Author Archives: Tracy
Goals for August
Hello, as you see from my previous post Goals for August probably won’t be sewing related, by the end of August I hope regain some control of my arm and leg and if I am lucky go home, so not too much.
I already have more control of my arm hopefully it will stop turning over on its own when I stop thinking about it, My leg is already accepting more of my weight, even if I can’t direct it to do anything yet, the physios seem happy enough, I ‘walked’across physio floor yesterday i say ‘walked’ i operated my right foot, someone else moved the left one I did manage to push down into my left heel.
More later
Hospital
Hi, every one if you thought posting has been sporadic this year it is about to get worse, Wednesday evening last week 26th July after experiencing a sharp headache at about 8pm I went up stairs to work on my new dress, pictures to follow, while trying un successfully to step over Charlie (dog) a few time and being unable to make my left hand cooperate with undoing my trousers I realised there was something wrong..
Simon called an ambulance which arrived about midnight after doing some tests the paramedics notified Southend Hospital they had a potential stroke victim on the way in. This meant that I was assessed as soon as I got on hospital property. I was given a CT straight away which showed a small bleed on the brain which was restricted to one small area, unfortunately that one small area affects the use of my left arm and left leg.
Friday they moved me off the acute stroke ward and on to the ‘normal’stroke ward which means instead of hourly obs and having a bright light shone in my eyes at all hours of the day and night there is no bright lights just blood pressure temperature and blood oxegen taken twice a day. I have started physio therapy which has been complicated by my left bicep deciding not to co-operate with the tricep
I seem to have full functunality in my left hand but the wrist forearm, upper arm and shoulder not so much 😦 my left leg is starting to take some of my weight when my foot decides to co-operate
You don’t realise how much you take for granted that both arms and legs will do what you want them to do when you want them to do it.
Sunday Morning Photos
As Sunday was quite nice and sunny here I decided to let the cats and Charlie out in the garden. We have one outdoor cat, Fluffy he just moved in one day and didn’t leave, three indoor cats, Logan, Rogue and Mystique (Missy for short) we were on a bit of an X-Man thing when we named them. They are allowed out but only under supervision, we have had some poisonings in our area so Simon doesn’t want his ‘babies’ going out. It wouldn’t have been fair to stop Fluffy going out as he was about  at this point.
Anyway I took my Camera out with me to take some photos, I wouldn’t say I was a brilliant photographer but I like playing with the settings, then when I get fed up with that I just put it on auto and it handles it all its self, I would say that the photos the camera handles the settings for are good but somehow a little flat, and obviously with programs like lightroom if your settings are a little off you can always fix it in post processing.
I have a Panasonic DMC-GX7 micro four third camera, I have a few lenses for it, probably the one I use most is 14-140 it gives me the best of both worlds, I can do close up and medium distance with it. Probably the only time I take all lenses with me is when we go on holiday and even then I decide which lens will be good for the job on the day. I used to have a canon 450d it took really good pictures but it was so heavy and big I never took it anywhere. The GX7 gives me the versatility of a DSLR but in a smaller/lighter package.
Anyway here are photos of the Cats, Charlie and the garden.
More soon….
Goals for July
Going into July the house is still in a bit of a mess, the new flooring is going in next week, hopefully after that the posting schedule will be back to normal. I do have a couple of goals for this month, I’m going to a Wedding 1st August so I want to make a new dress, I have the pattern and fabric, I know that there will be some fitting issues so that will have to be sorted first. view b.
I am looking at the bra class again and am determined to sort the fit out on this, I don’t actually wear full cup bras but until I sort out the pattern for this I can’t go ahead to complete the other two classes I bought which take you through foam cups and altering the bra pattern for different designs.
The third goal or goals three and four are to take patterns from these two pairs of trousers. I love these trousers but I wish they had a boot cut hem, they are prepared and I am just waiting for the organza to take a ‘rub off’. I do have some organza already but with everything boxed up I’m not sure where it is.
The other trousers are these cut-offs from fatface, they are so comfortable but they are just a little bit too long so I have to wear them with the bottoms turned up. I have an off cut of denim that should be just the right length.
More soon….
Cross Stitch
After my trip to Olympia I decided I wanted to get my cross stitch out again, what actually happened is that I saw a couple of patterns at Olympia but couldn’t justify buying them as I hadn’t touched my cross stitch since before I have to have my shoulder operated on a few years ago.
I decided to go with the easiest cross stich I had started (out of at least half a dozen), which was a Lizzie Kate ‘sampler’ this particular sampler is made up out of 6 double flip living with charm charts, each chart has two words and a bit of decoration for each and a charm to be stitched on last..
I had already finished Dream/Love, remember/GIVE and was half way through Listen. I have now finished Listen/LEARN, and half way through Believe/CARE which means I have just started CARE.
I do counted cross stitch which means that the fabric doesn’t have printing on it, you use a separate chart to transfer the picture to the fabric.
I have been cross stitching on and off since school, the first picture I started was this, as usual I went for the overly complicated picture that took about 10 years to complete, I did finish a couple of easier/smaller pictures in that time.
The problem I have is that I don’t really have anywhere to hang them once they are finished, we appear to have filled up the house with Disney pictures and I have only a certain amount of wall space in my room, I suppose I could rotate them.
More soon….
Update post – Rhapsody blouse and Lutterloh dress.
I have taken a couple of photos of me wearing the love notions Rhapsody blouse and the Lutterloh dress.
First up is the Rhapsody Blouse, I have given it a good iron, basically I ran it under  the tap and then ironed it wet, the fabric is a nightmare to get the creases out.
I difinitely should have made the next size up, you can see in the slightly blurry photo underneath this that the shoulder seam is quite away from my shoulder. This will be fixed by going up a size.
The rest of the fit doesn’t look too bad but I’m wondering if the whole garment might benefit from the extra fabric.
I’m still not keen on the sleeves, the next one I try will probably be the 3/4 sleeve with flared cuff.
Second, the Lutterloh Dress
It does appear to have a slight issue with sliding back, I know that there is a way to fix this, I just have to remember where I saw it.
The gathers at the bust line need to be more even and also look like they should be gathered in a slightly different place, as I said in the previous post the front is cut far too low. I also think that the top line of the skirt piece needs a bit of smoothing out as well.
I think that the drag lines are caused by the dress sliding backwards but maybe it could do with a small sway back adjustment.
The dress doesn’t look too bad in this side view, it does highlight the gathers need to be moved
The arrow is pointing at where the point where I didn’t transition the top into the skirt portion correctly, which means it doesn’t drape properly.
hopefully more soon….
Love Notions – Rhapsody Blouse
I have had a couple of failures the last month or so, you will have seen the Lutterloh dress and this one which is the Rhapsody Blouse from LoveNotions, I had high hopes of this pattern, I have a similar top and I was hoping to reproduce it.
https://www.lovenotions.com/product/rhapsody-blouse-xs-xxxl, it has 8 sleeve types, I’m very impressed with the website, the pattern pages also have lots of pictures of how it looks made up, I am quite sure that my issue is more to do with fabric choices rather than a problem with the pattern.
I loved the look of the top right up until I attached the sleeves and then it was uck I don’t like you at all.
I am going to give it a good iron before making any decisions on it, I could just take the sleeves off and have it sleeveless or I could just replace them with the ‘cap’ sleeve as the arm hole is slightly bigger for the sleeved version than the no sleeved version.
It has French seams and gathers at the shoulder and a tuck at the back, last time I tried it on I realised that I probably should have made the larger size it doesn’t quite fit on the shoulders, but I am happy enough with the rest of it.
I will be making another attempt at this probably with softer fabric with more drape….
Lutterloh Dress
As a lot of my sewing books and patterns have been boxed up I spent some time flicking through my Lutterloh books and downloads I found a pattern I thought I would quite like to try. This is a lesson in if you are going to make a muslin use a fabric close to the one you are going to use eventually.
I actually made this up originally before going to Disney but put it to one side so I could make my light summer dress. After tracing it off and adding the seam allowance I made it up in my usual muslin, which was a mistake, I could see just by looking at the drawing that the fabric was a lot drapier. So I left it on the dummy and used the neckline for my light summer dress.
After getting back from Florida I made some changes to my dress makers dummy, I’d noticed while draping my dress that the proportions weren’t quite right, so I took the cover off drew some lines on it and put it on myself and measured around the lines, then put the cover back on the dummy and re-did the bust, underbust and hips. It isn’t perfect but it is a lot closer. After making the dummy alterations I put my muslin back on to check the fit, as it had looked rather big which confused me somewhat as the Lutterloh system should make that impossible, I knew it would be too long but too wide? With the alterations done the fit was much better.
With a couple of changes I decide to make it up in a cotton lawn, I had taken ½ in out of the bust piece, which I put back as it didn’t appear to be long enough, I took ½ in out of the under bust piece instead. I actually practiced the neck welt before attaching.
The dress looks lovely however it is very see through and there are a couple of things I should have done after the muslin and before the fashion fabric.
1. I should have lifted the front neck slit as it goes down past any bra I might want to wear
2. I should have smoothed out the waist curve so that it wasn’t so sharp
3. Most Importantly I should have lined it as I went along.
The dress, with a bit of tweaking will be a beautiful summer dress but not this particular version of it.
Plaintain for Liz
There still hasn’t been very much sewing done since my last post, with most of my fabric boxed up and the house still in a bit of an upheaval and will continue to be for the next 2 – 3 months crafting is looking bleak.
I do however have two makes to show you the first is a Plantain (no not another one I hear you say) this one is for Liz, as I had already corrected the pattern for her build, I had told her to get some T-Shirt fabric and I would make her a couple more.
Liz bought her fabric from Kaye’s Textiles, it is a good quality Robert Kaufman print the only thing I’m assuming neither of us factored in, I know I didn’t until I laid it out to cut it, was the pattern.
Booby nightmare, obviously the pattern needed to be centred but once centred do I try and get the pattern to not go across the bust line, or do I hope for the best, bearing in mind Liz wasn’t there to check the placement.
I hoped for the best, I haven’t seen it on yet but I am pleased with the finish, the fabric is a bit heavier than I have used for a Plantain previously so I hope it hangs alright.
I decided to have the lighter colour go down the middle and using the FBA point I worked out where best to place the pattern hopefully the bust point should go straight through the top of the repeat and avoid the small circles.
It was constructed using the Overlocker and finished off with my sewing machine twin needle and walking foot.
Florida 2017 post seven
This will be the last Florida Post for this year as it covers Thursday and Friday.
Thursday – we had a slight hiccup, after leaving Dennys for the Magic Kingdom we discovered that Simon had forgotton to pick up his painkillers before leaving the Villa, as the first ride was just for me, Simon didn’t fancy riding Space Mountain, he dropped me off at The Magic Kingdom car park and went back to the Villa. It was very odd riding the tram, going through Security and riding the monorail by myself, also I had never bothered to memorise where everything was – I didn’t need to, Simon had it all under control. So I had to pick up a map, I knew the general area just not exactly where it was.
By the time I got over to Space Mountain, I had a text message from Simon saying he was just leaving the Villa, so by the time I had gone through Space Mountain and been on the ride, it wasn’t as bad a Simon thought it would be, for one thing it wasn’t totally in the dark and it didn’t jerk you around like Expedition Everest, Simon was on the Tram going to the ticket and transportation hub. I looked round the gift shop and then started to make my way up to Main Street to meet Simon, but got waylaid at the the Castle, I realised that standing slightly back I could get some very good pictures of it, and as I was playing with my camera the Friendship faire started, and I got some really good photos of that and a small video.
Simon caught up with me at the Castle and we went on splash mountain and seven dwarves mine train.
Back to Red Lobster for dinner.
Friday we had an early start, we had our final fast passes started at 11:30 – 12:30 we needed to finish packing, drop our suitcases at early check in which is at Disney Springs get over to Dennys for breakfast then get in to The Magic Kingdom and over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad before 12:30. We managed it with 5 minutes to spare, we got lucky at early check in, we arrived with a two family’s in front of us by the time we left there was about ten waiting.
After Big Thunder Mountain railroad we went on Splash Mountain, I think that the water level might have been a bit higher than normal as we got soaked…. there was also some sort of technical glitch as we were coming to the end of the ride the boats stoped and the lights came up, we were waiting a couple of minutes before it started again.
Our final ride of the holiday was Peter Pan’s Flight which for one reason or another we had not gone on this holiday, it was as magical as ever.
We had a Lobster Roll at the Habour house around 3pm and left the park at around 4:30pm getting to the carpark just before 5pm, after changing into our ‘flight’ clothes we drove to the airport handed the car back and got through security with plenty of time to spare.
Musings of a Craft Enthusiast 