Outfit of the Day

Some days, I just like the way I look.  I hope everyone has those days sometimes.  When you look good, and know you look good, its and instant moral and confidence boost.  I had one of those days yesterday.

Apperently, asking if Honey could see my shoes
didn`t equate into please include my shoes...

I was well enough rested to pop out of bed when the alarm went off at 7:00am (and that is a rare occurrence), so I had all this extra time I usually spend getting up, and I wasn't sleepy to boot.  The other thing that helped was that I picked out my outfit before I went to bed.

Now, I will admit to being a little bit OCD about planning things, but I don't usually plan my outfits ahead of time.  However, it made my morning so much smoother I'm considering doing it more often.  Finding clothes take two minutes in the evening, but when I'm groggy and just waking up, finding an outfit takes forever.

So, with all this extra time, I was able to do my hair.  That's right folks!  Not just in a bun, or into a clip, but I actually styled my hair.  Yes, that is my snood, finished late the night before.  And let me tell you, I liked it.  I really enjoyed having my hair looking good.



I also wore my Kasia Skirt for the first time.  (Remember I mentioned that whole Shoe-lemma thing?)  I`m still not completely happy with it.  There are some things I wish I`d don differently.  However, now that I`ve worn it for a day, I definitely like it more than I did when I tried it on for the reveal post.

P.S. Stay tuned for my Snood Review!

Kasia 6012 Reveal

The first piece of my new wardrobe, the Kasia 6012 Pencil Skirt is finished.  I'm not entirely satisfied with the fit, I'd make some changes if I were to make it again, but I'm happy enough with this one.  I used a black cotton blend as the main body and a leftover black satin for the yokes.  I had been planning to use a slightly heavier red crepe-back satin, but apparently I'd used that for something else.

Front View

I talked about the pattern changes I made in my earlier post.  I think that the fit I got was pretty good.  There is some extra room across the hips, but it gets fairly tight when I sit because there isn't much stretch in my fabric.  I think I'd peg in a little bit more at the hem if I make it again.  My last issue with the fit is the way the yokes puff out.  I think that if I'd used a heavier fabric, closer to the main fabric, I wouldn't have had this problem.

The only change I didn't talk about last time, because I forgot I wanted to do this until partway through, is that I converted the back slit.  I turned it into a kick pleat using this lovely tutorial from A Fashionable Stitch.  I made the pleat in the satin that I used for the yokes, thinking that it would peak out occasionally and have a nice contrast.  Unfortunately, using bias tape to finish the edges (because the satin frays like you wouldn't believe) left it a little out of shape and thick in the hem so it tends to just stay open.  However, I kick pleat is definitely something I'll be tackling again.

It's surprisingly hard to take mirror pics from behind... 

Thimbles

I was hoping to reveal my Kasia Pencil Skirt today, but I ran into a hiccup.  I don't sew by hand.  I've never liked sewing by hand and I don't think I've ever done it well.  However, when I was finishing the waistband, with the stitch in the ditch method, it warped out of shape.  I finished the seam with an extra two inches on the inside and none of the seams matching up.  So, I've unstitched it and am about half way through stitching by hand.

A cheap sewing-kit thimble, just like mine

Its going unusually well this time.  I won't say I love it, and I certainly won't claim to be making the tiny neat stitches my grandmother would make, but I don't hate it.  I think part of the reason is my thimble.  I tried using a thimble once before.  I wore it on my thumb, because that's what I used to push the needle through.  This time, after the most preliminary of internet searching, I learned that I should be wearing it on my middle finger.

And, those first stitches look like they were sewn by a blind toddler.  I found it really awkward.  But, now that I'm half way through the waist band, I'm sewing faster, and it's easier too.  I'm not going to pack up my sewing machine any time soon, but I'll certainly be less reluctant to finish things by hand now.

Maybe if I get one of the gorgeous metal thimbles like this one I'll start sewing everything by hand

Yep, I could see a lot of hand sewing with this... 

...

A Pencil Skirt

The hotel where I work has undergone a change of ownership.  This has come with a promotion, a ton more hours, and the need to dress more professionally.  I have a very small professional wardrobe, so I've tried to buckle down and get to building one.  And the shirt dress has moved to the back burner for a little bit.  I'm honestly not sure if this is a bad thing, or blessing in disguise.

I've discovered that there are actually a lot of different sources on the internet for free patterns.  I plan to do another post about those soon.  In the mean time, here is one I've found: Kasia 6012 by BurdaStyle.  First of all, it's a free download.  I can't possibly argue with that.  Second, the super cute hip yokes will let me sneak in a little bit of colour into the black and white dress code.

At the moment I'm working on the muslin.  After two constructions and 4 or 5 rounds of marking it up, I think I've got it.   I'll start by saying I had lovely pictures to go with this posts, and when I came to write I discovered my camera has eaten them... And of course, I'd just finished taking the muslin apart.

I had to size up a bit based on my hip measurement and I knew from the chart I wanted to add about an inch in length.  So, I traced the pattern and made those two changes before making my first muslin.

When I was adding hip width, I noticed that the pattern didn't seem to have any real shaping for the waist.  I couldn't find any hip point, nor did the pattern appear to narrow.  You can see what I mean in their pattern diagrams here.  I decided to trust the pattern and assume it was built in somewhere and I just couldn't see it.

It turns out, trusting the pattern was the wrong call.  I came out with a muslin that fit fairly well around my hips, but had a solid 6" extra fabric at the waist.  Knowing the difference between my waist and hip measurement, that means there is some shaping.  However, even if I hadn't added width for the hip I don't think it would have been enough.  The other issue I had was the that distance between the waist and the hip (which I found by looking at where the yokes fell) was about an inch too long.

I pinned both of these issues out.  I took the inch vertically in the front pieces and back as well as both yokes.  For the width, I determined a hip point and then took from the two side seams and center back, fading to nothing at the hip.

This time it was a lot closer.  Now that it was sitting properly at my waist, it was pretty easy to see I needed to take out a little bit more.  I pinch out another two inches along the side and back seems and am now pretty happy with the fit.  I didn't bother adjusting the waistband for the last time.  Having taken out some width on them before, creating an awkward seem allowance down the center, I knew that taking any more wouldn't really work.

I can barely tell which line I want to use... 

So, I do need to draft the waistband but that's a lot easier to do on paper in my opinion.  I also want to trace out my final muslin-pattern.  I know a lot of people just use their muslin pieces, and I think I would usually as well.  My issues is that there are a few tucks and bumps in the pieces from how I took them in.  Generally I think the final muslin doesn't have all of those.  But, since I didn't cut new ones, just refashioned the first, it's unnecessarily mucked up.