August Already?

Wow, I can't believe how fast the year is going by! July went especially fast... there was plenty going on at work and then a little vacation to California and Colorado. Here are some photos from the trip...

Somewhere on Stanford's campus:


Chinese food so delicious... there were multiple courses and this was my favorite... the meat is duck but other than that I don't know what this is... I just know you wrap and eat! :)


Sesame dessert balls... yum!


This is where we ate... Ming's in Palo Alto, CA... if you're in the area you should check them out!
 

We were in Cali for a friend's wedding, which was at Halbrook-Palmer Park in Menlo Park, CA. It was stunning!!
 

 Milbrae, CA... very nice neighborhood:
 

From Cali we flew to Colorado, where my in-laws picked us up for a little road trip. Here's part of Rocky Mountain National Park... a storm's a coming...


Pike's Peak... we rode the Cograil Train, which you may be able to spot on the left hand side... it's tiny!
 

Not a good picture of me... but we went whitewater rafting in Bighorn Sheep Canyon, which was soooo fun!
 

Royal Gorge:

Beach Dress M5621

More vacation-wear. I really like the way M5621 turned out! More details below.

=Beach Dress: McCall's 5621=
Many of the reviews said that the dress was short and one of them said that the arms were a little tight for view B. I placed the pattern pieces on myself to get a generally feel for the length and thought that it was do-able so I didn't make any alterations... since I was also thinking of using it as a swimsuit cover-up I didn't mind it being a little bit shorter. I meant to use a smaller seam allowance in the arms to make a little more room, but I forgot to so it is a little tight in the arm area. (Hopefully I can tone down my arms a little more.)

I used this cotton cambric from fabric.com for the main part of the dress. It's a little thin but it's perfect for a cover-up. The neck edging is a white Kona cotton from my stash.

The neck edging for view B (and A) was a little tricky for me. I think I just needed to take my time and go at slowly... I really like the look of it. There are a lot of designer versions of this dress... like the from Trina Turk. (The picture is from Nordstrom's.)



Here is the line drawings for the pattern.



Some alterations/deviations from the pattern...
1. Used french seams for the side seams.
2. Did not use interfacing on the neck edging since the Kona cotton was much heavier

Overall, this dress was a super cute beach cover-up. The neck edging was a little bit wonky but I didn't mind too much. By my measurements, I'm a size 14 but I went down to a size 12. I could still easy pull it on and off... it was just that the arms were a smidge tight.

In front of a shop on Grand Cayman... it was very bright!


Dress on hanger:


Neckline detail:


Full review here .

Evening Dress & Clutch

I didn't have any floor length evening dresses for the cruise we took. I looked around the stores to buy one, but they were all short. :( I ended up buying one from Cache for $200... which was more than I wanted to spend. The saleswoman said they only had one floor length dress and what do you know it was in my size. When she handed me the dress I thought it was just ok. When I tried it on, it fit like a glove and looked so elegant... so of course I had to buy it.

This was taken on the cruise by one of the photographers... classic Titanic scene.


Well... there were 2 formal nights on the cruise. I had a dressier short dress I could've worn but I wanted another floor length dress. A couple of weeks before the cruise I bought 3 yards of purple stretch satin to make into a formal dress. I'm not sure why I only bought 3 yards though... most patterns required at least 4 or 5 yards. With less than a week left before the trip and only 3 yards for fabric, I turned to Vogue 7848... I decided to make a matching clutch with the leftover fabric, too.

= Strapless Dress #2: Vogue 7848 =
I had just finished this dress in the blue cotton print and it fit very well. I don't think you can tell it's the same dress!! The pattern came with a floor length, but it only came up to my ankles (and I'm not very tall... 5'4"). I used view C, which was the same view as the short version but used the floor length hem. Here are some alterations:

1. Added about 6" to the bottom of all the pieces (When I had sewed all the pieces together they were varying lengths... hehehe... as you can see I was very technical.)
2. Used an invisible zipper
3. Used fusible hem tape. Since the satin was so slippery, I had trouble hemming the dress. I used fusible hem tape first and then went back to sew the hem.
4. Added a satin ribbon like view B. I just eyeballed where the ribbon should go and sewed it in the side seams. I wasn't going to sew the ribbon in, but the ribbon and dress were easily sliding against each other.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the result. The length was perfect with my heels as you can see below.

This is a formal picture taken on the cruise... but you don't get a very good view of the dress. Another "must" cruise scenery...


Here is the classic hanging on the hanger picture...


= Ruffle Clutch =
I used the How-to for the "Gold Ruffle Clutch" on BurdaStyle. Overall it was pretty easy to put together. I just struggled with the slippery satin and the fact that it didn't like to iron very well. The clutch definitely needed a brooch and I had the perfect one. (The brooch is from Hannah D's.) This was such an elegant, perfectly matching clutch.

This picture was taken on my phone so please excuse the quality of the picture...

Vogue 7848 Strapless Dress

I finished this dress before the cruise but in between finding pictures and taking another week off and work, it's been pretty hectic.

This is the first item in my summer mini-SWAP. Overall, it was pretty simple to make and very flattering. Based on everyone's review, I went down a size from my pattern measurements (which I normally do anyway for the "Big 4") and it fit almost perfectly.

I had some problems with the invisible zipper... the first zipper was just a bad zipper, but I didn't figure it out until I had already ripped and resewn it about 3 times. Once I realized it, I had to run to Hancock and buy another one... UGH! I was so annoyed. Bad, zipper, very bad...

One of my goals this year was to have neater finishes on the inside... I wasn't sure how to apply that to this dress... here were the problems I was running into:

1. There were a lot of curves due to the princess seams so french seams didn't seam right.
2. Seam binding was a little too bulky for such a fitted dress.

In the end, I only applied seam binding to the seam with the zipper and then to the bodice lining. The rest I just zigzag stitched. Oh well... this should get me by for now.

The only thing I didn't like was that you could see the bottom edge of the facing when it was on. It's such a fitted dress that any bulk on the inside shows. I may take off the seam binding and just do a zig zag stitch to reduce the bulk.

This is my first time "posing" for a picture for something I made... it was a little awkward. It was also a random staircase on the cruise that everyone was using.



This is a better view of the front... my hubby and I and our waiters. Our waiters were super nice! ^_^



Full review

Back From Vacation

Phew... what a wondeful week! The hubby and I are back from our week long vacation! We were out in the Caribbean on a cruise boat and it was a blast! I haven't had a chance to download any of my pictures from the trip, but here's one from my phone.



The water is so beautiful... there were so many different shades of blue. I'll leave you with this picture today. Hopefully sometime this week and I can review and post my projects that I got to wear on vacation.

Vacation~!!!

I'm going on a vacation with my hubby in a couple of days and I'm SoOOOoO excited! hahaha... but now I'm doing a lot of last minute sewing so I can wear it on our vacation! :) I'll have to do all the reviews when I'm back. There's at least 3 dresses, a skirt, and a pair for shorts.

[Image is from carnival.com]