the tiny squares cometh

Count is currently in the 600s --- soon... soon.....

I've also made some progress with chopping up old garments.  The sunflower shirt was one of my first attempts at copying RTW, from about 5 years ago.  The fabric is gorgeous, but the fit was pretty terrible (not that this stopped me from wearing it *everywhere* and proudly declaiming to all, that I had made it.)

The blue-tomato dress is from my senior year of high school (the pattern has since been lost to time) and still fits! ... for a given value of fit - I still didn't know what I was doing back then (this is over ten years ago now) so things are kinda wonky and the finishing is more than a little hilarious - It seems I was all about fold over and sew.   However, it too has joined the quilt as I don't think I've worn it out of the house since college.

Last but not least, the green shirt -- this was an early experiment with franken-patterns, from about 4 years ago.   I never quite got it to sit properly the the black trim was not one of my better choices - but it took so long to put on I couldn't bear to remove it - until now -- bum bum BUM.  It is next up for getting chopped into quilt bits.

I haven't really looked at any of these in years - at the time I thought I was hot shit, and compared to what the people I knew were doing (hello stapler) I was.   However, the quality of the garments is almost laughable - and the amount of improvement I've made over the past few years really shows when they are compared to my latest work.   Mostly, its making me think what I'll be able to accomplish with another ten years of study.  I'm still intimidated by fitting pants, woven sleeves, hemming knits and doing much of anything with slippery sheers....   ::crossed fingers::  mayhaps I'll get them too.

sock monkey pencil skirt

 Yeah.  I went there.  Rock the monkeys.

This particular skirt comes to us through space and time from about 5 years ago (holy crap) when I was working at a fabric store for the summer.  Needless to say a fair portion of what they paid me went right back into the store, but, seriously, first dibs and SOCK MONKEYS!!!  

shaping trapezoids

This is a self drafted pencil -- there wasn't much too it - I sewed up the back to make a tube and then started putting darts all around the top along the edges of the squares (now trapezoids)

I loved it - wore it all summer, and then went to grad school where it wasn't quite the thing.  (We're not talking fashion faux pas or anything like that -- its just that I spent a lot of time crawling under tables and lying on floors fixing things)  

Anyhow, I was going through things this evening, spotted it, tried it on, and found there was a huge tear up the side - next to, but not actually on the seam, thus preventing me from fixing it properly.  (I suppose I could patch it from the inside... hrmmmm......)   Anyhow its looking like its days as a skirt are numbered, but I'm not sure what to do with it.  The fabric is just so insane that I fear anything cute.  As a tight pencil its so absurd it works...  but I just don't know where else it can go.  Any ideas?  (Thank you to the members of the peanut gallery who said 'hi' the other day... now I don't really think the all rest are spam bots, so I will assume you are shy/fear ducks/can't be bothered to log in.  Its okay.  I love you anyway.  Especially with garlic sauce.)

I didn't make these.  But I felt they needed to show up anyway.

And then, mostly for my own amusement  -- I think this is my favorite of the series.  Why?  Why not.  Its 2, I'm up, so you get grammar posters.

and we're back!

The jack was shorted!   which means it was a five minute fix that I could have done, but, had I started opening up their equipment and something went wacky, I think they would have been disgruntled.

okay...

sewing..  because that is in fact the purpose of this particular blog.  I've been a little all over the place lately, so the lining of the winter coat is in progress, the spring coat is nearly done (it needs hem binding and a closure), I have a pair of jeans cut out, another polar fleece jacket cut out and pinned, and a dress that is mocking me with its piping that requires I do the final fit before sewing the shoulders...    AND I am out of bobbins.   There are four, and none has the turquoise (polar fleece) or red (dress binding) that I need.   Just the colors for the coats.  stupidiest hold up ever, I know.  but I'm not actually sure what size they are, so I keep not getting extras.

oh -- and I got black satin last night to make a dress for the choir concert. ... which is in two weeks, so I should probably get my act together for that.  I haven't worked with satin since high school (the dress in question was rather questionable) so we're thinking happy thoughts.

midrift!

 and because pictures are happy fun piles of joy and wonder, I first offer a close up of the midrift of the spring jacket.  Its made by taking swirls of the primary fabric and sewing them onto the contrast with a very tight zig-zag (kind of like a satin stitch)  I've decided it looks like an obi.   What others think, I do not know, but I am most pleased.

and then, apropos of nothing, we have last year's halloween costume.  (I was cleaning off my camera)   The intent was steam-punk rather then pirate, but I ran out of time before finishing all the extra bits,  plus the color scheme... blue and brown probably would have been better.  Anyhow, its all my own design (and of course, construction)  fun times.  :)

UFOs!

The lap quilt

Whilst cleaning out my sewing closet I came upon a fair number of UFOs (UnFinishedObjects for anyone new to the sewing community)    The first is the oldest and dates the from the summer I worked at G-Street fabrics.  (Fun times - but holy crap it was hard not to go home with EVERYTHING.  We'd get in these shipments, and I'd have to become familiar with them, and there was this whole section of batiks....   ::drools::  I made good use of the employee discount)   Anyhow, I worked in the quilting cottons sections, and saw LOTS of quilts - fancy ones, plain ones, wacked out pretzel and mummy ones** you name it, I saw it.   One day a woman came in with a picture of a quilt and wanted to know how to make it.   It wasn't detailed enough to show the seams, and I didn't know all the patterns off hand, but I know enough geometry and whatnot to figure out how to duplicate it - anyhow it stuck in my head and became a favorite.   (Later that day I found out it is called 'Card Trick')    I ended up making it with four of my favorites - an odd combination perhaps, but I like them.  I'm not so sure about the border - actually I am, I don't like it, I'm not really sure what motivated it, but I'm going to need to take it off and finish it off with something else instead.  (My only other quilt)

when I first started craving red

This dress is actually about 95% percent done - it needs a little bit of work at the hem and the shoulder straps adjusted slightly -- but I just don't like it.  (are we seeing a theme with my UFOs?)  Its one of the other views from Butterick 5350 - but unlike the red polka-dot dress it has it pleats at the top.  In theory I thought this would be cute, but it ended up flattening me out in a awkward way.   I don't think its well suited to the busty set.   Anyhow, its been waiting for attention for well over a year now - but there is hope!  Once I realized how unhappy I was with the bodice I got another yard of the red (from a store in a different state no less) so when I get around to it I can fix it.  But I already have a red dress I prefer, plus this new polka dot one, so there isn't much impetus.

I think the muslin was nicer fabric....

Here we have Butterick 5428 - jacket and lining,  fit and ready - but once again I was not happy.   In this case it was the fabric rather than the pattern - its this odd synthetic that had an interesting sheen on the bolt (and was $1 a yard at Jomar) but when in jacket form it looks like one of those horrible cheap suits that melt when the weather is warm.   For whatever reason I'm currently imagining it looking lovely in a springy wool - somewhat more odd as I rarely allow that particular fiber to touch my skin, least I itch like mad.

There are a number of others, but I think they will wait for another day in the hazy someday.

heh-- I have the exact same expression in both pictures.  Lets call it 'Blue Steel'

**  Not long after I started I made friends with one of the other clerks and she was telling me weird customer stories, and mentioned a lady who came in to make a quilt for a grieving friend.   She chose a green with pretzels and another with golden mummies and some sort of bright blue.   My friend thought it was hilarious - I thought it was even more so, because I knew the lady was my mom and that I had made most of the picks.  (Mom - send me a picture, the world needs to see the glory)

A new home for a purple friend

Alumni!  (purple, 3rd from the left)

About a year ago, well before I started this blog, I decided to try making simplicity 0494 to test out my new serger, and generally practice working with knits.    I'd decided it would be just the thing for an a cappella reunion I was going to later in the month, and whipped it up.    At the time I was so pleased I'd managed to make a knit dress, that I just went with it, but as you can see (probably can't, since its a group pictures) the lines just didn't quite work on me.   I think the pattern was intended for someone a bit shorter, after all, they usually are, as the stomach part hit me just above mine, rather than over it.  The hips were also just slightly off, etc. and so forth, and I ended up not liking it enough to try to do something with it.

  

Since then, it has hung forlorn and alone in my closet, watching the other dresses get worn and be otherwise and all together loved, until this weekend.   My cousin, who is slightly shorter, but more or less the same size, came to visit, and BAM the dress had a new home.    I got her to try it on, and she loved it (and proved it by wearing it out to dinner).    In the course off all of this, I was showing her the other things I'd made, and she started hinting at a polar fleece jacket, but I quashed that one.  They take too long and I am polar fleeced out.   I'm currently trying to badger her into learning to sew- but then I do that more or less indiscriminately with everyone I meet.   I am a sewing evangelist.

  I'm now thinking about what other random stuff I've made and don't wear that I might try to send her home with.   hrmmm...

In which I experiance technical difficulties

well..... biological ones.

 My arms decided to mutiny again, (what? what? you want to finish something for a specfic occasion?   ahahahaah! non! this shall not beeee) (you should have read that with the evil sounding accent of your choice.   In my head its more or less cartoonish French)  (Random note:  I studied French for about 12 years, so most of my accents come out French, no matter what I am up to)

flamingo style

I think I was trying to fix the strap...

pouf!!!

So, it was time for some closet diving.    I made the ginkgo dress (look closely at the pattern) right after college.  At that time it was strapless and used only thick interfacing and a good, tight fit to hold itself up.    However, the pattern designers seem to have neglected to consider what would happen when it was washed ---  needless to say I added a bit more support.   However, its not the halter strap-- thats actually purely decorative, as I thought it threw the dress firmly into the 50s -- no the support actually comes from a fully boned bodice.    This being one of my early forays into boning, its sewed directly to the lining the the fabric... no channels, no nothing (well, the tips are covered to prevent poking) but, it works, and as I seem to wear it once every two years or so, it will do.      The new feature this time is the crinoline -- also made years ago to go with a completely different dress I've yet to post here, but I'm really into the puff -- it makes the dress seem more substantial.

The pattern for the dress is on a shelf in my childhood bedroom, so theoretically I could look it up if anyone is curious, but its only the base, ginkgo part of the dress.    I added the ruffle and cumberbund to make it a bit more interesting.    The crinoline is self drafted  -- just layers of netting added in ever taller layers on a standard A-line skirt.   

However, with good luck and cooperative biology, I may just get the purple dress finished by the May 30th cut off for Pattern Review's knock off contest.    Think happy thoughts.

Everybody needs a montage!

Going through my pictures, I realized very few of them are of garments I've made -- with the exception of costumes. Now, this makes quite a bit of sense as generally people photograph wacky hijinks, rather than clothing unless I am in fact in costume at the time. However, looking through all the blogs I follow, which eventually I ought to list on the side, my favorites are the ones chock full of pictures. So, I offer a montage.

top left: RenFest outfit, self drafted. (I also made the white shirt the man on the right is wearing, also self drafted)

top left: green dress I wore all through the summer of 2006 -- long since lost the pattern.

center: Halloween '09 - self drafted dinosaur

bottom left: Come as the Deity of Your Choice Party, self drafted

bottom center: one of my favorite patterns, new look 6557 I've made it in red, green and blue

bottom right: Halloween -10 - self drafted, going for steam punk, ran out of time. plus a lot of the details are on the back.