Nia is Sick

Where to start? How about the Pavlova top?  I hit the sewing room bright and early Easter morning to finish my top for church. Just needed to do some hemming.  Nia greeted me with this.

Arrgggh! A blank screen of death and she wouldn't start. I couldn't do ANYTHING. She worked fine on Saturday! I had no backup option!

I had decided not to use Steam-A-Seam on the hem, so the last thing I did on Saturday was press and pin the hem for for final stitching. Once desperation set in Sunday morning, I unpinned and broke out the Steam-A-Seam. Those ties go past the floor! Here's where I ended up.

I spent the entire service worrying about the top was going to come apart. Live and learn.

Nia is at the doctor right now. The initial prognosis wasn't good (I sent the repair guy the video.) I hope the treatment will be  manageable.

I like my Pavlova top. The color is perfect! It matches two cotton prints I had in mind for skirts. Alas, this first top is a muslin. This fabric is 4.8 oz rayon-spandex from Spandex World. I'm looking to double that. I think I'll try a size smaller too.

A Few Corrections

Still working on the top! I fixed my puckered darts. They are all nice and smooth. They needed a ham and generous steam. What I'm most proud of is resolving my interfacing mishap.

I guess I was careless in my placement and ended up with this

Which translates to this

Perhaps on a thicker fabric it wouldn't be an issue; but it ruined this top because you could clearly see the interfacing from the right side. :-( I'd already started to steel myself for the replacement fabric purchase. (Purchasing new fabric is usually a joy, but I'm actually trying to be a bit better about sticking to my budget. Replacement fabric is not cool.)

I thought trying to remove the interfacing would damage the top.  I guess I was a little too apprehensive. Anyhoo, I got to pulling *gently* and removed all the interfacing below the seam line.  My duckbill scissors helped too.

Much better!

Sewing Along

I signed up for the Cake Patterns Pavlova Sewalong. Of course life leading up to the start was manageable. Once it started, all hell broke loose. I will not go into the sucky details because this is my happy place.

The sewalong was so well run! Lots of great info and encouragement along the way. Stephanie was great at answering questions. I do like the idea of dedicating time every day to finish a project and accountability.  What I have realized is that 30 minutes a day, for my slow self is an hour+. What killed me was laying out my rayon jersey. It had a curly life of its own. I also lost more time than I care to admit on a very simple sleeve binding. It was so simple that I over thought it by miles.  

Well ladies and gents, tomorrow is the last day of the sewalong and I have a new top -- almost. When I stitched the sleeves, I forgot to check to see if things lined up correctly. Accidentally perfect on one and really wrong on the other. I've ripped out the stitches, but I think I'm just sleepy enough to make another foolish mistake, so I'll save it until later. I need to hem it and it will be good to go.  My darts points were a bit bubbly. Hope I can fix that with a ham and some steam. Pics later! 

The skirt is great, in my head. In reality, I have a traced, but unaltered pattern. I was hoping to make this for Easter, but time's a wasting ... I wanted it underlined and lined. I just really don't want to wear a slip and I'm dying to try some of the techniques from Craftsy's The Couture Dress.