Monday, May 27, 2013

Ribbons!

So the last time I went to NYC's garment district without a plan I ended up suckering myself into a series of crazy purchases...as you do. This last time was getting on 2 years ago and I'm still working on planning what I will do with the fabric I bought then (along with a crazy amount from Walthamstow Market from the last time I went to London).

Some things though, I bought for a purpose. So I was in a trims shop and I fell in love with beautiful ribbon.

You know what I'm talking about. Those $7-$10 a yard embroidered ribbons. (I was being nice on myself-I stayed away from the silk.) Now I like ribbon trimmed skirts but in my world that's usually 3-5 yards of trimming and there's no way I'll spend $50 on decoration (my entire 30yd haul from NYC was less than $40). But I couldn't walk away from them!

So I bought 2 yards of 2 different ribbons and told myself I'd make them into belts. Decorative belts with absolutely no holding up function.

Both are flower motifs and both are fantastically useful. I simply hand stitched down the excess of a yard for a comfortable waist belt and then attached what are actually jewelry findings as closures. These actually, which can be found in practically any metal you wish (mine are silver). I thought the leaf would complement the ribbon design and the use of the jewelry finding would mean it would be easily removable if, say, I decided to retire it as a belt and use the ribbon as a skirt waistband. It's not looking likely but the clasps work so well I won't mess around with a proper buckle.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Me-Made-May Week Four!

Sunday

Behold me in my glory filled stay-at-home-all-day-b/c-it's-so-cold-and-rainy outfit. This retro (80s? 90s?) jumper/pinafore is perhaps the least flattering thing I own. It defied any effort to give it dramatic bodice shaping. With the drop basque waist tapering the side seams did not go smoothly and taking it in too much made it look maternity friendly. Darts take the plaid from over-the-top to just plain horrible. So this is how it ended up, side seams taken in, shoulders shortened and still looking just a little bit like a child's jumper made adult sized. I love it for its comfort and the bucket pockets that hold every.thing.

not me made: shawl was gotten at a natural clothing shop, the leggings might be from abercrombie&fitch, I found them in a drawer so maybe they were a gift? or someone left them at my house? whatever, they're useful for home.

 
Monday

This skirt was my first woven project after more than half a year of knit fabric and my math was a bit off. A panel later here is a lovely flowy skirt.

not me made: simple knit shirt H&M, grey tights from...a discount warehouse?

 
Tuesday

This dress was an impulsive clearance buy. It was missing half of its buttons so that was the first change and I thought I'd wear it all summer-after all it has some of my favorite sartorial things: pintucks and lace. A few years later I had to take a good look at why I was not wearing it and I came to the conclusion that I may have bought a maternity dress. The entire back bodice is shirred so it's completely comfortable, not necessarily a maternity detail but the strategic little gatherings that inevitable created a poof for a belly was fairly clear. So I first detached the front of the skirt to angle the side seams to get rid of all that extra fabric. That fabric was to become the thicker straps so a real bra could be worn. Of course, I sewed it all together to figure out I'd somehow used a different technique to attach skirt to bodice on either side of the placket. Much cursing ensued and I turned my attention to the straps to distract myself and found out that they were slightly too narrow to do the job I wanted them to do. A search for similarly tan/beige/whatevercolorthisis fabric and I was proper cursing when I thought of a neat way to fix both. White bias binding to edge the straps and make up that precious bit of width and a white ribbon at the waist to hide the inexplicable different connection. Now it's a lot more wearable and I tend to bring it to excavations for the warm nights of relaxation.

the tights are not me made

Wednesday

I actually completely forgot it was me-made may but later realized I was wearing a me-made undie. Almost an oopsie!

not me made is the Fat Face shirt, random sized jeans, and the boots from clockwork couture.

 
Thursday

Miserable cold and rainy day and here I am dressed up for it. The dress is RTW but I found it a bit dull all in black so I messily embroidered some dotted lines in gray along the hem and front bodice. This makes the dress a lot more interesting and highlights that it's not really a terribly formal dress.The tights have darns (so.many.snags).

not me made are the marks&spencer shoes


 
















 
Friday

It's hard to believe it's spring but it is. This is one of my favorite dancing skirts. For obvious reasons I should think. But it came to me a slightly too small size that made it hit me just too high so that it could only really be worn with something underneath...which is too hot for dancing with all that fabric around me. Plus the waistband was simply not capable of sustaining all that weight because this is a heavy skirt so I would wear it and realize mid twirl that another 3 inches of gathering had escaped from the waistband. So I found a similar green fabric and some matching ric rac and decided to add a slim tier to the skirt. The top panel is meant to be hidden and is fully interfaced with a reinforced seam. It was before I had any zipper experience so it's held closed by a series of buttons. It's a little big on me now so it needs some darts put in but that's short work...right?

not me made: I think both the top and the tights are H&M. The shoes are Clarks brogues.

 
Saturday

This red dress was originally all red. The sleeve ends were so tight they cut off circulation. I cut off the bias binding, regathered the sleeves, and bound them to black so they are now comfortable. The neckline dipped so low I was surprised you couldn't see my belly button. I cinched it up a bit but it was still low. Since it's a great summer dress, I didn't want to have to wear a tank top underneath so instead I put in a modesty panel that snaps closed. The fabric is eyelet lace and the front panels don't have any underlining. If I only stood still, it wouldn't be a problem but the underlayer tends to wrap around my thigh leaving a single layer. Not terribly modest since all those eyelets show off my undies...which I only do on the internet you see. I underlined the front panel with a black linen panel.

not me made are the tights from a Target clearance sale and the Clarks mary janes

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Me-Made-May Week 3

Sunday
I grabbed this sweater out of the free box and it had already seen better days. Under my abuse care, its condition deteriorated so for its continued use in my wardrobe I needed to darn its holes. With it I also replaced all the buttons and ended up doing my first needle felting of a hare and some stars which is the red you can see there.

The skirt actually came to me ready made but whether the friend I got it from made it or it's even older than us is hard to say. For years it was far too big at the waist and got cinched with a safety pin (by both of us!) and the spotty ruffle has been torn off and certain panels got torn through. As it is, it's probably 70% original fabric as I've replaced panels (unfortunately with solid when I couldn't find a good weight spotty) when necessary. For the waist I decided to try out shirring for the first time, carefully stitching eight lines to get it to a slightly big but even waist. Which is great because now I can continue to wear what has become a signature skirt.

not me made is the knit top from H&M

Monday
I learned to sew primarily through a workshop focused on tshirt re-uses and reclaimed textiles and such. As a stress-buster throughout my horribly busy final year of undergraduate, I'd retreat to the studio and bang out, in less than 40 minutes, tshirt skirts. This is one of them. A simple panel skirt attached to a decoratively stitched waist band incorporated an XXXL Threadless shirt and an XXL white shirt. Instant gratification project really since I used all ready-made hem for the bottom.

not me made are the tights from Target, the top from H&M, and shoes from Camper

Tuesday
It's hard to date this dress as I've found hits for Kittelett labels from 60s-80s with no company registration (that I could find). The shop I bought it from has a tendency to alter its clothing and so I have no idea whether the polyester zipper I removed was original or what. Kittel means a working garment (“hoover-apron”?) and the fabric of this dress is certainly nice and sturdy. I snapped it up immediately because it was so cute, fit really well, and seemed constructed in a way that it'd never die. I was disappointed when the zipper broke a single wear later but I figured out that the bodice had enough fabric built in it (to make it sturdier?) that I could actually make the faux placket an actual one by adding a single facing. I actually have no idea why the front placket wasn't already functional since it already had working buttonholes and buttons but no matter-I'm not looking that gift horse in the mouth. I removed the zipper, sewed up the seam and boom-one of my favorite vintage/retro dresses.

not me made is the sweater from a charity shop.

Wednesday
I was back in rapper kit. This is a me-made repeat I really can't do anything about! At least these are a different set of ladies so you can see two different identical skirts in this photo compared to the last.

Thursday
Well my me-made items today involved primarily me-made underthings so obviously I was not going to model them for you. There're zig zag undies and a delicate beaded satin bralette that actually provides support due to its slightly too constrictive construction. (cute bralette that can double as a sports bra? Oh boy, talk about odd things to call a success but whatever.)

not me made is the Fat Face button up

Friday
This probably-80s-doing-peasant dress was originally a rather hideously unflattering, slightly too big sack that relied only on a sash for waist definition whose fabric was so lovely I took it home. I love the navy and brown narrow stripes, shirtwaist style, the slight sheen of the solid parts, and the buttery smoothness of it all. I cut it at the waist (leaving the placket intact) to discover a line of fairly useless elastic which I used as a waist-stay to anchor my pleating. A lot of cursing later, I attached it to the bodice and despaired. A couple of days later I redid it to include some more intelligent pocket placement and tapered the bodice side seams and felt much better about myself. I left the oversized sleeves as is mainly because it is soooooo comfortable. I didn't have matching buttons nor did I have enough buttons of any style that fit the buttonholes so I paired them off-two silver original, 2 shell, 2 silver original and a shell for the last. I still rely a lot on the sash to A. hide my pleating and B. keep the bodice flattering but I rather like it as is.

Certainly it's unlike what anyone else is wearing!

not me made are Primark tights and Camper shoes



Saturday
I found this All Saints skirt in a charity shop and I knew immediately why it had been donated. It was a most hideous shade of urine. Not only that but it was blotchy in a “I laid below a urinal style.” But the embroidery along the top was lovely as was the magenta strip along the bottom that I snatched it up in my greedy little fingers and immediately set upon figuring out the strongest coffee dye bath I could. Of course, I figured out it was a size too big so there was a little bit of tightening to do (created an inner buttoning bit to make sure it stayed on my waist). Now, unless I recount the story above, it shares very little with urinal floor chic and is one of the more gorgeous skirts I own. Thank you coffee! You get me through my day and rescue beautiful skirts!

not me made are the knit H&M top and Camper shoes



Monday, May 20, 2013

Felt Cases

I'm hard on my electronics. They all take dings and glue marks (part of the reason I do non-adhesive books is that I cannot use glue without getting it on everything) and get transported here and there. Instead of buying cases from the shop (or modifying one in the case of my graphics tablet) I looked at those pieces of thick dressmaker's felt in my stash and said to myself-yep, I'm gonna make them. De-stash bonus!

And since I made these before I had embroidered the rapper sashes, I fancy it's easy to see the progression of my nonexistant embroidery skills from my first attempt which is really just a book binding stitch to my bad-tensioned second attempt to crisp SSR. I love recognizing progression of skill mainly because I feel like I tend to hit plateaus and terraces in most things.

First off, my phone case:

So my phone already has one of those bouncy rubber cases so it's protected against the inevitable drops it takes but once it gets in my bag, that screen protector gets smeary and surface scratched (no idea how!) so I made this simple envelope style case. Inside it's lined with this odd water repellent fabric (shop closings-always end up with strange fabric from those things) that allows the phone to slide in despite the skid-proof rubber case. (I also like to think it'd repel water if I, say, drop it in a puddle.) The zig zag stitch you see is anchoring this lining-it was so slippery during sewing I sewed it down in frustration. Since neither fabric frays, the sides could be stitched and trimmed without edge finishing so my laziness does mean that there is a hint of the pinstriped lining fabric at the edges. It doesn't bother me one bit. The flap is pinked for decoration and held down with 2 snaps.

Of course, I couldn't leave it alone and decided to embroider it. Do I own an embroidery hoop or have any real previous experience with embroidery? Of course not. Did I let it stop me? Nah. So there is my personal logo outlined with blue (to match the lining fabric) in a backstitch filled with what my embroidery booklet calls a "seed" stitch in green. Is there puckering? Only minorly and it absolutely doesn't interfere with the case doing what it's supposed to-protect my screen from the ravages of my bag.

Next my graphics tablet:

I actually made this first but the construction was a bit more complicated. I constructed that outer pocket and stitched it down the sides to the outer layer of felt. Then I embroidered that T using a book binding cording stitch. (which makes it very nubbly) Then I stitched outer layer of felt to an inner layer which is why nothing ended up straight. Whoops, oh well. Those layers of felt don't fray so they got stitched into a simple envelope shape. Flaps pinked and buttons stitched on-mother of pearl for the cord pocket and bunnies for the main flap. The buttons are slightly too large but I actually don't have any smaller in my stash so whatever. They do their job with a tightly knotted trail of embroidery thread that gets threaded around them alá those interdepartmental envelopes.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Me Made May '13 Week Two


Sunday
Skirt is me-made. It is in fact the first thing I made out of fabric off the bolt. It's two colors of mechanical homespun woven with a pinstripe design made into a panel skirt. I picked the homespun because it felt substantial and the resulting skirt has seen me through yardwork without appearing to even get dirty but no one told me how it frays. And it frays and frays so that there are years of inept patching woven into this skirt. A couple of months I finally sat down and made it a proper waistband and finished off all the seams with zig zags so it would stop fraying itself apart.

not me made is the H&M top

Monday
The skirt is a knock off of an American Apparel design. I bought mine almost a decade ago and I adore the swoops and hugging of it that when it started to develop holes I knew I needed another. But when I went back to the shops I realized that somewhere along the line they'd decided that this skirt needed to be clingier and shorter and just. not. right. So when this gorgeous viscose jersey called my name I knew it'd become a new one of these.

not me made is the H&M top 

Tuesday
This shirt started life as one of M's shirts. When he culled his wardrobe I snapped it up to transform it into a top for me. It is also the first piece of dressmaking I ever blogged about .

not me made are the randomly sized jeans and Camper shoes.

Wednesday
I can't, for the life of me, find my picture for this day. Luckily, I've just blogged about my skirt. After wearing it all day in rain and shine and wind I've determined it really needs a hem or something that will prevent it from flying up at any provocation.

Thursday
The shirt is retailored. I needed a white polka dot shirt for something or other but I could only find one in a few sizes too big. So the side seams went in and the neck got rebound with some slight gathering to fit it to my frame.
The jeans are definitely one of those garments of mine my mother wishes desperately she could throw on a bonfire. They are 13 years old! Well at this point it is probably more accurate the legs and hardware are 13 years old. The upper portion is practically patched at every point and not neatly-after a certain point I gave up matching thread, patch, or even making sure my hand sewing was even. They are my art jeans. I wear them when I'm being lazy (because they are fantastically comfortable) or doing something messy. They are full of memories. From the first giant red stain I got while making a model of Jupiter with my best friend of that time (turpentine didn't get it out), to painting my high school gallery, the first bright red patch from my friend's mother's sewing box to painting my attic library, to when a friend said "oh it won't rip" and proceeded to rip a new hole, to oil block printing and screenprinting, these trousers are very old friends.

Friday
The shirt is Steph's Blank Canvas Tee and I got the bands wrong 2 out of 3 times. Nevertheless I really like it though next time I plan on cutting a smaller size to get the neckline a bit snugger.
Oh and remember Monday's skirt? This is the original that I copied. Most of the side seams are now darned.

not me made is the American Apparel skirt and tights from Target

I spend Saturday dancing so I was in my rapper skirt.

Don't Let Your Mind Bully Your Body

You'll remember that the last book I posted on here was kind of a stab binding hot mess despite the complete awesomeness of the binding. I had indirectly discovered Becca Hirsbrunner's blog with her organic bindings through incomplete sources and just got too excited to be too precise. Well, here's another of her designs but this time I made it with my more typical forethought.

This time I used Becca's tutorial except that I wanted the binding to take up less of the text block so I eliminated one on each side to make the whole binding 4 holes deep instead of 5. This got rid of one of the nice weaved lines but I think it remains elegant.

I had tension problems due to waxing my thread so the spine wraps are not properly horizontal but since I hadn't made this before I didn't want to make them too tight that I'd be weaving furrows into the cover (I've done this before with a different binding).

Pretty much, I love it. This is a little book with a sharpied cover with that elegant binding that comes to a knot at the center.

Monday, May 6, 2013

3/4 Circle Skirt

So before I could be sure I'd be able to make at least 6 triple circle skirts with bright orange waistbands, I needed to be sure that I could do waistbands. Serendipitously, my local fabric shop brought in this range of gorgeous colors of knit fabric so I could give into my WANT of those beautiful colors of knit. This was before Christmas so my best friend got a 3/4 circle skirt out of a turquoise that I thought would be perfect with her eyes and job (yep! yep!). Her partner got a green skirt of her favorite design (a knock off of a major chain's skirt) that I thought would fit perfectly into her wardrobe's palette (yep! yep!).

For myself, I made a 3/4 circle skirt out of purple. A perfect casual skirt for me that looks fine with tshirts.
I use this excel worksheet I made a long time ago to calculate the radius of the waist circle and the radius of that plus the skirt to the hemline circle. I then use my measuring tape like a compass marking the semi-circle with pins that I then cut along. If I fold it correctly, there're no seams-this skirt has one seam. The waistband is a simple rectangle folded over the elastic, edges tucked in, and finished with a zig zag. Then it gets sewn onto the skirt right sides touching and given a minor press to lie flatter around the wait to reduce bulk. The result is a skirt that falls like it has gathers but actually doesn't have any.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Me-Made May '13 Week 1!

So it's Sunday! And I've been eagerly reading everyone's posts about their me-made outfits and I'm happy I'm not the only one who has loads of things in their closet that have not been blogged. I even have the excuse that I've only just started blogging my dressmaking attempts....

Anyhow! So you'll recall that my Me-Made-May pledge used both retailor and refashion in it. I used both in a conscious effort to include the garments in my closet that only needed small little adjustments to make them more wearable. These adjustments can mean something like a reshaping of a side seam or a dye bath. I very much treat my clothing in a make-do-and-mend fashion and a lot of my clothes are almost a decade old!

Day 1
The dress is vintage, probably early 1970s because of that elasticated waist and the brand tag is the "just moved to Germany" style. I was looking for a neutral casual dress that would be light and airy but robust enough for picnics and such. This fit the bill with its shirtwaist style, high comfort level (there's a back vent!), and pocket with its pocketkerchief, but there was so.much.fabric. in the bodice. It bloused out and made me look about 10 pounds heavier while simultaneously the buttons popped open ready to showcase my bust at any quick moves. So! I took in fabric into the raglan sleeves while simultaneously easing out some fabric for my bust. With some snappers in between the shirtwaist, it stays shut-pulls but stays shut. The side seams got remolded to counteract the blousy effect of the elastic gathering and here it is!

The belt is my favorite ribbon belt. Look for it again and again as it's the most versatile of my DIY efforts.

The not seen slip is not a successful slip. It's going on my remake pile. It pulls across my hips hindering my movements which is silly considering the volume of that skirt. The waist falls down whenever I bend over. I will see if some shirring will fix it but likely, it'll get torn apart and made anew.

May 2nd
Look at the sun! It's warm enough to not need a cardigan! Second day like this all year!

The skirt is the first appearance of this blog of this zig zag knit and it certainly won't be the last. I usually hate pencil skirts, mainly because RTW woven ones make me look like: "oh the '50s called, they want their birthing hips back!" and then when I turn around the only adjective that comes to mind is "bootylicious". Not that these are necessarily bad things but people have talked to my crotch. Never not awkward. Not this one though, this one instead has inspired loads of people to ask if I've lost weight (nope) and to tell me I looked sleek. I guess it's because the waistband nips into my waist comfortably but the fabric is not working hard around my hips/posterior. The zig zags also probably make the eye wander down to my legs instead of letting them stall at crotch level.

Not me-made: the shirt is a faithful 7 year old band tshirt I got at a Gogol Bordello show. The shoes were bought in Cyprus and I'm looking for an affordable replacement. 

May 3rd
Mountain weather means that when I set up my bookstack it was sunny, it was cloudy when I took this tired looking picture and sunny again when I sat back down at the computer. I love you mountains-always change.

The cardigan started out life as a rather insipid gray color and I wore it mainly because the style was perfect for hot weather/cold office changes while I lived in DC. But somehow it got these strange peach stains (sunlight?) and white under arm circles (sweat) and it was not really a great cardigan. It got relegated to the back of drawers for the 3 times a year I needed something like it. However, when I took a batik class I asked the teacher if I could use the purple vat leftover after class for a more basic fabric dying. I was warned that the sweater would always need to be washed separately and that the fabric might not take the strong batik dyes but I hated the cardigan so much with its gray, peach, and white 'motif' that I dunked it in anyway. It was a good risk because I love its color now (though the gray buttonholes due to the thread being polyester was a little odd surprise).

The shirt is from the odd woodland/countryside fabric I grabbed during a spree in Walthamstow so be sure to watch out for its reappearance in a full blog post. It's a simple box blouse.

Not me made are the green jeans but they are a very odd size: 11 ½. God knows what that means but other than perhaps a little more room in the hips or a shorter inseam (for those horizontal crotch wrinkles) they fit perfectly in a way that I'd never expected from skinny jeans on my figure.

Day 4
The dress was a refashion from two of the photographer's cast off shirts (both are good quality shirts, they just don't fit him anymore). It's a color blocked dress with the blue collar replacing the beige collar and the blue sewn onto the bottom of the beige shirt with full length placket. It may have been the first project with my real sewing machine or it may have been made on the faker. Either way, I've buttoned up the cardigan to hide the worst bust darts in the world. Ok, they're not that bad especially since they're probably my first attempts at brand new bust darts ever but I don't want the sewing world to see them. The skirt rides up a lot so I think it's slightly too long in the torso with tightness right where my legs do motiony things. And the style...it's not really mine. It's quite office-y/preppy and I'm an archaeologist...I suspect this should get chopped in two. I quite enjoy the swoops the skirt is doing (following both bottom hemlines) and think with some shortening/creation of a waistband I'd find it much more wearable. The shirt needs those bust darts sorted out and then perhaps a peplum to make up the length that's needed to make it a stand-alone shirt. What do you think is appropriate for the bottom of a men's button up that ends at natural waist?

The belt is a reprise of May 1st.

The tights are hard to see (like my surprise! red hair) but they have multi-colored polka dots drawn on them. I went around for a week with polka dot legs after making them but thankfully they have not washed out of these tights!

Not me-made are my shoes, the slip you can see peeking out, and cardigans. Those are actually my excavation shoes. Usually my summer shoes are torn apart by August, what with the heat, dust, dirt, and daily wearing through hiking, beach going, excavation, and pavement pounding tourism but these survived the summer and looked okay once they got washed twice. I guess though I paid £5 for them that brand name actually meant they're better quality than my usual £5 shoes? The slip was a clearance rack find with a  sleekish silk chiffon bottom with the finest soft jersey knit top. It's a bit big on me and I shortened the straps but I'm pretty sure that making it myself would've be both more expensive and more hair pulling.