Tuesday, November 12, 2013

My I miss Portland dress

Got the Anna Dress pattern in the mail from By Hand London for my birthday in September. I'm also completely in love with the Waterfront Park fabric series from Violet Craft.
And furthermore, how can so many days of sunshine feel so oppressive? But I'm just aching for Portland, I see pictures of rain and I want to crawl inside them. Even the dirty creek in Meadow Park makes me wistful. I love you San Luis Obispo, but I'm going to cheat on you with Portland.
I won't be back there until Christmas, which is so soon, but does NOT feel soon enough. It's just over a month and between now and then there are birthday parties and camping trip parties and costume parties and cornhole tournament parties. It's party season. But all I want is rain. The fall leaves are nice though.
Everyone in the blog-world has been making and raving about this dress, I don't have anything different to say. It is truly fantastic. And fast! I made a 12, probably could've gotten away with a 10, as I ended up taking the back in, and could do so more if I wanted to. And the neck is a bit gaping. But, it actually feels a lot like what I wore in high school, with combat boots, and a flannel tied around my waist (yep, for reals). It feels very homey. Like Portland. I'm even wearing my glasses! Which I haven't done since the 90s!
Notice the card behind me in the shape of Oregon!



I'm standing on my neighbor's porch because she has a nicer front door!


Still a little big in the back

The only other alteration I did was to put the zipper in the side seam because last weekend I crashed my bike in the cross race and I still can't maneuver my right arm to zip up the back. But it works just fine.
I could probably make a million more of this dress. I do love it.
Also, in spite of the fabric being from Portland, I actually bought it at Picking Daisies. It's a great store, check these women out!


Friday, November 1, 2013

Another type of sewing project

I usually stick with sewing clothing for myself because that is what I like to do. But recently I got to do a little industrial sewing project! SLO Nexus is a local bike racing team/club and this weekend they (we?) are putting on a cyclocross race at El Chorro Regional Park. Someone had the great idea that we should make musettes for the prize packages. So that is what we did. We made 204 musette bags at SLO Sail and Canvas. Then we screen printed them. Here's some pictures:
cutting large sheets of nylon

the scene from above

this machine cuts the fabric into the bag shape!

sewing machines in the floor

so the floor is the work table

204 of those!

and the final product!
We managed to get all the bags made in one night with 4 people on sewing machines and several others helping with cutting, tacking the straps, taking photos (thanks Garrett!) and prepping to do screen printing (which happened on a different night). Here's a shot of that endeavor:
and 203 more of the final product!


Another bike-racing related sewing project that I did recently: 6 capes! We wore these at the 24 hours of Chamberlain race last weekend. Making 6 capes was so much faster and easier than making 200 musettes! And I probably repeated that exact sentence 7 times while we were making them.
Shiny capes for team ponies!

Chenin models the cape in action!

So, that's this turns out to be a post about the convergence of two of my favorite things: sewing and riding bicycles. But I guess I would add to that list of favorite things: group projects and friends.

All good stuff!