I’m so excited to FINALLY post this, considering I finished it back in April! Last year’s mystery fabric contest was cocktail themed, and I ended up with some light blue cotton sateen and THE most horrendous crunchy aqua/teal lace that didn’t match at all. It was seriously awful.
At first I fell in love with this design and tried to emulate it.
Here are some variations I draped.
It kept looking too Renaissance Fair-esque and less ballet-y, so I abandoned that idea. Then I saw these dresses and ran off in an entirely different direction.
I tried dying the blues to go together a little better, which kind of helped. And then I kind of embraced the contrast. And THEN I started watching Gotham while I worked on the dress, which is why it kind of looks like something you’d wear to a cocktail party at Arkham. Oops? I feel like it needs a top hat to complete the look.
Brief breakdown of the construction process:
The bodice is comprised of a couple layers, including boning. All of the beading and 3D flowers were attached by hand, and I did most of it before I attached the skirt. The skirt is a top layer of my favorite dress up micronet (same stuff I used on my Cinderella dress), and then 3 skirt layers in the same colors of organza as my Cinderella dress. What can I say? I really like that iridescent look it gives off. I basically gathered the circle skirts and attached them to the bodice, and then kept the flowers/beading running down past the waist seam to mostly hide it.
The hilarious thing? ALL of those dressed I posted above are by Paolo Sebastian. A closer look at my main “pretty fancy dresses” board on Pinterest revealed that like 80% of it is Paolo Sebastian’s. And so is the design I fell in love with that I’m heavily basing my wedding dress on. Oops.
And no, I haven’t a clue when I’ll have a chance to wear this. But it was SO much fun to make (after the initial WHAT THE EFF AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS??@!!@!!1 panic).
Bonus: I won first place!
Holy crap it’s been a long time since I blogged. I had JUST gotten settled into a routine at our new apartment and had just found a couple great spots for blog photos… and then we got a puppy. I had literally pulled everything out of my closet that morning with plans to add in shelving and finally reorganize my clothes and sewing supplies. In the midst of this, we were perusing the pets section of Craiglist (as one does..) and came across two fluffy little cuties that happened to be a couple streets away.
Let’s just see what happens.. we said. Shocking that we ended up with one. Joking aside, she’s the absolute sweetest. I’ve tried to keep my Instagram feed to sewing-related things, but there’s a string of story highlights (what are those even called?) featuring Miss Chloe Goose.
Anyway, puppy management plus winter sunset hours plus full time job made it super hard to find time for sewing, much less actually photographing anything. BUT recently I finally bought a FLASH. It’s been life-changing. It’s
this one, if anyone is interested. It’s super easy to use and works amazingly well. There aren’t many areas in our apartment that are decent for photos, hence the boring background. At least it’s well lit!
Other life updates, THIS HAPPENED.
Excuse me while my brain explodes trying to settle on a SINGLE wedding dress design. Just kidding, I’ve already decided I’m making multiple dresses.
Anyway, in my super limited sewing time this past year, I’ve managed to squeeze a couple projects in, including this Eliot sweater and these jeans.
I adore the high-low top looks, and the Eliot sweater is seriously the perfect amount of high-low. I made the one with the larger cowl too, which is super cozy. The fabric is from
Stone Mountain and is so lovely. It was upstairs in a discount bin so I’m not entirely sure what’s in it but it’s kind of a slubby French terry that I sewed slubs out, and feels like there’s some nylon in it? I should burn some and find out. I bought enough for a second top, which I think I want to use to make a second cowl-less Eliot.
The jeans are not that exciting, except that I haven’t had pants that fit in over a year and have been living primarily in leggings. Whoops. These are the same skinny jean draft I drafted in Lynda Maynard’s pants class. I did screw up the back waistband a bit, and it’s definitely not the prettiest fly front I’ve ever sewn, but the fabric is scrumptious and they fit so well. The denim is also from Stone Mountain (
this one I think??), and is super stretchy and soft. Fortunately I bought enough for a second pair so hopefully those will be prettier.
Anyway, I have some posts lined up that I’ve been wanting to share. So excited to be blogging again!
top: Linden by Grainline // jeans: Jamie by Named
I can’t remember where I got the idea for this top specifically, but I think it was around the time I discovered hi-low tops and immediately decided I needed an altered Linden. I’ve made a whole bunch of these at this point (both as drafted and with the hi-low bottom), and adding length is pretty straightforward so it was quick, fun project.
I just eliminated the waistband and added 6″ of length to the front and 10″ to the back. I basically wanted it to be a decently dramatic difference in length without looking like a backwards loincloth.
In order to hem the square bit on the bottom, I clipped the seam at the point where the front and back seam ends and serged from the armpit up until that clip. Then I spread and ironed the individual front and back hems.
I also love the look of lace on the shoulders so I dug through my bag of Weston Wear lace samples and found this cream colored one. The fabric itself is a organic cotton and hemp blend from Stone Mountain and Daughter. They have it in several colors and I’ve been eyeing the charcoal for months. I think it’d make an adorable Julia cardigan. Or anything snuggly, really.
ALSO just wanted to sneak in a quick plug for the Fig + Needle Sewing Planner sheets that we just released yesterday! We’ve made planner sheets with two different figure sizes and they include a space for sketching, a box for listing supplies, and a blank box for fabric swatches or extra notes. Here’s one I drew up for this top!
Hop on over to Fig + Needle for more details and to snag a copy!
Coat: Yuzu size 38 // pants: Jamie jeans
I’m quickly becoming a Waffle Patterns fangirl. First there was the Tosti jacket that fit me perfectly with zero alterations, now it’s this wonderful wonderful coat.
I had originally imagined it in an oatmeal color, but the only oatmeal wool I could find seemed like it might be too loose a weave. Then I magically happened upon some black boiled wool and black cotton flannel in the “free stuff” pile at school and it seemed like it was meant to be. All I had to buy was some Bemberg rayon for the lining and 6 gigantic buttons.
Maybe this is a remnant of living through four Boston winters, but I wanted this coat to be gigantic and heavy and warm. I cut some scraps of the wool, muslin, and black flannel, and overlapped them in different combinations to decide how to underline it. I ended up going with black flannel underlining on all the pieces except the collar and front overlapping pieces. Those were underlined with muslin because I wanted the collar to be a bit softer and I thought two layers of cotton flannel plus four layers of boiled wool over my boobs sounded excessive.
I also looved the flap pocket option Yuki added. They were pretty easy to put together too! I made thread chain “leashes” at the bottom edge of the pockets that attach them to the bottom of the coat so they don’t wander. I also decided to add inside lining pockets by basically cutting that lining piece in half and adding seam allowances and a pocket bag into the seam. I had meant to only do it on one side but was on autopilot and cut two layers of fabric so I figured, why not both sides?
Anyway, I’ve been living in this thing. It goes with dresses as well as jeans, and is so easy to just throw on. I think I do still need an oatmeal version.
How many coats is a normal and acceptable amount of coats? Asking for a friend..
jeans: self-drafted // sweater: hand-knitted
These are the jeans I drafted for my pants drafting class!
I’m so so thrilled with these jeans. The only jeans pattern I’d tried before were the Jamie jeans by Named, which I adored, but only after I made tons of changes to the fit, by which point the legs were totally offgrain and the inseam would be pointing outward. Plus, even though I now know how to fix the fit properly, it’s always nice to have a pattern for plain, simple jeans. They definitely worked, but not ideal. I now have a basic pant draft from which I made a basic jean draft (which has basically no ease because let’s be honest, I’m usually dressed like a sausage. Or a cupcake).
This is round 2 of tweaking this pattern and I’m pretty happy with the way these jeans turned out! I used the same book and same pants draft I used for my overalls: . Once I get everything properly tweaked, my plan is to make like three pairs of skinnies and then a pair or two of flares or bootcut jeans. So far for my wearable muslins I’ve been using a really shitty stretch denim I got at Sewfisticated in Boston. It’s just kind of crunchy-feeling and the recovery really doesn’t last that long. It’s only $2.50/yard though so it makes perfect muslins and then I can just wear them until they wear out a few months later.
For this nicer pair, I bought a scrumptious stretch denim at Stone Mountain and Daughter in Berkeley that took me like a week to build up the courage to cut into. It’s just so soft and buttery and makes me do a happy dance. I think I have enough for another pair of skinny jeans, or at least a pair of shorts, and I’m thinking I’ll need to go back and pick up some more for the flares.
All the jeans!
