Monday, June 13, 2016

June 13 - Challenge Update

My personal 10 in 10 project challenge is over. This time I met my goals. I got the ten projects finished. Some of the projects were from my UFO projects list & some were new projects for customers.

Here's the final tally (I'll have to add some pictures later):

1-4. Four Piece Boy's Outfit: Wool jacket, cotton corduroy vest, wool trousers & cotton plaid shirt



















5. Girl's Short Sleeved Cotton Dress (buttons & buttonholes)


6. Girl's Long Sleeved Cotton Dress (attached skirt, buttons, & buttonholes)




















7. Boy's Collarless Cotton Vest (back, straps, buttons, & buttonholes)

Photo Coming Soon

8.  Boy's Collarless Cotton Vest (back, straps, buttons, & buttonholes)

Photo Coming Soon

9.  Boy's Collarless Cotton  Vest (back, straps, buttons, & buttonholes)

Photo Coming Soon

10. Boy's Collarless Cotton Corduroy Vest (back, straps, buttons, & buttonholes)

Photo Coming Soon



By completing this challenge, I've finished 6 more items off my UFO Civil War Projects 2016 list.

This is what it looked like in February.


AND Now....

Boys' Clothing
1 Trousers
2 Shirts
8 Shawl Collared Vests
7 11 Collarless Vests
10 Outfits (2 or more pieces)
1 Paletot

Girls' Clothing
1 5 Dresses
2 Bodices
2 Skirts
1 4 Canton Flannel Petticoats

Women's Clothing
1 Cotton Dress
2 Ballgowns
1 Silk Convertible Dress
3 Wrappers
1  2 Skirt
3 Vests
1 Waist
2 Jackets
1 Paletot
2 Chemises
1 Corset
3 Bags

Men's Clothing
1 Flannel Undershirt

Total Items on the List: 67


If I counted correctly, I'm down to 52 projects.


Thursday, June 9, 2016

June 9 - Challenge Update

I've got 24 hours left. So far I've completed: the four pieces for the boy's outfit for a customer, two girl's dresses and 4 boy's vests. That's ten. Wow! I still have sometime tomorrow to see what else I can get done. I'll post pictures of all of the finished items over the weekend. 

Have a great night everyone!

Monday, June 6, 2016

June 6 - Ten in Ten Challenge Update

Just a quick update on my ten in ten days challenge. 

As of this evening, I have finished:

1) a pair of boy's trousers 
2) a boy's shirt
3) a boy's sack coat
4) a girl's dress

Today's project was to redraft a boy's shawl collar vest. I finished the redraft and got the vest cut out and prepped for tomorrow. Tomorrow we will see if I remember how to put it together. It's been awhile. I also got backs cut out for three other vests that are on my UFO list. I'm hoping to finish those by Friday. 

So that's where I'm at right now. If all goes well I'll be adding the vest to the finished list late tomorrow. 

Pictures of the boy's outfit will come after the customer receives it. The picture I posted is the dress I finished today. It just needed buttons & buttonholes.

 

Have a great day! 

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

June 1 - A New Sewing Challenge

Back in March, I challenged myself to finish 31 items by the end of that month. When I think back on it, I'm surprised I finished the number items I did. We had a lot going on in March and April. 

So this month, I've decided to challenge myself again. This time I'm going to try and get 10 items done in 10 days (June 1-10). I'm not reatricting this challenge to only my UFO projects list like I did for my March challenge. My only restriction on this will be that they must be projects for Civil War reenacting (sewn, crocheted or knitted). They can be a "start to finish" project, like the outfit I started today (a four piece boys outfit) or something that's on the UFO project list. 

I'll try posting progress updates everyday. 

Have a great day everyone! 

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Just A Quick Update - May 10, 2016

I finally got everything that was finished posted to the mercantile's webshop (www.shop.originals-by-kay.com). Well, everything that I had photographs for. My goal for the future is to try not to procrastinate so much when it comes to adding stuff to the webshop.

There are still four items that need to be photographed. One of those, a black riding habit, I need to ship to a friend with a bigger sized mannequin. The second one is a three piece girl's outfit that needs a new bodice due to an accident with a pair of scissors.  Number three needs the bodice ironed and the last one just needs to be photographed and measured. They will have to wait a couple of days. I have to get three corsets finished.

In the meantime, here are some of the items I posted to the webshop today.

Have a great day!


Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Challenge Update - 4/27/2016


Sorry, I know it's late but here's the update. 


Waiting for the farrier this morning, I was working on my to do list for today & decided to go through my "challenge" list. Yeah, the one I had planned on finishing in March, except I hadn't planned on being sick for almost two weeks & had forgotten we needed to get the house clean for hosting the German exchange student. Anyway, I have gotten some stuff marked off that list since I started working on it in March. I started with 31 items. Eleven projects have been completed - 2 girl's dresses, 2 girl's bodices, 2 girl's skirts, 3 flannel petticoats, a riding habit skirt, and a rain paletot. That's just over 1/3 of the list done, considering everything going on in the last two months, I think that's pretty good. I'm still working on the list so there will be more. 

Maybe, I'll restart my challenge again in May. I'll have to see what else is on my sewing/knitting/crocheting schedule. 


Have a great day!



Saturday, March 19, 2016

Challenge Progress Update - 3/19/2016

Well, the first two weeks of the challenge were spent working on corsets for customers. I finally got started on projects for the challenge on March 15th, I've made a small dent in my projects. Unfortunately, I haven't photographed the finished projects yet. 

These are the projects that are completely finished as of today. The black riding habit skirt, rainwear paletot & the purple/black/pink plaid girl's wool skirt. 

I've also made progress on two of the girls dresses. Those just need buttons and buttonhole, as do the white & pink girl's bodices. 

Since I'm running my weeks from 12:00am Mondays to 11:59pm Sundays, I still have time to get stuff done yet this weekend. Right now, I've got three girl's dress bodices I'm working on today. 


Monday, February 29, 2016

And sew it begins... 3/1/2016

I decided to go ahead with the challenge I touched on in my last post. I went through and made a new list of Civil War sewing projects that I have started and a couple of items that need to get done. Now, this challenges is on top of my "regularly scheduled" sewing projects and a couple of pattern projects that I've been working on getting published. 

Before you ask. Why do you have so many projects to complete? I got in a bad habit of cutting out multiple items when I cut out one project for a customer. Then I set the project aside to finish at a later date. Well, now is the later date. :-)

We'll have to see how it goes, but my plan is to update this blog at least once a week (hopefully more as I get projects done) during the month of March and to get the projects photographed as I finished them.  Keep an eye on www.shop.originals-by-kay.com. Many of these projects will be posted there for sale once completed. 

Now to the challenge. I've divided my master list into three lists. 

The first has 31 items on it. This is the "unless something major happens in March", I should have all of them finished by the end of the month. 

List #1

5 collarless vests
2 pr. Trousers
1 toddler suit
5 girls' dresses
2 girls' bodices
2 girls' skirts
4 girls' canton flannel petticoats 
1 riding habit skirt
2 women's vests
2 women's jackets
1 corset
2 bags
1 men's undershirt

The second list has 9 items on it. These are projects that need a bit more done to get them finished. These will be worked on AFTER everything is done on the first list. 

List #2

1 boys' shirt
2 boys' vests
3 boys' suits
1 women's dress
1 women's ballgown
1 women's wrapper

And finally, list three is the remainder of the original list. These projects will only be worked on if the other two lists are completely finished.  

After everything I finished for Madrigals last month, this should be a piece of cake. 

Have a great day! 





Saturday, February 6, 2016

2016 Civil War UFO Sewing Project List - Feb 6, 2016

Well, here it is, The List.  Just a reminder, the items on this list are ones I have already cut out or are ones I need to get done. These are projects I have in various stages of completion. Some are only cut out and others only need a few little things done and they will be completed. I know, why didn't I just finish them when I was originally working on them. To be honest, I have no idea anymore why they got put aside and never finished. Hopefully, this year will be the year they get finished.


Boys' Clothing
1 Trousers
2 Shirts
8 Shawl Collared Vests
11 Collarless Vests
10 Outfits (2 or more pieces)
1 Paletot

Girls' Clothing
5 Dresses
2 Bodices
2 Skirts
4 Canton Flannel Petticoats

Women's Clothing
1 Cotton Dress
2 Ballgowns
1 Silk Convertible Dress
3 Wrappers
2 Skirts
3 Vests
1 Waist
2 Jackets
1 Paletot
2 Chemises
1 Corset
3 Bags

Men's Clothing
1 Flannel Undershirt

Total Items on the List: 67
Total Items on the 2015 list: 65

Last year, my hope was to get everything off my list. I failed. This year, I'm going to have to do better. So, I'm thinking a challenge similar to what a friend is doing is in the near future. She's challenged herself to make 30 quilt tops in 30 days and she is doing awesome.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like she's updated her blog yet. Hint..Hint..CH. Hint..Hint.. In the next week or so, I'm going to take a look at what is on my list and go from there.  I'll post more as I figure it out.

In the meantime....

Have a great day everyone!

Friday, February 5, 2016

UFO Sewing Project Update or I Really Need to Finish Projects That I Start - February 5, 2016

Well, it's been over a year since I started my "crafting diet" and 5 months since I've posted any progress on it. I really need to get better at keeping up on my blog (and getting my projects finished). In my defense, there really has been quite a bit going on. However, I won't go into any of it. This is a new year and we're already into the second month of that new year.

You might remember this list that I included in my post back in January. I've actually gotten quite a bit of it done. New quantities are in red. Notes are in green. So here's the finally tally on my UFO sewing projects from last year.


Boys Clothing
1 8 pairs of pants
5 ensembles (vest/pant, vest/pants/jacket, tunic/pants, etc)
5 shirts (three shirt on the square, two pleated front)
11 12 collarless vests - I did in fact get the fronts done for three vests. 
8 shawl collar vests
more suspenders

Women's Clothing

2 chemises
1 red corset (mine)
1 rain paletot (DD) - Almost finished - needs hem, buttonholes, & buttons
1 riding habit skirt - needs pleating and waistband
2 skirts
1 velveteen jacket
3 vests
2 "purses"

Men's Clothing

1 flannel under shirt
1 wool overshirt (this one's not cut out, but needs to be done)
1 men's drawers (customer's)

Girls Clothing

1 cotton body (found another one - work has been done on both but neither are finished)
5 cotton dresses (work has been done on all of these but they are not finished)
1 silk suiting ensemble
1  3 skirts (DD) -  third is partially finished
1 canton flannel petticoat - Found 3 - I got three ready for yokes & waistband

So, I started 2015 with 65 civil war clothing items on this list. I completely finished 19 (about 30%), added four that I found, partially finished 16 (about 17%) & several more cut out, which I will add to my 2016 UFO list.

Next up - My 2016 UFO Sewing Project List & an Update on other projects that I've been working on.

Have a great day everyone!