Cherries on Top! My Lutterloh Collection

Here is my composite picture of the four garments yielding four looks.

 Yes, I know it is almost the end of October. It is still warm, and I can flop around in the pool
without  heading towards hypothermia. I am catching everyone up on my sewing efforts for the last two months.

September is the time of year when we can start seeing  the weather change. It goes from humid and hot to wet and hot. Tropical storms, heavy rains and daily power outages are the norm.
 It is also time for the Pattern Review Mini Wardrobe Contest.
On my shopping trips to Bonaza fabrics in La Paz I  saw this marvelous stretch poplin that I call Cherries on Top.
 I decided it would be the base for this year’s mini wardrobe contest, Last year we had to make five  garments that would yield six  different looks. I was excited and  based on last year’s  ruleshad already chosen my patterns and was assembling the other fabrics.
 here was my original choice:

This is the Cherries on Top, some black linen and a very stretch black and white polka dot that I purchase on a trip to Vancouver, BC this summer.
Well, the contest rules were changed to  be only FOUR garments yielding FOUR looks.
 Someone around here was very pissed off and made her unhappiness known.
This was a little too simple, in my book. So after  awhile I decided to just sew.
I ditzed around for a couple weeks trying to get a good fit on my pants and, well I wasn’t happy, so I dumped the pants and moved on to the criss-cross top.

I love this top, it is elegant, asymmetrical, simple to make and gorgeous as a finished garment. and it is perfect for color blocking.Somewhere along the line I decided to can the polka dot stretch, and the black linen and purchased some lovely  “American Gabardine” that is cotton with a smidgen of Lycra. it has a luxurious  drape, and a soft sheen.
So my idea was to make the  bottom part of the  blouse in solid black, and one half of the upper portion in the cherry print and the other side in the red gabardine.
I cut it all out, laid it out and felt it was  too much action for my small
(short and curvy) frame. I decided  to use one half cherries, one half black.
Here are some photos my Beloved snapped while we had a few hours in the middle of an afternoon for photos. These were taken on the Malecon beach in the heart of the historic downtown.
Now I have half of a red top, and half of a black top ready to go. I love this top and  am looking forward to completing two more. The all black top with black pants will be perfect for our monthly Jazz night. But! I also  have a third version of this top! I decided to line it to the edge with some wonderful red and white polka-dot voile. Little problem. Lycra adds
 s-t-r-e-t-c-h to fabric. voile has none.  I sitiched the voile perfectly, trimmed all of the seams, turned the points, and yuck, the voile  just did not work.
 So I  ripped it  out of the top, and made facings.
So, now I have a pair of pants in the  Uh-Oh drawer, and the 3/4 completed voile top went sailing across the room, and scored two points as it  fell into the Uh-Oh drawer. Week three of the contest and I have two unfinished garments and one finished blouse. And every day I had to shut everything down and sit out the thunder storms, and power outages, while comforting a panicked doggie.

After all my bitching about how the contest was dumbed down, I was a week from the deadline with only ONE completed garment. Garment number three is the skirt I am wearing with the top. it is a wrap skirt with a button closure. My sister Patricia always wraps our gifts with real ribbon, which I save “for later”. I trimmed the edge of the skirt with the ribbon, and added Bakelite buttons from my collection.  For my 50th birthday, everyone was asked to bring a sewing button that signified me to the  bearer. My friend, Fred “Kiki” Yamamoto handed me a cigar box that had Japanese and English lettering and it was FULL of buttons. “I couldn’t choose just one.” he said. His mother had been a seamstress before the interment. I was touched, and still get chills, all these years later.

 I could not find any big black or red buttons for the top so I covered my own:

So now I have a top and a skirt. I moved on to the Russian PDF pattern, made by Lekala.  I have been told over  and over that this poarticular  neckline is very becoming. So I  started making this top:

 Like my beloved Lutterloh pattern system, which is the source of all of the other patterns in this collection. Lekala relies on MY measurements to draft a pattern.I left off the ruffles, and made the straps and armhole facings in black, the rest of the blouse was red.
 I got 3/4 of the way through this one  and was not happy either. You guessed it, I flung this blouse into the Uh-Oh drawer. So now there are mere days left and I have two of the four garments completed.
 I cut this top in black knit and made the bib in a white rib knit. I cut, recut, sewed, detached, re-sewed, and finally completed this top.I have a black knit v-neck top with a white color and French cuffs that looks like a blouse and sweater. I have worn it so much it is no longer  fit to be in the public eye. I thought this would be a good replacement.
 I left off the sleeve flounce.

I made it to wear with the red skirt in the blurry photo below. Don’t worry, you’ll see it in better light in the next post.
My Beloved said that the black top and red skirt looked like the Nazi flag. Oh, that makes you feel really pretty doesn’t it? Well I guess it would if you were a skinhead.

So now it is 5:00 p.m. on the deadline day. I have to have my reviews of all four garments and a fifth composite review done by 9:00 p.m. ” Ia m done” I said. ”  I have only three completed garments and I am out of time. I quit.” So I sulked for a few minutes, and then pulled my self up, took a deep breath and decided to complete the pants. Out they came from the Uh-Oh drawer, which is really the Oh Shit drawer.
 I took some photos of some of the techniques, used some Steam a Seam to iron the hems in place and I had four completed garments.
 My Beloved rallied to the call and took photos.
 I ran to the computer, started writing and uploading pictures, and was done with my review filed and three minutes to spare!
In reality, I made SEVEN garments in FOUR weeks. The Lekala top, the red skirt and the polka dot top were all withing five minutes of completion when they  were tossed aside.

Bleary-eyed, hair uncombed, no makeup, but I made the deadline.

The next few posts are going to show you the completed Lekala top, the red skirt, the polka dot lining cum blouse.
 And my va va  va voom nightie that I just entered into the October  Two Week Challenge to make some lingerie.
Stay tuned, there are several more posts coming.