My latest fabric haul

This is my latest Fabric.com haul.  17 yards of 'bought on a whim' fabrics, and I have never been so pleased with an order.  I have a TON of stash.  But in one area i'm lacking is woven prints.  So, Fabric.com was having a 30% off sale, and I bought some woven prints.  Ok, and one solid and the two on the bottom left are knits.  But I got 4 cuts of woven prints.  It was all cheap too!  I got 17 yards of fabric and a Colette pattern (Ceylon) for $61. 

The down side is that this puts me over 100 yards in for the year, and it's only mid-July.  :(  I have been sewing a bit though.  I think i'm at 75 yards out already for the year, so i'm not doing too bad.  I just have to stop with the shopping sprees!  (Did I mention this was my second order from Fabric.com this month?  Oh, and that one small order from Fabric Mart...)

Two Colette Pattern giveaways!

For those of you who may not be followers of Colette Patterns on facebook, you should know that there are few blogs out there with Colette pattern giveaways.  And we all love giveaways, right?  YAY!

(I hope I win a Crepe pattern!)

Ahem!  Anyway, the first site is http://www.honeykennedy.com/.  They are giving away 3 patterns!  3 to the same person.  Thats liek a small treasure!

The second is bramblewoodfashion.blogspot.com.  Check out some of her site.  She has some cute things!

Good luck!

Jalie 2447

I have been on a bathing suit kick lately.  I think I own all the swim suit patterns in the Jalie and KwikSew lines.  This is Jalie 2447, made straight from the pattern with no alterations.  I had a few issues with finishing the neck tie and my clear elastic bottom edge on the tankini didn't go as well as I planned, but it's wearable.  Also, the fabric I used isn't very thick.  It was a nylon/lycra blend from Hancocks, but I think I could of went with something a bit heavier.  Good thing I placed a large order with fabric.com.  My fabrics should be here in a few days! lol

While I will admit, this suit isn't the greatest, as it's only my second attempt (I have bottoms I made from a KS pattern that I wear all the time.  Although my fabric choice was a bit questionable and they aren't holding up well). I can tell you that I don't think I will ever buy another bathing suit ever again.  Swimsuits are so easy to make.  Don't fear making one.  Give it a try!

Anyway, about that bottom edge on the tankini -- I was having a hard time just making a hem.  The fabric is thin and it just wanted to curl up so I had to use another method. 

Normally with knits I use Steam-A-Seam Lite to stabilize my knit seams.  I love this stuff.  If you struggle with knit seams, give this stuff a try!.  However, with the bathing suit, I didn't want to compromise any of the stretch, so the SAS was out. 

My second option was to use strips of wash away stabilizer.  This probably would have been a great idea except I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to get the little strips to stay still so I could stitch the seam.  Apparently what you are supposed to do is use steam from the iron to 'melt' the stabilizer to the fabric.  I will keep that in mind for next time. 

I ended up calling my friend Melody for advise.  She suggested clear elastic.  So, what I ended up doing on this suit was stitching on clear elastic to the hem, then turning and top stitching with a wide zig-zag stitch.  I'm not so sure this was the best option either.  I think I stretched the elastic a little to much and the bottom kind of rides up a bit and feels weird. 

I think next with suit, I'm going to try a bit harder to get the wash away stabilizer to work.  Although, part of me says the elastic is a good idea too -- if I had not stretched it so much.  There will be other suits to try out other techniques, I'm sure. 

If  you haven't made your own suit yet, I highly recommend it! 

I'm so Dissappointed! *SOBS*

So, there is a new JoAnns in my area (it's 19 miles from my house.  That's "in the area" where I live).  I have not been to a JoAnns since I moved to North Carolina back in November because there just wasn't one near me.  The nearest one was 80 miles away in Winston-Salem.  So, imagine my excitment when I found out they were opening a new JAs in Moorsville, NC! I actually drove the 19 miles there before I even realized they were not open yet.  And just so see that it was actually there, the drive wasn't a disappointment. 

Then it happened.  I was actually able to get the the store while it was open.  I'm so disappointed!  First, there is the usual amout of fleece in the store.  When I lived in Michigan, I kind of understood the logic behind having so much fleece in the stores.  But this is NC, it's been 80 every day since mid-Feburary.  Now it's 90-100 and I doubt it's going to cool off until at least September.  Guess what they didn't have?  A single swimsuit print. Oh well, fabric.com here I come, I guess! Second, the store is tiny.  Once there, I realized the store wasn't one of their etc... stores, it was just a small fabric and craft store.  Which amazes me because this area is being built up so fast, that I can't imagine that the population can't support a superstore.  Maybe they have a bigger store slated for closer to Charlotte?  I can hope, right? lol

Oh well, I guess I can continue to hit the local Hancocks when I need notions, and then to continue to support my ever growing list of online retailors when I want a fabric fix.