Simplicity 2474 in purple mosaic

I sewed! I sewed! OK, you can get up off the floor now. :-)

This top is probably the last make of 2012 for me. Tomorrow is a half-day at work but it's also going to be Tyler's last day with us as he's taking off for St. Augustine to ring in the New Year with his big brother Michael, and then back to North Carolina and being a Marine the day after. We'll have dinner together before he leaves and then I think I'll be doing some toasting of my own and it's probably not a good idea to mix that with the sewing machines. The skirt is not actually sewn yet ... just the front pinned onto Zillie for photo loveliness purposes.

The pattern is Simplicity 2474, and the last thing I bought it for was this simple top. But a simple top is what I was after since the Joann's fabric bought yesterday is from their lovely (cough:cough) polyester collection and I did not want to fight slippery poly with fussy details. It will be a nice layering piece in the winter and then move into spring and summer nicely.

I bought 2 yds since I didn't have a pattern in mind until last night. This pattern calls for just under 2 yds. Even after adding 3 inches to the length at the hem, I only used 28 inches of those 2 yards. Which means there will be a matching skirt for a 2-piece "dress" sometime in the near future. Part of the fabric savings was that I used pre-made bias binding for the neck and sleeve facings, and part was pattern layout stupidity.

I made a quick muslin and decided a real FBA was in order and so made a 1/2" adjustment. I started with the 14 at the neckline, graded out to the 16  at upper bust, 18 at hips, and ended up adding an additional 3/8" at the hip sideseam. Thank you holiday treats at the office I didn't resist this year. Back on the wagon this week, that's for sure.

These two pieces are all there is if, like me, you don't use the 2 facing pieces. The pattern calls for a CF seam, for no discernible reason I could see. So I eliminated it, which also helped in the fabric stinginess. I kept the CB seam since it does have some shaping.

Here's a shot of the inside and the black bias used for the neckline facing. I think it would've been nigh on impossible to make self-fabric bias with the slippery poly. I'm glad I didn't even try.

The sleeves have a pleat at the hem, which you can sorta see here. You can also see the same bias used to finish the sleeve hems.

The top is simple but I like it. And since it is poly, it will be easy through the laundry. I think it will get a lot of wear since it goes with the purple and with black. And if I make that matching skirt, I'll even have a mini wardrobe capsule. I'm hoping to spend New Year's Day in the sewing room to finish up the purple skirt for a new outfit to wear to work on Wednesday and maybe I can hustle and get the print skirt done too before the fabric gets buried in the stash closet.

Back in the Saddle ... Kinda

It's that time of year when all the cool bloggers seem to be doing 2012 In Review type posts. Dare I say I'm not a cool blogger? Or is it just because I'm just a lazy blogger? The truth is I can't be bothered to go back and look at the last year on the blog from this laptop (my home desktop is on the edge of dying and I'm not ready to spend bucks on a new one when I have all I need in that at work and the lappie is technically just fine). It's hard enough to type without hitting the stupid touchpad every other sentence. But I digress.

I know I sewed some things during the year cuz I've been wearing most of them to death. But there were some changes in my life in 2012 that seem to be closer to the front of my brain. Separating, moving, officially being hired at my dream job. Yeah, I'd say those were some major rollercoasters, but I'm on the other side and only see a cloud of dust in the rear view mirror. I'm having a ball. Life is good. :-)

Christmas week and beyond has been great. I actually got a wild hair and pulled out the decorations for the first time in years. It's amazing what being happy does for motivation to decorate with tacky Christmas stuff. ;-) Alex got in the mood too and strung lights all over the outside of the house. Which means we weren't the neighborhood Scrooges like I thought we'd be. Go us!

Tyler arrived 12/20, dumped his stuff, and started visiting all his friends. Mom who? ;-) That's OK, I was expecting it and I had to work through Friday anyway. He's been in/out over the last week but we've actually seen him a lot. We spent all day Christmas Eve car shopping and he did manage to come home with exactly what he wanted. Let's hope that this time he doesn't total it within a month. ;-)

Alex's gift to us was tickets to Blue Man Group at Universal for Christmas night, which was a blast and also means that I actually was at Universal Studios for two Christmases in a row since Alex and I spent all day there Christmas Day 2011. Who wudda thunk? Yes, Life Is Good.

Also from the Life Is Good Department, shopping today. For moi. I'm not gonna lie ... love those me-shopping days. But jeez Louise, remind me to NEVER go near the mall the weekend after Christmas. I knew enough to stay away BEFORE and did all my shopping on the lappie, but I thought I'd be safe by now. Hah. Joke was on me. But I had a DSW gift card just burning a hole and off I went. I seriously needed some new black heels and I'm happy to report success. And then some.

Pair #1:

Pair #2 (Please ignore the dirty stuff in the sink back there. I know I am.):

Pair #3 (totally impractical but so pretty. And comfy):

Uh ... my name is Debbie and it's been 10 hours since my last shoe purchase:

I'm almost embarrassed by this. Almost. And there's at least 30 pairs you can't see at the ends of those shelves and the floor to the right. Shoes and fabric. What can I say?

Also for me today ... another wild hair but this time at the nail salon. Aren't they cool? I've been inspired by nails on Pinterest lately and decided to just go for it today. Love them! (Hate the old lady hands.)

And speaking of fabric. A trip to Joann's today for purple thread also yielded this, which will become a top to go with the purple ponte Magic Pencil skirt I'll be making tomorrow when I actually get into the sewing room again and back in that saddle.

Yes, Life Is Good.

I'm not dead yet

Fans of Monty Python's Holy Grail should get that post title. :-)

Just a drive-by posting to say I'm alive and well. Just really busy at work and life and my Scroogy self is looking forward to December 26.

My mom self is looking forward to December 20, when the Marine will be arriving for a couple of weeks. He came back from his first deployment last weekend, and truth be told, I think he's a little sad to have left Japan. He loved it there! Rumor is the next "trip" will be to a far less friendly place with a lot more sand. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. He *is* a Marine and they all want to go there.

Tomorrow is our Christmas holiday party at work. I didn't make anything new. I'll either wear exactly what I wore last year or I'll pair the jeweled top with the black Neue Mode skirt I made recently. It's been pretty warm this week.

Speaking of work, I received my first bonus in many, many years. I'm happy to report that it was performance-based, well ... more like performance-ENHANCED ... and I nearly fell on the floor when I saw the evidence in my bank account. Nice to have solid proof they like me as much as I like them. Such a GREAT place and wonderful people.

Not sure how much more sewing will be happening after I finish my sister's cardi this weekend, but stick around cuz you never know.

Not for me

Today in the sewing room was not for me. Well, mostly.

First up, is another make of the cardi from Vogue 8546. This time for my sister for Christmas, on request after trying mine on last winter. I cut it out today and will sew it either tomorrow or during the week. It's a fast sew, if I remember correctly.

Here's mine from 2 years ago. Hers will be purple Sophia knit. I still wear mine since sizing isn't really an issue in this drapey style. I'm sure I could make it smaller and it would still fit about the same.



For me, I did manage to eek out one Magic Pencil from the leftover purple Sophia, so that's ready to be sewn.

The other Not-for-Me is this infinity scarf for the "white elephant" gift exchange at work on Tuesday.

The rules for our exchange are to spend no money, find something, anything you already own that you want to part with, and re-gift it. We did this last year too and it was pretty funny since you start by unwrapping one gift but it can be "stolen" along the way by the later unwrappers. I've had this fabric in my stash for years and these infinity scarves seem to be trendy right now so maybe it will be a winner. If not, less than an hour was spent making it (thanks to Dawn's tutorial here) and these 2 yards are now out of the stash and can stop mocking me.

Since I'm basically a Scrooge, this will probably be the extent of any holiday sewing or crafting.

In other news, both the shoes and the fabric I recently ordered arrived. The shoes went back since they weren't immediately comfortable. Sob. Half the fabric is also going back since I'm not thrilled with it. I have too large a stash to just keep what I don't love and I'd rather have the money back to buy what I do. But that still leaves a few cuts that I did like and tomorrow they'll be pre-washed and ready to go for whenever the mood hits.