Failure and Fleurchon

I'm going to a wedding today in Wellesley, a high school friend of my husband's. I had this idea that I would make a dress for this wedding. My goodness. It was going to be navy blue dupioni with a gold lining and a patterned waistband, in a crossover bodice style. And I spent many, many hours more than I intended, and I did indeed finish it, and it is beautiful.... for a person two sizes bigger than myself.

Damn you McCalls!

I'm just too upset to try to fix it (which will be possible). It's fully lined, so I need to completely rip out the zipper and cut out fabric of fabric and re-insert it. I'm never making anything lined, or from a pattern, or complicated in any way, again.



Okay, I (probably) don't mean that. But looking at how pretty and properly made this dress is just pisses me off! It makes me want to gain two dress sizes just so it fits. Okay, again... not really. But still.

In defeat, I bought a dress at Ross. It's very cute, and was $13. Remind me again why I was making a dress in the first place? It's a cute black & white floral and is only marked down because the buttons were missing. I made some fabric covered buttons out of the Six fabric, that is, red ponte knit, and a maching headband with a yoyo (paired with a covered button). So I didn't manage to make a dress for this wedding, but I did make a fleurchon.

Quickie Capelet

I noticed my swap partner had a cape how-to in her W(ishl)ist, and I also noticed that it was very similar to my quick and dirty half circle skirt pattern, except with a simple rectangular hood, so I thought I'd throw this in as an extra. I think it came out very cute for a few moments of sewing.

I used the remnants from the skirt waistband, a difficult jersey fabric that I really had no other use for. It's finished with gray bias tape; the tape is stiffer than the jersey, giving it a curious lettuce edge.



I wanted to put a little leaf button on it, to make it sort of Fellowship of the Ring inspired (and therefore, geeky). And I had a little leaf button. And I tore apart my apartment looking for this little leaf button. But no. It would not present itself to me. So here is it, with a regular button. Arg.

Lily of the Valley Skirt

I made a flippy skirt with the Lily of the Valley cotton I bought on impulse a while back. I intended to wear it to the 21+ SATC screening at the Sherman Oaks Arclight (you must go, it is wonderful, both the movie, the theatre, and the cocktails) but I ran out of time and wore something much less fabulous instead. But it's done now. It's a half circle skirt with a green jersey waistband and cotton lace trim.



Half circle skirts are super easy. Here's some quick instructions for your skirty pleasure:

1. Add seam allowances to all measurements (well, except for the waist/6.28 measurement - you'd want to subtract your seam allowance from that...) and cut the fabric. 2. Sew the half circle together in the back, inserting an invisible zipper. 3. Hem the bottom. You probably need to hem it shorter in the front because of le butt. So try it on and pin it before you sew to make sure it hangs straight. 4. Cut a piece of fusible interfacing the height of the waistband, sans seam allowance. Iron to wrong side of bottom half of the waist band. Fold waistband over and iron, then iron down seam allowances. 5. Sew one side of waistband to skirt, then fold over and sew the other side down. 6. Neaten waistband edges, and add hook & eye or button closure at waist.

The jersey waistband was added on top of this because I wanted to stiffness of a real waistband, and the lace was added at the end, just because.

It's very fun to wear, its swirly and old timey and demure. And also cool (temperature cool, not cool like, I'm awesome) which is very important in the San Fernando Valley. I've been wearing it there a lot. A stranger happened to compliment the skirt at The Dressing Room and just about made my year.

Flies are Hard

My sister-in-law warned me: flies are hard. It was extra hard because the line in the Burda 7841 detailing how to attach the underside zipper made no sense. Like really, it was in the English column, but it wasn't the English that I speak.

These are for a Gaius Baltar cosplay, in case you're just tuning in.

Apart from the puckering around the fly, which is not too obvious when attached to a person, the pattern was great. The fit is nice and slim, the pieces fit together in a simple and obvious way, and the pockets are nice and roomy. I skipped the back pockets because they didn't seem necessary for this suit, and they looked a bit complicated.

I picked this pattern because it was literally the only pattern for a simple pair of men's pants in all of Joann Fabrics, but I've heard good things about Kwik Sew 3267 if your store has that brand in stock and you want some better fly instructions than Burda has to offer.

The fabric is from Fabric.com's sale section and was only $2 a yard. It's a stretchy suiting.



Geoff was unavailable to model these pants, so they are being modeled by the curtain rod over my bedroom door. Yes, my bedroom has curtains. There is a reason, and it has to do with cats. It gives my bedroom a Turkish harem feel, I think.

Using All the Scraps

Geoff was working Saturday, so I spent my alone time on a bunch of little projects, like this skirt. The green part was already a skirt I own, and liked, and bought for $10 at Ross. The fabric is green with a white flower embroidered pattern on it. The problem was that the hem wasn't very nice; it was a semi-unfinished hem with only a serged edge.

I thought, this would look nice with a band of white satin at the bottom, and I wondered if I had any white satin. So I looked through my scraps, thinking I might have some satin left over from the White Mage project. While searching I happened to find the hem from my wedding dress; the seamstress had given me the excess when she shortened it.

Perfect! Heck, it was already hemmed, I just had to attach it. I think it really adds something to the skirt, and it's good to use all your scraps, especially the sentimental ones.

Not a Three Hour Shirt

Chugging along on the cosplay. This is Baltar's shirt, inspired by this picture. I used McCall's 4079, a so-called "three hour shirt." Not! I admit this is the first time I've used an official, commercial, tissue paper pattern, but this wasn't even close to three hours.

Using a pattern was very helpful. I don't think I could have done the collar without it (and I barely managed with it). But the fit on this was a bit silly. The collar fit perfectly, but I had to cut several inches off the side. What kind of weirdly proportioned, tiny necked, huge chested person is this designed for...? I guess that's the unisex aspect.



A note on buttons: I am a crazy person! When Geoff was trying on the shirt, he said, "It's a little hard to button what with the holes being sideways." And I realized that I have always made button holes the wrong way. I don't know why, but for some reason I've never noticed that button holes run vertically. Ah, so that's the button hole guide has two lines. And that's why the buttons are always bunching (see above). Yes, I repeat: I am a crazy person.

Spock be Prosperin' - T Shirt

So what did I tell ya, huh? Geeky?

This is a design I did for the Threadless competition. After it did somewhat poorly in the voting, I decided to bleach stencil it using this process. The image was then touched up with fabric pens. I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Action shot:


This will officially be the first item for sale in my Etsy shop, should be up by the end of the day. Enjoy :)