Sewing Away...

So last summer I ordered some fabric to make a dress to wear to my friend's wedding.  Unfortunately, it arrived too late, and I didn't even attempt to make the dress, so it's been sitting in my stash for a year now.  Since I had a Saturday to myself last weekend and another wedding coming up next weekend, I decided to give it a go.  Per usual, I decided to make things hard on myself and come up with the pattern on my own, despite spending two hours at JoAnn's looking at patterns (and buying the lining fabric).  After spending about 12 or 13 hours straight on Saturday, it is definitely starting to look like a dress, surprisingly, but I still have to finish putting in the zipper and hem a flowy silk chiffon skirt.  It may or may not be done by Friday, we'll see.  Anyways, here's a sneak peak at the fabric:

It's a little psychedelic and I'm not sure how much I like it anymore, but I'm bound and determined to finish this bad boy up.  Also, I really want to wear my 5" heels, and they will look fabulous with the dress, don't you think?  :)

Stay tuned for the full reveal next week!

Being a Busy Bee...

Hubby and I spent the long weekend at our cabin in the woods, which means he does lots of work on the cabin and I get down to business with my sewing machine.  I actually managed to complete four garments, although to be fair three of them had a decent amount of progress done already.

I bought this fabric knowing I wanted to do something cool with matching up the stripes.  It's a cotton/silk blend, and half of the stripes are sheer.  It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with the lining, but given the fact I started it at 10 pm, I had to go with what I had in my stash, which meant a bright yellow chiffon.  If I had time, I think I would have bought a turquoise lining fabric, so there would be more contrast, but I'm happy with the way it turned out.  The entire shirt is finished with french seams, as I'm trying to be more conscientious about making sure the inside is as pretty as the outside.

How is it that simple projects take forever?

So, this is a super simple shirt that took a really long time.  I originally intended to make a drapey sweater type shirt, but that didn't work out so well.  I wore it once, but wasn't a fan, so I thought I would try to just make a simple tank top that would let the cool texture shine.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but the darker color is actually a little bit sheer and the lighter purple is raised.  The gathered-looking bits are actually gathered, so it's a neat texture.  Anyway, I just used a basic tank top laid on top of the fabric to cut it out, and sewed it up.  I happened to have some petersham ribbon on hand that matched almost perfectly, so I used that to bind the neckline.  I just found out about petersham ribbon, which is a more awesome version of grosgrain ribbon.  Because the edges are looped instead of straight, it curves really nicely.  Anyway, here it is!

Back to the Future of Fashion

So how do we all feel about culottes?  Back in the day (like 2nd grade or so) they made a regular appearance in my wardrobe, but I really haven't given them a thought since then.  But these days I'm all about comfortableness, and seeing a really cute pattern on the interwebs, decided to give them a try.  I've ordered Megan Nielsen's Tania Culotte pattern, so we'll see how it goes.

What are your thoughts - am I crazy?

A Scarf by Another Name

I love scarfs, but I tend to buy them and never wear them.  So back in January I figured I would turn this scarf into a shirt.  It was a bit tricky since I decided to only line the scarf section, but it came out ok.  The inside is completely finished with french seams and I hand sewed the neckline, so I actually am proud of the finishing details.  Unfortunately, I hadn't pre-washed my fabric, and it shrunk a bit more than I had anticipated.

The Long Shrug

So I've decided that 2013 will be the year that I seriously start sewing.  I've been sewing for a long time, and even attempted to sew my own wedding dress (not possible when you start less than a month before the wedding), but pretty much the only pattern I have down pat is a tote bag.  And honestly, how hard is it to sew together a couple of squares?  My christmas present this past year was a serger, which somehow husband has learned how to use and I haven't yet (oops), but it's complicated.

I have actually managed to complete a few projects this year so far though, using my regular machine and a fair amount of good old-fashioned hand-sewing (who knew I actually had patience for that sort of thing?).  I had bought this really cool sheer, but with fluffy yarn woven through fabric, and immediately knew I wanted to make something like this:

This issue I had with that is that every single pattern I could find for a shrug was about half the length, which looks terrible on me and makes me look like an extremely short fat person, which I'm not.  So I busted out my handy dandy dress form (not sure if I ever did a post on that, but it has quite the story behind it as well), and draped away until I came up with a super easy pattern that seemed to work.  I ended up binding the edges, which was the whole hand-sewing bit, which took a couple of episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to complete.  I also recently discovered bias-tape makers, which are amazing and I now use all the time.  I am not a fan of the feel of pre-made bias tape, and it's awesome to just whip some up out of whatever fabric I want.  Anyway, without further ado, I present the Long Shrug:

 

 

About a week after I completed it though, I somehow managed to find instructions on making a long shrug without even trying, so if anyone else wants to try it out, check it out here.

Breaking out the sewing machine...

So after my insane attempt to sew a wedding dress last year (which has been sitting crumpled up in a box since I got back from the honeymoon a year ago), I've finally gotten motivated to start sewing clothes again.  I've made a bazillion tote bags since then, but wanted a bit of variety.  The trouble with me is, I can't do anything simply, like use a pattern for instance.  So my first attempt to get back into sewing was to try and duplicate this drapy knit top:

Let's just say it didn't end up well, and is now currently crumpled up in the closet next to the wedding dress.  Luckily it was fabric from the bargain bin, so not too terrible of a loss.

I had also gotten some sheer beige pleated fabric that I wanted to use to create an overlay on very thin knit dress that I had.  Unfortunately I did not buy enough, so I decided to make a skirt instead.  There were some bumps along the way, which involved me cutting out the lining, so it's a bit on the sheer side now, but overall it came out decently, and I've gotten a complement on it already. :)

I have quite the line-up of things to work on, but the two currently in progress are a teal stretch wool pencil skirt (also patternless, but super simple), and a matching ruched top and skirt, which I actually am using a pattern for, but happens to be an advanced pattern, so we'll see how that goes: