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To the sewing machine!

Lately I've been itching to get back to some sewing. And after the excitement and fun of Halloween, that is exactly what I have done.

About a month ago, a friend ordered 3 custom silk bags from me. I haven't made any in a long time but luckily I had step-by-step instructions written down in a little notebook that I had stashed away. I'm so happy that I did that! Part of the process involves dying the silk, which is one of my two favorite parts...my other favorite part comes when you get to see the final product. Below is a picture of the dye pan for 1 of the 3 bags.


Doesn't look like much, does it? I used green, blue and yellow silk dyes on this one. The order was for one bag in sea green, one in blue, and one in yellow. The biggest question in my mind was how was I going to get a sea green. Somehow it seemed to work! Of the bags below, the bag on the left is the same as the fabric in the above picture (which is the sea green bag). The middle bag is a combination of blue and chocolate dyes (because who can resist anything called "Chocolate"?). And the bag on the right is yellow with a little bit of burnt sienna to give it some interest.


All that is left now is to carve the stamp that was requested, stamp the bags, and add the draw-ties.

I have one more bag in the works, still waiting to be sewn up using this fabric below...


This one is a combination a cardinal red and again, burnt sienna (one of my favorite dye colors, for some reason). This one will be stamped with gold snowflakes and put up on my etsy store for sale once it is completed. ...Or I might keep it...we'll see.

And now on to sewing of actual clothing-type items...

While on a quest to find new dog bed stuffing material this past weekend, I found some black on white polka-dotted rayon fabric on clearance. Since I have been coveting other people's polka-dots for some time now, I had to snatch it up as mine. This new rayon fabric feels like the perfect match for the McCalls pattern pictured below. As an aside, in my early high school years, I had a beloved rayon shirt that was very similar in style. It fit perfectly and flowed elegantly. It had deep sleeves like this McCall's M6840 pattern. Ever since I outgrew that shirt, I have harbored dreams of someday recreating it. I think I'm on my way to doing just that!


Next we have some large scraps that I have left over from other projects. The blue on the left is some of the softest cotton jersey I've ever touched. The white patterned fabric on the right is a transparent cotton gauze.


I've been contemplating what to do with these pieces, and even drew up some ideas of patterns that I might try to make from scratch. However, the other week I was inspired by this work of awesomeness, which led me to purchase this Vogue pattern recently...


The plan is to use some combination of the two fabrics to make view B in this pattern. Here is a better picture of what the back actually looks like, with the split and all. I don't think the drawings on the pattern cover do this shirt design justice, and I probably would have never even looked twice at it had I not ran across the inspirational shirt on the Handmade By Carolyn blog. I definitely appreciate the inspiration!

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