Casual Jacket in Fleece - Simplicity 4032

This is my first jacket and just in time since the weather will be getting a little cooler soon enough.  Well all of my sewing projects are firsts since I'm a beginner sewer.  But doing a jacket has to be a milestone, in my book. 

Simplicity 4032 is a great pattern for beginners because it is unlined, the suggested materials are unraveling material like fleece, and very easy to do.  I decided to do Look A at size 8.

I decided to use a lime green fleece material.  Fleece is very easy to sew and very forgiving, it seems.  It also doesn't ravel so the finishing looks very good.  I may look for more projects to do with fleece.

I did have my normal rookie problems (as always).  I didn't realize that the collar was going to be left without seams so I should have been more careful when I cut the collar.  So the collar's edges looks jaggedy from my ever so not careful cutting technique.  The other problem I had was doing the buttonhole on my machine because it seems that the fabric was very thick and I could not place the material underneath my buttonhole foot.  It must be how my machine is built but that took me a long dang time to do but I got it done. 

 

 

 

I decided to skip the ribbon on the collar because I didn't really like how it looked on me.  It was a little fussy and I wanted to keep it simple. This is what the ribbon looks like, attached with a pin.  (It's suppose to be sewn on.) On my petite frame, the ribbon looks huge on me.  It would have hidden my ugly cutting work on the collar but the ribbon looks uglier than my handiwork.

I'll probably do the other jackets and vest one day since I whipped this up pretty fast (like in 5 hours which is fast for me).  Since the seams are princess seams, I may decide to do my next jacket with varying pattern designs to give some unique twist to the jacket.

Christmas in September

Since I have some extra leisure time, I decided to make some of my Christmas decor and gifts for my family now.  Always good to do this early because the holidays just creep up on you and all of the sudden, I find myself scrambling to get things done. 

This year, I would like to give some of my Xmas gifts early since some are Xmas decorations for my family.  That way, they can use them and put them up (if they like them that is). 

I mentioned earlier that I trimmed my tree and I'm still using the twigs on several craft projects.  For this, I decided to use the twigs which I cut in mini size log-like shape.  I sawed them off in different sizes.

Then I placed them on a wooden flat base which is just scrapped wood that I had lying around in my garage.  I decoupage scrapbook paper on top of the wood base.  Then glue gunned the log-like wood on the wood base...



...and shaped the logs in a shape of a Christmas tree.

Dr. Seuss Xmas Tree

 

Very easy! I'm making several of these to "gift" to my family and the cost was next to nothing! Super cool!

More Twig Decorations

I'm still decorating my house with inexpensive ways to fill out corners of my living room and dining room with items that I can find in and around my house.  I have a big callery pear tree in front of my house that I recently trimmed and I'm using the twigs for several craft projects.  For one of my projects, I used the twigs as they are and just put them in a vase or container and placed them here and there around my house.  I'm really pleased with the results!

 

 

 



 

 Can't wait to finish off the rest of my craft projects!