Sunday Night Reflections

Attract what you expect.

Reflect what you desire.

Become what you respect.

Mirror what you admire.

Sunday's Soup

Rather than a soup recipe, I'm sharing a wonderful cheese cracker recipe today. An up front warning, THESE THINGS CAN BE ADDICTIVE!!! They are truly that good. A few years ago I was invited to a friend's house for Christmas and she served these as a before meal treat. I could have eaten the plate of crackers and forgotten about the meal. My friend told me that she made them from an old recipe handed down to her from her Aunt Clara. The crackers are perfect with a bowl of soup. Very easy to make and they store beautifully in the freezer, which is great as you can just take out the amount that you would like to use rather than bake the entire recipe.
Aunt Clara's Cheese Crackers
2 sticks of butter at room temperature
8 oz.of sharp cheddar cheese grated
3 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon of salt

Mix all ingredients together with hands. Once combined, divided mixture into 2 equal portions. Roll into long logs about 1" in diameter.

Roll into plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for at least a few hours.

When ready to serve, remove from refrigerator and cut into 1/8" rounds. Place on cookie sheet and bake in 325 degree oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool slightly before serving.
Recipe makes approximately 8 dozen crackers.
Thanks aunt Clara!!
Enjoy!
Rhonda

Sleeves On Saturdays

This post will be one more visit with the square shoulder sleeve, not so much for drafting, but for design inspiration. The first sleeve I did was the one below which you've seen many times now. The top is sweet and fine for what it is, a pajama top. Other than being an interesting sleeve to draft, it's just a top.

But what if we cut the sleeve pattern apart and use a stripe fabric?

We'll get something that is quite interesting! 

By cutting the pattern apart, we can play with the stripes. The center section has horizontal stripes and the side section has vertical stripes that meet on top of the shoulder. It may hurt your eyes a bit, but I love mixing patterns and manipulating stripes, so this is right up my alley!
                           
I did my best to have the horizontal stripes on the sleeves match the horizontal stripes on the top. I did an okay job :)

I used the free pattern, from Deer and Doe for the base pattern. You can find a link here and see the post I did on the original top that I made for Thrifty Thursday.
You can find the drafting instructions for the square shoulder sleeve here, http://rhondabuss.blogspot.com/2012/05/sleeves-on-saturdays.html
Begin by drafting the sleeve. I made a small change in the drafting of the sleeve above from the original. The extended tabs on the original are 2 5/8" wide. For the stripe top, I made the extended tabs only 1 1/2" wide.

Once you have drafted the sleeve, simply draw a line down from the extended tab to the hem of  the sleeve. This will become a seam line.

 Be sure to add notches so that you will be able to match the correct seam lines when sewing.

The final pattern. Add seam allowances. For sewing instructions of the square shoulder sleeve, see this post, http://www.rhondabuss.blogspot.com/2014/03/sleeves-on-saturdays_8.html

One last note on this sleeve. If you make this sleeve out of a knit fabric as I did, you will need to add a small shoulder pad for structure. If you don't, the sleeve head will lay limp on top of the arm. Notice I said small, we aren't looking for Greta Garbo!!!!, just a nice structured sleeve.
Hope your weekend is off to a great start!
Rhonda

Fabulous Free Pattern Friday

I have wanted to get this dress made for some time. It's just simple rectangular shapes with drawstrings to give it shape. I'm calling it 

All Tied Up In A "T"

The dress is a simple "T" shape with 3 rows of casings for the drawstrings. 

A close up of the midriff area.

Without the drawstrings for shape, the dress looks like this. Okay for a nightgown, but nothing you would want to wear on the street

The dress is very simple to draft. You will need these measurements;
1. Hip measurement, add 2" for ease
2. length of arm from neck to wrist
3. desired length of dress. This would work well as a tunic, so you might want to go with a shorter style.
    Remember, the gathering of the drawstrings will bring the length up, so you will need to add to your length     measurement, I suggest at least 3". You can always cut off any extra.
To draft the pattern, begin by drawing a line the length of your arm. Determine how wide you would like your sleeve to be and draw a vertical line down from the desired sleeve length line. Notice that my sleeve is not a very full sleeve.
Determine the length of the dress and mark this on your paper. Divide your hip measurement plus ease by 4. Draw a vertical line up from the hemline 1/4th of your hip measurement with ease added.  

For my neckline, I measured over 5" from the center and down 5". Connect these points with a smooth curved line.

 The back of this garment is exactly the same as the front except for the neckline. Measure over 5" and 1 1/2" down. Connect these points with a smooth curved line.

Be sure to add seam allowance to all seams before cutting out your pattern.
Once cut, sew the shoulder seams and the side seams. Try the dress on and mark where you would like for the first casing to be placed under the bust. Cut strips for the casing and sew to the dress. Once you have sewn in the under bust casing, try the dress on once again and determine the waistline casing and the hip casing.

My fabric was not wide enough for the entire length of my arm. Not a problem, I just simply added a cuff to the end of the sleeve.

I suggest adding a piece of elastic to the under bust casing. This will help to hold dress comfortably to your body.

I made my dress out of a lightweight sweater knit. I suggest using a knit fabric.
I need to have a Friday fashion show as there are a number of pieces that I've made and I've only shown them to you on my little friend. I'll do that soon.  
Hope your last day of the week is off to a good start!
Rhonda

Thrifty Thursday

Winter is hopefully drawing to a close, notice I said, hopefully!! It's 24 degrees in Chicago today. We are expecting some warmer temperatures over the weekend, such great news. But I have seen snow in May, so I know better than to be too optimistic at this point.

Although I am hoping that winter is drawing to a close, I've wanted to get another fur collar made up for sometime, so no time like the present :)  

I saw this picture on the Haberman's Fabrics website some time ago and loved it. How nice to be able to update a basic coat with a fabulous faux fur collar like this. And even better, the pattern is free!!! You can find it here, http://www.habermanfabrics.com/proj-fur-collar. As you can see, it is a very basic pattern, so for anyone who has been a little apprehensive about downloading and taping together a PDF pattern, this could not be easier.

I donated the first collar I made to the Haute Couture fashion show silent auction a few years ago and I was so happy to find out that the lovely Rhonda Pierce from Schmetz needles had won it!! She actually wears it a good bit. The picture below was taken at the recent expo in Puyallup, Washington. As you can see, the collar is very versatile, it looks just as pretty over a simple dress as it does over a coat. 

After I donated the first one, I really wanted to make another for myself, but you know how it goes, other projects take center stage. But finally, thanks to Thrifty Thursday ;) , I had the incentive to get it finished! 

If Easter is as cold as I fear it may be, I just may wear this outfit. I lined the collar with a matching piece of the silk from my jacket.

It can be worn as you've seen with the bow in the front,

 off to the side,

or with the bow down the back. This would be especially pretty over an evening gown or cocktail dress.

A view from the front with the bow down the back. The collar actually lays with a bit of drape. Very pretty.

The collar is so easy to make, and looks attractive over a multitude of garments. The collar would make wonderful Christmas presents for lots of people on your Christmas list. It's also a wonderful way to use up some faux fur scraps that you might have sitting around.
So jump on over to the Haberman's website and download your own pattern! While you're there, you might want to check out some of their beautiful fabrics ;)
Hope you're having a wonderful day!
Rhonda

Sew Liberated On Flickr and a Discount

I just received an email with a link to the Sew Liberated Clara Dress Flickr page. You can find it here, http://www.flickr.com/groups/sn_sewalong2
Notions and fabric requirements have been posted there, so you can take a look and see if a piece of fabric that you have in your stash will work. Nothing better than using up something from your stash and getting a great garment in the process! My dress is a spring/summer dress, but you might want to think about something for fall. A lightweight wool would be lovely, maybe even a summer weight gauzey wool.

I also received an email this afternoon announcing the semi-annual customer appreciation sale at Sew It All/Sew News. Everything in their store is 15% off. It includes patterns, notions, magazines, kits, books, whatever is in the store. This is a nice opportunity to get your Clara dress pattern with a little bit of a discount. Use coupon code SEWCA14 at checkout to get your discount. The sale runs through March 20th.
So, if you are thinking that you would like to sew along, or just watch what everyone else is doing, jump on over to the Flickr page and sign up! I would love to have you :)

Rhonda

Get Liberated!

If you followed along with the Amy Butler Beautiful Belle Handbag sew along and enjoyed it, I have some good news for you. There will be five more sew alongs throughout this year!! The next one will be the Clara Dress from Sew Liberated patterns. 

It's a lovely dress. Before I sent mine off to Sew News, I wore it twice. I had a hard time letting it go. It's so comfortable and easy to throw on. The dress is now on its way back to me, just in time for spring, that is if we ever have a spring. They are forecasting 6" to 8"of snow for tomorrow. WILL IT EVER END???? I guess that's what I get for saying that I enjoy winter. I'll keep my mouth closed next year ;)     

Above is a picture of me in the dress and below the much lovelier model, the picture that you'll see in the magazine. I added 2" to the length of the dress. I'm 5'6" tall. With the extra 2" to the length, it falls just mid knee on me. The model is shorter than I am and you can see that the additional 2" would not have been necessary for her. If you decide to make the dress, the 2 pictures will give you an idea of whether or not you want to add length to the skirt.

The dress has a beautiful neckline, just the perfect depth for necklaces.

For the videos, I used a combination of these 2 fabrics. You'll have to wait for the video to find out why I used 2 fabrics rather than just the 1. You can probably figure out that it was  a panic situation that brought this to be. I'll début the dress when the videos are released. It's rather cute if I may say so :) 

Here's the schedule;
Week 1: April 21- Fabric Choice and Layout
Week 2: April 28- Fitting
Week 3: May 5- Bodice and Collar
Week 4: May 12- Sleeves
Week 5: May 19- Attaching the Skirt and Fitting the Waist
Week 6: May 26- Buttons and Finishing Details

If you would like to follow along, here's a link for the pattern, http://www.shopsewitall.com/product/clara-dress-pattern-by-sew-liberated/patterns
There will be a Flickr group just as there was for the Amy Butler bag. As soon as it is up, I'll let you know so you can start posting your fabric selections.
I had so much fun doing the last sew along and I think this one will also be a lot of fun as well!
So get your pattern and get ready!!!!
Rhonda