Me-Made-March '11 - Day 2

It is freezing in Toronto. I went out tonight in this get-up, I think it was 25 below. I am going to die this month.

Skirt - Simplicity 4047. (Project Runway fans will note the Giant Houndstooth - this was my Mondo tribute after the ridiculous finale.

Inner top - Selfish-Seamstress-inspired minimalist cowl.

Outer top - An oldie - Simplicity 4076. I seem to have lost this pattern - very annoying! At some point, I must organize stuff properly.

Me-Made-March '11 - Day 1

This outfit was a last-minute decision. I'd a couple of options identified, and in the end, changed it all up to wear this.

Dress - McCalls 6069
Cardigan - McCalls 5890 - hot of the presses, soon to be reviewed.

The dress works surprisingly well for work - the crazy back is hidden, and I look appropriately corporate. Though, it is crazy-cold in Toronto, I went out tonight in this outfit, and nearly froze in the 5 minutes I had to walk from the subway stop to my destination. I dream for spring.

I am insane!

Little logo on the right - the one that says Me-Made-March? Yes, I am insane.


I, Reethi of Weekend Crafting, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-March '11. I endeavour to wear all handmade and refashioned clothing each day for the duration of March 2011. I am excluding bras, socks, tights, shoes and outerwear (coats & jackets).


Doom. I sense it. Then again, I do like challenges.

Attempting a Frankenpattern - the finale

Yes, this was supposed to be done a week ago. There's a perfectly good reason for that - but I've whined enough about the situation to everyone who'll listen to me, and honestly, even I'm a bit sick of all the whining. Let's just say - unlike most times - this time, I had a good excuse.

Re: the dress - whoa! I really need to learn to make French seams accurately. I think I take in more from the side-seams than I should. This dress is tight! Like, unwearable tight. (It might also be a sign to lay off the chips and chocolate, and re-acquaint myself with my gym. I will choose to blame the French seams instead.)

Anyway - I took photos wearing it, mostly because hanger shots are boring. I'm not going to wear it anytime soon - not until I lose 10 pounds or so. (And it is short! But I'm cool with that, though it makes it non-work-appropriate.)

I made the sleeve view on the right, as you can see. Greater coverage seemed desirable, seeing how skimpy the rest of this dress is.

Apart from learning that I need to double-check my French-seams, what else did I learn on this project?

1. Measure joining seams. As I mentioned before, the waist width on the top pattern is very different from the waist width on the skirt. About a minute with a tape measure would have revealed this to me, but I was too impatient to get cutting.
2. Experiment! Patterns are a guide. You can do what you want. I'm not an expert by any means (see the measuring thing above) but I've put together a skirt and a top, I know how to do that, so a Frankenpattern isn't actually any more work.

Edited to add: A BHAG update - this was all from stash. The black & white fabric I bought 2 years ago? at Walmart. I used some cream cotton voile lining that I bought in India in Feb, 2010, and some lace for the inside hem that I've had forever. I feel pretty good about this.

Attempting a Frankenpattern - part 2

Summerset had some super-useful advice in response to my post yesterday - thanks, Summerset! I especially liked it because she didn't tell me to do a dart (I am very lazy, dear Readers...) and she thought I should just take the volume out at the side seams. Exactly what I wanted to do! I love when the lazy way is also the recommended way.

I had to work quite late yesterday, and therefore had to cancel my evening plans. I came home, indulged myself by eating some takeout pizza and drinking a glass of wine, and then got to work on the dress. (Yes, my refrigerator is overflowing with food, but I had a huge pizza craving!)

Here's what I got done:

- Trimmed the excess fabric in the top - both lengthwise to waist-level, and along the width at the side-seams to get it to fit my skirt.
- Basted the zipper, and tried on the dress (pinning the side-seams.) It seems to fit ok, though it's hard to tell precisely, since my spaghetti straps aren't in.
- Stitched the front top to the front skirt, and the back top to the back skirt. Seams are a bit more time-consuming, since my fabric frays, making French seams necessary.
- Stitched one side seam.

Tonight, I hope to get the following done:
- Stitch the other side seam.
- Decide what to do about the straps, and get them in. I'm vacillating between spaghetti straps in the fashion fabric or trying to draft up a wider sleeve (a sort of modified raglan sleeve?). I think the wider sleeve would give me more wearing options, and might make this work-appropriate, which would be good.
- Cut out the lining, and stitch (curse you, French seams.)



What do you think, dear Readers? The dress on the left, or the dress on the right (modified sleeves...)

Attempting a Frankenpattern

Last night - I was determined I was going to sew something new and exciting.

I'm always inspired by bloggers who look at an item of clothing and replicate it with patterns they own - I adored Summerset's awesome version of an Anthropologie top! I wanted to try this approach.

I was going for a version of Elaine's Coffee-Date dress - but I was entirely too lazy to download, paste pages together, etc. So, I looked at a couple of patterns I own to loosely recreate the look.

The top - I used was Butterick 4987 - view C. I've made this before a couple of times. (Earlier version of View C.)

For the skirt, I pulled out my trusty Simplicity 4036 (I've made a zillion versions of this skirt.)

Basically, I was trying for something like this:



Umm, yeah. I cut out and basted my seams together, and uncovered a few problems. Aside from the fact that I don't know where my waist is, and the top was entirely too long - the biggest flaw here is that the top has a ton of ease built in around the waist, and the skirt is, of course, fitted at the waist. So - I have 6 excess inches of fabric. I'm trying to figure out if I should just adjust this at the side seams, or if it is worth adding a couple of darts for extra shaping. (But then, I'd have to mark the darts, and ensure the back top darts align with the skirt darts - a wee bit more complicated than I wanted.)

Still, salvageable. I should have an hour or so to work on it tonight - I'm hoping to get the fit adjusted, and get the zipper inserted. Tomorrow, I'll cut out the lining (gah, most hated task ever) and sew that. I'm aiming to have this dress done by Friday.

Then and now - my life before the Madhur Jaffrey project...

Read more here about the Madhur Jaffrey project - one of my 2010 goals. For an index of recipes, click here.

It's been a few months since I talked about cooking, but work continues on cooking this cookbook.

From Weekend crafting

Noodles with spinach and mung-bean sprouts (Jan 30, 2011)


Now, if you remember, I extended my deadline to July 1, 2011. And then, my life became crazy busy in Sept/Oct/Nov/Dec, and I barely cooked at all. Which means that I wasted away all my spare time, and I'm once again stuck with a ton of recipes to cook in a very short time. (To be specific, I have 200 recipes left to go, ~140 days to do it in.)

Which brings me to yesterday.

I'm not a morning person, by any means, but yesterday, I:

(1) woke up at 6.30 am.
(2) pulled all the ingredients for a couple of pickles together and started cooking them (frantic cooking!)
(3) looked at the refrigerator, realized my enoki mushrooms needed to be cooked - asap! - and make a soup from the book (the only reason I'm buying enoki mushrooms is the cookbook, sigh.)
(4) soaked chickpeas and wheatberries (again, bought only for the book)
(5) and then left for work.

In the evening, I came back from work, and:
(1) cursed a lot. :)
(2) made a miso soup from the book
(3) made two vegetable recipes from the book
(4) cooked up the chickpeas I'd soaked
(5) cleared up the disaster zone my kitchen had become
(6) and then went to bed.

Ok, fine, I also watched a couple of How I Met Your Mother episodes, and had time to cut out a skirt lining, but that's pretty much it.

I'm now fantasizing about the day this project will be done, and I can once again return to activities like waking up late, sitting on the couch, sewing, watching movies, reading books, and the like.

My BHAG - No Stash in 5 years

I'm assuming everyone is familiar with the concept of BHAGs . This weekend, I set myself one.

My BHAG - no stash in 5 years.

I know there's a wide range of opinions on stash. Some sewers love their stash - it inspires them. Other sewers confess each time they buy fabric, as if it were a bad thing.

Me personally - I have too much fabric. And the more fabric I have, the less I sew. Too many options are not a good thing, in my case.

So my goal - in 5 years, I'd like to either sew or give away all my fabric.

Ok, now for the small print: I'm defining stash as Apparel & Home Dec fabric. Quilting fabric is specifically excluded - I have loads of African quilting cottons, but I love those and they don't stress me out at all.

February 7, 2016 - here I come.

Pink Baby Quilt

What a bad blogger I am! Sigh.

A couple of Sundays ago, I looked at my massive, overflowing stash, and pulled out some random quilting cotton. Two football games later, here's my pink zigzag quilt top. It is very pink, it needs a border and quilting, but I still thought of it as a productive use of an afternoon.

This is a very simple pattern - a zig-zag with no triangles! Instructions here.

However, it does involve laying it all out on the floor before piecing the final bits, so you can make sure you get it right. Of course, the instant I did this, I had a little helper come to inspect.



She might have thought she was helping - but she most certainly wasn't. But, of course, like all devoted pet owners, instead of throwing her out of the room, I went for my camera to take a picture.

Now, to complete the rest of it!

BWOF 08-2010-135

It's late, and I'm miserable (nothing actually serious, but a Patriots loss in the post-season - especially to the Jets - is pretty hard to take.) And I'm using that as an excuse for the ratty t-shirt, flip-flops and total lack of makeup in these photos.

This was a super simple skirt to make. I took the liberty of ignoring Burda's entirely nonsensical 'cut the fabric on the double so that you won't have to hem' instructions, and all was well.

Fabric: I bought this fabric during my G-Street crawl. Amazingly enough - I've used 5 of the 7 pieces - that's pretty spectacular fabric usage for me. It is wool, with a bit of stretch in it. I lined it with some Bemberg rayon.

Pattern: BWOF 08-2010-135. I cut a size 40.

Pattern adjustments:
1. I took an inch out from the yoke width to petite-size it.
2. I also ignored (as previously mentioned) the whole cut hem-on-fold thing - and cut a single layer instead.
3. I added 2 inches to the length to get this to a work-acceptable length.
4. I fully lined the skirt, not just the yoke as the pattern indicates.
5. And also, following the suggestion in this useful review and interfaced my yoke pieces. (Thanks, Catherine!)

Time taken: A few hours over a couple of evenings. This is rated 1.5 dots, and is ridiculously easy to make.

In conclusion: I'm not sure what I think of this skirt. Mostly, I think I need to work the accessories. This would be kind of awesome with boots and the right black shirt, not the sad-sack outfits I'm working right now.

Impeccable (and inspirational) pattern matching

I'm somewhat addicted to Tom & Lorenzo of Project Rungay, which is how I stumbled upon Proenza Schouler's Pre-Fall 2011 Collection.

This dress - I want to replicate. It is *lovely*.


I was looking at the dress, trying to figure out how it was constructed. First thought - there is a waist seam, and the top is just a simple top cut on the bias, and the skirt is an asymmetric wrap-around skirt.

Then I looked closer - see how the lines in the top and the skirt line up? In bias? With gathering at the waist? Is this even possible, or is the dress more complicated - with no waist seam?

I tried looking at another dress from the collection to see if I could derive any clues...



And I noticed this. The wrap skirt - in a print - look at the impeccable pattern matching in the asymmetric skirt.

This is amazing work. I'm sure the price tag on this dress will be astronomical, but this is a level of detail that might just once make the price tag almost worthwhile. (Ok, not really, but I sew, and notice these details, and am profoundly impressed.)

Readers - thoughts? How do you think this is constructed? Help!

Getting better at pattern matching with Simplicity 4047

One of the techniques I'd like to be better at is plaid/pattern matching, so when I saw the Sewing Guild's focus on new techniques for a SWAP, I was intrigued.

I might participate - I'm still pondering.

But this skirt did give me an opportunity to practice the pattern matching.

I used the skirt pattern in Simplicity 4047, which I used to make my Mondo-inspired giant houndstooth skirt (which I did finish, an updated picture is required.) It's a pretty basic skirt pattern, but gave me the opportunity to practice pattern-matching in the back and the sides.

I carefully cut in a single layer, and also pinned very carefully as I was sewing on each of the lines in the plaid to ensure that I'd get as much alignment as possible. I did ok, not great, but not bad at all.

Here's the results - Front:


First side seam:


The other side seam:


And the back (the worst of it - the pattern doesn't match up well around the zipper area, even though I did interface the wool for stability before installing the zipper):


Finally, pretty lace at the hem, I love this little inner detail:


(Though there are no pictures of it, the skirt is lined, the wool is too scratchy to wear without lining. )

Sewing pattern review - Simplicity 2594

Overview: As I was tracing out patterns and planning to cut fabric at my parents, I had a sneaking suspicion that back home, on my sewing table, there were a couple of projects that I'd cut out.

Came back home, yup. Two projects on the cutting table.

This one was the first. I added this pattern to the list as soon as I saw Trena's version. I loved the laid-back, easy vibe of this top, and the fact that it would be perfect both with jeans and under a jacket for more formal dressing.

Fabric: My aunt bought me this fabric from India a couple of years ago. I've used some of it to make this dress. I still have a tiny bit left, though I'm not sure if it is enough to actually make anything. It is a synthetic that frays, and therefore required French seams.

Pattern: Simplicity 2594, view B. I cut a size 10.

Pattern adjustments: I took an inch out from the length to petite-size it, but that's it.

Time taken: Very little. I added some additional complication by using French seams, but this is still pretty easy construction. I did follow the instructions, but if I were to make it again, I'd skip the back facing and use bias-binding to finish the back edge. Or I might draft a front facing. There's a point where the front and the back meet at the shoulders that has some potential for seriously Becky-Home-Ecky sewing, if you follow the instructions.

Favorite bits: I love the cowl, I love the versatility of this top.

Unfavorite things: Nothing. Love!

In conclusion: The last project of 2010 - I finished it ~2 hours before midnight, and I promptly wore this out to New Years Eve (it wasn't a super-dressy occasion, and this top made me feel pretty without being overdressed.) Yay!

Tracing up a storm

I've been on vacation the last 5 days - blissful! I've been hanging out with family at my parents - eating lots of yummy food, watching TV, laughing at my sulking cat (she does not like visiting my parents, she prefers to lord it up at my apartment...) and tracing a few BWOFs.

Now, I sewed - wait for it - 0 BWOFs from my 2010 issues. 0. That's pretty pathetic. For me, most of the inertia with BWOF is the tracing. Once I get past that, I'm golden.

So, in my 5 days, I traced 5 patterns.

Three skirts...

BWOF 08-2010-135


BWOF 08-2010-127


BWOF 11-2009-120

One dress...
BWOF 09-2010-122

And one top
BWOF 09-2010-121

I head back home tomorrow morning, which means I'll be able to get some of this cut and sewn up... maybe even before the end of the year.

Franken-patterning the cowl

Did I mention I wanted a simple cowl t-shirt? I am on fire, dear Readers. I pulled out some left over fabric, used the front and sleeves of McCalls 6069, and the back of a plain t-shirt pattern (I can't find my go-to Simplicity, so I used McCalls 4923 for the back, and here it is, a couple of hours of work! (I still have to hem the sleeve though.)

Here it is!
(The front.)


(The back.)

Sewing pattern review - McCalls 6069

Fabric: Some kind of knit I bought at G Street over the summer. It was $2.97 a yard, I think I bought 2 yards, and I used most of it on this dress.

Pattern: McCalls 6069

Pattern adjustments: I cut a size 10. I took a bit out of the bodice bottom, and a bit out of the skirt top (maybe an inch each?) to petite-size.

Time taken: Not the promised hour - how do they count this? I took ~4 hours, but some of it was also watching the Patriots game, so I was pretty distracted.

Favorite bits: I love the cowl, I've been wanting a cowl knit t-shirt for a long time, and this is a good substitute.

Unfavorite things: Ah, here goes, quite a bit actually.

- I've already complained about the bunching of fabric at the waist. Still don't like it.
- I hate how low the back is. In every picture I took, I can see my bra strap. That's too low, people. I need to figure out how to raise the back.
- It keeps falling off my shoulder. Right now, its pinned to my bra, and I still have to keep adjusting it.


(The back.)

In conclusion: I'm thinking of this one as a barely-wearable muslin. I need to think of a way to tweak this so I can keep the awesome bits (the cowl) and adjust the fit better.


(I tried it with a jacket as well, but I think it just makes me look square.)

Styles I shouldn't wear...

I worked on a McCalls 6069 (View B) dress last night, using some black & white printed fabric I bought during my G-Street shopping trip.



I made a size 10. The dress is close to done, but I'm facing a couple of issues, the most pressing being that the dress is literally falling off my shoulders. I think I need to shorten the back strap.

Trying it on though - I was a bit disappointed. This just doesn't look that good on me. I'm trying to figure out what it is, but I think it has to do with the bunching of fabric around my waist. Another classic 80s look, but one I shouldn't wear, I don't think. Also, I think more tailored clothing looks better on me that this kind of loose, unstructured dress, comfortable though it is...

Anyhoo, this is just assorted photo-free rambling. I'll finish the dress tonight, style it properly and take a photo.

Simplicity 4020 - View A

Dear Readers, despite my many wishes to the contrary, the 80s are here to stay. I've fought it all along, but I'm tired and am giving in.

Cue to this top - Simplicity 4020 - View A. This look screams 80s to me, but it is also ridiculously comfortable, and I'm ok with that.

Not much to say about the sewing here, really, it barely took a couple of hours to make. I'm a little uncertain of whether the style suits me at all, but then again, so comfortable!

The fabric is from WalMart - part of the 5 yards for $5. My mom was shopping there and bought it for me, knowing I'm always willing to buy knits,

Not quite a winter dress...

But finally, I have sewing to show.

I've been sick and miserable for most of the last week (people with children - I sympathize completely. I'm pretty sure I caught my persistent cough from a parent who caught it from his kid who caught it from daycare. Not good.) However, last night, right in the middle of the sickness and misery*, I decided to cut out and sew something, and I pulled BWOF 12-2008-113/114 from the stash.


(Since every revision of the BurdaStyle site seems to remove features - previews, magazine archives, etc, I just found the technical drawing at the Russian site and am pasting it here, vs. linking to it.)

I've made two versions of this pattern before - here and here. This time, the fabric I pulled out (a remnant from Joanns that my mom bought for me) was enough to make a dress, and so I did.



There's not much to say about this pattern. It has 4 pattern pieces, and is super-easy to sew. Even with my incredibly low-energy sewing, I'd say I only spent 2 hours on it, max. (Neckline finished with the magic Jalie technique, of course.)

So yay. A new dress for me.

*I am incredibly whiny and sorry-for-myself when sick. Thankfully for all around me, I'm rarely sick.

I'm going to whine (and maybe goal-set)

This is ridiculous, dear readers. Absolutely freaking ridiculous.

Do you ever have times when you are crazy busy, but you can't identify why? That's what I'm going through right now. I'm busy every evening, but with no great purpose. I'm just busy.

I've barely cooked in 3 months! I've barely touched my sewing machine. Biscuit is pining away, neglected (ok, this is a lie. Biscuit is my best-est friend. She always gets taken care of.)

My life is insane.

But, there's a silver lining in sight. My brother comes to visit next Saturday - December 18, and in his honour, my calendar is completely, utterly clear from the 18th until the 31st. No evening plans at all. I'm even going to take a couple of days off work, and even though I'll be hanging out with family, I still think there'll be a ton of time to sew. (Fingers crossed.)

Before the 18th, my calendar is also completely clear on Sunday (I'm cautiously optimistic about this). I think I need a GOAL! A huge, audacious, Reethi-are-you-freaking-insane kind of goal.

Could I:

- make 2 skirts and 2 knit tops in a day?
- make one so-necessary lined woolen dress?
- get to those long-forgotten pants?

I'm pondering. I feel the need to do - something - anything! - to shake myself back to sanity. (Your suggestions are welcome.)