Deconstructed

I’ve been having difficulty finding comfortable things to wear around the house that don’t make me look like Bummy McBumerson. In my head, I wear really lovely robes with marabou slippers. In reality, I’m in t-shirts and leggings or jeans. So I challenged myself to make something that I can wear at home that’s an upgrade but still comfy enough that it doesn’t feel too precious to wear. I also wanted something that I can throw a jacket (soon to be a coat) over and go out. Once I knew what I was going to do, I also knew I wanted it to look deconstructed and have have minimal waste. Et voila, I came up with this dress (it looks much better on me than on my dressform, especially since I my torso doesn’t just end suddenly).

I made it with some t-shirts I bought for $.99 each at a thrift shop last year. I think they were leftovers from the summer program at the Manhattan School of Music. Anyway, I originally intended to make them into an A Chanin dress. But since they’ve just been sitting in a bag and I’m still on a no-buy until I work through most of my stash, I used them for my experiment.

For the base pattern, I used the much beloved (and spectacularly simple) M6886, but tweaked it a bit because I wanted a flared maxi-length skirt and bell-ish sleeves. I drew the new pattern free hand onto the t-shirts and just patched it together as I went along.

My seam allowance was about 1/2″, but I trimmed all the seams down to 1/4″ once I was finished. I thought about serging them, but I like how they look raw.

And I FINALLY used one of the decorative stitches on my machine. I really don’t know why I waited this long.

I love that it’s going to get softer the more I wash it. And I look forward to making more comfy “home” clothes with old t-shirts.

This dashiki skirt I made over the summer. It’s too old to warrant it’s own post, but I think I mentioned it at some point so here it is.

I used a different method to install the zipper. Instead of just putting the pockets inseam, I used this really clear tutorial to add the zipper to the pockets.

I’m not sure what I’m going to work on next. Right now, I’m just glad to be working with my hands again.

xoxo,

UFO: Alabama Chanin Skirt

I started this skirt in late 2013 before I got caught up in a bunch of other projects.

 

 

It’s a four panel skirt made from old black Hanes t-shirts. The pattern is from my Anna’s Garden stencil and the skirt pattern is from the Alabama Stitch book.

I airbrushed the design using a mix of black and white Createx paints. Unfortunately, I just mixed the grey randomly so I have no idea how to replicate this color. That’s also the reason why the grey is lighter in some areas of the skirt. I love it just the same though because it has a certain amount of charm and homemade-iness.

The design is backstitched with black embroidery thread.

I’ve been working on it here and there, but with no plan. I will however use my newly instituted minimum hour policy to get it done. My biggest challenge now is where to allocate the time. I’m thinking about scheduling my projects throughout the week so I’ll have a chance to get a little bit done on each one. Something like Mondays/Wednesdays I’ll work on projects that just need to be finished; and Tuesdays/Thursdays/Saturdays, I’ll work on ongoing projects.

I’m also calling a moratorium on beginning anything new for now. I have enough in queue to keep me busy for at least a month. I just hope nothing else catches my eye before February.

xoxo,

Not My Plan, But…

In my last post I had a list of projects I was going to choose from. But that was before I got distracted by this fabric. (I had to use flash to take the pic otherwise it looked black, but it’s really a very dark blue black. It’s also much less shiny.)

Since it has a good amount of stiffness, similar to taffeta, I decided to use it for a maxi skirt. I’ve been working on it for the past few days so now I just need to finish the sash. I tried it on with a crisp white blouse (I was feeling very Carolina Herrera) and it looks fabulous if I do say so myself. It also looks great with my white peasant blouse I think I’m going to get a lot of wear out of this one.

Then I got sidetracked by this polka dot spandex that I bought at Spandex House. I’m using it to make the Classic Pinup Girl Full Band bra pattern from Bra-maker’s Supply. The rest of the supplies (elastic, straps, etc.) I bought from Merckwaerdigh on Etsy.

Confession: I’ve had everything to make this project for well over a year, but I kept pushing it back. When I came across this fabric again, I decided to just jump in without overthinking it.

Before I cut into my fabric, I made a muslin and it was an unmitigated disaster. I used non-stretch fabric for the cups (I read that somewhere on the interwebs) and it looked and felt terrible. For the second go-round, I used my spandex and it was much, much better. I still need to make some adjustments to the pattern, but I bought one yard of the fabric, so I should have enough to make a few more muslins and fine-tune the fit.

The biggest surprise was how quickly everything came together. I was pretty intimidated by what looked like an extremely complicated process, but like a lot of things, thinking about doing it was much more difficult than actually doing it. Now that I’m finally getting the bra done, I’m going to just go ahead and make some nice knickers to go along with it. Then I’m going to prance around my apartment in my new matching handmade undergarments. Or not.

Anyway, that’s what I was up to this week. Oh and I started a new job in my other life so I’m super excited about that too.

xoxo,