Another Christmas Quickie...

Did the title peak your interest? Alas it is not what you may be thinking…

Now that I have shamelessly drawn you in…I am working diligently to get all my Christmas sewing projects done before Christmas Eve is upon us; which is only next Thursday!!! Can you believe the holiday is almost here??? Yikes.

I just finished up another gift for my daughter. It is a gift that you can quickly put together with a small amount of materials. My daughter has a body pillow she purchased in Target last year and no longer cares for the cover she purchased with it so I decided I’d make her a new one for Christmas. Prior to heading to Joann’s I thought maybe a plaid flannel fabric…inspiration was lacking when I walked into the store.

Once there I realized I picked the right day to head into Joann’s (Joann.com) for they were having their fleece on sale for $ 2.99/yard. What a bargain and I quickly went about trying to find the perfect fabric for her cover. Because she is into “Western” type gear and decorations I looked for similar designs in the fabric and quickly found the perfect fabric for her. A beautiful royal blue fleece with cowboy boots and horseshoes on it…what luck…literally…horseshoes and luck go hand in hand!!!

To make the pillow cover I purchased an 18 inch zipper, thread and 1 ¼ yds. of 56-60” wide fleece. I cut two rectangles from the fleece that were 21 inches by 55 inches; ½ inch seams are included in those figures.

• Serge one 21 inch edge on each rectangle just skimming the edge and not trimming any fabric off

• Take these serged 21 inch edges of fabric, right sides together, stitch as follows:

• ½ inch seam - start with regular stitching for 1 ½ inches, back tack and then baste where the zipper will be, then back tack at 1 ½ inches and finish with regular stitching. Adjust these measurements based upon your pillow size and zipper.

• Press open and install zipper as you usually would. I use wonder tape to baste the zipper down and then I open out the seams and sew the zipper tabs down on each side of the pressed center seam.

• I then flipped to the right side and top-stitched around the zipper at top, sides and bottom.

• Very carefully remove your basting stitches and open your zipper.

• With rights sides together, sew both long edges and finally the last short edge. I stitched with my conventional machine first and then went back and serged the edges without trimming any fabric. I just skimmed the edges once again.

• Turn right sides out and your are done and now have a wonderful Christmas Quickie pillow cover…Enjoy :-D

Happy Holidays and Happy Sewing…

Ma Ma Ma…Marvelous Myrna

Pray tell…who is Myrna you ask???

Myrna just arrived today after a quick trip up 87 from the borough of Queens in NYC. Even though her trip here was rather short it is anticipated that she will be with us for an extended stay. I have waited almost a lifetime for her to get here and can’t wait to start working with her on the various projects we have planned together, first up being a jacket by Simplicity Patterns that I just fell in love with.

If you haven’t quite figured this one out yet, Myrna is the name I have given my dress form that I have recently purchased. She is stunning from the tip of her neck post, to the padded linen body, right on down to the cast iron of her feet.

The search for Myrna has been an elusive one. After having taken a brief hiatus from sewing I have been recently inspired by the Lifetime series Project Runway. As happen stance would have it, a fellow e-blogger has been a source of inspiration as well with her web presence and online tutorials on You Tube.

With the fire of my inner-seamstress being relit the quest to find a reasonably priced dress form commenced. My search began online with checking out reviews on the more easily accessible dress forms offered by Dritz and Singer. The search engines took me to numerous websites that offered these forms for sale. In reading these reviews I wasn’t too sure I wanted to invest the $$ they were charging for this type of dress form. I am more of a hands-on type person and like to see and touch what I am purchasing.

Recently, during one of Joann's (Joann.com) $ 0.99 pattern sales I got the opportunity to observe the Dritz forms up close. For me, I was not impressed. They do offer the wonderful feature of being able to adjust the form to your measurements but I did not like the space that is left open when you make those adjustments. Yes, you could cover your form in a sheath to compensate for this but then you still are compromising the fit and hang of your garment due to the gaps especially if you are on the large end of your forms dress size. I wasn’t too enthused about the product quality either, they seemed kind of flimsy. If I was going to invest that kind of money on something like this I really wanted to get the quality for the dollars spent.

My search continues…

I stumbled upon several very nice websites for dress forms that are used by designers and fashion school students. One of these sites Fabulous Fit offers a wide variety of forms and the quality of the product offered is definitely worth the money spent. Another site to consider as well would be PGM.  Having said this I still continued on with my search because these forms were a little more than my budget would allow for.

Up next….E-bay

I then proceeded to check E-bay for any offerings and low and behold a hit came back from my search. A company (LaModel), located in Queens, NY was offering a sale on their professional dress forms. They were also offering the product as a “buy-it-now” auction/sale. I was definitely impressed with the price being as the form was on sale and was more than half the cost of the Fabulous Fit form. It was also comparable in price to the flimsy, My Double Deluxe Dritz form and the quality was so much better. The only down side of these forms is that they do not match your measurements exactly but you can compensate for that by purchasing a form that closely matches your measurements and padding your form where necessary.

This company’s form fit into my budget and I placed an order for my size dress form. I was definitely impressed with the company’s response time. I ordered my form on E-bay October 18th and it was sitting on my front porch when I got home from work on October 20th. Wow….

I was so excited to see it sitting there that everything came to a stand still upon entering the house. I immediately opened the shipping carton and was impressed with the packing of the product. They do ship it unassembled and being my husband was out of town some ingenuity in putting it together by me was in order. It didn’t take long, overall maybe 20 minutes and Myrna was standing there before me in all her linen glory.

I am so pleased that Myrna has decided to come and stay with me; she is now a key source of my inspiration and I can not wait to start utilizing her.

As I mentioned earlier a fellow e-blogger (Mimi Goodwin) offers several tutorials online. Up first for me…draping…looking forward to it!!!

P.S. Please Note: Myrna’s size identity has been concealed in order to protect the body measurements of the innocent…or as the case may be, her sewing partner...me. ;-)

Happy sewing…