Mojo, Inspiration, Diving In & Giveaway

So, no, I haven't done another thing with the J Stern jeans yet. The mojo for them seems to be fleeting at the moment. I still want to work out the alterations and make them, but I've had something else nagging at me that just would not shut up.

Backing up a bit …

About a month ago, curiosity made me order the Palmer/Pletsch Full Busted DVD. It promptly arrived a week later. And sat. And sat. Well, because I could not motivate myself to work on the jeans this weekend (but I did at least finish the "chore" sewing of two valances for the bath and a "body" pillowcase for DS!), I decided to finally plop it into the DVD player and have a look. It's another winner from Palmer/Pletsch. (More below.)

While I did not personally learn anything new from the DVD, it did motivate me to start working on a knock-off of a dress I've had in a still-open browser window for at least 5 weeks now. (No, I don't turn off the computer.) Every few days, I remember it's there and look at it again. And wish it was in my closet.

Click here to look at it on the website.

It's a pretty simple but non-frumpy denim A-line dress, and I can see myself living in it over the summer. Especially on the 4th of July with some cute new white or red flip-flops.

So, I've silenced the screaming mojo and have begun making one. I'm using this pattern (B5131), which I searched for, found, and ordered right after I first saw the dress:



Watching Marta Alto in the video motivated me to actually try tissue fitting the pattern instead of muslining it. Foolish? Maybe. Especially since I am a strong proponent of muslins and I usually think pattern tissue is evil. But fabric is cheap, my time is limited, and the worst thing that could happen is that the dress becomes the muslin/prototype. Right? ;-)

The pattern is a pretty good match, isn't it? Slice and dice a couple of seams here and there, morph the sleeve into a slight puff, pin the tissue, try it on, and it's good to go. Or in theory anyway. But that's what I'm doing. Fabric is cut and I've started sewing it up.

Wish me luck!

================================

So, back to the DVD (and the Giveaway). It's very basic at the beginning and most, if not all, of that info is covered in the book and the original companion video (FFRP Basics), which is understandable or else the DVD wouldn't stand on its own. But the rest, the "meat" of it, is new to P/P. Highlights include Marta Alto demonstrating FBAs on twist tops, empire seams, strapless tops, princess seams, a jacket, the "Y Dart," 3 live models of all sizes, and I'm sure more that I'm now forgetting. Marta's style is very homey, a bit grandmotherly but in a good way. But she's direct, a good teacher who knows her stuff, and if you have any reservations about doing FBAs, you WILL learn from this video.

However, since as I mentioned above, I personally didn't learn any new tricks and I have a tendency to never watch a DVD twice, I've decided to offer this up as a giveaway so someone else can benefit from the great info. Just leave a comment on this blog entry telling me to enter you into the drawing. I'll find one of those random number generator thingies and next Monday I'll "draw" a number to match up with the order in which comments are posted. I'll ship this anywhere, but please note it's in U.S. DVD format, so you've got to have a player that can play it or it won't do you much good. Unless you need a shiny plastic coaster with a hole in the middle. ;-)