Black, Brown, Lace, and Frost

There has been frost on the ground the past 2 mornings! The weather is finally changing!

Now, don't get me wrong, I really do like warm weather, but I love having four seasons. Currently the grass is still green, some trees still have their leaves, and some flowers are blooming like it's spring. That's not what late fall is supposed to look and feel like. Next year I'm going to be in warm climates all year long, so right now cool weather makes me very happy. Along with the fact that I love fall, I've made some chilly weather garments (such as my jean jacket, my capelet, and this sweater) which I'd really like to get some more wear out of before I leave. This skirt is one such garment.

Last winter my grandma gave me a yard and a half of this brown, satin backed fabric with a faux suede texture. She said she thought I could make a skirt out of it. So, I started brainstorming ideas for said skirt. One evening I came up with an idea, so I pulled out the fabric and my trusty skirt pattern, Simplicity 1500.

I would be making the skirt with the handkerchief hem, view E, with some alterations. 

I cut out the back of the skirt just as the pattern dictated, then came the fun part, the front.

  

I cut the front piece on the fold, then cut it into two sections, one about 1/3rd the total width, and the other about 2/3rds the total width. Between those two sections I added an extra panel of fabric, some brown poly crepe with an overlay of black lace (left over from this refashion).
At this point I'd run out of my satin backed suede fabric so I made the waistband out of a scrap of the brown crepe. The back waistband I made as usual, the front waistband I made extra long to fit onto the extra wide skirt front, then I added buttons.

Eight mismatched black buttons, four sets of two. The skirt waistband fastens in one of my favorite methods (used on this skirt, and these skirts), it folds over itself and buttons closed. This makes 4 pleats in the lace panel.

Of course, I added pockets to this skirt, just as with everything else I make. Where would I be without pockets? I finished the hem by pinking it, then added a ruffle of 4"wide black lace. (I had decided an actual hem would be too bulky, and this fabric doesn't really fray.)

I fell in love with the finished product. I don't usually wear black and brown together, but with this skirt, it just worked. The combination of the two colors means it can be worn with quite a few of my shirts.

All in all, though, this is very much a winter skirt. The fabric is too warm (being a rather heavy polyester) to be comfortable during the warm seasons. (I learned this the hard way when I wore the skirt one day in El Salvador over the summer)

So, I finished this skirt last winter and wore it plenty! I just never got around to getting pictures of it. Then, at the beginning of this week, I needed a dark skirt to wear and I decided to was a cool enough evening that I could wear this one. 

Thus, as soon as I got dressed for the evening I dragged my youngest brother outside to get these pictures. Photographically documenting both this skirt and my red hair for the first time ever.

I rather like both. Thank you, Gram, for the fabric and the suggestion of what to make with it!

"What Did I Just Do?!?!?"

Over the weekend I did two rather strange things. First off, I bought a dress.

Yep, I went into a store, that wasn't a fabric store or a thrift store, found a dress on the rack, tried it on, and bought it. This was strange because I don't buy dresses (unless I'm going to refashion them), I make dresses. This dress though, it was cute (those sleeves, that lace yoke. . .), it fit well, it was clearanced at a great price, and I kind of needed a little black dress to add to my wardrobe. So, yes, I bought a dress.

So, that dress came home with me and then the second strange thing happened, you may have already noticed it. That's right, I dyed my hair! 

I've kind of wanted red hair for a few years now. I've been halfway considering dying my hair red for a couple months. Finally last week I decided "why not?" So, not wanting to chemically dye (and damage) my hair, I bought some henna and used it to dye my hair Saturday night.

The results are taking some getting used to, but the overall verdict is I like it! I look in the mirror, and after a quick double take (it's only been about 2 days after all), I get excited again! I'm a redhead now! Just like my mom, my grandma, and one of my favorite book heroines, Anne of Green Gables. 

My red hair makes quite the contrast with that store-bought black dress. Of course, after I bought the dress I needed to add a couple of things to make it mine. First it needed a belt or sash, the dress was a little shapeless without one, and I don't like shapeless.

I brought the dress home and started considering my options for making this belt. I knew I wanted it to be a color (no white, black, ivory, grey, tan, etc.), and I knew I wanted lace on it. Then I took into account my new red hair, and what color nearly always looks good on redheads? Green. Thus, green my belt will be.

From my stash I pulled a scrap of green taffeta and some pastel green lace. I cut the taffeta into 3 bias strips, each 5 inches wide.

I then sewed the 3 strips together with tiny french seams to make one long strip. Down the middle of the strip I sewed two rows of lace, leaving long tails of lace at either end, with 5 rows of stitching. A zigzag stitch between the two rows, a straight stitch down the middle of each row, and a straight stitch on the outer edge of each row.

Next I carefully cut only the taffeta, not the lace, right between those outer two rows of stitching.

Then I folded over the taffeta and stitched it down so that it was no longer visible through the lace in those two places. I also hemmed the outer edges of the taffeta so that they would be finished.

Finally I folded the very long lace and taffeta strip in half and sewed it straight down the middle again, starting about 2 inches from the folded end and ending about 5 inches from the other end with the tails of lace. This effectively hid the not as pretty wrong side of the belt, and it served a practical purpose as well.

Now the belt can be tied by threading the end with the tails through the loop the folded end made.

Belt finished, shape and color added to the dress, it was time to address the other issue this dress had. For some strange, infuriating, reason, clothing companies can't seem to grasp the fact that pockets are required in all -ALL- skirts, dresses, and pants. What am I supposed to do with my pocket knife, cell phone, keys, and spare change if I have no pockets?!?!? Yep, this dress had no pockets. I refuse to wear a dress with no pockets. So, I fixed that problem. (I really wish I hadn't needed to. Darned clothing companies.)

I cut two pockets from a scrap of black knit left over from a previous refashion.

Black and black does not make for an easily decipherable picture, sorry!

Next, I sewed the pockets in. The main fabric of the dress is chiffon, not very sturdy, thus not ideal to hang pockets from. So, I attached the pockets as patch pockets at the side seams of the sturdier lining.

White fabric added for a clearer picture, it's not actually part of the dress.

Finally I opened up the side seams about 6 inches so that my pockets would be accessible.

Pockets finished, belt added, and my store bought dress was officially wearable!  I'm pretty pleased with both it and my newly colored red hair!

The Long Red Vest

The idea came to me months ago. The materials came to me about a year ago. It was a quick and easy project to get me back in the swing of sewing things after training camp. 

Last Thanksgiving my aunt gave me this dress to do something with. She'd bought it and decided against it but couldn't return it so she thought I might be able to use it for something. It has sat in my refashion bin for nearly a year now, waiting for that something.

The dress fit me great, it just wasn't my style at all.

Back in February, when my brother, mom, and I went to Indianapolis I saw a woman walking around downtown wearing a long, semi-fitted, vest. I loved it and immediately started considering what fabric I could used to make one. Then I remembered the red dress.
Thus, this project has been in the back of my mind for 8-ish months now.
Last week I decided I really wanted that vest so I pulled out the red dress and got started.

The original construction of the dress made this refashion really easy. There was a center front seam that ran uninterrupted from neck to hem. I pulled out my seam ripper and made short work of that seam. As a design feature that seam had been top stitched open so there was no hemming required! I just had to hand sew down the edges of the hem and neckline facing.

Now, after that little bit of hand sewing, my vest could have been done. It certainly looked done, but I decided it wasn't.

There had been a zipper down the back of the dress. My new vest had no need of a zipper, so I ripped it out and sewed up the back seam.

This was easy-peasy and gave the finished product a much more professional, less homemade, look.

In no time at all the vest was done and ready to be worn as part of my fall wardrobe!

Now if only fall temperatures would arrive to make layering comfortable!

Here we are at the beginning of November, most of the trees have lost their leaves, and we still haven't had a frost! Heck, some days the temp gets up into the 80's yet.

The mornings and evenings at least are distinctly fall-ish, making me very pleased to have this vest to throw on for a little extra insulation, and a lot of extra style!

Not at all baggy, but still a little flow-y. I'm thrilled to have finally turned this dress into something I enjoy wearing!

Sleek, Sophisticated, and Little Girly?

For the past two weeks I have been at training camp in Georgia, getting prepared to go on the World Race come January. Meanwhile at home, my youngest two siblings were participating in the annual homeschool co-op play, and I was missing it! I was not happy at all about this. I was rather sad in fact. I'm well aware that I'll miss lots of things while I'm gone next year (think of how much my sister will grow! She'll be a teenager when I return late 2017!), but I wasn't ready to start missing things, like this play, just yet!

Ok, I'm done with my pity party. I really am thrilled beyond words to get to go on the World Race, it's just hard to leave my family behind.

Now, back to the play. It happened last week, and while I don't get to see it (my best friends were left with instructions to go in my place) I did at least get to make my sister's costume.

The play was called Cactus Pass. My little sister got to play a rich little girl stranded in Cactus Pass with the rest of her rich family. As such she needed designer-esque clothes. I googled "children's designer clothes" and discovered that as long as her outfit was cute and colorful it could pass as "designer" on stage, so I planned to make her something bright, colorful, and ruffly. Then the directors said they wanted her to wear something sleek and streamlined. Oh. That sounded like a lot less fun to make.

Not sure where to begin on the designing process my mom and I sat down one evening and began to look up ideas for a sleek and sophisticated little girl's dress. After a couple hours we found what we wanted.

Elegant, but with a touch of little girl. Off to the fabric store we went first thing the next morning. We picked out a pink textured linen (my sister was pretty insistent that since her character was a 5 year old girl the dress needed to be pink), a taupe matte satin for the details, and a gorgeous metallic lace. In my stash I had an incredibly soft cotton satteen sheet that would work perfectly as the lining.

Design figured out? Check. Fabric picked out? Check. Now for the pattern.

I adapted Simplicity , a basic A-line dress pattern, to have a center panel and a square neckline. Those adjustments didn't take long so soon I was ready to sew!

This dress needed to look high class so I was very methodical with my construction steps. I sewed the lining and outer fabric as one in such a way that every seam was entirely encased. There are no raw edges or seam allowances visible anywhere inside this garment! I usually don't take much time making the insides of my projects "pretty" so it was rather fun to do this for a change. I carefully inserted an invisible zipper in the back and used my sewing machine to finish the dress with a blind hem. (Surprisingly I didn't have to do any hand sewing on this dress!)

Finally I decorated a coordinating hat to complete the costume. (Now this I did hand sew.)

Costume done, I got to go see a dress rehearsal of the play the night before I left for training camp. Though the play was not completely polished yet (approximately 2 weeks before opening) I loved getting to see it! That night brought back a lot of memories from when I was in high school doing plays. I left feeling confident that come preformance night the kids would nail it and the play would be amazing. According to those who got to see the play, it absolutely was and the kids surpassed expectations! 

I'm pretty darned proud of these two! I'm sad to miss a year of their life next year, but I know God has called me to do the World Race next year and I'm excited to get to do it!

P.S. If you're interested in hearing about what I was up to while my siblings were stars check out my World Race blog!

Fixing the Pretty Shirt

I love wearing dresses, I really do. I make a lot of dresses, so the fact that I enjoy wearing them is a good thing. (Though if I didn't enjoy wearing them I guess I wouldn't make so many.) Thus, every Sunday I wear a dress to church. However, there are those Sundays when wearing a dress to church might not be the best plan. Like that week when immediately after church I was going to go volunteer at an event where I would be helping with horses. Yeah, that weekend a pretty shirt and nice jeans were the way to go.

I made this pretty shirt, using Butterick B5854, the year after I graduated high school, the year I got really into sewing. I picked out the soft, drapey, (did I mention soft?) peach fabric at Joann's and paired it with some ivory lace a lady at church had given me. Down the front I sewed on four pretty little shell buttons. I was rather proud of myself for making such a pretty shirt. I wore it a few times right after I made it, but not many. Why? The pleats on the front of the shirt just didn't lay right. They were too high up. So, for the past 4 years this shirt has mostly just hung in my closet. I'll look at it, think "that's such a pretty shirt" then move on to wear something else.

Finally, a few weeks ago, when I needed a pretty shirt to wear to church and then to volunteer, I pulled the shirt out and decided to fix it. It wasn't that hard really, I don't know why I put it off for 4 years.

I undid the center front seam that the pleats were sewn into. I re-sewed that seam. Then I put the shirt on and re-pleated the excess fabric into 3 new pleats a little lower down. I sewed them in place and sewed the pretty shell buttons back on. What I didn't do, and looking at these pictures I see I really should have done, was iron the whole shirt.

Oh well, I still wore it that Sunday and I got a few compliments on it, wrinkles and all!

Re-working this shirt I saw how much my sewing has improved over that last 4 years. That circle flounce on the bottom has stretched out so it's uneven. The seams are unfinished on the inside. That flounce hem? Yikes! Seeing how much better my sewing is now in comparison makes me feel really good about my current sewing. With that in mind, I really can't wait to see how much better my sewing will be in another 4 years! 

Honestly, I'm still not completely satisfied with the pleats on the front of this shirt. They still don't lay quite right. But you know what? This is a pretty shirt so I'm going to wear it, flaws and all, and I'm going to enjoy it! Maybe I'll make another shirt from this pattern sometime, just to see if I can make a equally pretty but better fitting version. But meanwhile, I need to sew myself some T-shirts for the World Race!