SewBaby News

I've gone my whole life thinking that yellow was a color that I couldn't wear.  If you look through my decade of sewing blog history, you won't see me wearing yellow.  For some reason, now, I decided, I don't care anymore- I love yellow and I'm going to wear it! This cardigan and top were made using Simplicity 8141 for the cardigan and Vogue 1049 for the tank.  The cover doesn't show the shorter version of the cardigan, but that is the view that I made- View D.   The front is one piece that starts out with one shoulder on the bottom of the piece and one shoulder on the top, you narrow hem both sides, and then flip the shoulder seam up, creating this beautiful drape. I used a very sheer rayon knit from Fabric Mart.  The tank is two layers of the fabric, and the cardigan one layer.  This project was a fabric hog- I had 3-1/2 yards of fabric, and used it all for these two pieces.  For some reason, I don't think that 8141 was ever done...

I've always found the color "mauve" to be a little mysterious.  Is it pink?  Is it purple?  Is it brown?  Is it gray?  Whenever I read about color analysis, mauve is one of the recommended colors for me (a summer), so I thought I should find out a little more about it.   The first thing that I found out, is that I've been mispronouncing it my entire life.  It is not "mahv", but "mov" with a long o, as in stove or clove.  I'm already feeling a little more sophisticated!   According to Wikipedia, mauve was named after a pale purple flower called the mallow flower.  It's use didn't become popular until 1859 when a chemist trying to make a cure for malaria noticed a residue that ended up becoming a mauve dye.  The 1890's are referred to as the "mauve decade" because of it's popularity! I ordered several different fabrics from Fabric Mart Fabrics to experiment with that all had mauve in the names.  You ...

My daughter's 24th birthday is this month, and when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said "Could you make me some new clothes?".  Music to my ears!  I've had a horrible cold all weekend and haven't left the house for 3 days because I've been so sick, but it gave me plenty of time to think about what I could make.  I napped a little, sewed a little, napped a little sewed a little.  Serena started her first professional job last year, and she works as a food engineer in Chicago.  She can wear anything that she wants to work, but she really likes dresses.  She also has a long commute to get to her job, which involves about a mile walk each morning in the Chicago weather, plus standing outside at the train station every day in the bitter cold.  So, I thought I would make her some things to make that commute a little warmer, and still be fun and appropriate for a 24 year old engineer.  I started pulling fabrics from my stash, an...