Wings and Things

It's been a busy week at work, the spring weather is finally showing up a bit! I haven't had a ton of time to work on anything, but here's a bit of  what I've been doing this week.

I think too often I buy really wild fabrics, and end up having to make pretty basically shaped garments out of them, because details would get lost, or be too overwhelming. A few weeks ago, I forced myself to buy some plain, cream cotton to maybe work on something with a more interesting shape.

 

 The idea started with seeing this McQ top with an extended 'flap' over the shoulder. I thought about how to extend the yoke of a shirt to create such a flap, then I started thinking about how it looked like little wings.

So obviously, the answer was to make a shirt with an extended yoke that was a little pair of wings. You can see the altered yoke piece up at the top here. I also had to cut the back armholes a little deeper to compensate for the narrower point where they met the yoke. 

I also made little shaped pockets for the front, just for fun. I used freezer paper like I do with my tiny hand applique to try and get the edges smooth. Worked pretty well, I think.

Attached yoke. The construction was a little weird, had to finish the sleeve hole edges before putting on the yoke. The inside yoke is cut straight across where it joins the body, only the outer one is shaped, like a cowboy-shirt yoke.

 On, I think the wing effect is actually pretty subtle--I was afraid it would be too costumey to wear normally. I promise it doesn't bunch like that normally, I think I accidentally tucked it into my pants.  

From the front, you just get the little 'flaps' like the original shirt. I didn't interface them because I didn't want them super structured, but now I'm think a lightweight interface might have been prudent. I made it pretty cropped, been getting into more unusual shirt proportions lately. 

 Also cut some vanilla short sleeved shirt pieces, just because I've realized I don't have many that I like/like the fit of. I've gained enough muscle at this point that quite a few were just too small and had to go into the donate pile.

 This fabric is so cute, but very busy. I attempted to match the diagonal stripes up at the center front and back (I cut two back pieces, rather than one on a fold) so we'll see how that goes.

In drop-crotch shorts news, when I took out my summer clothes from under the bed, I realized I had a few nice, drapey, oversized tees. I like this one particularly with them. I've also started making a few more pairs of weird pants/shorts, but no pictures yet.

Knocking Off

Retail 'seasons' are so misleading. We're getting in tons of sandals at work, and it's got me all excited about spring clothing, despite knowing I've got a few months before it's really going to warm up. A brief two days of 50 degree weather also helped to fool me! But we've got snow in the forecast tomorrow, so it's back to reality. Oh well, doesn't stop me from making some new things to tuck away for warmer days.

 I've been seeing in a lot of stores a sort of 'jogger style' jeans, like these:

 Which in theory sounds awesome and comfortable. I decided to see if I liked the look with a pair of old jeans I had which weren't getting much wear.

I just popped an elastic cuff on these 511s. It sort of worked, but the pants are pretty tight and close to the ankle so it wasn't quite the look (not that I won't wear these still)

 

 So attempt #2, I bought a pair of size 42/30 weird acid washed old lady jeans. I recut them to my "loose short" pattern, widening it at the waist a bit. Ripped off the pockets, put new ones on, then an elastic waistband.

 I originally tried to put elastic cuffs on the bottom, but it just wouldn't come out quite right. I think part of the reason is that my calves are pretty large and the elastic gets caught up on it, it doesn't look right. Anyway, I just did a curved hem, a bit like athletic shorts.

So still not quite the look I want, but closer. I think I'm going to have to scout out some yardage, this sort of thing is hard to remake from other clothing because you need to start with a very big garment to squeeze the recut out of. They sort of look like these shorts, which were also on my 'rip off' list, although I think they are knit:

And lastly,

Not exactly an impressive reconstruction, but I did resize that gold lame shirt. Now I have a pretty perfect gold t-shirt. I managed to re-cut the shoulder area so it was less of a boat neck and more of a crew neck. One downside though--the fabric is weirdly warm to wear.

Now I'm back on a Dear Jane kick. Didn't get much done this weekend because it was filled with pro-wrestling, but I have a good schedule this week and my shoulder's bugging me again, so my workouts are cut a bit short, so I should be getting in some good sewing time.

New Materials

So my tacky baroque print shirt is nearly done. All that's left is buttons and button holes...which I've been known to put off for weeks and weeks. Hopefully it won't be that long. At least it's a short sleeve shirt, so I probably won't be yearning to wear it any time soon. Pretty pleased with the fit overall, and my 'fussy cutting' of the pattern worked pretty well.

 A month or so ago, I found a very 70's polyester button down with this amazing print. It was in kinda rough shape, one of the button holes was torn and the cuffs were frayed but it was $2 so I bought it anyway and it's been sitting on my fabric rack since. I decided to try and make a tank top out of it. The two front pieces were sewn together to form the back , and the large back piece (There was no yoke on this, you can see it's a one piece collar too) became the front. Despite no serger access I think it came out pretty well.  It's a little bit of squeeze getting my head through the neck though.

Now that I've got some respectable guns I feel like it's going to be a summer full of tank tops. Well, that and the fact that I'm hot all the time.

 I also got some materials from the thrift store the other day. The gold lame shirt I think will just get sized down, I've always wanted a gold t-shirt! The elastic mom jeans are hopefully destined to become something like the comfy jean/sweatpant hybrids I've been seeing around.

 The bottom picture is, from top left- white sheeting, bird-and-flower sheeting, some misc. fabric I already had in the middle, then two XL collared shirts, a mint and a gray to be cut up for fabric. Hoping out of this assortment I get 3-4 summer shirts. Didn't find any heavier weight fabric for shorts/pants this time around.

Stretching Out

Ohhhh boy did I wait too long to update. Get ready for a lot of pictures! I think getting a smartphone has been detrimental to the blog's updating schedule because I get too focused on twitter/tumblr/instagram and forget that I'm not also posting updates here. Hopefully now that the novelty is wearing off I'll do better. 

So, when last we left the pile of old bathing suits, I had made a few nine-patches. A bunch more followed--in fact way too many, I have a lot left over now! Here I'm lying them out and taking a look at sashing. I wasn't sure about the sashing initially, but I'm glad I went with it. Now I needed a pattern!

These ridiculous shorts came from the thrift store, and I've loved them for working out and running, Tracing them out was a pain with the elastic waist, but I managed to stretch them out and tape them to the floor to do it. 

My latest thrift store run netted me this thick cotton plaid and this leopard spandex. I decided to use the leopard as a test run for my shorts pattern before messing around with my ninepatches. 

It came out quite well! I used another scrap of Hawaiian print bathing suit for the waist band, because why not? It was, like the original shorts, a little high-waisted, so I cut the waist down a bit on the pattern. 

Ok, ok, I know they look a little weird and wrinkled like this, just wait, they stretch out and look much better down the page when I put them on! But can I just say I'm tickled pink that the patterns match up pretty nicely? I wasn't even really hoping for that, but the patches were just about the perfect size to meet in sashing in the center seams.

Back. Next time around though, I will make them slightly longer so I get a full block on top, and the sashing forms the waist band. 

And they are actually reversible! There are so many seams from the patchwork, they definitely needed to be lined, or else they'd be really uncomfortable. I don't have access to a coverstitcher (on my short list of things to save up for) so I had to improvise with finishing techniques, and  full lining worked out well. 

See? Once on, all (well, most) of the weird wrinkling/rippling goes away! Hoping with more practice on a serger I'll get smoother seams.  And they are actually quite comfortable, a little thicker than normal shorts, but they still stretch just as well, and feel very sturdy. 

For laughs I decided to use the rest of the floral material to see if I could work out a singlet pattern. I just sort of stuck a tank top shape on top of the shorts pattern, I think next time around I'll add a side seam so I can get some more coverage around the arm/neck hole. I didn't really bother finishing this, it was a just a tester, so ignore all the nasty edges. 

Ridiculous. 

In non-spandex news:

Took a regular XL thrift store sweatshirt, re-cut it to my size. 

Then, I traced a quilted pattern onto tracing paper, and basted it onto the sweatshirt, with a backing fabric behind it. I then quilted it directly through the tracing paper. The tracing paper then gets torn away as I finished. 

Finished quilting on the inside, you can see the back fabric here. Sadly, I didn't take an pictures of this process, but I then ran thick yarn through the 'channels' I'd quilted to create a raised quilting. This, if I'm remembering correctly is sometimes called Italian or Corded Quilting. 

Closeup on the quilting. 

Then, of course, I sewed the sleeves and body back together! One of my favorite 'wearable' pieces I've made lately. I've already worn it a few time this week, it's perfect weather for it right now. 

And this is just in it's beginning stages, but a new shirt is coming together! Finally cutting into this paisley/plaid fabric. 

Finishing Touches!

Where have I been?! My computer's been very on-the-fritz, I think the battery is starting to go--so I've been using my shiny new smartphone more, and I think it distracted me a bit from posting on here. The computer's still broken, but the novelty has begun to wear off on the phone, so hopefully I keep up here more.

As the seasons are changing over I've been going through my shelves and realizing there were a lot of projects that were almost-but-not-quite finished, so I went through and  hemmed all the bottoms, bought snaps and jean post-buttons and attached them.

Added buttons to a bunch of things! I had just been wearing the shorts with a belt. So far I've also done the button hole on the floral shorts. 

Finally got pearl snap on my floral western shirt. I was stuck between seafoam green and purple, I think I made the right pick. 

And I did actually wear this today--finally!

Also used up some fabric that had been lying around--you saw a bit of this vest in the first picture:

Playing around with patterns to make a shawl collar. I think the collar actually came out well, but I'm not as pleased about the fit around the armholes/shoulder. Still wearable and comfy though. 

Also did my first welt pockets, not as scary as I thought. Much more confident to try them in the future. Used a really lovely, but smallish piece of wool crepe I had lying around to line it. This guy still needs buttonholes though. 

Also made another pair of pants to follow up my camo ones. No picture of them on yet, I need to iron them. I *did* however put a button and buttonhole on these! I didn't have quiteeee enough of the plaid to make a full pair of pants, so I supplemented with some denim. 

I like the effect visually, but as you can probably see here, there was some rippling going on, I think because of the difference in weight between the two fabrics. 

Did a few more Dear Jane Blocks. I accidentally skipped a page, so my Row G hasn't gone in order. That top one was a pain with all those curves. 

Begun sketching out some ideas for a varsity-style jacket to use up some wools. I wanted to do a reverse applique motif on the chest and back, not sure exactly what the imagery will be yet. 

Testing out the reverse applique, I think I like the backstitched style better than the basted-than-buttonhole stitched. It also saves me a step. These are the fabrics for the finished jacket, a thick, felted/boiled wool in dark teal, and a very fuzzy, brushed wool that might be mohair? I need to find a lining fabric for this, as well as figure out what I want to use for the cuffs, waistband and collar. 

Clearing the Shelves

Finally done with Summer Institute. It's a lot of fun, and I had a great group of kids, but it's nice to have some more down time. I've begun trying to use up some of the shelves of fabric that I keep accumulating. Not materials for 'work-work' just the junk I pick up at thrift stores and forget about.

To the end I finally got around to making something with the camo fabric I bought a few months ago. I've been seeing tons of camo pants in stores right now, so I figured I might as well give 'em a try. With each new 'regular clothing' project, I'm going to try to learn a new technique. This time around, it was a turn up contrast cuff.

I quite like the way the fit came out on these, I used my 'looser/lower crotch' modified shorts pattern then tapered the leg on them. They are a little higher-waisted than I normally wear, but I think as I wear them, they will stretch a bit and slouch down. 

And the turn-up cuffs, I thought a dainty little floral print would set off the camo pattern a little bit. You can roll them up or leave them down.  Next time I would taper the leg opening slightly less, because they're a bit tight on my calves when rolled up right now. I also have a little bit of an odd problem with the seam twisting around to the front, which was present in the original Levi's I based the pants pattern off of. I might try and correct that by moving the inseam around a bit to the front on the next pair. 

Fabric number two to get used up was a cute yellow floral twill from the thrift store. There wasn't a whole lot of it--not enough for shorts or a jacket, so I decided to use my jean-jacket pattern to make a sleeveless version. I quite like my little jean-vest! I need to buy some more snaps for the front though. Also tried a new way of attaching the one-piece collar, and it's probably the neatest looking collar I've done yet. 

Admission time though, can you tell what I screwed up? I put the bottom band on upside down. Didn't care enough to rip it off and redo though. 

Ahh, but look at my perfect french seams and nice bias finishing on the armhole!

And finally, something more nerdy-dumb-wrassling related. I found this awful, awful fabric at the thrift store, and knew it was perfect for a tribute to one of my favorite new guys in NXT, Enzo Amore. A Bonafied-G and a Certified Stud, and most certainly not SAWWWWWFT.