Monthly Archives: August 2010

stashbusting: beach blouse

Summery, breezy shirt? Check. Sunshine? Check. Beach-day? Check.

This beach-friendly blouse is my latest effort in busting my fabric stash. I decided, in trying to utilize an oddly shaped yard of this cream-colored poly/linen blend, that a simple shirt would be my best bet. Originally this fabric was bought nine years ago (goodness! Am I a hoarder, or what?) intended for a peasant-style blouse. It was not a success.

So the fabric lay around, waiting for something to turn into. It’s a polyester/linen blend, unfortunately with the linen making up only 5% of the fabric. It’s an oddity for me to have a nearly 100% synthetic fabric in my stash, but it does have some redeeming qualities. It has a really nice crinkled texture, and feels nice and breezy. The fabric is too sheer to use on its own, so I doubled the layers. I think it made the blouse drape a little more stiffly, but I’ve decided that it came out quite nicely regardless. And best of all? There were hardly any fabric-scraps left over!

I based my shirt on this one, which I think is from Urban Outfitters. I cut the image out for a school project a while back, and studying the shirt, I decided I could pattern it fairly easily. This is what I discovered:

• There is a front piece, a back piece, and a yoke.
• There are gathers at the neckline, the shoulders in the front, and the back, beneath the yoke.
• The shoulder-seam is dropped a couple of inches to the front
• The neckline and sleeves look to be made up of completely rectangular pieces

The envelope sketch: Dotted line is the original block, green lines are alterations for ease and gathers, and squiggly lines indicate gathers.

And for those who are curious about the patternmaking part, this is how I did it:

• I dropped the armholes about 2″ and scooped out the neckline for both front and back pieces.
• Dropped the front shoulder piece by about 2″ – which was added to the yoke.
• Added 1 1/2″ to the center front for a looser fit and gathers at neckline
• Drew a straight line from armhole to hem
• Cut a yoke from the top back piece
• Slashed and spread the top of the new (shortened) back piece for gathers
• Turned the shoulder dart into gathers instead

Sewing the blouse together was quite easy – maybe because of the few pieces, and particularly because the sleeves and neckline were rectangles I folded in half, turned under the seam allowance, and stitched on. It’s a similar technique I’d use to sew on binding, say, on a quilt, a shirt collar, or a cuff, and it makes both sides look really nice and neat. I’m planning a ‘how-to’, so stay tuned!

Successful stashbusting!

yummy yarn

I’ve added some yarn to my yarn-stash this summer! My mom bought me this brown handspun yarn at a market. Or, rather, it was part of a project of building a replica of the Norwegian vikingship Osebergskipet. The ship is being built using period accurate techniques, tools and materials, and it’s all being done outside in Tønsberg’s town square, for all to see. It was so cool to see all the people involved, and how far they had gotten on this year and a half-long project (and that’s just the actual building part, they’ve done preparations and research for years!).

Among the woodworkers and blacksmiths, there was a trailer with Gammelnorsk spelsau, a very old breed of sheep, and they had homespun yarn for sale. Seeing the sheep that the wool came from made this yarn even more dear to me, so whatever gets made from these two skeins will be very special!

The next yarn I actually (gasp!) bought with a project in mind. This is rare. The yarn is Cascade 220 Heathers in Gold, and I think this color is the most wonderful color. It’s an elusive yellow-gold-orange, with flecks of both red and green, which seems like an odd combination, but it certainly works! I just can’t wait to be able to wear this soft wonderfulness, and this is the project that necessitated buying this very lovely yarn:

Click on the photo to go to the designer’s pattern-page. Design by Elinor Brown, photo by Ingrid Deon.

Isn’t is lovely? I can’t wait to knit and to wear this! It’s the Bayview Street Cardigan, and I’m casting on as soon as I’ve made a swatch and made sure I know what I’m doing have all the needles I need in the right size. I’m even participating in my first Knit-Along (KAL) for this, which I am very excited about! Here is the ravelry link for the KAL, if anyone feels moved to knit this as well!

Lastly, the yarn that isn’t yarn yet. I shoved this big bag of fleece in my suitcase coming back from my summer at home, and now I plan to spin it all up. I don’t have access to a spinning wheel, so it’ll just be me and my drop spindle this time around. I’ve spun yarn out of this wool earlier, so I know it will be fairly co-operative. I’m thinking maybe some chunky one-ply? I might even try to work it into my final collection of my Fashion Design degree, but no promises. In the meanwhile, I have a hefty pile of wool that smells like sheep – and that is a good thing to have.

the perfect pants project

Pretty nice outfit, yeah? I love grey jeans. I think they are more versatile than both proper “blue jeans”, and black jeans. I’m pretty sure the secret is that grey fades so beautifully. They never look like they are worn out, or get tell-tale lighter ridges along the seams. I mean, they do, but it doesn’t scream “too worn”.

Anyways, these jeans are pretty perfect, in my eyes. They are flattering in color, and in cut, and they are very comfortable. So… what’s the problem? Let’s look closer:


And closer:

Yep, these are absolutely in the “cannot pretend any longer that they aren’t worn out” category. I guess it’s ok – they have lasted me four years, which isn’t bad for a pair of jeans from Zara. But! I’ve decided to let them live on through my “perfect pants project” (I even made a button for the sidebar!). I will use this pair of jeans to trace and tweak a pattern for the perfect pair of pants.

This will mean methodically taking the worn pair apart, recording the steps and methods of constructing them, tracing the pieces to make a pattern, and then making a pair of pants from scratch using the pattern and the sewing steps from the original pair. I’m in no hurry to complete this project as quickly as possible. In fact, knowing myself and my schedule, it will work out the best if I break it down into many steps, over many months.

Does anyone else have a favorite pair of pants that just aren’t appropriate to be seen in public with anymore? Anyone want to join me in trying to recreate the perfect pair of pants?

self-stitched-september

Zoe, from “So Zo…” has been the initiator of several sewing-related projects, like Stashbustin’, “Me-Made-March”, and “Me-Made-May”. For the latter projects, she pledged to wear only “me-made” clothing for the months of March and May, and had a community of sewers and seamstresses alongside her, wearing their own homemade garments exclusively or partially, every day, for an entire month.

The next project coming up is “Self-Stitched-September”, and this time, I’m playing along. I snapped some quick pictures of what I have to work with, and this is it:

Hmmm, preferred colors anyone?

I’ve pledged that ‘I, indigorchid (www.indigorchid.wordpress.com), sign up as a participant of Self-Stitched-September. I endeavour to wear handmade and/or refashioned items of clothing every day for the duration of September 2010′. The important thing to me isn’t, and won’t be, to wear *only* self-stitched things in an outfit. I do want to push myself though, and consider the self-stitched garments as the main part of my outfit – the piece I start out with. I also want to make sure I wear every single of these garments at least once during the month of September.

I actually have a couple of more things available to wear, since I’ve finished my boat dress, and a nearly finished Marie-skirt. I’m quite excited for the month of September, and of course I’ll post here on how I’m doing!

P.S. I made a little widget in the sidebar that will pull up all of my Self-Stitched-September posts. As you can see, there are a couple of new projects in the works! (That also means that some of the links don’t lead anywhere – yet!) Also, see the blogroll on the right hand side for the link to Zoe’s original call to self-stitchedness.

the boat-dress

It’s not like this dress really has anything to do with boats, though I guess the dark blue-grey color paired with white sandals could pass as somewhat nautical in style. It’s mostly just that I debuted this dress on a fabulous day on a fabulous boat.

From sketch…..

…. to dress.

The dress started its life in the draping class I took last semester, as my project for the knit assignment. When working with knits, it’s common to take advantage of the stretch and make styles without darts for shaping. That, of course, makes it a lot easier to make fit nicely, since the material can just stretch to where it needs to be. Some other things I wanted to take advantage of, is the fact that knit doesn’t ravel. With the cotton jersey I used, I could just leave all edges but the armholes raw, which (in addition to just serging this dress together) makes this dress really fast and easy to sew! Jersey also drapes nicely, so I went for a fairly full skirt, and a big cowl for some extra drape.

I guess it’s kind of funny to have a big cowl on a sleeveless dress, but I am so happy with the result. Since it was a gorgeous day, I rolled the cowl to minimize it, but I look forward to playing around with it; big and loose, pinned to one side, pulled down over the shoulders…. What a fun dress!

After making the dress, I dyed it since the unbleached color was a little uninspiring. I used iDye in the color Gun Metal, which I bought completely because the packaging is quite gorgeous (how can that name not be a reference to the apple imperium though? I find it pretty humorous. I guess now I’ve declared for the world that I dye.). The dyeing itself was very easy and un-messy in a washing machine, and it dyed a lot more fabric than other brands I’ve used. The color ended up nice and even, but (and this is a big “but” depending on your dyeing attitude) it wasn’t quite the color I was expecting. The little chart on the website was actually a lot closer to the final result than the packaging.

Regardless, after getting over the initial damper of a slightly more blue, and less grey, color than expected, I am really happy with this dress.