Janet and I needed some work supplies and took a trip down to the sketchy area of Dallas where all the wholesale & warehouse shopping is for fashion stuff. (It is not the end of town you want to be in after everything closes at 4:30pm!) We went to 3 bead stores and 2 fabric places.
The first bead store was the best, and we bought most of what was on our list there. It was probably 6 aisles wide - first aisle we started on is pictured. It's definitely the kind of store you need to have a list to search for or you'll just want to buy everything!
We found some sew-on rhinestones in colors we needed at one of the other bead shops, but they were much smaller stores and seemed to be stocked with mostly glue-on stuff.
We didn't need any fabric, but we wanted to see what had come back to that street because a tornado hit most of the fabric warehouses back in October 2019. And then the best one of the bunch (and only one that didn't have tornado damage), decided to close when all the lockdowns started a few months later.
It was nice to see at least 4 or 5 of the fabric places are still there. I only thought to take one photo at the first one we went to.
#lifeasacostumer
I spent the day priming things for paint and then I remembered to shoot a quick video. #SewingStudioBuild
I started cutting all the edges while Janet was away yesterday morning. When she got back after lunch, she pulled out a roller and started filling in. I'll put a pic below in the comments. #SewingStudioBuild
We broke for lunch and then came back with a portal ac unit plugged in to an extention cord from the house. Can't wait until they finished hooking up all the electrical and we have the mini split cooling the room for us - it was stupid humid today! #SewingStudioBuild
Why do you have to be so pretty, brocade? I love you, but you are so fussy to work with!
#derbydress
I made a rub-off dress... the only change I made was to increase the width of the waistband from 2" to 3", which I am more-or-less satisfied with. I'd do a few things, construction-wise, differently next time, but this is an easy, comfortable dress.
The original is from Talbots.
It’s been awhile since I’ve had something to show, but I’m finally getting the pictures up! Both of these were from the Paloma pattern in the Itch to Stitch “Sew Beautiful” book. I did the top first to test the pattern, and tried to add some length to the sleeves, since 3/4 length only works here about 3 to 4 days of the year! I apparently underestimated the length I needed to add, but I had to cut crosswise even to add this much, so I couldn’t have done more.
For the dress, I did add more sleeve length (slightly overestimated this time). I also added ties to the neck and pockets, though in retrospect, I probably should have put them in higher. Based on the shirt, I’d thought putting them in the top part would be too high. So I inserted them in the first ruffle layer and it is maybe a bit too low.
Overall, though, I think this was a worthwhile pattern to play with.
