Copy Your Clothes! Finished Item!

I finished it!  And actually, today was the 2nd time I wore it.  I got a good friend to take this photo of me at work, because I also wanted to show of my new standing desk.  The desk was out in the public part of the library (it's ancient), and was about to be moved downstairs to be given away or tossed, and I thought, well, I've been wanting to try a standing desk.  So I put it in my cubicle, rearranged my computer & screens and now I have plenty of places to lay projects I'm working on because my computer no longer takes up that space.  

I mostly like standing, but my legs are tired at the end of the day!  (I do easily get to 10,000+ steps every day now.) 

The first thing I did was buy an anti-fatigue mat...the cement floor underneath the thin carpet is not comfortable at all...much like standing in museums all day (which I love, but I always end up with lower back pain).  The mat helps a lot.  

Oh, but....back to the dress!  This was my first successful attempt at applying what I learned in the Copy Your Clothes class at Bits of Threads.  Below you'll see the original, which Mohammed made from a photo I had brought him.  I wore the dress for more than 5 years, so definitely got the use out of it, but it was faded and beginning to look beat up.  So, time for a new one!  

I took it almost completely apart and traced all the pattern pieces.  That's the easy way to copy your clothes--when you don't take them apart it's much more difficult to get the pattern pieces traced.    

I had a few bumps along the way, mostly because the original fabric was quite thin with some give, while the fabric I got from Windham is a bit thicker cotton and doesn't have as much give, even though I was careful to place the princess seams on the bias.  But it still looks great (I think) and I like it because the color's great (and goes with lots of my turquoise) and it also goes with my new black sandals!  

The original dress, that I took apart to
make a new pattern...

I also did a tiny bit of lining, mostly inspired by Ms. Scruffy Badger, who seems to line just about everything.  It's a summer dress & summer in DC means hot & humid, so I figure anything that helps the dress (and moi!) looking nice a bit longer is worth the effort. 

So you're looking at an example of the mini-lining I put in, using the poly/cotton blend I picked up on a super sale at Hancock.  I lined the sleeve completely, then cut shorter pieces for the front & back side pieces.  The dress & lining fabrics are just the right weight: they work together but you cannot see the lining at all when I'm wearing the dress.  I am hoping this will protect the dress a bit and let me wear it a long long time.  

3 Long Skirts, Upcoming Reveal, & It's June Already?

How did that happen?  1/2 way thru 2013 almost!?  

First of all, I wanted to show you the latest vintage sewing gadget I just got from ebay, a Dritz Skirt Marker, in perfect condition.  See the cork at the bottom (the circle)?  It's for pins!  Cool, huh?  There are a lot of skirt markers out there (old and new) that combine wood & metal, but I wanted this older one, which is mostly wood.  (The Roommate & I have a weakness for wooden items, because they tend to be handmade--and seem warmer/cozier.)  

And to the right you'll see a picture of the Skirt Marker in action, which should get you all excited for the big reveal.  I'll get the Roommate to help mark the hem for the dress I'm copying, and with any luck I'll have a new summer dress to wear to work next week!  

It does seem like summer may finally be here (up in the 90sF this week) so I brought up my summer dresses yesterday (another finally is appropriate here).  I think I brought them up in March last year!  No complaints...it's nice to have a long lovely spring.  

And speaking of Abu Dhabi, when bringing up summer dresses yesterday, I found 3 long (ankle-length) linen skirts I used to wear all the time when I lived & worked in the UAE, Oman & Turkey (detail of the fabric in the 3 photos at the left). They just seemed appropriate there.  

I wore them with sandals, but having my legs covered served 2 purposes:  protected me from the sun (I wore long-sleeved, light jackets a lot, too) and showed some respect for my employers and students.  I never covered my hair (I tried it once at a party and was amazed how quickly I was hot & sweaty), and since I'm not Muslim, that was never expected.  More important was to dress modestly.  I always feel like there's so much of me anyway, plus I do NOT tan, so dressing modestly was never a chore.  

Now, back in the USA...I still dress fairly modestly, but I can't imagine wearing an ankle-length skirt, unless I was going as a gypsy to a Hallowe'en party!  So I am planning to cut these off by about 18".  They are all linen, and the light one and the black one are lined with lovely thin cotton.  

Mohammed made the brown one for me, while the other 2 are Liz Claiborne. (Were these ever sold outside the Middle East I wonder? Hard to imagine a market for ankle-length linen skirts in Europe or the US...)  Needless to say the sewing is quite nice on all of them & that's one reason I haven't done anything with them, though I've been back in the US for almost 4 years:  I hate to ruin someone else's lovely hemming & chain-stitched lining tacks...knowing full-well I won't do nearly as nice a job.  My mom is lucky she doesn't live closer--her handwork is amazing.  All those tiny stitches--exactly alike.  

And here's one example of that amazing work, on a store-bought item: 

And here's Sunni, from A Fashionable Stitch showing how to make a thread chain w/ a machine or serger, though I usually make mine by hand.  

I'll be closely examining my new One-Yard-Wonders books to figure out how to use the pieces I've cut off (each approximately 18" x 60")!  It's lovely linen & of course we love fun prints in this family.  

Music; sorry for the pun, but here's Jeff Beck, Hi-Ho Silver Lining.  

Me-Made May Miracle: One Evening, Three Items

My hapi-coat inspired
summer housecoat &
slipper-socks

Believe me, all of you amazing sewists, who are showing off your creations for all 31 days this month, I am so impressed & following along avidly.  A whole wardrobe of things I've made?!  I'll call that Me-Made-Maybe, A.D. 2045 edition!

A first attempt at copying
a store-bought nightgown.

In the meantime, after spending the day running errands, going to yoga, going to the gym, fighting w/ a sewing pattern (which is what I feel like I do about 90% of the time), and needing a shower, I finally took one after we got dinner ready and just before we ate.  

BTW, We've joined the community garden nearby and our sweat equity has really paid off...the greens & herbs have been abundant, fresh & delicious the last 5-6 weeks.  Rainbow chard, beet greens, spinach, every possible variation on lettuce, cilantro, etc.  Yum!

Anyway, we made an amazing salad, and I got dressed and it just so happened that all 3 items I put on were me-made!  I'd call that a me-made miracle.  It all definitely came together because it got quite cold yesterday, so I needed the fuzzy slipper-socks, in addition to the nightgown (never blogged) and the hapi-coat (not really a yukata because of the length).  

Here are a few photos (sorry they're not the greatest quality), with my own tiny tribute to Me-Made May.  

More Copy Your Clothes

Green dress at Great Sand Dunes National Park

You may or may not know that the main reason I started making clothes again...and stopped quilting...is because I no longer live in Abu Dhabi & no longer have my tailor, Mohammed, to make clothes for me.  We left Abu Dhabi in 2008, so the wonderful cotton dresses and skirts and jackets I have are beginning to wear out.  

This green dress, in particular, wasn't all cotton to begin with.  (One of the hazards of buying fabric for 27¢/yard is not knowing exactly what that fabric is made of.)  Anyway, it's faded horribly, and it's time to try my hand at copying it & making another...

If you're wondering what it will be made of, check out this amazing fabric from Windham Fabrics.  I love it & broke down last week and bought 4 yards (there's a discount if you buy more than 3, so I HAD to).  

After taking the pieces apart, I marked
them so I wouldn't get confused. 

The green dress is mostly taken apart at this point--it's quite a good thing to do if you're watching a movie, as we were last night (those old Columbos are great fun!).  There were 10 homemade buttons (fabric + plastic) on it and Bella is loving those--they bounce & skitter extremely well on our hardwood floors!  

The next part will be turning these dress pieces into pattern pieces.  I don't think Mohammed used a 5/8" seam allowance!  But I have plenty of old maps from work to make pattern pieces out of...so here I go.

I've traced the piece, but need to add
the 5/8" seam. 

I pieced the pattern piece for the sleeve, I didn't
want to start cutting into a new map! 

BTW, the copied skirt is coming along nicely--lined and everything, I just haven't felt like tacking the hem.  Will probably wait until my friend gets back in town so she can help.  Explaining to the Roommate what I want is rather a chore, but Heidi will know exactly what I want...

Bella is devoted to Project Runway, too!

Overseeing the efficient use of fabric.

What I'm Working On: Copy your Clothes - Try Try Again

I took the Copy Your Clothes class at Bits of Thread DC a while back (a year?).  And I started pants, but never finished them (feeling fat keeps me from shopping & also from finishing sewing projects!).  

Anyway, I'm copying a Coldwater Creek skirt, linen, which I wear a lot.  This is not the greatest photo, but it gets its fullness from eight panels, all cut on the bias, and then all those vertical seams are finished w/ flat-felled seams, so they really stand out and, I think, are slimming.  I like the fullness, too, because a) it's more fun to wear and b) it gives the illusion I have a waist!  

The neutral color is great because I have lots of tops that are bright colors and many many jackets made from West African fabric.  I wear it year round, with woolen tights & boots in the winter & with bare legs & sandals in the summer.  The only thing I don't like is the lining is polyester, so on some of these extra humid & hot DC summer days it's not as cool as I'd like.  

So I decided to copy it because I have got so much use out of it and I think it fits great.  Plus I wear lots of skirts and summer is coming and one that is about 5 years old, also made from a West African print, is wearing out and I'm afraid it won't make it to Labor Day.  So I need another skirt, or 2 or 3.  

I bought two 1-yard pieces of this wonderful batik at a quilt show last month.  The fabric was really cheap ($5/yard) and though it would have been easier to have one big piece, I managed to get the pieces out of the two 1-yard rectangles.  I've finished flat-felling the seams, but didn't have a zipper.  I have lots of zippers, but they never seem to be the right size or the right color, so off to G Street & Joann tomorrow to top up my supplies.  (I need more 1" elastic for another  pair of knickers for the Roommate, too.)  

So hopefully it will be finished soon.  Oh, but I have to get some lining fabric...and line it, so maybe not finished real soon!  

Batik always makes me think of Bali & the Kecak dance.  So watch the video & you can think of it too!

BTW, If you're looking for some behind-the-scenes info regarding Project Runway, read a bit of Mondo's blog and find out about the basement!  

UFOs sighted! Or, a Hall of Shame

Okay, we are back from Catalonia.  It was amazing...got to see all our friends (and their families & children), so that was wonderful.  We were fortunate that 3 different sets of friends were in the same part of the world at the same time. And it meant we traipsed from one end of Catalonia to another, from mountains (hiking/birdwatching) to the seashore (the Roommate worked on his tan while I stayed inside & read--I'm a white girl!) to river deltas (more birding), and managed to bask in the amazing Modernisme architecture that is all over Barcelona. Our next project will be to rent some movies filmed in Parc Guell!


And while I was gone, of course I missed Bella, who is as sweet and adorable as ever. And I missed my machine & thought of about 50 more projects I want to do...but made a vow that I would finish up some UFOs before I move on.
Most of them are almost done, so really, it would be a little work to get a BIG feeling of accomplishment before I move on.
And what are those UFOs, you dare to ask?  Well, let's get started...from oldest to newest the UFOs are:

1. Simplicity 1011A, which you probably recognize from Tilly's logo.  This is a very good lesson in why muslins/toiles are so important.  It is a little too small (wouldn't be if I'd lose that stone I gained since we moved to DC!), but could be let out.  But the real problem is that the bodice is really too short in the front--and I refuse to take out & re-do the zipper--this was back when I wasn't so good at them and I remember it being he** to get it in).  I need to do some playing (maybe not have it overlap so much at the double-breast in front?) and get it into shape.  I love the pattern & the fabric, so really want this to work out.

2. 7051/7501 - This has been going on way too long.  I have fixed the weird fitting issue, thanks to Allison, but have to remake the collar & facing as that required cutting off quite a bit at the neck-side shoulder seam.  I really can't wait to have it done, and winter is sort-of coming, so it must keep its place in the UFO order.  

3. Copy Your Clothes: Pants - I took this class with Allison at Bits of Thread, DC in April.  Here we are 4 months later & though I made a toile (with extremely ugly sheet fabric as you see in the photo), and bought some super cheap $.99/yard fabric, I haven't finished them.  They didn't quite fit right & I really have trouble adjusting & playing with fit as I mostly hate my body (Candy Says...) & therefore inspecting it closely for fitting is icky.  And I'm not sure I want to tackle the lining that will be required.  But I do want a few colors of these pants...it will be great.  And, I want to make my Starlet Suit a pantsuit!  Must achieve!  


4. Starlet Suit Jacket! - It is actually about done.  That is, if you consider w/out a lining about done!  I've really enjoyed all that Gretchen has taught in this class.  I've learned lots of stuff I'll use again, a few things that were interesting but probably won't use much, and had lots of questions & terms I had about tailoring answered/explained.  


5. Probably not the best idea I've ever had.  I really wanted this dress, but I'm not sure it's really for my body type (even if I did lose that stone!).  This is Simplicity 6081, which my mom recently found & sent.  (1966!).  It is so cute & I love the fabric I've got, but goshee gollee, I am not having much luck w/ fitting it.  Did anyone say toiles/muslins are important?  This may get made into something else--like a book bag or cover for my tablet computer...


Next post I'll tell you why I'm so anxious to get all these crossed off my list...