Showing posts with label red. Show all posts
Showing posts with label red. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

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 :)



















Monday, October 10, 2011

Time to play catch up, part 1

I finally remembered to get new batteries for my camera, so I'm back, and with four months of sewing projects to photograph and post. I couldn't resist getting some of it out of the way right now, forgive the poorly lit nightime shots in my kitchen :P. I did the tops now, and I'll do dresses tomorrow when there's some daylight to work with :).

blue sorbetto front
I think I already posted a picture of this, come to think of it, but well, here's another one, haha. My first sorbetto, no pleat, blue drapey fabric with a black and white pattern of flowers or leaves or something like that.

...and back
In retrospect, I wish I had made self binding instead of what I had on hand, because the weight is different and it sits funny at the neck and arms because of it. It was still very nice to have around in the hot summer days though.

red sorbetto front
This was more of a refashion in a way, I had used this fabric for a skirt last year, only I cut it with the slight stretch going up and down (facepalm), and it ended up sitting really weirdly because of it, so I never wore the damn thing. It makes a lovely sorbetto though, also with no pleat, and I even got the stretch right this time :P.

...and back
And with this one I learned from my mistakes and made a self binding. While the blue one had inside binding, I did this one on the outside to show off the fun bias  check pattern. It's a bit of visual interest, and this one sits much more nicely.

pink lingerie top front
Somehow I ended up obsessed with Japanese pattern books, and had to buy one. And then it came, became a good excuse for me to finally start learning Japanese (I'm half way through the first alphabet/syllabary :)), and was so cool I had to buy another one. This is the first thing I made from that second one, a bias cut camisole in some weird pale pink slinky fabric that my boyfriend says looks like lingerie because it is so shiny.

...and back
It has narrow straps that cross in the back, and I added a casing with elastic between them because the whole thing ended up way to loose across the back. I mostly like this top because it goes well with the thing I made right before it...

plaid bolero front
This super adorable little half jacket. I've had a few of Wearing History's patterns for over a year now, but this is the first one I got up the nerve to trace off and use, and I have to say it was a quite pleasurable experience. The instructions where brief but sufficient, and the fit is lovely. I find it funny, a lot of people seem to have problems with vintage patterns in regards to modern body types, but I always find that they fit me much better with less alterations that modern patterns do.

...and back
These were my first inset sleeves that didn't have pleats or gathers in the pattern, and I was rather nervous about the whole idea, but in the end they went in like a dream. Not a wrinkle or pucker in sight, and now I'm itching to try more sleeves, haha. Be prepared to see a lot more of this fabric, a co-worker gave me 6m of it, and it's extra wide so I'm squeezing loads of things out of it. I already have this, a dress, and a half circle skirt cut out, and there's still 2 1/2m left! I'm debating how silly plaid trousers would be. And making a dress for me Dad's super cute two year old god-daughter.

polka dot cami front
And finally, this afternoon I felt like I should get something done other than read on this lovely long weekend, so I started a second shirt from pattern book number two. And then it went together so easily that I finished it too! I hadn't thought there was enough of this fabric to make a whole shirt, and had been planning to use it as a big contrasting collar or something, but I just managed to squeeze this out of it. Giant polka dots! And the binding/straps are black with small white polka dots too. This pattern used the same midriff pieces as the pink one, but cut on the straight grain, so I knew to take about four inches out along the centre back this time. It's a little harder to wriggle into, but the fit is much nicer.

...and back
I think I'm going to have to make a whole bunch of cami tops, and a selection of cute boleros to go with them for at work (no bare shoulders allowed). And skirts to match the boleros! And maybe trousers too, all Marlene Dietrich chic. Oooh, I'm getting excited, haha.

Tomorrow, an ode to my new love of dresses: When you just can't be bothered to find two clean pieces of clothing ;)

Saturday, March 12, 2011

progress, finally

With Betty-the-Janome happily back in her place on my coffee table, I'm finally making progress on the pink and grey plaid shirt. I catch: I can't seem to care about it. I know I need more shirts, and that it will be very cute, etc, but all I can think about are pretty dresses with matching half jackets, fourties trousers, sweet little tops in brightly coloured silks. Spring is popping up all over, and it's whispering to me to make gingham dresses, not flannel shirts. Unfortunately, all of the projects I'm excited about have either the pattern or the fabric (or both) still in the post, so I'll just have to bide my time.

shapeless box of a shirt

So far, I have the darts, side, and shoulder seams sewn and edged in bias tape, with the sleeves about to be put in. I'm a little nervous about those; not only have I not set in sleeves since grade nine home ec, but after unthinkingly taking in the side seam on the blouse body, my sleeve hole is two inches smaller than it started out being. Pinning that much out of the arm seam made for awkwardly snug sleeves, so I'm going to try either gathers or tucks in the sleeve cap to take up the extra slack. With some luck it will look like an interesting design feature instead of a slapdash fix, ha ha. My first attempt at pattern matching didn't work very well, I will have to read up on it in my lovely new sewing books before trying it again.

side seam pattern matching = fail

After that I guess I'm done for the night, as I realised when I went to cut it out that I'm right out of interfacing for the collar and button strips. Oh dear, that means it's off to the fabric store for me tomorrow morning, with all their pretty spring fabrics... and a fifty percent off everything sale... Somehow I think I'll be coming home with more than interfacing ;).

As far as me-made-march goes, I've been good about remembering to do it, but not so much about the photographing. Days 6, 7, and 11 somehow got missed, but here's the rest of the week:

day 8/12

Me made pink peasant skirt, with black/white striped shirt on day 8, black/pink striped shirt on day 12.

day 9

Me made pink ruffle shirt, with a lovely pink skirt from the now closed In The Starlight website.

day 10

Me made red peasant top with me made grey corduroy jumper skirt.

And next week I'll try to remember pictures every day, and hopefully some new wardrobe additions to show off :).