I WANT to Make This; I SHOULD Make That #1

I WANT to make this 1940s Du Barry silk dress (far left); I SHOULD make more pants. (And panties, too).

After a Mad Men muslin marathon last night (comments still excessively appreciated!), I'm taking the night off to...

1. Unwind on the couch and finish knitting my Toddler Tomten jacket. (Just two more rows to go!... plus the sewing up. And the blocking. And the zipper insertion. Right.)
2. Fantasize about all the lovely (but much quicker and simpler) things I will allow myself to make once my Joan dress is done...

Peter at Male Pattern Boldness recently brought up the issue of practical versus "fantasy" sewing--and how apt that he chose panties as the ultimate in practical sewing!

Because if I was really sewing what I need, that's what I'd be making. Seriously. Why is it completely impossible to purchase high-waisted cute and colorful cotton-spandex blend panties (except on Etsy, of course)?! I self-drafted (er, copied from RTW with SERIOUS tweaks) some a few years ago...

...and sewed three pairs in fun stripes and colors, like this:

They are still my favorites today, and they're barely loose (which is weird, since I was, like 55 pounds heavier when I made them). And at least they cover my belly, unlike EVERY single pair of RTW panties in any even reasonably fun colorway.

But anyway (I am obviously completely incapable of pithy fun blog posts with lots of pictures and few words, sorry!). The point is:

I WANT to sew a Bombshell dress

(Yes, I enrolled. Have not sewed a stitch, but the videos are AWESOME). ...in this wax-print cotton fabric from the stash:

I SHOULD make some basic knit T-shirts

... like these ones I made while pregnant:

I WANT to make my graffiti-print Colette Pastille or Macaron sheath dress:

I SHOULD make more wide-legged pants

maybe Simplicity 3688 in this linen blend, with sailor buttons... I know I'd wear them constantly, and I can use the ones I made recently for fitting help...

I WANT to make a floaty bias-cut retro-inspired polkadot dress

Maybe Burda 7951:

I SHOULD make nursing bras for sleep/lounging

... like this Ezi-Sew 110 one (from ELingeriA) languishing in the stash (1 cup size too big, but close enough for sleeping):

I WANT to make the Starlet Suit Jacket

... (er, yes. I enrolled. again. I do NOT wear suits ever)...

I SHOULD make a cute nightgown

Mine is holey, pilly and wretched...

I SHOULD make a sunhat

My head is so big I can't buy them RTW, and I am SO very pale... how about one of these Vogues?

Source: voguepatterns.mccall.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

I SHOULD recover my hideous sofa...

I even bought the fabric weeks ago--if Fabric.com ever decides to actually ship it to me...

Source: fabric.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

I SHOULD sew myself a colorful canvas handbag...

I SHOULD get to that pile of mending I need to do ... and the refashion pile... and the UFO pile...

And this could go on. For decades. As evidenced by a screen shot of my Google Docs project queue:

And by my over-enthusiastic pinning of patterns, vintage inspiration and favorite projects by sewing bloggers who do a whole lot more actual sewing.

But you know what? I'm just going to take a deep breath and take things one project (or two, or three) at a time. And whatever I make... I'm pretty sure it'll turn out just fine and I'll love it just plenty.

Especially if it has stripes or polka dots on it.

So tell me--how do you balance sewing wants and sewing needs?

Mad Men Sketch + Bias Slip Woes

Is it just me, or do I look a bit goofy in 60s hair? I think I'll skip that when I photograph my completed challenge.

So here's the sketch. I'm not sure what I think--I'm not as in love with the drawing as I expected to be, but I think it's the hair and the fact that I couldn't figure out how the dress would work on my narrow shoulders--which is why I didn't draw in the brooch. Maybe I need to convert it from the set-in sleeve of the pattern to the kimono sleeve of the real Joan dress?

And I'm still frustrated in my dickey fabric search. As you can see above, I got some random cheap poly chiffon that sorta works--but Joan just strikes me as a genuine silk charmeuse kind of woman.

On another note... Thank you all again for the kind comments on my corduroy trousers! I'm sad to say that although they started out perfectly fitted they've continued to grow with wear and are now at least an inch or more too loose even in the elastic waistband. I'll see if they shrink up decently in the wash--if not, I'll take them in. Either way, they still fit better than all my other pants. So there, pants!

But that's what sewing's all about, right? Always something new to learn.

For example, tonight I learned I hate sewing on the bias. Or cutting silk on the bias anyway. I wanted to make some silk half and full slips to wear under unlined skirts or dresses:

I attempted cutting out the simple rectangular pieces of my bias half-slip pattern (from Karen Morris's Sewing Lingerie That Fits) tonight while half-watching a sci-fi movie with my husband, and as the pieces slipped and slid all over the place, I was led to several deep questions:

• How is it that so many of you watch television/movies while sewing? I pretty much missed the whole thing since I wanted to focus on not slicing off my fingers.
• I know full slips are usually on the bias, but why would a half-slip need to be on the bias? Will all my suffering be worth it?
• Do you think anyone will notice that the two rectangles I attempted to cut out look like parallelograms that have been chewed on by Cookie Monster? I swear those things would NOT square up, even with the help of the helpful woven-in dots on the fabric and a veritable army of rulers and T-squares.
• I've never worn a half slip, but since they're all bunchy and gathered around the waist--is that going to show under my super-tight Joan dress? But conversely, would the full Ruby Slip--which has something of an A-line skirt--look weird/visible under a pencil-skirted dress? I'm curious--I've only ever owned slips of the unbreathable nylon variety.

And yes, a few of you pointed out that my croquis is now a bit larger than I am, since I drew her before an unintentional random weight loss (my food/movement habits haven't changed, so I believe it's due to my toddler nursing a lot during a recent growth spurt)... but I was too much in a rush to redraw her just for this.

When you can't sew polka dots, buy them

Pink nursing nightgown from Motherhood Maternity that I plan to wear after delivery at the hospital... wish I had sewn it myself, but at least it has polka dots.

Readers, how I've missed you! I've been continuing to have a rough time, physically speaking, and have been too tired to blog, or even read many of my favorite sewing blogs (horrors!). I'm in my 36th week of pregnancy now, and while I had vaguely heard the third trimester could be "uncomfortable", I had no idea I'd be in so much constant pain in so many places and barely be able to walk. Forget sitting in front of a sewing machine--lying on my left side with pillows supporting my belly is pretty much the ONLY comfortable position.

But don't feel too sorry for me--Cartoonist Husband is taking EXCELLENT care of me and I get endless hours of amusement watching Cartoonist Baby try to poke various limbs through my uterus. I am SO beyond excited that I will finally get to meet her soon!

But back to the real point of this post--don't you just HATE it when you have grand plans to sew something--but you run out of time or something happens and you are forced to buy it instead?

Especially when you already had the fabric and pattern in your stash?

A short time back I wrote about my plan of making several faux-wrap nursing nightgowns that could double as dresses. I'll may still do that at some point post-preggo, but since I'll be full term next week and am not likely to recover my sewing mojo in the interim, I gritted my teeth and bought two instead.

The one at the top of this post is from Motherhood Maternity--when it arrived in the mail I realized it might be a little flimsy to actually work as outside daywear, but it's certainly fine for having guests over in my early sleep-deprived weeks as a new mama. It sure hurt to pay $24 when I already had the fabric and pattern, but I had to squelch the pain.

The other one, from Japanese Weekend, is much more dress-like, with short sleeves and cute lettuce hem. Black might not have been the best choice considering all the light-colored cat hair floating around my apartment, but the other colors were too pastel:

I may also have mentioned that I had ordered a nursing bra pattern and the requisite fabric and notions from Elingeria in Germany. In fact, Michaela from Elingeria (coincidental name!) actually drafted the pattern at special request, since it previously was not available in small band/large cup sizes. It's available for anyone now, up to an I cup:

I was going to make it up in a fabulous red in 34G. But time ran out, and so I bought a few RTW bras from Bravado and Anita. Here's the Bravado one, known as the Bliss bra--it's molded, which is something I couldn't have done myself anyway, and incredibly supportive considering it has no wires:

Even more painful, I didn't have a chance to make my own nursing cover--what could be a quicker, simpler and cheaper project? Elizabeth at E Made This gave me the idea and I found that there were tons of free sewing tutorials for making them. I have plenty of suitable fabric in my stash and would just have needed D-rings and some boning...

But alas. I bought one instead, for the painful price of $32. I know some women don't feel nursing covers are necessary... and of course women should NOT be ashamed to nurse in public with or without a cover. But this is all new to me, and I want to feel as comfortable going out in public with my baby girl as possible--I don't want the fear of exposed breasts keeping us in the apartment in the lovely summer afternoons!

Anyway, it's cute and the fabric seems of very nice quality, despite the ridiculous brand name ("Hooter Hiders?" Really?!) Purple goes with everything:

Which is why I also got a Glamourmom purple nursing tank designed for large bust sizes (with a super-supportive built-in bra):

And an interesting patent-pending item called the Undercover Mama, which hooks to any nursing bra and converts most any top to a discreet nursing top. I got it in black:

Still... after so much sewing in the last few months, shopping somehow just feels WRONG. I've been SO enjoying wearing at least one or two maternity items I sewed myself every day, and clothes with pricetags that I didn't sweat over myself just aren't the same.

So I'm hoping those few RTW items will hold me until Cartoonist Baby and I settle into a routine and I get my sewing mojo back!