Recovered From Chicago Trip

If you've never attended a Patternreview.com meeting, you don't know what you're missing. I spent last weekend with the most marvelous women ever and visited such a wonderful city. The organizers of this year's event did an outstanding job. You might not know this but sewers are party animals, so what happened in Chicago stays in Chicago and that's all I'm going to say about that!

One of the fabric stores we visited was Vogue Fabrics in Evenston, IL. That's where I bought these delicious fabrics. Starting with the first row, there's a cotton lycra jersey, a beautiful brick colored rayon/lycra jersey that I might just do some discharge dyeing on, next a lovely Christmas red rayon jaquard crinkle woven fabric, a printed cotton/lycra jersey, next a poly chiffon and a rayon challis. I also bought 4 yards of white silk crepe fabric to do silk painting on. I can't believe I kept my purchases down to only 18 yards. My stash is currently overflowing so I did try to show some restraint.

Now that I'm recovered from my jet lag and my sewing room is back in order, I can get started on my StyleArc patterns. Since I did like the free pattern they sent me, which was the legging pattern, I'm pretty sure I'm going to like the pants patterns I bought as well.

I really like the pair of jeggings I bought before Christmas and wear them a lot. I'm hoping this pattern called the Lily Ski Pant fits similarly to my jeggings. They are made for a very stretchy fabric and they include a sample of a wool jersey as an example of what to sew them up in. I plan on using a very stretchy denim. I'm cutting these out today.

The Kerry Cargo pant is a very different sort of pattern. It has a straight leg, which I haven't been very successful in wearing since I'm short and have very small legs compared to the rest of my body. After cutting out the pattern (they come in only one size), it looks like they won't be coming in under the butt like their line drawing shows. The sample fabric that they sent looks like a rayon/lycra blend woven pants weight fabric. I'm not sure what I'll make my muslin out of but if they turn out to be a good pattern for me, then I have a pale spring green stretch linen to make them up in.

The third pattern I bought from StyleArc was the Tiffany Blouse. It is supposed to be made from any drapey blouse fabric. I have several nice rayon challis fabrics in my stash that I could use to make this blouse. It looks like it might fit me with very little alterations, even in the bust. Unfortunately, I've been putting back on a few pounds so I need some new blouses.

My summer vacation has begun so I have about 75 days of sewing ahead of me. I expect to make a dent in my fabric stash and get lots of new clothes sewn. Visit often and leave me comments because I cannot get enough of your comments!