Thursday, May 21, 2015

A skirt of shirts

I probably found out about Gibbous clothing more than six years ago, and kept telling myself I would try to make something in the style since then. I even had a box set aside to collect color coordinated fabric scraps and clothes I didn't need anymore so I had materials when I finally got around to it.

During this past winter, I saw a girl dancing in a similarly styled skirt at a party and I kept thinking about it. Dammit I was going to make one!

I pulled out that box of fabric, then spent a night doing a lot of pinning, sewing, and twirling, and here's the resulting skirt!



Thursday, May 14, 2015

This skirt makes me feel like a ballerina

I've been wanting to try doing a fishing line hem on something for a while, and since I've gotten comfortable using a serger over the past year I thought I'd give it a shot. I looked at a bunch of tutorials but none of them seemed to agree how heavy the fishing line should be, so I didn't really follow any one set of instructions. You can also do this kind of hem on a regular machine with a zig-zag stitch, which I might try next time just to see how it works.

This skirt was pretty easy to put together. I had some leftover organza from other projects, which I pieced into two full circles (one about 3 inches shorter than the other) with french seams. I then hemmed each circle with the rolled hem settings on my serger, carefully feeding the fishing line into the seam. It was a bit of a pain in the butt because occasionally the line would slip out of the hem and I'd have to go back a couple inches to cover it up. These spots aren't noticeable in the finished skirt, though after wearing it to a party I've noticed a couple places where the rolled hem is pulling away. the organza frays pretty easily, and I'm not sure how to keep this from happening. I've noticed it on my store bought clothes as well. Once both layers were hemmed, I added a simple elastic waist made of matching cotton.


Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Just a quick post for a quick project.

I've been hiding all winter but it's finally nice enough out to take some photos. This means I'll have a lot of new stuff to talk about in the next couple weeks!

I also haven't been sewing much because I've been sick, so I wanted to do a small satisfying project to get back into the grove. My watch band was completely destroyed and I've been meaning to make a few replacements. (Okay, the whole watch is pretty destroyed, but I really like it! I tried to get a new one, but there's always something that bothers me about the ones I've tried).


I re-used the D-rings from my old bands, but didn't have enough, so I tried one with velcro. It's not as strong as the D-rings but should be fine unless I'm being really active.


There's no interfacing in these, but I folded the fabric so it was 4 layers for a little extra stiffness. I didn't make a tube and flip it right side out. Instead, I folded the rectangle and top-stitched all the way around.


Here's what one looks like on my tiny wrist. If you remember, this fabric matches the kitty dress I posted about last year.