Dresses and skirts

Frolicked about in my yard last week taking pictures while it wasn't raining or cloudy :)

red plaid dress and a silly face

yellow gingham chantilly

can't really see the dress, but I'm cute, haha

relatively normal skirt in the front...

fancy lace up bustle in the back!

the ivory lace skirt i never wear cause my slip is too tight

more red plaid, half circle skirt and jacket

the stripe are horizontal in front and vertical in back :)

sometimes i'm nice to people :)

I realised that there aren't any pictures up here yet of the things I have made for other people, and it's high time that was rectified.

Mostly I stick with garment sewing, but for x-mass last year I ventured out of my comfort zone and made a quilt for my mom. I think it turned out pretty well for a first attempt, although of course it wasn't particularly complicated.

She lovely gardening, so I appliquéd veggies, flowers, and insects onto half of the squares. (this sounds fancier than it was, I just stuck them in place with chunks of steam-a-seam tape, and then zig-zaged around the edges with contrasting thread). The background is all green/brown toned for the dirt, and the backing is sky blue flannelette so that it's nice and cozy to use for curling up on the couch is she wants. I used the thickest batting my local big fabric shop had, which was a pain to work with, but ended up nice and fluffy. The layers are quilted together around the edges of the squares. It was quite the learning process, and there are things I would do differently next time, but my mom loves it, and that is the important thing :). (I kind of want to make myself one of the same style, but made to look like a chess board, mid game).

I do a fair bit of sewing with/for one of my friends, usually in lovely up-half-the-night marathon sewing sessions full of girly-ness, bad tv, and junk food, haha. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures of the two sun-dresses I made for her last summer, but I do have some of the corset/bustier we made from the leftover dress fabric. It was loosely based on simplicity 9769, and altered for fit and length.

While I'm looking for dramatic waist reduction in a corset, she wanted one that was snug and supportive, but not too tight (slender thing she is there isn't much "squish" to her waist anyway). It's boned with rigilene, and has a lining/strength layer of cotton twill. We bound it with black satin bias tape I had lying around, and closes with black satin ribbon laced through a printed black lacing tape.

When I finally get around to making some for myself, they will be constructed rather differently, but as this doesn't have to stand up to tight-lacing, we went with looks over industrial strength durability :).

And finally, not exactly for someone specific, are these cuties.

I mostly made them to avoid working on a Chantilly in the same fabric (damn procrastination). I saw scraps, an early seventies bikini pattern I had lying around, and couldn't resist. However, they do not even remotely fit me, so I will either by seeing if one of my skinny friends wants them, or throwing together the matching bikini top and saving them up for when I get around to getting a credit card and opening an etsy shop, haha.

Oh right, I guess this counts too. Using the same pattern as the purple one, but with no alterations except for lacing up the front as well as the back, I made myself a little white eyelet corset with pink binding and pink ribbon laces.

It was mostly a test piece, and did not fit me very well (too big in the bust, too small in the hip, an awkward mid-bust height, etc). So instead of letting it languish unworn in my closet, it went to join it's purple companion in my dear friend's wardrobe. This one has spiral steel boning and proper grommets, but is otherwise the same construction as the other one.

Sometimes it's nice to share :).

I'm back!

I may have been absent from this site for a while now, but I swear I've still been making things. I hope to get better picture of some of them at a later date, but for now, this is what I have to show:

Self drafted skirt made out of ivory coloured eyelet. The weird picture of it hanging in my kitchen doorway is because, being completely devoid of slips, I can't actually wear this yet (stupid eyelet and it's being full of holes, haha). I used the scalloped salvage edges for the hem, so cute.

It has twelve pieces that are sort of right triangles. My original idea was that this would make the hem line lower and pointy at every other seam (does that make sense?) but my triangles ended up being to small for that to really work. That's ok, maybe in the future I will try to make this idea again. In the mean time, I'm quite happy with this one, althought I have yet to see what it's like to wear. There is a vintage half slip in the mail to me though, so soon we shall see :).

I got bored one day, realised I had been sewing for over a year without a pin cushion, and decided to do something about it. I used these instructions, found through the lovely Jo from Bridges on the Body, and whipped this baby up in a couple of hours of hand sewing. Then came the fun part of cramming torn up quilt batting scraps into it and then trying to sew the last side closed without them popping out, lol. I can't believe I waited this long, it's very nice to have something to stab when I get frustrated with unruly pattern pieces somewhere to keep my pins. ;)

In sudden impending need of having something better to lounge around the house in than undies and a tank top, I went on a pajama making spree. Above, we have a nightdress made out of some weird slinky knit stuff I found in the clearance bin of my local fabric shop (100% unknown fibres, haha). The pattern was a ?forties? slip pattern that wouldn't normally have fit without alteration, but this stuff is so stretchy it was fine as it came :). It also pulls on instead of zippering as per instructions. Who would want pjs with a zipper? psha. After some frustrations with skipped stitches, and subsequently discovering that one truly does need to use ballpoint needles for knits, it went together pretty painlessly.

But sometimes a girl need seperates, so I threw together some pj pants as well.

Love the pink check :). So much so, in fact, that I used the leftovers to try out Colette's free madeleine mini bloomer pattern. No, I'm not modeling that one :P. But aren't they cute?

I still have some of both the pj fabrics left over, so look out for more coordinating pieces still to come.

I have another skirt and Colette's new sorbetto top pattern to show off too, but those will have to wait for daylight so I can get good pictures.

challenge outfits

As I have yet to get up and do something productive with my next project, here are days 3 to 6 of the me-made-march challenge.

day 3

Full length, self drafted, ruffled peasant skirt, made from my christmas present fabric, and a matching blouse (new look 6599) with ruffled lace trim and heart buttons. I still have some extra fabric left over to make a matching corset and shrug, one of these days. 

day 4

And this is when I ran out of self made shirts, ha ha. Self drafted corduroy and satin kilt with black eyelet trim.

day 5

 One of my first sewing projects, two layer ruffled skirt with ribbons sewn into the waistband on top and between the layers, which can be tied together to gather the top skirt layer at each side seam. I rarely use it, but it's nice to have in case I feel like dressing like a bar wench, ha ha.

Day 6 (today) is just day 3s skirt and a rtw top. 

Bonus Jewellery shot from day 2, self made dangley earrings and super cute octopus pendant from etsy.

decisions, decisions

I desperately need more blouses. Skirts are so tempting to make, and then I end up with nothing but lovely fancy skirts paired with t-shirts, not good. In my stash is this pretty pink/black/grey plaid, just calling out to be made into something while the weather is still cold enough to  wear it.

wouldn't this be great with a black pencil skirt?

This is definitely up next on the cutting table, I'm just having trouble deciding which of these shirts it wants to be. The Smooth Sailing blouse from the ever talented Lauren at Wearing History?

very Katharine Hepburn

Or the short sleeved version of this Simplicity pattern I got from my grandmother?

c. 1969

On the one hand, if I use the first one, it will give me the chance to work any kinks out of the pattern before I make it up in a fancy gold fabric I have waiting in the wings. On the other hand, my grandmother's notes on the second one indicate that it won't need much tweaking (it evidently fit her, and we're pretty much the same size and shape), and as this is my first try at either inset sleeves or a collar, not having to worry about the rest of it too much would be nice. I had meant to pick one and start cutting it out this morning, but too much procrastinating (and watching Muppets Tonight on my computer) has left me with no time, so it looks like I have till tonight to decide. In the meantime, here are my outfits for the first two days of me-made-march:

top adapted from butterick 3906, self drafted corduroy jumper

the circus skirt, new look 6599 blouse