Tag Archives: anthropologie

review // my fabric designs

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Insect dress

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Insect dress

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Insect dress

DSC_0175dress: self-made, pattern (which I hacked) here // shoes: Swedish Hasbeens 

*My Fabric Designs sent me fabric free of cost. All Illustrator work, thoughts, and opinions are my own. Except for the part where I copied the fabric from an Anthropologie dress.

You guys! I  have a fun new hobby. I was contacted by the lovely people at My Fabric Designs about trying out some of their fabric, which works kind of like Spoonflower. You can upload your own print, use prints offered on the site, or make your own print with their design tool, and have it printed on one of the 26 fabrics they offer.

They sent me a swatch booklet that has a swatch of each of the fabrics they offer, each one with some colors and fabric information printed on it. You can snag one of these for $5 and I highly recommend doing so so you can gauge the fabric and print quality before choosing your fabrics.

While they do have some really awesome looking prints, I was most excited about trying to design my own. I use the term “design” very loosely because my first two ideas were copycat projects. You may have seen peeks if you follow me on Instagram.

The first problem I ran into is that I had no idea how to use Illustrator. I watched about 7 Youtube videos and slowly started to figure it out. I also recommend the videos at Lynda.com (for wayy more than just Illustrator too, they have classes on all kinds of stuff). There’s a monthly membership access fee involved, but there are two ways around that. 1) They offer a 10 day free trial. 2) Check to see if your local library has access! Mine does, so I was able to log in on the library-specific Lynda login page with my library card information (NOT on the actual Lynda website).

Another hint: if you have one of the more recent versions of Illustrator (and a computer that can run it), it comes with a patternmaker software where you can really easily make seamless patterns! My 2012 laptop complained a bit but in the end we got through it.

Anyway, I’ve always loved the fabrics used in dresses at Anthropologie so I clicked around for a while until I found this one. I just love how it’s a floral sundress but between the flowers looking like insects and the color scheme, it’s really not overly girly.

Many hours on Illustrator later, I came away with this:

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Pretty spot on, right?? My friend (who STILL has not given me the write-up on her Hunger Games butterfly dress) described it as like insect tea parties, except some of them are left out and lonely.

I also tried another color scheme:

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I ended up ordering the yellow fabric in the Organic Cotton Sateen, and the lilac one in Cotton Poplin. It took a while to get to me due to the whole custom-printing thing; I think this order took about two full weeks. (I’m completely spoiled by Amazon Prime.) I also just received my second order that you may have seen on Instagram that turned out SO BEAUTIFULLY and I’m so excited to share that one.

In terms of the fabric quality, the number one issue I’ve heard of with fabric printing is the colors fading in the wash so the first thing I did was cut off a piece of each fabric and run it through. I used the permanent press cycle on cold and then hung it to dry because that’s how I usually wash my clothes.

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IMG_1425I took these photos while the fabric was still wet, so they look a little odd. They don’t actually look smudgey in real life, just slightly faded.

There was some slight fading, especially with the purple print, but  nothing super noticeable unless you look at it really closely at the original. I want to test it out with more vivid colors too but for these lighter prints I’m happy with the way it came out of the wash. The only thing I wish they had was a zoom feature on the preview screen so you can zoom in on what your fabric is going to look like. I stupidly left the stroke set to the brown color of the flowers so there are thin brown lines that form rectangles all over the fabric. I tried to be strategic with where I put them and I don’t think they look super terrible but I kind of wish I’d been able to zoom in to see that they’d be there. Or that I had thought to check for that in Illustrator. *headdesk*

Onto the sewing! So far I’ve only sewn up the yellow fabric, but holy crap I love this stuff. It’s super soft and drapey and lovely. It’s a bit on the thinner side so I lined the whole dress (with muslin because I’m lazy and have a ton of it lying around for school so why not?). The cotton poplin is much more crisp and it’s absolutely perfect for the other dress I have in mind. More on that later.

I used McCall’s 6740, which I bought a few years ago and couldn’t seem to find the right fabric for. I added a waistline seam by hacking it at the waist, and then drew in yoke lines for the top edges of the cups (~1.25″ wide). I decided to leave out the cup shaping because it seemed too complicated and frankly it looks fine the way it is. To be honest, I probably could’ve found a more accurate pattern to go from but I already had this one and it was already traced so I just went with it. It does need more contouring along the top edge which I’ll definitely fix if I decide to sew this one up again.

The skirt was pretty simple. I just did lots of little pleats until it fit the bodice. Then I made two button plackets and sandwiched the side seams into them and added these cool brown buttons from Joann’s.

 

A wearable hug

Anthro cowlneck

Anthro cowlneck

Anthro cowlnecksweater: self-made, pattern here // pants: Paige denim // glasses: Bonlook // boots: Boutique 9 // headband: Modcloth

I made this sweater ages ago, loved it until it was finished, blocked it, and then hated how it turned out and never wore it. It’s lived in one of those Ikea underbed storage boxes ever since.

I pulled it out again recently and I can’t remember why I hated it so much. It’s super cozy, it’s basically like wearing a hug, and as an added bonus, no long sleeves to get in the way!

Anyway, I love this pattern and I think my former ambivalence toward the finished garment is moreso a reflection of my belief that I can’t pull off this shape. That and the sleeves turned out a little weird after blocking. The pattern itself is based on this Anthropologie sweater and I think the designer did an incredible job matching the original! The only thing that’s different is the cowl: the original has a horizontal cable thingy that looks slightly complicated and honestly kind of odd.

On an unrelated note, is anyone else sewing up an Albion for the Colette sewalong? I’m sooo behind.

PS Thanks for all the well-wishes! I’m finally completely free of the clutches of the plague of doom.

I pricked my finger about eighty times today.

Today a package arrived from my sister, and when I dumped out the contents it looked like an army of tiny cloth ghosts.

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Back story: we’ve both been drooling over fancy Anthropologie/Urban Outfitters duvet covers that we can’t seem to justify doling out $345 for and recently I came across this lovely DIY tutorial.

She doesn’t have her sewing machine with her at school so she cut out all of the squares, sewed the bunchy thing in the middle, and then mailed them to me to sew together.

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It’s kind of a bitch to do but it’s coming along surprisingly quickly. I’m pretty sure this would be tons easier with some sort of quilting tabletop grid thing (my grandma is cringing to herself while she reads that) but so far pinning 60% of the surface and attacking it with a tape measure after every seam seems to work pretty well.

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The finished duvet cover is going to be six squares by six squares, and each sewn square is 15″ x 15″, totalling 90″ x 90″. So far I’ve sewn two rows of six squares together.

Andd she’s agreed to make me another set of squares so I can make my own duvet cover. Seesterly sweatshopish bonding? Yee!

Somehow I’ve also managed to finish all of the body of Georgia and am currently working on one sleeve. I also cast on the back of Hermione McRainbowpants and am about to start armhole decreases, Stockholm is about 2/3 of the way done, and I’m literally about an hour away from finishing the sapphire Damask. I also cleaned out the car, stored all of my crap that I’m not bringing, and finished packing everything (I’m moving across the country on Saturday) except things like toothbrushes and the clothes I’m currently sporting.

I’m fairly certain that my days have suddenly started lasting 30 hours instead of the standard 24.