Last Second Sewing for Chicago

I got everything made for my trip and then found out that the weather will be really bad during the PR Meeting. In order to make my travel wardrobe work for the cold rainy weather I had to add a few more pieces. Good thing I have such a substantial fabric collection or none of these garments could have been possible. It's not like JoAnn's would have had what I wanted.

Because I wanted to stay warm in Chicago, I made KS 3693 in a slinky printed knit. It's just like Chico's travel knit they use for their garments and it will help to keep me warm on our fabric shopping outing on Friday.

This is how I'll wear it. The beaded flower trim on the top leaves the neckline of the cardi quite lumpy, but I think my hair will cover that up. I haven't hemmed the pants yet. I'll wear this outfit with my black waterproof rain boots I bought for my trip to NYC two years ago. They still look pretty good. This outfit will look really nice with my orange Anne Klein trench coat. Good thing I put back on so much weight or the coat wouldn't fit me. Of course, I could have just bought a new one.

As for the Big Event on Sunday where we get to meet the Lt. Gov. of Illinois, I was planning on wearing my new summer dress. However, we are walking to the meeting place and, while it may not be raining on Sunday, it will certainly be cold. So I went to Target to see if I could find a cardi or shrug that I could wear over the dress because, while I do have one cut out, I didn't think I'd have time to sew it up. And how lucky could I be? I found this cowl neck sweater with 3/4 length sleeves that was the perfect color. I like 3/4 length on RTW because long sleeves are always much too long. It looks OK under the dress and I had to style it with brown tights and my brown flats so my legs would stay warm. I think the dress looks fine styled this way and I'll be warm enough during the walk with the trench coat over it.

A couple of weeks ago I bought some Style Arc patterns from Australia which I will share with you when I get back from Chicago. With my order, they sent me a free pattern for some leggings. In the middle of sewing like mad for this trip, I decided to try out this pattern. If it worked, then I'd have another outfit possibly to take with me and help keep me warm. The pattern worked well enough. The fit isn't perfect and I did have to do some crotch scooping to get it to look this good. I shortened the legs 2" but probably shouldn't have. I still haven't hemmed these and they look like they might be almost too short.

If I find the time tomorrow, I'm going to sew up one more thing. I want to make a tunic to wear over my new leggings. There is going to be a pizza party and celebration with fun and games on Saturday night at the University Center and I wanted to be comfortable and warm for this event. I plan on sewing up the animal print from an earlier fabric.com order into a long tunic pattern but have yet to decide which pattern. I better get to deciding since I have only tomorrow to get it cut out and sewn and get everything washed up and packed. Yikes! I need to get to bed, tomorrow is going to be a long day!