Progress?

I'm making progress on my MIL's polos, good thing since I really need to get them shipped by Monday or so to make the Mother's Day deadline. What a slacker I am! Here are the photos- the collar is now pinned in place and ready to be put on for the solid pink one. I've yet to cut out the other one, but I plan on locking myself in my sewing room all day Saturday to get this done.

From Grillo Originals

I'm really happy with how well the placket came out. It's still not 100% lined up on the inside, but the outside is perfect (in my opinion anyway). I suppose eventually I'll have to resign myself to fact that I should likely be hand basting in place before really stitching this down to get it to look just how I want it.

From Grillo Originals

In other news- I've started teaching very beginning sewing classes as another side hobby. I have a student ("Sewing Protege") in particular that I'm really enjoying working with. T had never been near a sewing machine and was interested in learning a bit about sewing to see if she liked it enough to invest in a machine. For the first lesson she came over and we made a simple dog bed for her pups. She was THRILLED with the outcome and for her second project we made BWOF 04-2009-121. It's the short tunic- which has two dots- and we made it completely underlined. I've got to tell you, T the sewing protege is one smart cookie! We finished the tunic last night in time for her beach vacation and it looked awesome. She is picking things up with lightning speed. She's planning on buying a machine now- I'll go ahead and take that as a testament to my amazing ability to spread the love of sewing (don't burst my bubble here). Anyway, I'm happy that I've been able to introduce her to something that is obviously bringing her a lot of joy and pride and I'm looking forward to showing her everything I know.

Mother's Day gift plans

So, my Mom is awesome. She's sorta beyond words awesome and my Hubby agrees. She's sweet, and giving, definitely my best friend and she makes it completely obvious that she loves me to the moon and back about a hundred times. She's getting a new top for Mother's day and she got to pick out everything about it. Yay! She picked out this pattern which is New Look 6648. It will be made out of bamboo jersey from The Bamboo Fabric Store. I'm using the 100% bamboo flat jersey knit in navy which doesn't look navy on the screen but most certainly qualifies as navy in person. I'm excited about the bamboo, it feels wonderful, is supposed to wear beautifully and I think it's one of the more expensive fabrics I've sewn with (shows how cheap I am, but I am an awesome sale shopper!) I think it will be great. I'm making a muslin (hopefully) this weekend to tweak the fit.

Now I realize that I'm lucky to have an awesome Mom. I also happen to be double lucky because I have an awesome Mom in Law. So awesome, in fact, that the "in Law" here is only for your benefit because I also call her Mom. She's wonderful. She's sweet and loving and adorable and I LOVE HER TO PIECES. My Hubby and I were actually married before I met his family (yipe!)- it was a quick engagement and we eloped, so the day I met his mom we had been married almost exactly a month. That was scary for everybody, but I think we all feel great about the family we've got now. Here's a picture of MIL and I. Awww!

So since she and FIL live far away, I don't get to see them often. I have so far been hesitant to make her clothes because I'm not sure if she'd like clothes made by me because I'm not sure about size, style and whether or not she'd actually like to have something homemade. I ran this by Hubby and he seemed to think there was no question and that she'd love something, so I'm going to make her tops for Mother's Day too. She loves to golf, so I'm working on a golf top. I read reviews about the Kwik Sew golf polo out there, but I was unimpressed with the PR reviews, so I drafted my own. Now.... I may yet be purchasing a pattern (if I have to go that route, it will be the Jalie one though) but so far I've got it drafted and cut, so we'll see if my end result becomes a wadder or not. I picked out some really adorable pink knits for the tops. Here they are.

From Grillo Originals

The funny thing is that I realized the darker pink bears a very striking resemblance to the beloved PINK VS top that I talked about before which she and FIL picked out for me for Christmas. Ha! Hopefully that means she'll like it, it may be a bit too bold but Hubby says he doesn't think so.