Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Spring!

Hello all!

I made my first Summer dress earlier this month, when the warm weather was getting into my bones. Not quite practical for the sun-then-snow nature of March in the High Desert, but I'm sure it will become quite useful when it is scorching in a couple of months. For now, it can be transformed into a warmer jumper with the addition of a cute blouse.


I made it using this Simplicity pattern. It was a good pattern and after I found the particular pieces for my size and cut them out, whipped up quickly. It did have an invisible zipper in it, which always complicates things, but I was satisfied with how it turned out. 


I came up with an idea for a "one piece wrap blouse" earlier this year. 
Well, alright -- it isn't quite one-piece, but it's pretty close. Here's a diagram I've drawn up:


The basic idea is a bodice that is completely one piece like the one in the picture above (minus the attached ties you see.) Technically, all that you'd have to do is hem the entire shape, attach ties and sew the shoulder fronts to their backs, and voila, you have a blouse. 
 I did add sleeves to mine, as well as Velcro at the lower neckline to keep it shut for modesty's sake. Oh yes, I added a bit of blue eyelet trim as well, for modesty's sake to say nothing of pretty accents. The blouse pictured above was my first try at this concept and holds lots of room for improvement, but it was as good start. I like the idea of making sewing simple, and especially with blouses since they tend to daunt some of us. This idea uses ties as a closure instead of buttons, clasps, or a zipper, which greatly simplifies things. 
The blouse could definitely benefit from shaping, for wearing comfort as well as for not looking like this:
Flattering, eh?

(It looks much better worn on a person than on a dressform, by the way.)

So that's a work in progress that I may return to sometime to perfect.


Aside from sewing, I made a birthday card today with the theme of wildflowers.

It was rather busy - or shall we say elaborate instead?

I had fun with all those decorative borders!


Spring is crowding out the brown around here. I LOVE it when the valley turns green. It makes me so happy!
In a few months, it will look like this. Can't chase away all the brown!
It's funny how this scenery, with its small amount of spring growth compared to many places, has grown on me over the years. Coming from a wet Oregon valley as a little girl, I sure disliked the dryness of this country, but now I love it. (With a sort of love that still appreciates it when the farmers below irrigate their pastures! Relative dryness, not Sahara please.)

Brave little souls!

to God be the glory,
Miss Humphrey

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
Romans 6:3-5





















Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Every Little Girl Wants A Twirly Dress

Hello All,
Recently I made my first little girl's dress. I made it free-hand style, using most of the same techniques I'd use to make a dress for myself. Girl's dresses are so much easier to make than women's clothing!


I didn't have a pattern to reference for girl's size 7-8, which was the size of the recipient, so I mostly went off of some measurements we found on the back of a pattern catalog. I only used a few, making this one of the most "free-handed" dresses ever. 
It turns out, you don't need every pattern made to make the style of dress you want. Have confidence in your abilities. You can design anything you like, and you can sew anything you can design, with practice.


A sweetheart neckline for a sweet little girl...
A short slit in the back for ease of putting on closes with a button and elastic loop. Another dress that I didn't have to put a zipper in = happiness and fond memories.

Little girls aren't the only ones who like circle dresses. I confess to having 3 in my collection right now with plans for another at some point. I did outgrow one of them, made of a lightweight pink fabric, but I couldn't stand to repurpose it. It holds too many happy, summery, running-through-the desert-grass-and-breeze feelings that are worth feeling again.


to God be the glory,
Miss Humphrey

Monday, February 5, 2024

My First Western Blouse

 Hello all,

Well, the Year of the Blouse is off to a good start. I received this pattern for Christmas and it was the first sewing project I plunged into after the holiday. I really like the results!! The pattern...plus a little bit of connecting loose ends...will produce a professional-level Western shirt. What do I mean by connecting loose ends? Well, there's a little guesswork in this pattern. Nowhere in the pattern does it instruct you to connect the back of the shirt to the front at the shoulders, though it clearly shows them connected in a later step. There's also no specifics for what size fastening snaps to use; so we ranked this pattern as "not the best quality." In addition, the sizes also seemed to run a bit small. However, I am still happy with my results!

(Side note: I don't usually sew with patterns, anyway. I'm used to connecting 110 more loose ends than this pattern gave me ;) )

Let's see what it made!

I used view C of the pattern - the simplest view.


For this shirt's material, I re-used the skirt of a dress I had made that fell out of favor with me.
This pattern included a lot of shaping that is quite nice. 


I don't think I've ever done so much topstitching on one project in my life. This shirt was full of it! I love the resulting "store-bought" look it gives.
I also learned to set snaps during this project. I like the western look of the "pearl" snaps. 


The "sleeve-strap" (or whatever this is called) can keep my long sleeve snapped out of the way of whatever I'm doing. I dislike that you can see the raw edges of the sleeve seams when you roll the sleeve back (though this defect is hidden in the pic above.) If I were making this shirt for someone else, I would finish the sleeve seams so that you didn't have threads dangling down and looking messy.

My apologies for missing a week in posting - I hope, as all good bloggers do, and always say - to be more consistent in posting ;)
I have lots of content for the blog now, so perhaps that will motivate a more rigorous posting schedule. 

to God be the glory,

Miss Humphrey

Monday, January 22, 2024

Crafty Projects

 Hello all,

I've made some crafty projects in the past few months that I thought I'd show you; some of them sewing-related, and some not!

I used a pattern to embroider classic cars on T-shirts for Christmas for my younger brothers. 
The older one got a '67 Mustang and the younger one got a '57 Bel Air. 
I did not realize how long it takes to embroider images like these! But I got them done in time for Christmas, which is what matters :)
A note to those who might try this: I had difficulty seeing the embroidery pattern after I had ironed it onto the dark grey shirt, because the color of ink and the shirt were so similar! Our patterns, at least, applied more vividly to a lighter colored shirt. I would recommend using a light-colored shirt if you're not confident in your free-hand embroidery skills!

I've been doing quite a bit of water-coloring recently. 


Not all of my family thinks that the blue-and-white humps in the background have a striking resemblance to mountains. I hope you can tell what they are...

I painted this picture using an old Country magazine picture for reference.


This is a birthday cake I love to make every year. It uses about every form of chocolate you could crave, I suppose. It all starts with three layers of moist chocolate cake. Between the layers is a rich dark fudge frosting. Covering all of this is a smooth Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream. A crown of homemade cakey brownies is placed on top and drizzled with glaze. It's homemade...with organic ingredients...so it's good for you, right? Haha.


I made a book for a Christmas gift - an edited version of the public-domain The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Perhaps in future days I will be able to bind my signatures more closely together.



Do you recognize the fabric covering the book? I used the same combo on my Christmas dress.
to God be the glory,
Miss Humphrey


Monday, January 15, 2024

What Do I Do With My Scraps? Make This, Of Course!

Hello all,
I discovered a fun sewing project recently. It consumes scraps and turns them into useful items for yourself or great gifts for others! 
Enter the Zipper Pouch. 
I made a few of these for Christmas and let me tell you, it was good practice working with zippers, which are a sore spot for me ;) 

These pouches are a relatively fast sewing project that you can accomplish without taking too much upon yourself.
If you are a very detail-observant reader of this blog, you might recognize this dark blue fabric from my 1830's dress. 

This one was made with fabric pieces and lace given to me by a friend. I like the look of a bead string attached to the zipper pull.

You can develop or practice quilting/patchwork skills in a small project like this.

I monogrammed the back of this one...can you spot the letter?



Well, that's all for today...Enjoy your January!

to God be the glory,
Miss Humphrey


Monday, January 8, 2024

It's A New Year!

 Welcome 2024! 

Here's a look back at the dressmaking I did in 2023, and some sewing ideas for 2024.

My mother and I made matching denim skirts. This is the most useful thing I sewed all year. Every girl needs a jeans skirt!

We also made matching jumpers together.

This was a circle skirt that was made out of a tablecloth. 

A simple circle dress with a sash I had in my collection.

a tiered and yoked springtime dress

I made this dress, except for the ruffle that my grandmother added, and wore it to watch a fiddle contest. It pairs well with Western attire.

I dislike this dress. The skirt was gored, which was fun, but some things up top didn't work out. Perhaps I will renovate it in 2024.

This dress was made by altering a pattern. 
You'll recognize my Christmas dress if you've been reading the blog recently! 

Plans for 2024
I was informed by my mother that 2024 is the Year of the Blouse, and during the holiday I was given blouse patterns and a Hobby Lobby gift card. So with all the hints, I think this year's sewing will include some tops! I also have a goal to finish my hexagon quilt. We shall see how that goes.
Here's the first blouse I'm making.
This dress is inspiring. Notice the sleeve detail!
I also got this blouse pattern for Christmas. 
I would like to recreate something like the first dress in this post.

to God be the glory,
Miss Humphrey




Spring!

Hello all! I made my first Summer dress earlier this month, when the warm weather was getting into my bones. Not quite practical for the sun...