Anise-versary

Hello lovelies,

I finally finished my poor neglected Colette Anise jacket just in time for (I HOPE) the last cold day of the year yesterday, and I must celebrate! Also, I want to continue blogiversary celebrations, AND I’m just plain giddy that I’m working on my favorite thing I’ve ever made ever. It’s so silly and simple, but it makes me dance, and I hope to finish it soon. I’m saving it for Me-Made-May though.

Anise is a gorgeous jacket and, although time-consuming, not a difficult pattern to follow, especially when you refer to Sarai’s sewalong posts and/or buy the Anise Companion, which has tons of photos and tips. She warns in the instructions that a jacket isn’t an instant gratification garment, and man, she wasn’t kidding.

I think I cut the (million) pieces back in October or so. Here is documentation of the carnage.

Then I had kind of a sewing and blogging slump over the autumn, then the weather just wasn’t right, plus I always seem to have a sewalong project due. At one point I got as far as the sleeves and that didn’t go so well. I thought I had lost my normally-intact setting mojo, but it turns out that I was putting the sleeves on the wrong sides, so I quit again for a while in disgust. The almost-jacket just hung there looking at me for another while. Then we didn’t have a March or April that acted like March or April. Et freakin’ cetera. I love the fabric (velveteen from beloved Fabric Mart), I love the pattern, but it simply didn’t get made for a long time.

I finally got the lining fully constructed and wanted to wear it for the perfect low-40s/high-50s day on Tuesday, but then the dreaded hand-sewing was called upon. Guess what? Inspired by Sunni’s love of fusible web, I pretty much just used Steam-A-Seam to finish the hem and all of the lining attachments and hems (except the sleeve hems, so right now the sleeves are eating my hands). This thing is fused within an inch of its life. It will get hand-sewn when I bloody well feel like it, but for now it looks really neat and clean and no one needs to be the wiser. Except all of y’all.

These pics are crappy because it was approaching evening and iPhone pics in low light aren’t necessarily stellar.

Just a peek–And yes, I’m blocking the garage

This is like the fifth thing in which I’ve used blue lining.

I WILL eventually put the buttons on

With a little attitude…So it’s NOT totally finished. Deal with it! 🙂

Anyone else have a similar experience with a WIP/UFO that there wasn’t anything incredibly wrong with, but it just kept falling down the queue? We fickle sewists.

Okay, on to the official celebration. A Giveaway!!! Gotta pass along some of the fun tools that have been helping me lately.

I meant to mention the wonder of Wonder Clips in my Mad Men post, because they are HEAVEN when working with picky stuff like charmeuse (and I assume silks, satins, etc) that you don’t want to stick too many pins in. I just got them a few weeks ago, but I use them a ton. In many cases, you don’t have to use pins to hold your seam-in-progress together at all, no matter what fabric you’re sewing.

As I was doing my Wonder Clip shopping, I noticed that there are also jumbo Wonder Clips, that have some kind of seam gauge marking on them. Don’t ask me how that works. Look it up.

If you already have Wonder Clips or just aren’t bothered, how about a roll of Steam-A-Seam so you can be a hem and zipper wizard like Sunni?

So if you want to win, please specify in the comments whether you want the 50 regular Wonder Clips, the 24 jumbo Wonder Clips, or the Steam-A-Seam. Let’s make the deadline Cinco de Mayo, which is a week from Sunday I believe, when we’ll all be well into our Me-Made-May routines.
I have no idea how I’m going to pick the winners. You’re just going to have to trust me. Please have a website or email address clickable or otherwise available in your comment.

Gotta go. Computer is dying!! Be well!
Shelley