Posts Tagged ‘drawitsewit’

Sewing: Super Wrap Maxi Skirt

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I didn’t put the question up here on the blog, but I asked what I should do with this triangular rayon challis about two weeks ago. It’s not a print I would normally gravitate to, but I love the colors and the drape of the fabric. It was a $2/yard score in LA.

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When I first started sewing the skirt, the opinion was for the long skirt with a slit. Since then, the opinion has changed. No matter. I’m not second-guessing my decision for this skirt. It works beautifully as a wrap maxi.

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I’ve mentioned this before, but my beef with wrap skirts is coverage. We live on a pretty drafty mountain and I hate showing off my underwear to family and friends. I do like how easy these skirts are to draft, sew and wear.

With this skirt, I drafted something slightly different. Most wrap skirt patterns (that I’ve seen from the big pattern manufacturers) are rectangles with darts. This doesn’t create a whole lot of room at the bottom for flowiness or for covering lady bits when the wind picks up. Instead, I drafted up a partial circle skirt (just shy of a third of a circle) for both sides, the front flap being only 2-3 inches shy of the side seam rather than a whopping 6-8 inches. That makes all the difference in the world.

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The skirt walks really well and doesn’t show off really any skin above the tops of my shins. I say that’s perfect for the upcoming fall and winter months.

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The fabric used here is a soft, breathable rayon challis. I love this kind of fabric. It’s fairly easy to work with, breathable and drapes really nicely. I can’t seem to find this print anywhere, but I now have a pinterest board dedicated completely to rayon challis. Check it out. You’ll love it.

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Outfit details:

I love my new skirt, even if the colorway is so nuts I only have two or three shirts that actually match. Two Sundays ago, I couldn’t find any clean shirts that matched this skirt (but I wanted to wear it so bad!) that I rummaged through my “to refashion” pile and came across this white button-up.

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I bought this button up in the boy’s section at DI for $3 or so. It fit great in the body but not in the arms. I simply grabbed my serger and quickly zipped up the sides of the arms for a more tailored look. Pre-serger, that improvement would have taken about 30 minutes because of pinking or finishing the exposed fabric edges. This time it took me 5 minutes. I felt like I cheated it was that easy.

Have you ever made a wrap skirt before? It was one of the first garment sewing projects I ever did. I think I was 12 or 13.

Draw It Sew It: Slouchy Hoodie

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The slouchy hoodie won last week by a land-slide. Are turbans not cool anymore? I still want to make one, like a legit one. I’ve got the perfect light-weight white with black pin-dot scarf fabric for it.

Constructing this hoodie was not terribly hard. I didn’t use a very easy fabric, and now that I look at it, I would’ve done so many different things with the fit and finishing details. Live and learn, right?

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Chris says I look like a Sith Lord. A girly one. 

I used my hand-drafted cardigan pattern, raised the rise of the neckline (to about a t-shirt height) and added a hoodie. The hoodie was pretty easy to draw out, I just measured the neckline and accommodated the seam allowance.

If I do this again I will:

  • take the shoulder seam in
  • make the sleeves looser to create more of a bishop sleeve
  • draft a taller hood
  • finish the seams around the hood and the front with bias tape or twill tape for a cleaner finish

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I had just about a yard of fabric, fabric I scored while digging at Michael Levine loft (similar here and here) and I used every square inch. It’s incredibly soft, but not too difficult to work with. I love the transparent stripes! This kind of hoodie is perfect for cool summer nights, and will get some great use in San Francisco!

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We get our fair share of cool summer nights on top of our mountain. We always seem to have a breeze, and the cool canyon air seems to come our direction at night. It’s marvelous. A lightweight hoodie like this is perfect for all of the cool nights and days we get here.

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Outfit details:

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I’m wondering what I should do next. Pants? A legit pair of pants are on my bucket list of things to master. Cobblery is too, but that’d be part of a completely different series.

Draw It Sew It: Chiffon Raglan Tee

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This week the summer colors won out. Again, it seemed to be split almost down the middle. It was a tough decision, though. I couldn’t decide which one I was rooting for.

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So I made both. I didn’t initially intend on making both, it just happened that way. Just as I was cutting fabric, I realized that I didn’t have enough pink fabric to make the top. BUMMER!!

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I had some left over orange fabric from my circle dress so I was able to cut out a back piece from it. Good thing there’s both orange and pink in the chiffon fabric! It was a pretty easy fix.

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Do I feel a little shame for how this shirt inspiration came about? Yes. I’ll tell you why. I’ve wanted to make a raglan tee for a long time. I think they’d be easier to sew than regular tee shirts (no inset sleeves, and I’m right on this point). I just have been either too lazy or too cheap to buy a pattern.

At church a few weeks ago, my neighbor was wearing a very cute raglan tee with chiffon shoulders. I loved how it looked on her; a bit slouchy but perfect for sunday dress. After I complimented her on how awesome she looked, she offered to let me borrow the shirt so I could copy the pattern. And copy I did. It’s an American Eagle shirt that I straight up duped. I know, I know. Y’all can judge me. At least I’m not selling them. You can just buy them straight from the source.

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There are a few details that AE didn’t do on theirs – they didn’t use a floral print and they didn’t do my favorite curved hem. I love how curved hems hit my hips.

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Unfortunately, both the pink and orange fabrics are pretty stiff, creating more of a boxy look for this top. Since I have a straight figure, I just don’t think it flatters that much. I might try to take in the sides at some point, but I thought I would leave it as is for comparison sake.

Outfit Details:

  • necklace: Forever 21
  • top: handmade
  • bracelet: Wet Seal (eeons ago)
  • jeans: TJ Maxx
  • shoes: H&M

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Because I made both. I used the same pattern here (although I did lengthen the sleeves just a bit on this one), just different fabric. This jersey has great drape.

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I’m still undecided as to which one I like better. I think this one is a little more versatile and goes better with my coloring than the other one. I’m more of a fall personality anyway.

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Make yourself a similar top! Raglan PatternDrapey JerseyPrint Chiffon

Outfit Details:

  • cement earrings: c/o Ardor
  • top: handmade
  • bracelet: wet seal (eeyons ago)
  • pants: Target
  • shoes: thrifted (from Sarah)

@melissapher: What should I sew next? #fashion #style #sewing #diy

 

If the decision isn’t coming up for you, hit shift command (control) r to hard refresh, or click on the image to take you to the decision on Seesaw’s website.

Draw it Sew it: Swim Coverup/Dress

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I am completely exhausted. Keeping up with work and blog posts means that I get about half the sleep I need to function and my house is a complete disaster.

Over the last 5 years I’ve struggled on and off with anxiety and depression. I’m now managing it successfully without drugs, but I have to be aware of my triggers. The lack of sleep and falling behind on my to-do list is triggering my anxiety. For the next few weeks I’m going to be paring down to 3 posts a week rather than 4 or 5 mediocre ones.

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Last week’s results were neck and neck, the subtle hemline winning out by 6% of the votes. Short it is! Thinking that this dress would be much easier to sew up than it was, I didn’t really allot myself much time to make it. I started cutting around 9pm Wednesday night. Big mistake.

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Turns out, this fabric is evil. It’s cursed or something. I bought it from Michael Levine loft, it was in a crumpled mess, all wrinkled and kinked. I thought that was part of the design. Not the case.

This fabric wrinkles easily and does not iron well. Naturally. It’s a synthetic. Usually synthetics are slow to wrinkle though.

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As I was cutting out this fabric, I was fighting to keep it from shifting around and kinking. While sewing, I was fighting to keep the edges lined up together.

It was 3:30am before I threw in the towel and went to bed. I had everything done except for the ties, the button hole on the side and a little fit detail I needed to fix on the neckline. It was going to take me another 2 hours before I could call it complete.

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I finally finished it today, spending about an hour just ironing out all those kinks. GAH, this stuff is annoying!

On the bright side, I love the color and I love the drape. It flows really nicely as I walk around. I just need to remake this dress in a different fabric. A real silk perhaps?  It’d be a lot more expensive. I got this fabric for something like $3-4 for 5 yards. I used about 3 1/2 yards.

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Drafting up a pattern for this dress was simple. I shortened the high-low on Megan Nielsen’s cascade skirt and I used my basic scoop tee pattern (actually had to draft up a new version since I couldn’t find my physical pattern anywhere) for the top. I needed a curved ruler in order to do this. Otherwise it was simple.

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If you look really closely, you can see marks from the steam and my iron (it didn’t burn or melt the dress, but it did make random marks in some spots).

Outfit Details:

  • necklace: Ardor
  • dress: handmade
  • bangles: thrifted, gifts and c/o Apricot Lane
  • earrings: H&M
  • shoes: thrifted

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I’m looking forward to wearing it to the pool. I also made it long enough so I can wear it out and about as a dress. I love how it turned out despite the nightmare of working with the material. I’ll definitely make another one.

Which combination of fabric should I choose for this raglan tee?

@melissapher: Which color scheme? #sewing #fashion #diy

Draw it Sew it: Shifty Dress

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Today’s post is coming to you super late. I finished this with Celeste today, but didn’t get a chance to take pics until 8pm. Days like these I want to kiss my camera. 2500 ISO never looked so crisp.

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Last week’s winner was the floral chiffon, but only by a little. After sewing up the muslin in a similar fabric I changed directions. The muslin sewed up quite puffy. A puffy drape plus a slip would add too much bulk for my taste. I’m glad I switched courses. I love how this fabric drapes! It really feels like I’m wearing nothing which is perfect for the hot days ahead.

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I also opted for a straight hemline because as I was cutting out the material, I realized that I would have just enough fabric for a maxi skirt if I cut it straight. So straight it was!

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It’s a simple enough dress, but this rayon was pretty shifty. The stripes weren’t printed straight, either, so matching up stripes wasn’t an option.

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I modified this pattern for wovens. I’m sure you could do the same with the seafarer top or just go for the staple dress pattern. I had something so similar on hand, I figured I’d save time and money by modifying my pattern not printing and taping a pattern together.

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PDF patterns are great, but my printer is not working at the moment and my time is worth something. I would rather purchase a regular pattern. I would LOVE it if pattern makers would actually provide pattern downloads in 24×36 dimensions. I have to send it off to a copy shop anyway, why not get it printed on a large format printer and save myself some time taping?

Just my little beef. Sorry I just had to get that off my chest. Anyone out there feel the same?

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I also added a polka dot print for the sleeve cuffs. I can’t get enough of this polka dot print. It, too, is incredibly soft.

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I’m just a bit too excited about my new shift dress. I jumped into the office while Chris was working and begged him to compliment me on my new “muu-muu”. He just smiled and said, “I love you.”

I’m glad he still does.

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Outfit details:

So what should I do for next week? I want to make a swim cover-up. Do you like the long, dramatic dress or the shorter, subtle dress? What do you think?

@melissapher: Dramatic (yes) or subtle (no)? #sewing #fashion #swimsuitcoverup #diy

 

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