Luck o' The Irish

Happy... Friday? Yup, it's Friday. Sorry about yesterday - I've been a bit under the weather lately so I wasn't in much mood to sew, so this one is going to be a bit of a throwback.

I started out with this green garment that I didn't know what to call it. Dress? Not really. Cover up? Not so much. I still am at a loss of adjectives for this one.

This was long, large and not very flattering, but a perfect green to ring in St. Patrick's Day. Plus, it had the most amazing back to it!

At first, I thought about just sewing up the button front and making an actual dress of it. However, I just couldn't see a seam up the middle of my stomach/chest being flattering, so I had to go another way of it. I decided to take away a lot of the fabric in order to put more emphasis on the crocheted back.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no pictures of this process, so I'll have to go at this the Kindergarten way and "use my words". First thing I did was cut the bottom just above the fourth button and then hemmed the bottom. Because the fabric was a bit stretchy, I went around the bottom hem twice. I then cut the sleeves off to 3/4 sleeves. I realized at this point that the fabrci wasn't fraying, ripping or destroying itself in any other way without an actual hem, so I decided to leave the sleeves with raw edges. As I planned on scrunching them up anyway, no one would notice if they were slightly uneven. (Which they didn't. Or, at least, no one pointed and laughed.)

And that's it! It was pretty easy, peasy and a great cardigan for St Patrick's Day. I got a lot of compliments on the back now that it was more prominent without all the extraneous fabric. I have worn this pretty often since - it's becoming quite the staple to my wardrobe.

Fabric Invasion!

Hello All!

I know it's only Tuesday, but I just had to show everyone my recent haul! I've recently gotten into the habit of going onto Craigslist for arts and craft items. Mainly, I've been looking for cheap sergers, sewing supplies and random varieties of ribbons, thread, elastics, bias, etc. As I only started looking about a week ago, and have no committments to myself to purchase anything just yet, I couldn't help but answer one advertisement.
What was it you ask?! TWO (read it, TWO!) big bins fabric. And this isn't just remnant fabric; most of these cuts are full out yards of it. Some of the fabric, even though it had obviously been cut, still had at least a yard of it. With the exception of some very bright pink tulle, none of the "remant" fabrics were any less than a half of a yard. Some, such as the top dark fabric on the left pile in the picture, still had the price slip on it from Joann fabrics (3 yards priced at 18.00). The only downside is that there is so much fabric and none of it has explanations/details on it. Some are pretty obvious, such as velvet, corduroy, cotton, etc. but then there are others that are out of my fabric knowledge. Another thing I'll have to google, I guess! I'm so excited to have this fabric - not only can I make interesting additions to my thrift store finds now, but I may even be able to create something homegrown and all my own! (See what I did there?)

And oh! I forgot the very best part. All I paid for this fabric that the lady estimated at $600 (I found $120 worth of price slips still on the fabric):

$25.00

Gonna go ahead and call that my Steal of the Month!

Dying Dresses

Happy Thursday, ya'll! Let's jump right into this one...

 

If you've followed me for longer than a few posts, you've known that I've been pretty obsessed with lace and nauticals lately. This one, although lacking the nauticals, certainly is lace. As much as I was in love with the lace, I was not loving the white. Folks, I am an extremely clumsy person who often spills coffee on my clothing and has a slight knack for drawing on my shirt without noticing. I took the opportunity to do my first dying!

 

I'm not lying when I say that the name had everything to do with my choosing this one. Also, WalMart had a whole 4 colors to choose from so the pickins' were already slim anyway.

Since the shirt was all cotton, I knew it would take to the dye pretty well. I got my bucket, filled it with steamin' hot water, a half a bottle of dye (this was probably excessive for one shirt) and a bit of salt. The salt ingredient isn't in the directions, but the many other blogs I've read that talk about dying often mention salt is important for... something to do with bright, rich colors. I then stuck the shirt in and let it soak, stirring pretty often, for about an hour.

 

I didn't want to ruin any of my spoons, so to stir this whole get-out I used the wooden/ribbon wands that I made for my wedding. Considering I had about 60 wands left after the reception, I had no problems parting with this particular wedding souvenir. 59 more dye jobs to go!

After I dyed the shirt and took it out after an hour, I spent about 30 minutes rinsing it under water to get the excess dye out. Once the water was turning semi-clear, I threw it in the washing machine with an old towel. At this point, I was anxious to see how my first dye job went. Because of this anxiety, I did something stupid. When this cotton shirt was finished washing I put this cotton shirt in the dryer... on high. I didn't think this one through at all, and in hindsight, I certainly should have because as I took my cotton shirt out of the dryer I slowly realized that it was much, much smaller. Fail. I put on the shirt and knew for a fact that I would never wear this midriff-bearing shirt. Brainstorming ensued.

Finally, I thought of something! Plan: buy some fabric, make a dress. Boom. So I bought some fabric made of cotton/spandex blend that would complement my newly dyed shirt. When I got it home, I realized this fabric was different than all the other fabrics I've bought. How is it different, you may ask. Well...

Ignore the crazy eye - I haven't quite gotten the hang of the red eye remover.

 

I had apparently managed to buy a yard and a half tube of fabric. Not sure how this happened, but it totally saved me from sewing a seam or two. My confusion turned to relief pretty quickly.

I had a piece of elastic in my craft room, so I measured it around my waist and sewed the ends together. As I wanted the elastic on the outside of the dress, I did a fancy-ish seam. My gut tells me it's called a "french seam" but I am unsure on this fact (google it). Basically, you sew it together, and fold it over the seam so the outside looks as such:

 

This makes it just a bit cleaner on the outside than just the cut end of the elastic. I then sewed my cotton/jersey fabric to the elastic. I read on a few blogs that when you're sewing dresses with elastic you should stretch out the elastic while sewing in order to keep a "ruffled" look and keep the stretch in it. This was - well - it was a mess. I kept stretching it, which then pulled the elastic faster through the needle and made the stitches uneven. I then tried to not pull it too hard, and ended up not stretching it at all. I kept going back and forth between great stitches and drunken sailor stitches. Again, no one will climb up my dress and inspect the inside seams, so I let it go.

Then, I cut my shrunken shirt shorter - to my natural waist - leaving a bit of a seam allowance. You'll notice on this picture as well that I'm in need of a longer ruler.

 

Once I had the top and the bottoms on the elastic, it all came together from there! I have a nice new dress with lace shoulders that is very, very comfortable. Check it!

 



Darted to Death

Happy Thursday! I hope your week went by well. My weeks since my resignation have seemed to go very, very slowly. They're pretty painful, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel and can't wait for May 6th (which is my start date at the other job). Apparently I love changing my entire life around at the beginning of May. Last May, I married my best friend. This May, I'm changing careers. Wonder what next May shall bring?!

So friends, I gave you a teaser in the last post about the upcoming project. Alas, it is finished and it is a huge, huge fail. It's so destroyed that it is actually sitting in the garbage right now. I may take it out later and try to harvest some fabric, but right now it's in a fabric time-out to think about what it's done.

I had pretty high hopes for this one.

It was a long skirt that I absolutely loved the pattern on! It reminded me of summer and I couldn't wait to make it a cute sundress. The idea was easy - as ideas always are - take it up around my shoulders, cinch the middle, hike the hem up a bit and call it a day. Oh, and there was the little matter of the hooch-tastic slit up the side.

So when I hiked up the skirt to my armpits, it was quite billowy. As I saw it, I had two ways to go on this one. I could throw a belt on it to cinch it or I could actually learn something and do some darts to cinch and fit it a bit more to my body. I decided on the latter - I was going to learn something.

First thing I did was put the dress on Sophie (as you saw in the last post) and put some darts in starting at the bottom of the chest and going down a few inches. Now, I'm obviously no "how to guru" on darts because you know this project turns out to be a huge fail, but basically a dart is put in to fit garments to the curves of your body. They're often found at the bodice, back and chest but could be other places as well (for example on skirts you often see four of them - two in front, two in back). If you look at most of the clothes in your closet, they have darts somewhere or another. Essentially, it's where the tailor pinched the fabric together in the back and sewed a little triangle, chopped off the excess triangle piece and ironed down the fabric. Turn something inside out, you'll see it.

Back to what I did - I pinned on Sophie where the bottom of her chest was and then a few inches down for my starting and stopping point. I did two of these on the front. After I sewed, this is how the wrong part of the fabric looked.

Luckily, I was a smart cookie and tried it on before cutting off the excess. After I tried it on it was absolutely hideous. We'll call this Fail #1. I donned the skirt dress and it was a) uneven, apparently Sophie isn't as symmetrical as we thought b) puckered at the back, I had a full-on back belly and c) puckered at the sides. The sides I was actually okay with - if it puckered there, I could always sew up the side seams that were already there and bring in the puckers that way. The other two problems I couldn't live with, so the handy seam ripper came out in style and I ripped it all out.

It was at this point that I gave up and wrote you a post about all the random things I had done throughout the week. Meanwhile, I scanned YouTube and other tutorials on how to do what I wanted. Let me tell you guys, I. Found. Nothing. Nothing. I found a lot of tutorials on how to do the darts following a pattern and making a dress from scratch. I found a lot of tutorials on how to do a dart on a random piece of fabric. I did not find one tutorial on how to include darts into a refashion of a dress. No instructions whatsoever on where to start them, where to finish them, what type to do on what types of dresses, etc. I know people have done it, but apparently it's such an easy tactic that no one felt a tutorial was needed. I showed them.

Luckily, I was all "learned up" on how an appropriate dart was done. Basically, you start at the inside of the dress and go to the outside of the seam. You back stitch when you start, leave it be when you end and just tie a double knot in your thread. So - I did attempted that.

I mean, it basically did happen. A dart was made. I also made it longer to go all the way down the bodice. I had noticed on the last one that the fabric still folded over itself in a natural fall during the first time around, so I thought if I continued to bring the dart down into the bodice and waist it would really make it nice and fitted (and lengthening lines). Yeah - I was dreaming. I put this thing on and it still a) made me have a back belly and b) puckered at the sides, however we now have a new c) cinched the waist so tiny - I had accidentally taken the dress in about 2 sizes and I now couldn't breathe. Fantastic. So the seam ripper came out again. We're calling this Fail #2.

I found in my random Google travels that there is a different type of dart - the diamond dart. Since I was already on a roll, I figured "why not?" I knew at this point the dress couldn't go out into public anyway - there were major holes in the (what I now knew as) delicate fabric from my seam ripping that you could see tiny dots of my skin all over my waist.

In my mind (again, those easy idea things) this thing called diamond dart was the perfect solution. It would tailor the garment under my chest to bring it in, and the bottom of the diamond wouldn't bring in the waist as much so I could commence breathing. It was settled - I did the diamond dart.

You heard me. I did it. This is actually how it's supposed to look. You start at the seam and end at the seam, back stitching nowhere, and tying double knots from the excess thread to keep it.

Then I put the dress on, and threw a belt in there just to keep it a little more cinched at the waist, since I hadn't kept the dart going all the way down the waist.

Mind not the bra straps. I'm not fancy enough to go all the way up two flights of stairs to find a strapless. Deal with it.

So from the front it wasn't horrible. It's not what I would call the most flattering thing in the world, but it was a strapless dress, cinched at the waist with darts that made it more fitted. AND! There was no back stomach, and only a small amount of side billow-age. It still wasn't going out in public, but it was something I was happy about. I learned something.

Then I turned sideways.

Fail #3 can be summarized, again, via alphabet. a) Pancake boobs. Yes, pancake is an adjective in this sentence and you know exactly what it means in this context. b) Belly pooch - and folks, that's not mine. If it was mine, I would have edited that shit out and never drawn attention to it BUT! this one is not me. The pooch was even larger without the belt. It looked like I carried a baby and a six pack in this pooch, neither of which is accurate.

Although after the week I had at work, and looking forward to the next 2 weeks at work... the six pack doesn't sound half bad...

See you next Thursday, friends. And please don't follow or consider this blog post a "tutorial" or "how-to" post at all. I don't want to be responsible for the result.



This and That

Hello all, and Happy Thursday!

This one isn't quite a refashion - more of a "taking care of loose ends" post. I was going back through my posts and I never realized that I forgot to show you something that I had teased you about! Remember this post? I had teased you with some fantastic fabric that I was in love with, but because it was an upcoming Christmas present, I couldn't tell you what it was? Well, now's the time! To remind you, this was the fabric.

What was it, you ask? It was a piece of flannel from a rag quilt that I made for my baby niece! I bought a bunch of different colors to make an interesting pattern, but in all honesty I had to make it all around that fabric. I had picked it up and couldn't put it down - I wanted to use it everywhere!

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with rag quilts I'll give you a quickie explanation. It's a quilt that you sew together with one side having all exposed seams and the other nice and clean. On the side with the exposed seams, you allow the seams and edges to fray (a la rags). And then you're done. Easy peasy, right? Well, if you read my post, you knew it didn't go easy peasy as a pair of pliers was needed to fix my sewing machine.

Now for the quickie DIY Rag quilt. First up, I cut out tons of squares of each fabric. You can make the squares any size you'd like - I think I used 6" by 6". I then doubled it up, wrong sides together, and sewed each square. Then I used my floor to put all the squares in a random design until I found something that worked. I then worked on the row's first - I pinned the sides together making a row of 6 squares. Once I had my rows, I lined each row up on the floor again to make sure I had my design still there and pinned each row to itself, making sure I kept all the seams on one side. This is how it looked when the rows were sewn and then pinned all together.

Little did I know, this was the easy part! Sewing all the rows together and trying to make sure I didn't mess up was the hard part. Also, walking on my floor ended up being a bit difficult since there were random dropped pins all over it waiting to jab you in the foot. My cats "enjoyed" it as well.

Once everything was sewn together, I then had to go over each seam and cut little slits it in. This is meant to help it fray. Now, when I say "every seam" I mean every. damn. seam. Around each little square and every single outside edge. This took me quite a while and 3 pairs of scissors, but it happened. I found the trick was to start in the corners where four points came together and then that created enough give in between to snip it down. Also, when cutting such small slits, doing one piece of flannel at a time (as opposed to all four) was way easier. This took a good amount of the seasons of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit to finish.

Once all the seams were cut, I threw it in my washing machine. The first time you wash it you can't use softener. I then threw it in my dryer - this creates a lot of lint so you have to make sure to empty your lint trap about 4 times during the first drying. Then you wash it again, this time with softener, and then dry it again. Make sure you keep checking that lint trap! All in all, you go through the washing/drying process about 4 times to make it look appropriately frayed and to not get lint coming off of it. The more you wash and use it in the future, the more frayed it'll get, but the lint shouldn't be as bad coming out of the 3rd and 4th dry.

Here's the finished project on the seam side.

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the other side, but it's the same pattern, but with no frayed seams except the outer edges so it's very clean on the other side.

So you may be asking yourself - what the heck have you been doing all week if there's no new project? Well, I've been overwhelmed. First of all...

I quit my job.

That's right - I'm peacing out of the nursing home. Why? Because I got myself a new, better, more shiny job! Am I excited? Eh. It'll probably hit me when the time to change gets closer, which is around April 30th. That's the last day at the old, and the new one starts on the 6th. I'm not a "change" kind of person but this should be a good change.

I'm also overwhelmed because of all this...

That's right - this is all my scraps from previous projects. I just don't have a place to put them anymore, so I really need to start thinking of ideas for them. Of course, the first thing I did was scour Pintrest for "fabric scraps" ideas. I found a lot - most of which I'm sure I'll try out - but a lot of them needed other items such as ribbon, elastic, etc. that I just didn't have on hand, and my sweatpants were kind of dictating for me not to go out in public. So, I just whipped something up and hope it would work. First up, I decided I'd make a sunglass case.

For this, I used the leftover green flannel fabric from the above rag quilt. I'm actually quite in love with my new case. It's quite large for sunglasses (although I still use it for that) but at some point I'm also sure I could put a strap on the top and use it as a wristlet. The button I got from my huge collection that I picked up at Joann Fabrics on sale. Now, I don't own a buttonholer and have no idea how to create a button hole, but damn it don't I have the buttons to do so! This one was one of my favorites and I thought it went pretty well with the green, making it nice and summery. The latch had me confused for a bit. It was only after I added the button that I realized that the whole point of the button was to actually be able to close the pouch. I rummaged around my craft room until I found some twine leftover from the ring pillow I made my best friend for her wedding. Some sewing, hot glue and 3 burnt fingers later, I owned a sealable pouch!

Next up, I put my eyes on these babies...

That's right little shoulder pad, I'm talking to you! I'm not entirely sure what kind of crazy thoughts I had in my head when I saved the shoulder pads, but here they were, taking up space. I had to figure out something. So... I sewed it together.

What is that, you ask? (You sure are inquisitive today, aren't you, readers?) That is a homemade shoulder pad catnip toy. Once I sewed up the seams I saw that it looked a bit "mouse-like" so I decided to stuff it with catnip and sew up the edges, maybe make a make shift tail of some sort and let the cats go at it. The foil in my plan is that I had forgotten that the little jerks broke into the catnip cabinet and destroyed the bag a few weeks ago. So once I purchase catnip again, this will be filled up and stitched and ready to destroy. Boom.

Now, I had also started a project. Being the little procrastinator that I am, I started it on Wednesday afternoon. Turns out, the project ended up being a bit more confusing and difficult than I had imagined in my head (who would have thought...) and I got too frustrated to finish it. That's what I get for procrastinating and then trying to figure out something on my own that I probably should have googled.

So, I leave you with yet another teaser of the project that is started and is slowly making itself into the "fail" pile. Should be an interesting week! See you next Thursday!

Sailor Peplum

Ahoy mates! Welcome to Thursday!

Interesting things have been going on, friends, which is why my post, while still posting on Thursday, is barely making it before the bedtime mark. I'll be able to update soon on the recent interesting happenings, but I thought a teaser explanation was appropriate.

Why the "ahoy"? Well, it's only appropriate for a totally sailor inspired dress!

No surprise as to what brought this baby from rack to register - it's my color palette. I'm on some kind of "no nautical left behind" kick, I think. This one sat on my clothes rack for a while as I had no ideas on what to do with it. I at first decided to cut off the bottom for a dress, and then use the top as a (gasp) top. That just didn't scream "learn something" to me. So I browsed the internet and I discovered the peplum fad. (See here if you were as out of the loop as I was.) Adding volume around one's spare tire is usually not ideal, but apparently it's a train the general public has been hopping on with gusto. I'm nothing if not experimental, so I tried it out.

First thing I did was take of the ruffle from the bottom. The goal was to re-place the ruffle up around my natural waist, where typical peplum styles begin. At first I was a bit worried that the ruffle would be a bit short, but then I discovered about 1 inch of the blue fabric inside the dress that I could use to add a bit of length. I was pleased... until I went to remove it.

Yup. That's the big ol' hole that removing the ruffle left. Apparently, the extraneous inch of blue fabric I found in the dress was just that. Oh well. I had an idea, and it was my only one, so I rolled with it.

Once the ruffle on the bottom was removed, I took the seam ripper to the shoulder pads. All 4 of them. (Giggling ensued)

Next up was the task of making the ruffle fit to my waist. As it was originally the bottom of the dress, I had to take in a few inches on each seam of the ruffle. I've gotten into the habit of sewing a straight(ish) line where I want the hem, and then doing a zig-zag stitch near(ish) that line on the side that I plan on chopping off. The idea is that it keeps it from rolling and falling apart. Not sure if it works, but again, we're rolling with it.

Bad picture, yes. This is one of the seams of the ruffle and if you look thisclose to the picture, you may see my new seam that I did (in line with the pin). I then cut off the extra fabric to the right of it.

Next, I put on the dress and marked where my natural waist was so I knew where to start the ruffle. I then kept the shirt right side out and turned the ruffle inside out around it and pinned it up. In hindsight, choosing a striped fabric was absolutely genius because I just picked a line and pinned the ruffle to that line. It also helped when I was sewing it all up. It kept me in a straight(ish) line. Don't ask about the ish's - this is still just practice; stick straight doesn't happen yet.

Once that was sewn, I cut off the excess blue and white striped fabric underneath the peplum. I made sure to do this all in one big cut so I had a good amount of nautical fabric that I can use for something later.

Next up was the arms. At first, I just cut it to a nice shoulder-length.

Then, I put it on and discovered that the shoulder pads that I had initally cut out actually had extra fabric built into the shoulder in order to accomodate for said shoulder pads. Therefore, I had a big poof directly on my shoulder that I had no idea how to get rid of. So, as much as I said I'd stop doing this, I seam-ripped the arms right off and went the sleeveless route.

The end product is not something I'll probably wear a lot. I don't think the peplum style is quite what I would call "mine". Maybe a few more months at the gym and I'll revisit it, but for now, it was pretty fantastic practice. I especially learned a ton when I put the ruffle around the waist of the shirt. It was quite the job making sure it wasn't too big or too small that it would make the waist look weird. I'm very glad I practiced this - I see many a dresses and shirts in the future that I will put to use this new skill.

As for the final result - this is my "it's not that bad, is it?" look! Although, I think with a thin red belt around my waist where the peplum begins may be kind of kick-ass for Independence Day, heh? Right? Get me? Got it? Maybe?... Oh fine. Just check it out.

Purple Passion Refashion

Happy Thursday! How's that for follow through on promises?

I found myself another muu muu. (For a refresher on the first one, click here) With this choice, I'm pretty sure I was channeling my mother with the purple. The color brought me in first, the muu muu brought me in for further inspection, and the fun flowers nailed my decision: I had to have it. The fact that it was $2.50 had a certain appeal as well.

It was a massive dress (with pockets!) that got me all sorts of excited. First thing I did was seam rip the arms off. I know, I know - I always do that, but I had goals of making this a summer dress to bum around town with so shortsleeves was a necessity. Also, the fabric was a bit thick for summertime so a little editing was much needed for summertime comfort.

After taking off the sleeves, I threw the dress on Sophie inside out so I could pin the sides and take a lot of the width in. This was - and I'm going to try to avoid the many, many swear words that were coming out of my mouth during this task - pure hell. I took it in a few inches on each side while trying really hard to keep some pocket in tact. Too big. Then I took it in a bit more, sacrificing the pockets. Too small. It was like a real life Goldilocks going on in my craft room. Finally, I found my happy medium and sewed up the sides. This, unfortunately, took out a lot of the draping, but after so many times of seam-ripping, one tends not to give a dang about draping.

Once the sides were finally at the right spot, I moved onto the neckline. I made a nice hem all the way around the armholes and around the neck and sewed everything up. On one side, I kept stopping and starting and skipping over the places that didn't need to be re-sewn. On the other side, I did one fluid seam, resewing the manufacturers spots even if it didn't need it. As it didn't really make a difference, I decided that one fluid motion was better - not because it looked better, but because when I get into a groove, I'd rather just roll with it.

Lastly, I decided that I would cut the bottom off to a length that wasn't quite so matronly. I picked a spot on the bottom of the dress that was a good length, and chopped it off about an inch below that length.

This is where hell rose again. I tried to do the hem that a sewist is supposed to do by rolling up the bottom edge and then rolling it again in order to make the inside all nice and neat. This did not go as planned, as it kept on getting unpinned, rolling under itself while I was sewing, and generally being a huge pain in my side. Eventually, I decided that it wasn't worth it and no one was going to crawl up my dress and inspect the seams on the inside, so I just rolled up the bottom edge once, ironed it (you heard me - I actually ironed) pinned it and sewed it. This went much better and no one would know the difference.

I used the bottom portion that I chopped off for a sash just incase the dress was too billowy that it needed to be sinched. I cut the bottom into one long piece, then folded it in half lengthwise, making sure to put right sides together (learned that one the hard way.) Then I sewed it all up and turned it right side out into one long tube and sewed up the ends.

So this one didn't quite turn out as I was hoping. I enjoy the neckline, the pattern and the color, but I'm not entirely convinced on the length that I made it. At certain angles it looks a bit nightgownish. The sash didn't quite work out as planned either - it made the dress awkwardly short that I knew I would never wear it.

Final product?

Upon further inspection, I actually noticed that I had totally messed up one of the side hems (not a surprise, really, when you think of how I did the seam 3 times and was pretty frustrated by the time I was done) to the point where it was bunching to be even shorter. I also found a few holes on the sides that were probably made during my side seam-ripping fest. I think I may re-visit this refashion when summer gets a bit closer. If I wear it as is (it is really comfortable!) then I will leave it as is and fix the holes and re-sew the weird side. If I don't feel comfortable wearing it as is, I'm going to chop it off at the waist and make it a pretty flowy blouse.

Win-win? We shall see.

Pillowcase for a Cause

** BREAKING NEWS** Regular blog post day has come upon us. I have made the decision that Thursday nights will be THE. NIGHT. for new blog posts. Check back every Thursday for a fantastic new redo, remake and/or refashion! Now back to our regular programming...

Sad news - no before pictures today! But there is a reason for that: I'm sewing for a cause tonight. I stumbled upon this site that had a charity drive of pillowcase dresses going on. I'm all for charity - I used to volunteer lots and lots of my time when I had lots and lots of time to spare - so I figured one that crossed charity and sewing just absolutely had my name on it. Basically, this little girl and her mother help out Uganda's children effected by the war as much as they can. On this next trip to Uganda, this girl is collecting pillowcase dresses for both the little girls that she has sponsored, as well as the other little girls in the villages in which she visits. This girl is pretty amazing to have suchy a caring outlook on a world that isn't always a fantastic place. Kudos, child, kudos.

After reading about her mission, I went right out and bought some cheap pillowcases at the dollar store and some ribbon on sale at Joanne's. There are a lot of tutorials online for pillowcase dresses so I wanted to do the first one at low-cost in order to really get the hang of it.. I picked up some pillowcases that were in "micro jersey" and knew that jersey was stretchy i.e. the perfect fabric to stretch and move with active little girls. Well, it turns out my idea of "micro jersey" and the manufacturers version of "micro jersey" are very different because this fabric was very thin and very see through. Unless this dress was going to be for a girl who participates in corner-like activities, this was not something I was sending to Uganda. I decided I'd use it as a template, see how it's put together and figure out the measurements.

First up, I cut off the end of the pillowcase that was closed shut to make a large tube.

Next, I measured the u-shape for the arms. Not having kids myself, I had no way of measuring, so I just kind of guessed. Turns out, I guessed wayy too big. I did the armhole 4" across and 5" down. It probably should have been 2" across and about 4" down. I'll know for next time. I then folded it in half and cut the u-shape through all four pieces, making sure they were all even.

Okay, I lied. I actually didn't do that, but that's how you should do it. I cut both sides separately before I remembered this little gem of advice, so when I actually did fold it in half, it was way uneven and I ended up having to cut it all again.

I then pinned a hem on both the u-shapes, the front and back panel, and sewed it up.

Okay, I lied again. I knew this was practice so I didn't create a hem on the front and back panel. Again, though, this is something you should do.

Action shot!

 

You may be asking "why the heck is she using black thread?" And that is a fantastic question. In all honesty, I did it because that was the thread/bobbin that was already in my machine. In the end of the project, it did actually make it easier to tell what I did for when I make future ones. Also, for the benefit of this blog - all the black stitching will show where I sewed in case you want to do one too and I've accidentally left out describing a step (or two).

 

For the front and back, I folded the top down into a casing a little larger than the thickness of my thread. In the below picture, you can see where the black thread is dark at the beginning and ends of my stitching - this is because I always backstitch a few (probably too many) stitches whenever I start. Unless it's a stitch that you want to break, it's always a good idea to backstitch each time. Otherwise, you'll have some unintentional poppage going on somewhere.

 

Then I took my high-tech safety pin and put it on the end of my ribbon and brought it through the front casing. Repeat on the back side.

 

If it wasn't see-through, the measurements that I ended up doing would actually be a pretty nice summer shirt for me. Alas - it is see through so you'll just have to look at good ol' Sophie sporting it.

 

So that is my own little how-to on pillowcase dresses. I do hope I've inspired you to go to the website, check out the cause, and get involved. It is fantastic practice for other sewists (not sewers... never sewers) like me, and surprisingly quick and easy to do. I definitely plan on doing more and sending them to Mallory to bring to Uganda for the little girls. I'll be sure to photograph the final package!

 

See you next Thursday!

Spice Rack Labels

So I have a confession - this post has nothing to do with sewing. My last problem-solving post created an itch - an itch to solve all my problems on the cheap. What problem did this bring me to? My spice rack. I became the new owner of this old spice rack about 3 years ago. I was moving into the apartment and I thought it would make me look like a real chef right there on my counter for the world to see.

The problem? I never used it. It still had the old spices from the first owner, half the bottles didn't have labels, and most of the spices didn't actually come out of the bottles becasue they either created moisture and were stuck in there... or they were just too old to move. I searched and searched for labels that would fit the tops to no avail. So, this spice rack just followed me around from the apartment to the house, sitting uselessly on the counter.

Along my Pintrest travels - I came up with an idea. Chalkboard paint! I've been craving to use chalkboard paint for a long time. Pictures of grocery lists and cute, changeable sayings on my walls floated in my brain. Finally... I had a chance to put this in motion.

I went to Lowe's and the smallest container of chalkboard paint I could find was a quart. A quart was way more than I needed, so I guess I'll just have to use the rest of it for something else... oh darn *cue the sly smile*. This sucker was very specific on its needs - it needed to be painted on metal or wood with a brush of polyester bristles. So there I was, in Lowe's, staring at too large 2" brushes, none of which were screaming "I'm polyester!", with full intentions of painting my plastic tops. We're off to a great start.

As I'm pretty much on a first name basis with Joanne and her fabrics, I went there to see what could happen in the craft aisle in the way of brushes. After my sheer astonishment at the prices of single paint brushes wore away, I finally picked up a $3 dollar nylon brush. I had a 40% coupon so I didn't pay too much... and I was done with trying to find polyester. I figured nylon and polyester were both clothing fabrics, so they must work the same good enough.

First up, I removed all the tops and cleaned them off. I also removed the labels of the few that had labels left with some hot water. There was a bit of glue left over on the tops but no big chunks that the naked eye could see. I then set up shop in my dining room, as the weather was absolutely gorgeous for New York in March (in the 60's!) and the windows in this room are huge. It's kind of like being outside.

I then made sure to throw out all the old spices and wash the small glass jars as well. I did this bartender style - set up one sink of hot, soapy water and the other with a rinse and then just shook the hell out of the jars in each sink. Worked out pretty well, and didn't leave a residue. Too bad this doesn't work on the rest of my dishes.

I then painted all the tops with the chalkboard paint. I didn't do the sides because I wanted to keep those as my gripping areas. It took quite a few coats to get it the pure black that I was looking for and not seeing any white plastic show through. Don't worry, I wasn't bored waiting for the paint to dry (3 times). Extreme Couponer's on TV kept me company. Man, I'm way impressed with that show.

Once I had all the coats on, I noticed that I wasn't exactly "neat" when I painted the tops. There were globs of paint going all down the sides. I then turned to my craft room. Realizing I didn't have any small ribbon to line the sides, I did notice that I had plenty of washi tape leftover from our wedding that I had full intentions on using but never actually did. They fit the sides perfectly! I lined the sides with the tape, went around twice because it was see through, and called it a day.

I was pretty impressed with how it all turned out. I think sometime in the future I may replace the washi tape with some actual ribbon - even going around the top twice you can still see the drips, drops and globs of paint on the side.

At this point, I realized that I needed some chalk in order to actually fill the jars and know what is in them. So, back to my craft room I went. The only chalk I could find was the chalk that I use to mark cut marks on clothing, which is short and fat - but I rolled with it. My writing could certainly be neater, and I'll have to invest in a chalk pen with a finer tip but, all in all, it's slightly legible and certainly serves its purpose for now.

Next up - I promise some sewing refashions from something really ugly from the thrift shop!

Make-Up Mess

I bring you today an off-weekend post. Surprise! Recently, my bottom had an unfortunate "how do you do" with the pavement of my driveway (darn black ice!) so I'm taking it a bit easy this week. Luckily, "taking it easy" is synonymous with "more time to post projects".

For this project, I've decided to problem solve. What is the problem, you ask? For that answer, I have to take you into my bathroom...

This is the issue. This sandwich lunch baggie has been the holder of the make-up for just about 4 years. It started at the end of college, while I was packing up. That was December 2008. It followed me through the renting of my first apartment, my first lay off, my first live-in boyfriend, a year and a half engagement, our first house, our wedding, our honeymoon - I think you get the picture. This sucker has held right on there. However, now that I'm a mature adult (stop laughing) I think it's time to up the ante on my make up bag.

On that note... there's no way in heck I'm spending more than a few dollars on a make-up bag. I barely spend a few dollars on the make-up that goes inside, so there is no way I'm investing more than $5 dollars on the bag to hold them. This is obviously the thinking that lead me to the sandwich baggie in the first place.

So in my cheapness, I looked around to see where I could find a cheap bag. My first stop was Macy's - they're always giving out free crap with purchase, most of which is in a flowery bag. I went, I looked, I remained unimpressed. I was being cheap here, so I wasn't going to buy some sub-par bronzer for 29.95 just to get a free bag. That sort of defeats my purpose. So this brought me to WalMart, as all cheap thoughts tend to do. Even at WalMart the bags were 10-20 dollars or more.

What was a girl to do? Then it hit me... DUH! I make cheap clothes all the time, I'm sure I had something in my refashion closet that could be some sort of bag. Voila! I found... this.

This dress wasn't too bad... up top. The tank top cut was pretty cute. However - it was a stretchy, form fitting fabric that made me feel like a sausage. And not only that... it was see-through (I have sweatpants and a tank top underneath this so it doesn't look see through in the picture, thankfully). To sum it up - it was a hoe dress.

I decided to fold it sideways, along the back zipper, and cut out (through both sides of fabric and right through the zipper) a rectangular piece. Unfortunately, my phone decided to delete all my pictures that I took of this process, but it wasn't really all that exciting. You just kind of chop it up into a semi-straight line. Then I sewed around the three open edges. I also sewed right through the zipper where I had cut it, so that the zipper pull had a place to stop. The most important thing I learned was to do this inside out... I didn't the first time. The second go-round though, I had it all set. So I sewed up the three sides and through the zipper (again), and turned the whole thing right-side out.

... and holy crap on a cracker it worked! I had myself a new make-up bag with a zip top! Check it!

 

Pay no attention to the "semi" rectangular shape that it ended up in. Apparently my "just wing it" cutting process wasn't exactly as perfect as I thought it was. I did have a small fleeting thought that I didn't put some sort of liner on it. Then I realized - it's totally washable! Any sort of spill or mark that I get on it, I will just follow the washing instructions on the tag of the dress! Thankfully, it's machine washable... not that I actually pay attention to that all the time. Hand wash? That means gentle cycle... right?

 

Are you wondering what it cost me yet? It cost me a whopping 25 cents. The dress was one of the garments I picked up at the "Fill a bag for $3" thrift store. Score!