The Ill-Fitting to Wearable Red Shirt

I was given this shirt. I really liked it. Except for two things. It didn't fit right in the bust or the sleeves. It was too short. 

I considered leaving it be, and just wearing it as it was, too short and uncomfortable. I had no idea how to fix it. I was afraid of messing it up. Then I decided that was silly. After all, it wasn't going to get much wear as it was. What did I have to lose by attempting to fix it? Nothing. So out came the scissors.

I started by cutting off the sleeves to elbow length. This gave me sleeves that were a comfortable length plus fabric to lengthen the bodice with.

Next I cut the shirt in half just above the waist band.

And lengthened the bodice with the fabric from the sleeves, making it the perfect length.

I added some elastic to the new seam so that the shirt wouldn't ride up while being worn.

There was a little leftover fabric, which I used to finish the sleeves with.

To complete the look, and hopefully make the shirt appear a little less altered, I sewed some tan buttons (from my awesome thrifted stash) down the front.

I also added a button to each sleeve, so that they would be a bit more fitted at the elbow.

Then, it was done.

And totally wearable.

Success!

A Tablecloth + a Pillow Case = a Dress

My currant favorite place to shop for fabric? Thrift stores. The linens section is a treasure trove of fabric, occasionally actual, still on the bolt, fabric, but mostly fabric in the form of sheets, bed skirts, pillow cases, and yes, even table cloths.

When I came across this green paisley table cloth, I snatched it up and immediately began thinking of what I could make out of it. A dress? A skirt? Something else entirely? All I knew is I wanted to wear it. What it would be was answered when I picked up M7187 at a pattern sale.

The green paisley tablecloth would turn into this dress, with a few changes of course. A slightly lower neckline, elbow-length sleeves, hidden pockets, and a contrasting fabric for the middle panel of the dress. From my stash of thrifted "fabrics" I pulled a light blue, silky soft, sateen striped pillow case.

I cut the center panel on the bias, like the pattern called for, only in two pieces with a center front seam, rather than one on the fold. I matched the stripes all down the center front to make a chevron pattern. That stripe matching actually turned out to be easier to do than I expected! Along with the canter panel I also cut sleeve ruffles and a mock belt from the pillow case.

I sewed everything together, added a zipper, and a couple of green buttons, from my thrifted stash, then I had a tablecloth to wear.

The pockets are in the waist seam, hidden by the mock belt. Large enough to carry not only the standard cell phone and pocket knife, but also a verity of sewing things, spools of thread and scissors to be exact. (Yes, I realize I may be a little crazy. Sorry, no excuses)

Comfortable, looks good with boots, not a sundress, yep, I think this tablecloth and pillow case became a wonderful fall dress.

An Asymmetrical, Faux Wrap, Zipperless, Black Skirt with Lace and Buttons

A black skirt. Such a versatile garment. Something every woman ought to have in her wardrobe. Thus, I decided I needed one, that is another one. I had a black skirt or two in my closet, but not one I had made. Given the choice I always prefer to wear clothes made by me, rather than store bought. So, I gave away one of my store bought black skirts to make room for a made-by-me black skirt in my closet.

I had a specific plan in mind, after all to justify making a garment that I technically already owned, it had to be unique. I wanted an asymmetrical black, faux wrap, zipper-less, button up, lacy, skirt. So I sketched out my idea and got to work. I had some incredibly soft, drape-y, black fabric and embroidered lace, given to me by a friend. It was perfect for this skirt.

I used combined bits and pieces from 3 different commercial patterns to make my pattern. Then, once I got the skirt cut out, I added an embroidered lace appliqué to one of my front panels.  

This cat (Suzie Q.) insisted on helping every step of the way. It's a thing good this she and my fabric were the same color!

I used a zigzag stitch to attach the lace to the skirt panel, then sewed the skirt together. To get the shape I wanted, the skirt front had to be made from three different panels. 

The skirt fastens with 3 buttons (from my HUGE thrifted collection) at the waistband, similar to my brown maxi skirt from last year. I made the front waistband piece extra long so that the entire waistband, once sewn together, would fit easily over my hips. Then I added buttons and button holes so that the waistband fastens by folding over itself. I love making skirts with this type of closure, easy peasy, fun button detail, and no zipper to have to hide!

This is such a fun and flow-y skirt to wear, perfect for wearing all my pretty shirts with.

Plus, it looks great with boots! (This is pretty much a requirement for anything in my wardrobe. I'm not sure I even own any other types of foot wear.)

As much as I love making and wearing dresses, I'm realizing it's much more practical for me to make separates for myself. I've got plenty of store-bought clothes that I like, but don't wear much since I prefer the me-made clothes. Thus, me-made separates like this skirt are just what I need. Something I made that looks great with my store-bought clothes, giving everything in my closet equal chance of being worn. (or maybe I should clean out my closet again, ehhh, no, well, maybe, I'll work on it.)

Purple Plaid Wool: In Modern Reversible Cape Form

While some of my sewing project are the result of weeks of planning, coming up with an idea, finding (or making) the perfect pattern, searching out the perfect fabrics, most aren't. Often I happen across something and think, I want to make that! Such was my "creative process" with this cape.

I happened across this cape on the So Zo. . . blog and immediately fell in love.

(image source: Oliver + S)

Even though I'd never thought of making myself a cape for everyday wear I knew I needed one like this. I already had the perfect fabric for it. My leftover purple plaid wool! So I followed some links to the company that makes the pattern for this cape, and discovered, hey, that's a pretty simple shape, I can come up with my own pattern! So I taped together a bunch of pink construction paper (what I had on hand that day) and got to work.

I started with Butterick B5265 (already in my stash) to get approximately the right dimensions.

I traced the Butterick pattern onto the construction paper, then changed the shape until I had the pattern I needed. Finally I cut the cape out of my purple plaid wool, then went to cut out the lining.

Now, I wanted this cape to be reversible, so I wanted another wool for the lining. Well, wool fabric is expensive, so I found this brown wool/cotton blend skirt at a thrift store. $3, approximately 2 yards of fabric, dreamily soft, perfect! Only I didn't realize exactly how big my pattern piece was going to be. Once I was ready to cut out the lining, some piecing was required.

At first the piecing was relatively easy, nice big pieces, only a couple of seams. Then I got to the last 2-4 inches, and all that was left was a pile of scrapes.

So little scrapes got sewn together, and finally I had a complete, very pieced together, lining for my cape. It even included the original skirt back pockets!

A little messy on the inside, but not half bad on the outside, if I do say so myself! 

Once the lining was done the cape went together quickly, and all that I had left to do was choosing some buttons for the closure.

A couple weeks ago I found about 800 (yes, eight hundred!) vintage buttons at a thrift store. So I snatched them all up, for only $4 (yep, four bucks!)! I'm slowly working on getting them all organised. I won't be needing any more buttons for a while!

After going through all my buttons I picked some out for the cape. A few mother-of-pearl buttons from the thrift store haul, and some rainbow/marbled ones left over from a previous project. I sewed the mother-of pearl buttons on the brown side of the cape, and the rainbow ones on the purple. One button on either side to keep the sides closed, and four down the front.

Then I had a cape, perfect for this nippy fall weather!

I anticipate this cape getting lots of wear throughout the fall and winter, and even into the spring.

I never would have thought I needed a modern cape if I hadn't happened across the original picture, but now that I have one, I love it! Anyone want a cape like this for Christmas? I think I may need an excuse to make another one!

Meet Ratatouille - Breeding Season

This year I decided to do breeding season the easy way. Pick one buck and breed all my does to him. No playing musical goats. No setting up countless breeding pens. Just picking one buck and sticking him out in the pasture with all my does. Easy Peasy. Except that none of my bucks can be bred to every one of my does.

Down in the buck pen live Lucky (farthest away) and Louie (closest). Lucky was born here, I still own his great grandmother, countless cousins, and a half-sister or two. He's a great buck, and definitely worth keeping, but he can only be bred to half my herd.

Louie, on the other hand, I bought as a baby, so he came into the herd completely unrelated to all my does. That was 8 years ago. So now I have his daughters, granddaughters, great granddaughters, and so on. Heck, he's even Lucky's great grandfather. So every year the pool of does I can breed him to shrinks.

With this in mind, I leased them both out.

"See you two in a few months!"

Even with those two gone, I wasn't completely out of bucks. I still had Sombrita's son, Domino.

I have a couple does he can't breed, his mother and sisters, but he can breed more of my does than the other bucks can. However, he's still a little on the young side, just having been born in May, so I didn't want to stunt his growth by putting him to work too young. Thus, I did a temporary buck swap with my friend. Domino went over to her house, and she sent back her new buck, completely unrelated to all my does.

Meet Ratatouille, Mr. impossible-to-get-a-halfway-decent-picture-of. He's got great show and milk bloodlines and gorgeous coloring. 

My does seem to really like him! I can't wait to see his babies come February.

How about this year's babies? Those doelings are too small to be bred this year, so the week before Ratatouille came over I bought some cattle panels and fenced in a very overgrown area for them.

They made short work of all the gigantic weeds!

So every few weeks we have to move their pen to another overgrown area.

The doelings make great weed-eaters!

Now that everything is set up, and all the bucks are where they need to be, breeding season has been rather painless. No escaping bucks running around the back yard this year!

The Reading Dress: Pockets, Buttons, Lace, Zippers, and Apples

It seems like every time I turn around my little sister has outgrown a dress, again. On one hand this is frustrating, I want the clothes I make her to get lots of wear. On the other hand, it's fun, this gives me an excuse to sew her more dresses, which I really enjoy doing. So, I guess it's a draw. Old favorites have to be retired, but at least I get to make more!
Now the really frustrating thing is that  most kids patterns only go up to size 8. After that there is a very limited, boring selection. So I'm always on the look out for cute dress ideas that I can make with the very basic patterns available in my sister's size. A few weeks ago, while browsing sewing blogs I happened across this dress on So Zo, What Do You Know, and instantly fell in love.

I had to recreate it! Luckily I had the perfect pattern to start from.

McCall's 2074 had the right silhouette, I just had to add the fun details, specifically the pockets. So I traced the dress front on to white paper.

Then I drew the pockets on to the traced pattern, and made 3 different pattern pieces. The top, the skirt/pocket piece, and the pocket lining. I cut the dress out of some salmon colored, apple print, cotton that my grandma gave me a while back. Then I got to sewing and adding other fun details.

I found this piece of vintage lace in my stash. It was about 9 inches long and I thought it was perfect for this dress. I considered putting it at the neckline, as a collar, but that didn't look quite right.

 So, it went across the front of the pockets instead, along with some white piping I found in my stash. I also added some pretty pink and white buttons that I found at Hobby Lobby.

While cute, the dress was pretty shapeless once sewn together, so I added some tucks at the waist to give it a bit more shape. I covered the tucks with some flat eyelet to help visually define the waist.

Finally, I put the zipper in, while not a cute detail, it is a necessary one, and I'm rather proud of this zipper. It's an invisible zipper that is actually nearly invisible! This is the first time I've achieved putting in a zipper invisibly. It's not perfect, but now that I've done this well I anticipate the next zipper I put in turning out even better!

Once the zipper was in I gave the dress to my sister and discovered what a success it was. Pretty and comfortable, perfect for playing in and curling up on the couch with a book. The challenge for me was getting her away from the book and outside for some pictures.

Well, I got her outside, along with the book. (She is quite a bookworm, which is a good thing, except when she's supposed to be doing something else.)

Good thing this dress has a big front pocket where she can keep that book! (and side pockets for anything else she might need)

Yep, I would definitely categorize this dress as a success. She likes it, and it fits her well now, but still has room to grow as well. This way it should last her till spring!

In fact, this dress turned out so well I'm considering making a second one, with it's own unique details. After all, I spent the time making this pattern, making another dress or two from it will definitely make that time well spent!