Friday, July 29, 2011

Sweetheart Heart Dress

I've been toiling away with this new project. Some hours at night, some hours in the morning. Here's my final product:












































Which came from this. I chopped off the top and constructed a pretty weak sweetheart top with three darts for each boob, attached it to the skirt with piping in the middle, added elastic to the top of the back piece for extra grip (and to avoid a booby show), AND added a zipper. P.S. you can't tell but the top is navy blue with white hearts on it :)

THE most complicated thing I've made so far....and all without a pattern. My 4th design. Not bad for a prototype. But of course, if you know me at all, I didn't really do the hem very well...which makes me a terrible seamstress.

Oh well. Expect more new things next week. Have a great weekend!

(here's a picture my dad took and sent to me today. I love it!)

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Late Night Sewing = Terrible Photos

Yeah so. These photos are incredibly bad and I'm pretty ashamed but it just happened to be 12 AM when I started sewing, so this is what you get.

First I made some wide leg linen H&M pants into nicely fitted slacks.









































































































See my creeper dog there?

And then I tried this dress on...that I got from a Goodwill in LA and only wore twice for obvious reasons.



















































I'm clearly too sassy for this dress. So it's time to sass it up. Here's the progress. And, yes...that's piping.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Baseball Tee

I love baseball t-shirts but I never find any that are flattering or fit well so I decided to make one yesterday. It's a little off but a good start.




























I used one of Jake's Hanes shirts in large and the red skirt I made a while back but (like I thought) haven't worn.




























Used another shirt with a little more stretch for the template to resize the large tee.




























I cut the sleeves where my arm pits would be to the collar, cut off the collar, and resewed the narrow shoulders.





















































I then cut a sleeve shape out of the red fabric had it taper outward to fit the arm holes of the big tee. Then I sewed the sleeves to the shirt.




























I took some remaining red fabric and pinned right sides together to the shirt collar. I sewed that all the way around, then folded over the collar, and sewed to the inside.
































Voila! A snug (maybe too snug) and girly baseball tee. I love it!!!!!(#*)@(%#*&)(#$*#@

Going to have to make more, of course.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

To Do Pile




























Going through my closet and either getting rid of things or altering them to fit better. This is my pile of to-dos. Some dresses to fit/shorten, some dresses to make into skirts, some pants to fit. So this is my week. I've already done three shirts and one pair of linen pants.

I'll document the best transformations...some I might have to abandon..

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Western Shirt Redo

Let me tell you about my day so far. My blowdryer shot fire at me and then stopped blowing hot air. And that wasn't the first time fire came outta there onto my head...it's just now causing a problem because my dryer doesn't work.

And THEN I cut my finger with thread. Yep. A good little cut that hurt and felt more like a burn. So yeah, my life MIGHT suck today. And don't tell me people have it worse. That's all subjective.

Anyway, my husband is awesome at finding sweet old clothes and wearing them regardless of trends. He recently passed on this old western beauty to me and I had my way with it.










































Not the best picture but I had to post it so you could see how much of a creeper my photo-bombing dog is. Super creeper. He just wants to love...what's so wrong about that? (Everything.)

And here is the transformation:






































The print is pretty manly, so I wanted to go to extra lengths to still feel girly in it. I slimmed it down A LOT so it could hug my hips and give some definition in that area. I also shortened it. (duh) I cut the sleeves, shaped them more, and added tabs to hold them up because I thought that would be more feminine than just rolling them up or making a cuff.

New favorite shirt!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Plaid, Plaid, Puke



























So here it is...My awesome 70's shirt in plaid. Don't be fooled..those sleeves are puffy. I even fitted them better and they're puffy. I like how nicely this shirt turned out, but I don't think I'll be wearing it any time soon. I might consider making it in a solid color and with regular cap sleeves since it was a relatively easy pattern (except for the *#!* ##@** pleats). So...anyone want a crazy plaid shirt??

Btw, I used this pattern.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Back in Action

So you all remember my little pleats catastrophe right? I thought I'd never revisit the shirt that'd been sitting there for probably 2 months, but this weekend I made some real progress. I did the neckline facing, collar, and started on the sleeves.

I should have the complete version tomorrow! But I can tell you it's going to be pretty wacky. Plaid...oh, plaid.