grumpy bug for Zoe (ohh, you have to know her!) and Zoe's is smaller b/c I didn't realize HOW small it would be. Doing Olivia's second I decided to add a border and make it bigger. I've always meant to go back and add the border to Zoe's...maybe it'll be a nice graduation present or something (she's 5...do you think I have time?)

The Alpaca

2006-03-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

This is the yummy alpaca sweater I made for Kevin for Christmas. The yarn feels so wonderful, but the project hit some hitches. This is the first sweater I've completed (still working on Cookie monster cables, even though I started it first). There are a couple of obvious places where I did the wrong stitch.

Then there is the unexpected "stretch" factor. I knit (is that the past tense?) this on size 11 needles. It went very fast, but b/c of the loose-ness of the stitch, the arms stretch out when you put it on. I'm going to attempt a technique my knitting teacher in college used to make shoulder seams to try and counteract this stretching....as soon as I can get to the sewing machine in my studio!!!

Here's the technique....Place pins perpindicular to the seam on either end of the shoulder seam. Then wrap yarn around these pins in a figure 8 pattern, cinching up the seam to the measurement you want. Then sew with a sewing machine zig zag stitch to secure.

Hope it works.

I also found out 2 things about alpaca AFTER I had the whole thing done. 1) it sheds, and 2) it's heavy.

I'm not sure if Kevin will ever actually where this or not, but it was fun to make. I think I'll try a similar pattern to this next time in wool and a slightly smaller needle.

My Studio...or not

2006-03-20T08:48:00.001-07:00

These are actual, current pictures of my "studio". We moved in to this house over a month ago and I can't seem to find the time to get down to this room and get everything put somewhere. I'm really trying to go through all the boxes we've had in storage and get rid of as many things as possible. That, and the daily needs of the other 4 people who live in my house have really put a hamper on getting this project done.

I recently checked out a book from the library "Where Women Cr eate"
This is are really neat look at well know artists, quilters, etc and their studio space. There is a quote in the book that really hit home with me:

"It is both rejuvenating and inspiring to have a special place where I don't have to explain myself, accommodate others, or accomplish something - where I can just lose myself ...making something with my hands."

I really miss my own space and can't wait to have this done. My wonderful friend Kelley is home this week from college and is supposed to come over and watch the munchkins for me so I can get some work done, but it's a blizzard out right now, so I don't know if she'll be able to make it over or not.

Oh, here's what the room outside my studio looks like, which is what I have to get done first before I can get the studio done.I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have found a house where I have my own space. I'm really ready to be able to use it.

also lame

2006-03-09T12:36:00.000-07:00

I just had FOUR fillings put in this morning. Figuring that I couldn't eat anything, I stopped by Pikes Perk to get a yummy strawberry fusion smoothie after dropping Zoe off at kindergarten. My lips are numb......so I can't close them all the way to suck on the straw! I'm sitting here right now eating a smoothie with a spoon. Lame.

I've got several posts to put up in the next few days. We moved 3 weeks ago into a new house and directly I came down with the FLU. Flue sucks. Next year I'm getting a flu shot if I have to tackle some old person to get it! Then after the flu, I got bronchitus (sp?). Needless to say, not a whole lot of unpacking or blogging has been going on around here. Hopefully it'll all get done soon.

My take on people who work at Joann's

2006-02-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

I have a bone to pick. I strongly believe that people who work at specialty stores should be experts in their field. That way they can ACTUALLY HELP YOU. The people who work at Joann Fabrics are often annoyed. I believe this may have something to do with the fact that they are always severly under-staffed. Secondly, they rarely know an answer to any of my questions.

Just this afternoon, I went in to get some muslin for a toille I'm making. A toille is a muslin mock up of a formal gown for fitting purposes. I asked where the muslin was. It's with the quilting fabric I'm told. This seems arbitrary, but oh well. There was a sign on that said "Muslin, 99 cents/yard" so I found what I wanted & took it up to the cutting counter. The lady says, this is $3.99/yard. I told her about the sign & she says "this is not muslin". Seriously, I think I know what muslin is. It's unbleached, loose-weave cotton, often with telling little brown specks in it. It was muslin. So she proceeds to roll her eyes (yes, she actually did this) & told me it was quilting cotton. I FLIPPING KNOW WHAT MUSLIN IS. So I went back & found something suitable for $1.99 a yard (the 99 cent stuff was un-usable) & she askes me what I'm making. I think it's in their employee contract that they have to ask you this. I don't know why that gets up my craw everytime I'm trying to check out that I have to explain myself, but it does. I told her it was for a fitting. She said "you mean lining?". I said, "no, a fitting". She said "you mean a pattern?". Really, am I not supposed to be alarmed that an attandant at a fabric store has no idea what a muslin fitting is?

Lame

2006-02-26T20:19:00.000-07:00

I'm so lame. I sliced open the outside edge of the tip of my right index finger. It is incredibly hard to knit with a bandaid on the tip of your finger. With what dangerous cutting impliment did I wreak such havoc upon myself?.....a butter knife. Wait a minute, did you hear my right? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a butter knife. I'm so lame.

Cookie Monster Cables

2006-02-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

This is the sweater I've only been working on since last summer. It's actually my first knitting project, so I'm giving myself some slack. I got a book from Joann's on how to teach yourself to knit and, in typical Alisa style, jumped right to the last project in the book, skipping all the beginner scarves, etc. It only had one size for the sweater. Not my size, natch. So I got out the handy-dandy calculator and changed almost every row. I really wish I had thought out the stripe effect at the joining a little better. Because it's full-fashioned, the stripes meet at odd places and I don't like the visual effect. The underside of the sleeves looks as if it's "twisting" around to the front, but it's just where the cable rows meet and it gives it that "wobble" effect. When I tried it on, I discovered that it's not long enough, so I scoured the internet to find a free lace pattern that would mimmic the scallop lace at the top. I ran across www.knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/lace/scallop.htm

In the picture of the pattern it really looks scallopped, but when I made it up it looks more like a pineapple design at the bottom. I'm going with it anyway. It's not such a bad match and I really would like to get this sweater finished before it's too hot to wear it!

This is a picture of the neck lace. Thanks Liesel for the help, I would have been trying to figure out the YO forever by myself! I can't believe how differently the colors look. The one with the lace on it is the closest to the real "cookie monster" color. This is a microspun yarn, so it feels delicious!

2006-02-13T13:21:00.000-07:00

I make things. I make clothes…everything from mending holes in underwear to couture bridal gowns. I make crafts. I’m make scrapbooks of stuff my kids did 5 years ago. I make budgets. I make banana muffins out of all the yucky bananas nobody will eat. I make piles of laundry all over the house. I make babies. I make job charts. I apparently can make tomato plants grow (this has come as a complete shock both to me and to everyone who has previously come into contact with my vast and limitless abilities to kill all plants left in my care!). I make lists. I make money selling everything in our basement on E-bay. I knit and crochet all manner of things that can be made with yarn. I make decisions…both good and bad. I make sock puppets. I make a chocolate pound cake you would sell your grandma for.

This blog is a record of the things I make. How the process is going. Why I'm making it. Who it's for. Where I screwed up and had to backtrack. What the FO (finished object) looks like as well as shots of the UFO (un-finished object).

Enjoy. I do.