Countryside? Fabric

I made a trip down to London and then thought the fateful words: maybe I'll just pop out to Walthamstow Market to see if there're any cool deals and/or blue flowery paisley suiting (don't ask).

Of course I ended up with over 30m of fabric and loads more of ribbon/trim, etc.

Among them was this mystery fabric.

It is exceptionally soft and burn tests show it has some organic fibres in it. And it's cute, it has horses, hares, and stags...and some random blotches of what-is-that. It's probably meant for small children with its...woodland? countryside? theme and the soft lilac background on which the purple animals repeat in a small scale random pattern. It frays easily, drapes lightly, and gives a little.

So! What to do?

First up was a box blouse. I made it for St. Patrick's Day to go with my green trousers.

All the hems and neckline are narrow rolled hems. I added little side slits to make the box blouse shape fit my figure without too much fabric overuse. Soft and comfortable.

The fabric got re-rolled and put back on the shelf. Until I had sewn two more knit triple skirts for my rapper team. And I thought to myself, I should definitely do a woven circle skirt!

 If I do say so, it looks good.

the Successes: I successfully installed my third zipper ever. That's piping going on below the waistband-my first successful piping attempt (I need smaller cord is what I learned). I got the buttonhole right the first time and that rolled hem worked a treat.

the failure (and some optimism): Of course, I should've thought to check my math. The problem with circle skirts is always the math. I forgot that my current working formula was for knit fabric which allows for a huge bias stretch. Yes, bias stretch this fabric completely lacks. Eurgh! This ended up 4 inches too narrow with the waistband being exactly my waist width. I had to add a panel on the side to make up the extra width. Not a problem for non sewers who all have told me it looks so lovely but an annoyance. Luckily the pattern is random so that's not an obvious flaw and the panel is exactly the width of my side. The skirt looks unseamed from the front and from the back and the panel hangs exactly the same way as the rest. So I've kept it.

some more failure: This last minute panel used up much of my last bits of fabric but I still had some largish pieces. So like with the zig zag fabric, I decided undies were the order of the day. So I tried out the Amerson undies. There's no photo because I ended up making a pair that was joined at the wrong point. *headdesk* Seems like many who got the first version of pattern did the same. Then I finally got them right and I tried them on to find out...they didn't fit me. The style didn't suit me either. But don't let me scare you off, it's a free pattern, forces you to learn some new techniques, and has other people who love them.
Mine ended up pulled apart and harvested for the elastic back.

A success: So now I had some former undie pieces and random rectangular pieces. The fabric frays too much and is surprisingly weak so it wouldn't work as handkerchiefs. But then I was reminded again about tea cup pin cushions.

I bought some epoxy glue and grabbed one of my mismatched and very very sturdy stoneware hunting tea cups. I packed in some strange scraps to fill up the cup. I topped it off with fiberfill and glued the woodland fabric as taut as possible to make the pin cushion. I then glued cup to saucer. And you know, I love it. No longer does my pin cushion roll away from me, M hasn't stepped on it driving pins into his foot, and it works as a pattern weight. I was worried it'd take up space on my cramped work desk but the saucer works a useful little catch plate for the little things (like earrings) that otherwise get lost. When I'm sewing, my embroidery scissors, seam unpick, and a hand needle usually end up hanging out on there too, in close reach. Invaluable addition to my sewing life!

Another success: With some of the last little pieces, I whipped up some hair bowties. Made in the same way as the zig zag ones except that this fabric frayed too much so I used some of the last bit of bias binding I used for the piping of the skirt. Two stashes whittled down? Oh yeah!

Zig Zags!

My current thing is to take a piece of fabric and use as much as I can of it before resigning it to scraps.

First off is this 2 yards of knit red zigzag fabric:

It's a delightful knit that is well printed in straight lines. It pills a little and is slightly see through but it is a dream to sew with if a bit dizzying to try to match up stripes.

Success: I bought the fabric with a straight pencil skirt in mind. With my hips and posterior I really prefer my pencil skirts to be made out of knits because otherwise it gets uncomfortable/rides up real fast. You've seen it already as part of Me-Made but here it is again.

Construction is simple. Two rectangles sewn together (and I did quite well at stripe and peak matching. one side is perfect...the other is close) with a waistband made of a rectangle folded over the elastic. Twin needle hem makes this a figure hugging but not tight skirt.

the failure that turned into a success: My second project was born of seeing that fabric on my floor (where I do all my cutting out). I laid down and confirmed that indeed, I should be able to create a long enough dress out of what was left.

I drew up a croquis:

and made a bodice with shirring elastic in the center to ruche the center and then decided that midriff and skirt could be one piece. That was my fatal error.
Here's the skirt cut out and sewn together:

see the potential problem? (other than that I really need to tidy up)
too slim cut through the hips! Oh no! I'd just made it way too tight for me. Plus ALL those zigzags was doing something to my eyes-something quite unpleasant. Why, I thought to myself, didn't I do the method of cutting a rectangle and sewing the sides afterwards instead of cutting for the sewing line.

I lost heart and decided to stitch the top down to turn the fabric inside out as a contrast but not too constrasty midriff section. I then realized that since I sewed for the entire rapper team I have quite a good idea of their shapes/sizes and that this would fit another girl quite well. Oh good, this wouldn't just be a WIP tossed in the corner of my room. She was delighted to get a free dress and was game for a quick fitting. I determined that it was tight on her but did not show every bulge and unseemly fold like on me and redefined the dress in my mind as hers NOT mine. I proceeded to shorten the bodice, shirr the top of the bodice and then bind it with bias binding. I got out the twin needles again to hem it to length. I looked at my scraps and realized that if I put the zig zag vertical I could use up a particular scrap and so it went. I of course looked at my interfacing stash and went WHERE DID IT GO?! and ended up using the stay tape that I won from StephC (which makes it the third time it saved me some hair pulling and lost project momentum) to make them stronger/less stretchy.

For some reason it looks relatively shapeless and baggy on a hanger. But here it is on her!

Still a bit too slim cut but the fabric isn't working hard as when it goes on me (i.e. the zigzags don't straighten out on her).

Some real success! So after that sadness and debacle with a happy ending, I had some largish pieces left. I had already decommissioned a favorite pair of undies to cut up for pattern making but it had languished in my "things I could easily get on with but don't pile". Once I cut them up and traced them I made up my first pair of undies using the flat construction method (sew crotch together, attach leg elastic, sew one side seam, attach waist elastic, and finish off). They were a bit tight but definitely wearable but as I had just enough more fabric if I did some piecing I determined I could do with an extra cm all around and now those are the most comfortable undies I own.

What's left? Strips of fabric too narrow to make much out of but not long enough to wrap around the head, rectangles of odd sizes etc. Some of the irregular scraps got hemmed to be handkerchiefs but that's so routine for me by now that I barely noticed the decrease in scraps amount.

Success: So hair bowties it is! I've been wanting to do more of the hair decoration route of hairdressing so banging up a few mini bowties was in the books. 

The fabric gets interfaced (I had gone out and bought some by this point) and sewn into a rectangle inside out. It gets turned right side out, that little gap stitched up and ironed flat. Then you pinch it in the middle and stitch it pinched. I used some more stay tape against a small strip I fished out of my trash, wrapped it around the pinch and stitched it relatively higher on the back so that the rest of the strip could be used to bobby pin it in.

As for the rest, I'm out of inspiration. Quilt? Does knit even work for a quilt?

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.