Finally a use for the tiniest fabric scraps

After making the Gibbous inspired bustle skirt, I wanted to make more items in the same style. To start, I put together a matching distressed cuff.

This was a pretty fun and quick project. I made a base rectangle a bit shorter than the distance around my wrist, then layered scraps over it until I liked how it looked. I added some ribbons, beads and buttons by hand to finish it off.

Originally I planned to have the cuff tie on with this ribbon, but I didn't consider how difficult it would be to tie a bow with one hand. I added a piece of elastic on the underside to hold the cuff on while typing the bow. This works, but isn't the prettiest. Next time I make one of these, I plan to use a button and loop to fasten it.

You can see here the base is another piece of the denim I used for the skirt and an outside layer made out of a leftover scrap.

I bought these buttons for a different project but they ended up being the wrong color. I still think they're nice, so I'm glad I found another use for them.

I hope to make some more of these cuffs for sale, but I've really been slacking lately with sewing. I need to work on that!

"Oh, I thought those flowers were made of your hair..."

I bought a bunch of stretch lace last year but after washing a pair of panties made of it I found out it gets ruined very easily. I was pretty disappointed with that because if I make things out of it for anyone but myself, I can't guarantee they will wash them carefully enough.

Fast forward to now. I saw this tutorial a few weeks ago, and decided to give it a shot. In my excitement for finding a project that wouldn't need to be washed much (if at all) I cut several dozen strips of lace. This part went pretty quickly since I didn't have to worry about the cuts being perfect.

My machine didn't gather the lace up on it's own as the tutorial suggests no matter the settings, so I had to gather every strip of lace after sewing it. I then sewed them into the flower shapes instead of gluing, but glued them to the 1/4" fold over elastic (which is 1/2" unfolded as shown below) with some fleece circles like the tutorial suggests.

I went to a party wearing this and a couple friends thought I had somehow braided my hair up into the headband until they saw it close up. The color match with my hair is ridiculously close.

Fabrics so bright, they're glowing!

A long time ago, I bought some of this neon vinyl planning to make skirts, but it turned out to be too thick. I did incorporate it into a skirt once, so you can see that here. I made pretty much everything in these photos, but while searching for links to other posts, I couldn't find one for the skirt and fluffies. This was going to be about the shrugs and utility belt, but hey, let's toss the skirt and fluffies in too! For the one-shoulder top, check out this post.

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.

The Care Bears taught me how to touch my toes

I used to love watching the Care Bears when I was a kid, and I'm not a fan of their new slimmed down reincarnations. When I saw this curtain panel with the chubby bears at a thrift store, I knew I had to make a skirt out of it.

Hello, kitty.

I've made quite a few of these faux fur hats with animal ears (foxes? cats? something pointy, for sure... except the bear one that is) but these are slightly different and I haven't posted in a while. It's super cold here now, which is pretty discouraging when it comes to going outside in skimpy dresses and skirts to take pictures of them.

Vertical stripes > horizontal stripes

After I made the catsuit in my last post, I had a bunch of leftover striped fabric. I combined that with some leftover black spandex from this project to make a quick color-blocked dress. The whole thing is serged together, and I used my standard fitted knit dress pattern. (You can find the tutorial for it here).

You'll notice a strange collar in the photos as well. I saw some cool collars and other accessories made out of boning a couple weeks ago and wanted to give it a shot. More on that later.

Back to the dress: To figure out the color-blocking, I traced my plain dress pattern and eyeballed a line where I wanted the center panel to be. It follows the curves of the side seams on the dress, but slightly exaggerated. I cut on the line and made a note to add seam allowance on the new edges.

"What's a good way to get some tentacles without making too much of a production of it?"

One of my friends recently had a "crazy" idea to dress up in tentacles. She drew me a picture, suggesting that this is probably a weird thing that won't work out the way it looks in the picture.

It really didn't seem all that unreasonable to me, so I offered to make them. I looked around at "squid plushies" to get ideas for construction and we picked out some fleece and minky fabric based on what I'd seen. The house got pretty thoroughly coated in minky fluff (if you've never worked with it, it sheds like crazy when cut) but the tentacles came together nicely.

As you can see in the drawing and in the final costume images, the outfit consists of a tentacle belt or skirt (whatever you want to call it), sleeves/arm warmers, and a collar.

"You have to wear a bell so I can find you if you run away and hide under a car"

You know, like a cat would.

Since I put together this witch outfit for myself for a Halloween party, and my boyfriend likes it when I dress him up, I wanted to make some sort of matching "costume" for him. We decided on kitty ears and a tail (he also has a collar with a bell on it, so he doesn't get lost of course.)

This isn't my boyfriend, clearly, but he wasn't available when I took the photos and Bria here agreed to help (thanks Bria!).

I used the same pattern for the ears as I use for my animal hats, for example these or this one. They are a layer of fleece, interfacing, and faux fur, sewn together then attached to a headband. For this set I also added little bows. We have a bit of a joke going about having bows on everything.

I free-handed the tail. It's a rectangle with rounded ends, about 24" by 7". There's a belt loop on the end that can also be safety pinned on if you're not wearing a belt.

iPad Quiver 2.0

This is really like the 8th version of the "iPad Quiver" because it took a lot of figuring out last time I made one. Somehow even with the previous one to use as an example, I still had a hell of a time getting this to go together the way I wanted it to. I think maybe I have it now... At least I hope so.

What is an iPad Quiver you ask? It's a pocket that hangs off your belt, lined in a soft suede-like material and large enough to hold a tablet (originally the iPad Mini, as shown in the post linked above). The idea comes from my friend Kelly, who uses his iPad as a phone and therefore needs to carry it around all the time.

He's gotten stopped several times by people interested in knowing where he bought his iPad case, so I decided to make up a version for the Etsy store. I used black twill for the outside and something like micro-suede in gray for the lining.

I didn't have an iPad mini on hand so the above picture shows a Nexus 7. It's slightly smaller, but not so much so that this case doesn't work. I'm planning to use one just as an extra pocket for my wallet/keys/whatever when I don't want to carry a purse.

On the original, I had three belt loops. I don't think this is really necessary so I did two instead and made them out of a stronger webbing.

I keep telling myself I won't make another hat...

... and then I make another hat. They're always so fiddly and full of finger hurt.

I actually used a pattern for this one. It's McCall's M6664. They seem to make this a winter hat, but I turned it into a sun hat by using a lighter fabric (plain kona cotton).

I should also mention, I made this blouse a couple years ago. There's a post about it here (the first project post on this blog OoOOooOo).

I think the pleat in the brim of this hat is a nice detail, and not something I could have easily figured out myself. On the down side, there's millinery wire in the edge that I'm not a big fan of. Without it, it was too floppy and I couldn't see... but with it, the brim buckles unattractively in places.

As-I-Sew, now with more pink fluff monsters!

A long, long time ago, when I was super into looking at lolita clothes, I bought several yards of pink organza to sew my own petticoat. I sewed some easier petticoats and bought others, thus the pink organza sat around in a box.

The last time I went to put on one of my shorter petticoats I noticed it wasn't giving me much poof at all. Upon closer inspection I found the tulle was a lot less stiff and crunchy than I remembered it. It's probably spent too much time crushed in the closet (how in the world am I supposed to store the half dozen or more petticoats I have? They need their own room).

This old petticoat would not do (side note: it was the first I ever made), so I pulled out that pile of pink organza. Organza petticoats are a lot harder to kill than tulle, though more work due to all the layers and fabric needed to get them fluffy. I hoped this wouldn't be too difficult since I have a ruffler foot, but man was I wrong on that one.

On ruffler feet and organza:
Organza shreds like it's its job.
Rufflers grip the edges of fabric, tearing into it with their little robot teeth.
Rufflers look like little smiling robots.

The experience quickly became a nightmare of getting organza caught in the ruffler and ripping out thread nests.

Alright then.
I didn't really know what I was doing, so the order in which I sewed everything could have been better. After sewing the two layers I made together I thought the petticoat still wasn't fluffy enough and added an extra ruffle close to the top of the bottom layer. This was kind of a hassle to add at that point because all the fluff gets in the way. Do not recommend.

The finished petticoat is two layers: A bottom layer that is three tiers and one extra ruffle sewn flat onto it, and a top layer that is two tiers (also fuller than the bottom one). All the ruffles are sewn together once with a straight stitch, zig-zagged on the edge, then sewn down flat in a "mock flat felled" finish. The vertical seams are french finished.

The petticoat  has a spandex drawstring waistband to avoid scratchy chiffon pressing into my waist, and to make size adjustment easier. The spandex on it's own was not strong enough to hold this up.

This is what the petticoat looks like worn normally on it's own and under one of my heavier skirts (the first cupcake skirt).

Because the bottom layer is smaller, it kind of squishes down some of the fluff when the petticoat is inside out and gives a slightly different shape.

Just for comparison, here's the skirt on it's own.

If you'd like to make your own petticoat, here's a sort of mini tutorial. This petti is 18" long and all the measurements include a half inch seam allowance. I have a 28" waist, for reference.

When I started, I wanted to do three tiers of gathering per layer of petticoat. My tiers weren't wide enough, so I'm giving you measurements for ones that would be. I switched to two tiers on the second layer because the three seemed unnecessary. This goes together like any "tiered skirt," which there is lots of tutorials for out there. The info here is mostly for figuring out the measurements.

Three tiered petticoat

• top tier 9" by 2*fabric width
• middle tier 7" by 3*fabric width
• bottom tier 5" by 4*fabric width

Two tiered petticoat

• top tier  8" by 2*fabric width
• bottom tier 12" by 4* fabric width

I suggest doing either two or three layers of organza.

Yay! 100 posts! Now with foxy updates. Ohh ~

I don't actually have anything special for this... so let me update you on some things that are going on around here.

Specifically, you might recall, a couple months ago I entered a fox bag into a sewing contest over at the So Sew Easy blog. Well, I won! I don't know why I didn't post about this earlier, I've known for over a week now. Thank you to Deby for holding the contest, the sponsors for all the wonderful prizes, and of course all of you who voted!

One of the prizes I want to talk about is writing a guest post for the So Sew Easy blog. I've considered this a lot because I think our audiences probably don't overlap much. My clothes are pretty out there compared to Deby's if you just glance at them. Some of the basic shapes are similar though, and techniques don't vary too widely no matter what you're sewing. After some input from Deby I've decided on a tutorial for a knit fabric dress, like the rainbow dress or Alice in Wonderland one. Even though these two dresses look pretty different, they are mostly the same pattern/construction. It's a pretty simple design that can be adapted for many different dresses.

The other prize of interest to more than just myself is a collaboration with Deby on a bag pattern. I'm pretty excited about this because I don't typically make purses (well, I make travel bags for work, but that's more like factory production than personal sewing). We've started brainstorming ideas. There's so many possibilities! I hope I'm not too much trouble.

Finally, I am planning on making some fox purses for sale. If you're interested, let me know! I've been overwhelmingly busy somehow the past couple weeks and will be the next few weeks too, but someday soon I'll get some time together from the aether to make a couple and list them in the shop. Are there other animals you'd be interested in? I'll probably do a cat for obvious reasons, but there's so many cute animals out there!

If you've read this far, thanks! Remember to keep an eye out for  all these things coming up!

Meet the storage fox (for the Make it Yours sewing contest)

A while ago my boyfriend Kelly and I came up with a mythical beast called a storage fox, which specifically holds shoes, but (for the sake of this post) can hold other things. This is the story of the creation of the storage fox purse.

A couple weeks ago I came upon a clutch bag pattern and sewing contest at so-sew-easy.com.
Here are the contest details and also the pattern:
http://so-sew-easy.com/make-sewing-contest-opens/
http://so-sew-easy.com/make-yours-clutch-bag-pattern/

So, I don't usually make purses. They're too fiddly. But when I saw this pattern for some reason I kept thinking it looked like an animal face and suddenly I wanted to make it. These were my initial sketches:

I asked my boyfriend which one he liked better (fox or kitty) and he said fox, definitely, and the once forgotten storage fox was remembered.

I wasn't sure what to do for a strap at this point, and then I got the idea to use a chain, leading to the next sketch (also note elongated snout, and how I crumpled this in my pocket while shopping for materials). I don't use clutch bags so some kind of strap was definitely needed.

I brought this with me to buy fabric, which took way, WAY longer than it should have because for some reason fabric stores around me carry short pile fur in orange and black but not white or even cream. I had to settle for corduroy, and beg someone else who was purchasing everything the store had for a small piece because I didn't grab it right away and she beat me to it. I wanted a finer wale, but yea, she got it all. I'm glad she was kind enough to let me have this piece.

The contest specifically states the bag cannot be altered to a point of making the pattern unrecognizable, and I really hope mine still fits that criteria. If you look past the colors, the only alteration to the shape is the snout (and well, some ears).

I cut the pattern apart on the fold lines to make sure I could get the fox colors where needed. I also added a zippered pocket to the lining because I'm not a fan of bags without zippers. Here's everything cut out, except I cut the pocket wrong the first time and had to re-do it, so that's not correct here. The photo is also missing some quilt batting I added to the ears to make them squishier and more cuddly.

At this point the bag looked like the one in the pattern instructions again.

I had a hard time understanding how to sew the lining and outside together. I couldn't do it in the order it asked because I would not have been able to flip my bag through the small opening on the front flap. Instead I sewed the lining to the flap first, leaving the bottom edge open, then top-stitched that closed after flipping. It was also troublesome that the pattern doesn't account for "turn of cloth." This probably isn't an issue for someone using lighter materials, but with the added thickness of the fur, I ended up with some extra lining bunching on the inside.

There you go! The storage fox! The contest will be open for voting in early June. Perhaps I will link to that then.

PS. I also carry a fox-faced wallet, meaning I store a storage fox in my storage fox (hey we heard you like foxes so we put a... oh you know.)