Experiments with denim--opinions please!

Michelle and I were emailing the other day (before the desert claimed her) about fall fashion, she brought up a blurb from Robert Geller that she had run across in a NY Times article about the very same topic:

"ROBERT GELLER, designer I’m excited to get back to layering. One of my favorite things about cooler weather is that you can build up an outfit piece by piece and put together something really interesting — such as finishing up a look with a nice big scarf. I’m also looking forward to seeing denim used in a non-typical way this fall as well as a return to beautifully constructed coats that are well made and designed to last a long time."

In Michelle's brain, this triggered a thought process which culminated in the utterance, "denim obi!" Oddly enough, the same idea had been bouncing about this illiterati's brain (why don't I read the Times more often?), though I hadn't yet busted out the sewing machine. Thus, out came the denim scraps and now I have a four-panel strip of denim which is about eight feet long and five to six inches wide. 

Enter another problem: How do I pull this off without looking like a girl wearing a pair of pants around her waist?

I will obviously do something to treat the edges of the denim, but will it be a simple once-over hem, or should I use some accent color bias tape? My machine (and needle) can only handle a once-over (that just means that I would fold the denim over once and sew it down--the raw edge of the fabric would still show on the "inside" of the belt, instead of having nice-non-fraying folded fabric--I don't know the technical term for that kind of hem unless "lazy" is technical) hem because the denim would be too thick for it to handle three layers of denim. My machine could handle my ample supply of bias tape, but do I have over 16 feet of bias tape?

I meant in one color, and you know that. *folds arms
So, thoughts? This could be a total bust, but I'm willing to try!

Thoughts on the Sencha

I spent roughly an hour last night looking at the Colette Patterns Flickr page for Sencha inspiration. By and large, I was not thrilled with a number of the products, but I think I figured it out. People were using very busy fabric, which obscures the pretty design features of the pattern, namely the tucks. Here is a picture from the Colette website (via polkadotoverload)

Now imagine 80 billion flowers and garish colors jammed on that. Yeah. Hrm. Well, at least the people who made them were happy with their results; I will attempt a different route.
Unfortunately, that means I'll have to actually acquire some monochromatic fabric--this will be much more difficult (and slow!) than any of us imagined.
Here's another thought, you all can weigh in if you like...what about this top in a translucent gauze? As in, wear-a-camisole-under-it translucent? I might give that a shot in the future.

'50s Party Dress! Sort of

You might remember that at the beginning of June, I was yapping about making a dress to wear to Claire's wedding. Well, her wedding party was on the 19th and I didn't go naked. Behold!

The somewhat '50s party dress, based on another version of Simplicity 2588. I'm pretty happy with the dress all around, there are a lot of "bests" and "betters" tied in with it. For example, the bumps on the back zipper are much closer to non-existent, the zipper is well-installed, I actually used a method to hem the skirt (ganked from Gertie's blog), and I minimized my "winging it" with...some of the more critical parts. Now, if only I could find a belt that really matches it.

See, the bump in the back is way smaller, I think the dress is just a skidge too long for my torso and I need to slash out some of that length. Also, the top of the dress doesn't gap as much as the grey workdress I made. Yes, the bump is still there, but these are the little victories.

Here is something else I'm proud of. I tried on the pieces of the dress when I was stitching up the bodice to see if it was going to fit. It seemed like the dress would not be able to contain my midsection so I ripped out the back darts and made them much shallower and completed the dress from there. The dress was complete and I try it on and...something's not right. The damn thing is approximately one size too large in the midsection. Curses! But! Instead of just leaving it as-was and never wearing it again, I ripped the dress apart and re-installed the darts in their full capacity and--huzzah!--a dress that fits! Go me! I didn't wallow in my mistakes! (Chris might report otherwise, but that is another story.)
So yes, this dress is complete and in time for Make It, Wear It challenge. Whee!

Birthday Party Recap, Fashion Glimpse

The colors of the evening: red, pink, and purple.

Even Chris and Bryce played along
What shoes did you think I would wear?
I say that Vanesa won "Best Outfit" for the night. Sadly, this picture doesn't do her adorable purple dress justice and you can't even see her festive tights, but still...

waste not, want not...or something like that

I find myself really torn between opposing ideologies lately. Part of me desperately wants to buy new clothes now now now! while the other part of me spends far too much time considering the impact new shoes have on the world, the misuse of resources (my personal resources and in the broader sense too) and the waste generated by a constant stream of new clothes, and my general contempt for disposable culture. These feelings are causing me to re-evaluate many decisions I used to take for granted. Namely, it has added a massive amount of guilt to any and every shopping trip.
I've been the same size (more or less) sense high school. With that in mind, I haven't physically outgrown anything for quite some time, but rather have changed my fashion and had to acquire new clothes to accommodate my new style. Fine and dandy, I don't really want to be trotting around in those overalls and flannels any more than you want to see me in them. But aside from that, I've given away more clothes and shoes to the Salvation Army that I HAD to own a year or two earlier and thrown away clothes and tennis shoes that were spent after less than a year of wear. Looking at that waste, I've concluded that I am a rather foolish and impulsive shopper.
If you think about it, how is it that so many clothes are produced each season, each DAY for people to consume? How can we possibly use that much? Stores can't sell all of those clothes generated in wasteful quantities, but that doesn't mean the clothes are going to areas or people of need. Instead, they just generate more and more waste.
With that in mind, I need to make some changes: I need to be smarter with the clothes I already have by taking better care of said clothes, make repairs when possible, make wiser new purchases, and remind myself that we didn't always need so much. Part of this is poverty-induced, I'll give you that--another part of it is wanting to wear things that I can't always find in stores (vintage patterns, eee!). But the other part of me thinks I could better direct that money spent on new (disposable) clothes; like towards travel, owning another dog, good times at the bar with friends, my retirement, bike repairs, transit passes, really awesome food, pictures from my wedding, thrift store clothes that I will magically transform into something awesome, and a general sense of well-being. Oh, and tea. mmm, tea.
Don't worry, I will still shop, just in a less frenzied and ill-advised fashion. I hope.

Reasons I Don't Like Pattern Sewing

After talking with Michelle last week, she convinced me that I should just make something for myself since I had not (successfully) done that for...oh, about a year or more. I took this mission to heart and bought a new pattern and some fabric to make myself something amazingly cute to wear to work--something that looked fabulous and I could say, "This? Oh, I just whipped it up this weekend."
As I indicated in the last post, I was putting on my best "Meticulous Sewer" face and trying to obey 2588's commands. I measured myself and used those numbers to determine what size to use (actually, two sizes--one for the bust and another for the waist and hips--I really wanted this dress to be perfect, which meant it had to fit over the Montana known as my hips), I transferred all of those annoying notches and markings, I read the instructions three+ times, and what do I end up with?

A dress that fits Michelle practically perfectly*. Timber is so upset, he can't even look at her.

Also, take note of the pewter United Nude shoes in front of Michelle. If she weren't wearing the brown belt, those shoes could be rocking with the dress.
*The dress still needs to be hemmed; I like this length a lot, so I'm going to keep it as long as possible. I refuse to put a lining in it. Because I'm lazy.

Precise Measurements

This is what precisely measured fabric pieces look like with all of the markings transferred. Some might argue that when it is one in the morning (as it was when this shot was taken), most people wouldn't care if the markings were transferred or not. But I did, and I wanted to share that I actually followed a pattern's directions for once. Unfathomable, you say!

Here I am, en route to creating something with those precisely cut, accurately transferred markings fabric pieces. We all hold our breath with anticipation! Only Timber and I are holding our breath, really; Olive and Chris don't seem to care.
Here's hoping this dress turns out well! I would hate to have spent so much time fussing with the pattern otherwise. Ideally, I'll have an update (and a finished dress) later today.

CJ's shirt is done!

I actually got it done in time for his birthday last week, but it was seriously great to be done with a project I started at the end of November or so.

It felt so great that I didn't even take any really good pictures of it before I wrapped it up and gave it to him. Hrm.

Anyhow, the idea of the shirt was to make CJ a nice western style shirt, but cooler because...well, I made it. I used the Simplicity pattern #6693, c1974, size 38 (I have the 40, too, just in case he grows). After secretly buying some fabric for this project, Michelle presented the idea of embroidering it. Yes, this shirt was the beginning of the past season's embroidery flurry for us. That took way longer than I thought it would since I was mostly stitching on the bus each day.

All of the embroidered pieces hanging out together.

The inner band of the collar.

After those pieces were done, I was able to start really working on the shirt. Shirts are difficult and the only advice I can offer is that if the pattern has markings you're supposed to transfer, you should transfer them. Big dots, little dots, crocodile mouths, transfer them all. For some reason I never think I need to transfer them, then I have to re-sew the sleeves eight or nine times. But, it worked out well enough in the end.

CJ was nice enough to pose for me today.

The pictures don't really highlight the embroidery at all. That might be because I was kind of in a hurry when I took these and Chris was complaining about the situation being awkward. We'll both work on that.

I intend to make him another shirt, I just don't know when or following what scheme. I have to make myself something first, a task I haven't accomplished in months!

Beth's shirt--Christmas gift

I got the idea for this project from MyMamaMadeIt, specifically the ruffled jersey rosette project. I'm quite pleased with it, I think it is my most successful refashion to-date (apologies to Michelle, recipient of the tranny-top) I found the base shirt at the thrift store a couple of blocks from our house. It is some kind of cotton blend or another. A nice enough shirt, but kind of ho-hum if you ask me.The gathers/ruffles are not jersey in this case, but a polyester type shirt of a slightly brighter red that I cut into strips, sewed up, ruffled, then tacked onto the shirt and (full of frets) sewed onto the complete shirt. It looks really rumpled here because I wrapped it up after I finished but before I remembered that I wanted to take pictures. I get overly excited sometimes.

And here's a close-up of the ruffle once it was sewn on.

Chris voted (and I agreed) to keep the shirt asymetrical and only apply the ruffle to one side. Now I can only hope that Beth wears it!

wow! more quilling!

After I exclaimed "done!" this morning, I started looking at what other people are doing with their paper filigree arts and I happened upon Hila Rawet Karni on "All Things Paper".Hot dog!

Can someone tell me how to do this?