Tag Archives: dresses

Accidental Sashiko

Sashiko dress

Sashiko dress

Sashiko dress

Sashiko dress

Sashiko dress

There’s a funny story behind this dress. Several months ago I got one of those “Here are all the things your stash needs!” emails from Fabric.com and one of the fabrics pictured caught my eye. I forget the designer (I want to say Robert Kaufman but I might be lying) but it was this beautiful chambray with lines of thread running through it. I immediately thought of fun, simple, rustic-looking summer dresses. Except they were sold out of it in like five minutes because holy crap it was beautiful. The idea of those summer dresses stuck in my head though, so after I took Copying RTW and made the flower-picking dress pattern, I decided maybe I should make my own stitched fabric. By hand.

Meanwhile, I had also come across Japanese-style mending on Pinterest, which if you aren’t familiar with, you should check out immediately because it makes me want to “mend” all of my clothes, regardless of state of wear and tear.

Anyway, those two ideas squashed together and I grabbed some cotton crochet thread and the needle with the fattest eye I could find and started stitching away at the two yards of gorgeous cotton chambray I picked up at Stone Mountain and Daughter.

It took.. forever. At least two seasons of Arrow. (salmon ladder ftw)

When I was about 86% done, I showed it to a friend, who said “Oh! Are you doing sashiko?” My response was “No, I’m just stitching.” When I was about 92% done, I showed a photo of it to another friend, who said “I can’t believe you’re sashiko-ing your own fabric!” It was around then that I figured I should probably look up what sashiko was. Whoops. And then around 95% completion, a third friend recommended a sashiko needle, which I didn’t even know existed. And lastly, when I showed up in my pants drafting class (taught by Lynda Maynard, who had also taught the Copying RTW class), Lynda started telling me all about her sashiko machine.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that this took forever and I need to look into different needle types because I also didn’t know that beading needles exists. But that’s a whole other embarrassing story.

 

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Finicky

***I added a Copycat Challenge page to the header linky area! Prizes are listed and I’ll be adding entrants photos/blog links there as we get them so email us your photos whenever you’re ready!***

If anyone follows my Sewing Inspiration board on Pinterest, I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are projects by the buttload on my to-do list. There are some that I pinned just because I liked one detail of it, some that I may want to copy someday, and some that Ineedtomakeimmediatelylikerightnow. So when Erin and I were discussing organizing another Copycat Challenge, I had a minor moment of panic when I realized I had to pick only a few projects to do for the challenge. I ended up just choosing the three that I had most recently bought fabric for, and was most excited to dive into.

Except then two weeks went by and all I’ve done is cut out a bodice for one, tape/cut a pattern for another, and purchase a pattern that *may* work for the back of the third. Motivation? Hello? Where did you go?

And suddenly there are all these other projects screaming out to me!

aviation
As much as I love flouncy skirts, sometimes I feel a little ridiculous at work. This is cute and more subtle!

corey-lynn-calter-in-love-with-life-dress-profile_large
Ignoring previous flouncy skirt comment, Boyfriend and I were watching New Girl and I saw this dress again and now I need it. I may have ordered a black bow applique from eBay.

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I pinned this dress ages ago and found the most perfect linen rayon blend in a gorgeous minty blue and it’s been just sitting on my shelf ever since.

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I think I pinned this dress around the time I discovered Pinterest. Last week I finally finished my remake of Favorite Dress That Shrank, and was debating making another one in a different color. I had found the perfect heavy knit fabric at the fabric store in red and I realized yesterday when going through my old pins that I could totally re-make the same tank dress and just add a white collar to it!

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I have no explanation for this but I think I need a jumper. I blame Katie from Skunkboy for being so damn adorable. It just seems like the perfect summer dress!

The moral of the story is that I need to stop online shopping and start sewing.

 

PS Like my new social media icons? I got bored of the old ones so I drew new ones. I think they’re fun.

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Copycat Challenge!!

Copy Cat Challenge 2

So as you all possibly may have gleaned from the endless copycat posts, I absolutely love designing garments from things I have seen. Usually on a tv show or in a movie and immediately want to recreate it. Maybe I never grew out of playing dress-up. Who knows?

Anyway, the lovely Erin from I Heart Fabric and I will be hosting a Copycat Challenge starting next week and lasting throughout the summer, or winter depending on where you are in the world. If you haven’t already checked out the submissions from Erin’s latest Copycat Challenge, you should! People made some gorgeous stuff over there.

The rules are pretty simple.

  1. Choose a garment as your inspiration. Make sure you reference it and acknowledge where you found it. Pick several if you want!
  2. Make it the way you want with your own touch and style.
  3. Blog about it! Tell us what pattern(s) you used, what inspired you about the item you chose, how you styled it, whatever you want!
  4. If you don’t have a blog and want to participate, send us an email and we’ll add it to the submissions post for you.

Of course, to make it extra exciting, there will be a prizes drawn at the end. We will explain how we will choose the winners in an upcoming post and hopefully have a few categories. Each finished garment will count for an extra entry and be judged seperately so don’t limit yourself!

Start thinking of what you’d like to make, look around for fabric, and think of patterns you would like to use. Erin and I will be posting on our individual processes, as well as tips we find helpful as we go along.

We will run this challenge from today until the 30th September 2013 so that’s almost three months to create some unique, fun and creative stuff!

Please contact us if you’d like to participate! Or post a comment below.

Pings Inspiration Outfits

These are the projects I’ve chosen. I can’t decide if I’m being overly ambitious or if I’ll finish these in a week and then twiddle my thumbs for the rest of the summer.

  1. I absolutely adore everything Jess wears on New Girl, but this dress is basically the most adorable thing ever.
  2. If I’m hosting a copycat challenge, a Dear Creatures dress for my inspiration is basically obligatory.
  3. Still on the fence about Clara. Still obsessed with her wardrobe. This outfit is from the 50th anniversary episode, which hasn’t actually aired yet (November 23 wheeee!), but luckily it’s available here to be closely examined.

For more inspiration please see my Pinterest board.

Erins Inspiration Outfits

  1. Victora Beckham Slim fitting white and black dress from my Pinterest board.
  2. Long sleeve DVF shirt with bow again from my Pinterest board. This top looks very similar to a Vogue top I have been wanting to make!
  3. I found this Alannah Hill ‘The Secret Of Secrets Coat’ on pinterest which I really want to use as inspiration. Also, the BurdaStyle handbook has a really cute jacket which I have been dying to make!

For more inspiration on Erin’s outfits please see her Pinterest Board.

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Brainstorm

Birthday celebrations are happening this Friday and I’ve been doing that thing where I suddenly hate everything in my closet.

But today I got an idea!

I bought this pattern the other day:

And then I saw this on Pinterest.

So now I want to make the Burda dress in black, but with a shorter skirt and with horsetail braid in the hem to make it swishy.

And definitely with the bow!

*Neither of these images is mine, and they both link to the original owners.

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Clutter

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A few months ago I bought a cork board thinking it would be a great way to organize and display sewing inspirations and dress designs I wanted to make. I have a few sketchbooks but sometimes I forget about projects I wanted to work on if they’re not right in front of my face.

Anyway, then life got busy and my desk got cluttered and I started pinning all kinds of random junk like receipts and movie ticket stubs to my cork board. Not so pretty.

The other day I received a new order of fabric (yee!) and added it to the mountain of fabric I bought while at home and suddenly felt overwhelmed and not sure which project to start with. I decided to go through and cut a swatch of each and then draw a simple sketch with notes for each one, kind of like a catalogue. (This is only a quarter of the fabrics I have to go through..) When projects are done, I’m going to take them off the board and collect them in a small notebook.

I love the way it looks now! Plus, my brain feels so much better.

*In other news, welcome to the nearly completed new layout! I added a contact page with an email form and am still working on small edits here and there. I’m also not quite sure why photos aren’t showing up on previous post previews but have been trying to fix them one by one.

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