Tag: skirt

Why I Sew: The Long Version
Crafty · Life Posts · Sewing

Why I Sew: The Long Version

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello all! One of the prompts for Me Made May from Sew Sew English on Instagram was “Why I Sew,” and it really got me thinking. I sew for a lot of different reasons, but I think they all come down to creativity and love. It’s also an outlet for the stress of my job and a way for me to make sure there’s beauty in the world, despite the trauma. Clothing that fits is also a plus, of course.

My Grandma Shirley and my Mom taught me to sew, but it was my Grandma that I sewed with more. We would attend the quilt group at church together and she made her grandkids quilts. I have sweet memories of her whenever I sew something that she would be proud of. The shoe is one of her pincushions. 🙂 She would be very proud that I’m working with stash fabric and trying to use all the scraps.

I made this shirt over the weekend and think that it’s the best thing I’ve made so far.

It fits me so well and I feel lovely in it. I added a band of antique lace to the bottom hem and the sleeve bands, which I pulled from my stash.

It’s a knit; rayon spandex, I think, from Joann’s. It was one of my birthday haul fabrics. The pattern is the Anges tunic from Halla Patterns. I love it and will need to make a bunch. It hits at just the right length and doesn’t make me look or feel huge.

Here’s another reason I sew:

So I can make my own fancy leggings! Although with shipping, these may not be cheaper than I can find them for online, I take great pride in knowing I can make my own. I have sewing machine leggings.

I had enough fabric left over to make a pencil skirt, arguably the most comfy skirt I own.

How fun is that? I’m going to pair it with a lovely black sweater for the Dita Von Tease show on Thursday. 🙂 Stars for the star!

I also made the most of my maxi skirt scraps by making a super cozy yoke for my new pj pants.

I bought this knit at the discount fabric store a few years ago, specifically for yoga pants and finally made them! They are very comfy. I have enough of the polka dots to make cuffs, but can’t decide if I want them cuffed or not.

This dress is also fabric that I bought many years ago intending on making an infinity dress out of it.  I would have only had enough for the skirt part, so I made this new knit dress pattern out of it instead.

Sadly, I missed all the time related puns while posting it.. “Time to sew, etc.” It’s secret pajamas. I enjoyed putting it together, although about halfway through, I was nervous that it wouldn’t work.  I finished it about 30 minutes before leaving for work.

I do have to remind myself that I’ve got some older projects to work on too, but these are so much fun! Most of it has been stash fabric too, so I’m using that up.

It’s been interesting to evaluate my clothes as I try to think of what to wear. There’s a huge pile of skirts on my bed reminding me that even my early self-made clothes weren’t always the right fit (pun intended.) Luckily, knowing that I can take them apart and fix it is helping me be less discouraged.

Another benefit of sewing is that I’ve been inspired by so many people and clothes from around the world! Everyone has their own style, even with the same pattern. The lace on my first shirt, for example. I’ve seen a couple different patterns paired with the fabric, but none had lace like mine. Who knows? Maybe I’ll inspire someone else to try something different with a pattern!

Hopefully I’ve inspired you to try something new this week!

Back to the Sewing Machine!
Sewing

Back to the Sewing Machine!

LSiehLeave a comment

Now that the busyness of the holidays is over, I can finally get back to my own sewing goals. Fancy’s picture pretty much shows how I feel after all of it is done.

My fairytale fabrics came in the mail and I have them washed and the patterns that I think I will use have been pulled. I have a few more details on the dress to work out, but the shirt should be pretty straight forward. That’s probably my next project.

While waiting for the fabrics to get washed, I made a simple elastic waisted skirt. I’ve actually talked about this fabric before. It was a birthday fabric purchase, I believe.

It has pockets, but they sit oddly and things fall out when I sit down. I self-drafted, which is really a fancy way of saying I didn’t measure… It’s possibly a little too heavy of a fabric to be in this style, but I think it’s cute. I wore it yesterday with a sweater, leggings and boots.

I also worked on the Rainbow Chevron quilt. I now have all the strips sewn together and it needs to be ironed and trimmed.

As we all know my feelings about ironing, I’m sure you can understand that I have to break that up into smaller bits. Plus, when I finished it, it was bedtime.

It’s draped over a 4 foot folding table, if that gives you an idea of scale. I don’t know how long it is in inches, but each strip is five of the rainbow patterns long. It will have a black border around it, probably about 6 inches to match the strips.

I also made more tea wallets. They’ve been selling on Etsy and I had black thread loaded on the machine and bobbin. These four were from my UFO box, waiting to be finished.

I try to remember to check for tea wallets when I switch thread colors. It’s super annoying to load half a bobbin, just for those.

Speaking of UFOs, while I was thinking about what to sew for clothes, I finished a bag from the box. If I can sew just a few things from the UFO box between big projects, I should be able to hopefully make a dent in it.

The Husband had to remind me that I probably shouldn’t keep all the bags. “Other people need cute bags too,”or so he says. I think he just wants my stash out of the house.

But it’s books! 🙂

Since I had brown thread loaded, I finished up the entire stack of brown tea wallets. I have broken my rule about not making multiple things with the same fabrics with tea wallets. I bought 1/4 yard pieces to make the wallets for Hawthorne and Vine and Etsy. This batch has three fall leaf ones, but they all have different inside fabrics.

I ran out of time before bed to tie and clip the strings. I’ll post another picture of the insides when they are completely done. That’s another step I have to do in batches. It drives me batty if I have to do them all at once. While I was looking for these, I found a stack of spring ones that need strings and buttons too, so I’ll have a tying marathon soon.

Tonight, I may try to cut out my castle blueprint shirt. I managed to catch the fabrics before they got wrinkly in the dryer and can maybe sew it tomorrow.

Fancy is being crazy dog and playing catch with herself and one of her treat dispenser toys. It’s pretty cute. I should probably go give her some more attention. Poor thing thinks she never gets enough.

Have a good night!

More Crafty Organization
Crafty

More Crafty Organization

LSiehLeave a comment

I made a skirt! I finally got around to using my gift certificate for a new fabric store that I received from my in-laws at Christmas and it was glorious.

I’m very inspired and the ladies there were so nice. The store is also trying to start a garment sewing guild and I am excited about the possibility of learning how to do things properly. I think it will force me to start reconsidering cutting corners and will be a good place to learn the things that I’m struggling with learning out of books.

I got clothes fabric there, as I’m trying to use mostly scraps for quilts, but I did find a cute fabric with inspirational quotes that will be a pillow for my new office.

This skirt is made from one of the fabrics I bought. Batiks are my weakness. I can’t seem to pass them up. You’ll see more of them, I’m sure.

The skirt has an elastic waistband and two in seam pockets. It had the same hexagons on both sides of the fabric, so I split it down the middle, added a casing for the elastic, gathered the skirt around the elastic and sewed it up. Since I used the selvege edges, I didn’t even have to hem it.

It is a full yard of fabric, so it’s very poofy and it seems to wrinkle quite a lot. I wore it twice, and didn’t want to iron any messy things in it, so that’s why it’s so wrinkly in the pictures. It’s also quite saucy in wind. I’ll probably always wear this with full leggings or shorts, as I don’t trust it to stay well-behaved. It’s much brighter in real lighting. It has yellow, pink, blue, and purple in it.

I have plans to make two more skirts, a tunic style shirt, and two dresses from the other fabrics.

The green one in the picture changes colors from green to blue in different lights. There was exactly 2 yards of it left, so I think it will have to be a simple sleeveless shift dress, but I think it will be a good summer dress. I may end up making it into a tunic, or adding a contrasting band on the bottom if I can’t fit the pattern on it.  I’m not normally glad that I’m short, but in this case, I’ll take it. One of the ladies at the quilt store was very jealous that I was buying the last of the bolt.

In other crafty news, while I was waiting for my new fabrics to wash, I finished my fat quarter trunk project. All the fat quarters are now neatly sorted and in their own boxes. I might need to find bigger boxes for some of them, if I find anymore of the colors, but they are all done and it looks nice.

It’s not the perfect solution, but it’s getting better. I won’t get any sewing done today, most likely, as I work until late. My birthday is tomorrow though and after my one appointment in the morning, I am free to sew away!

I have plans to make the middle lighter blue fabric into a sundress. It has an ombre effect from light blue to dark blue and if I can get it done in time, I can wear it to my birthday dinner! I’ll be sure to post pictures when it’s done.

It felt good to sew again and I’m spending some time re-ordering my priorities. I really need to finish the wedding quilts I owe people, so I think that I am going to make a push to get those done first, with a sprinkling of new projects in there as well.

Now I have to go get the dog back inside before I leave for work. We have a fenced in yard and lately she has been very interested in napping in the sunny driveway. She tends to give me a look when I suggest that she come in that’s very similar to this one:

Wish me luck!