Ready to see one of the first skirts I ever made?

I was going through some of my closet the other day and found this sad looking skirt I never wore. It's one of the first skirts I ever made. I remember I dyed the fabric because I had leftover dye after doing some shirts (I'm even wearing one in the "after" photos). I also remember my mom helping me on the ruffle and some thread belt loops. I never wore the thing because the waistband just didn't fit right. It was my first time doing a partial elastic waist, and well, it was pretty obvious that I hadn't done this before.

Okay, here is the before, without a petticoat (I should have used one since I knew I would in the "after" photos, sorry).

I had tried to add some waist ties, but they were too long, so I tried to wrap them around the waist like a belt first, but that just looked lumpy, as you can see in the first photo.

I made this skirt right when I started learning about lolita. I think I knew even back then that it didn't fit the style, but was more "inspired by." It was kind of a test run for some fabric I had only a small quantity of, to see if it would be enough for a loli skirt. I believe the answer was "no" since I never made one out of that fabric.

Here's what it looks like now:

It's not that much different since I just re-did the waistband, but what's important is that now the waistband fits! I just did full elastic for simplicity's sake. This skirt isn't nice enough to be worth the effort of half elastic. At least now I might actually wear it, probably when I need to quickly throw something on since it's relatively casual compared to a lot of my other clothes.

I also turned the failed attached waist ties into a separate belt. There's thread loops holding it on. It's short enough to tie gracefully now, which I think makes the whole skirt work.

Oh no, it's been months!

I said I'd keep this up... I really want to, things have been pretty busy though. To make up for my lack of posts, here are some other costumes from Halloween. This isn't even half of all the ones I wore since I dressed up almost every day for work. I think it came to something like 36 costumes.

I was a couple characters from Alice in Wonderland, Alice being one of them. The dress isn't something I made specifically for Halloween - I've had it for a couple years now. I remember using a pattern, heavily altered though.

I didn't make any of these specifically to use in a clown costume either, but it all worked together pretty well. The no-sew tutu, leggings, and tank top with side gathers are all sewn by me, long sleeve shirt is some tie dye I did.

Funny story on this one - I purposefully didn't do full white clown makeup because I didn't want to scare anyone, and yet there was still a girl at the store I work in (probably around 13 years old) who could not look at me and had to close her eyes whenever I walked by.

Quick tie dye update

If you remember from my last post, I didn't expect this tie dyeing to go very well since I was pretty lazy about it. It's all sort of... meh. Not terrible by any means, but nothing special either. Ah well.
These shorts in the first two photos (front and back respectively) are also something I made. I pretty much wing it on pants like this, copying only the crotch curve from a random pattern. They have two front pockets, two back pockets, and an elastic waist/hems.

A couple more of the better shirts:

And now for something completely different

By that I mean not sewing, but dyeing is sort of related...

I've been doing tie dye for 5 + years now, but had taken quite a long break recently. Here's my try getting back into it (mostly because I'd gathered way too much white clothing with stains). Granted I didn't try very hard... I had a lot of dye left over after doing the things I wanted to get done, so I just started tying things up randomly.

I can't wait to see if there's any accidental gems in the bunch (that I'll never be able to repeat since I did this so haphazardly - one of the best yet worst parts of tie dyeing).

Speaking of bad things about tie dyeing - this was more of an adventure than I expected. First, I got black dye powder airborne in my bathroom trying to tap it into a squeeze bottle. You do not want to breathe this stuff in! I'm still not sure if I got it all cleaned up.
Later, I was doing the actual dyeing in the utility sink in my basement. Well, this sink drains into a container with a pump that then goes out to a drainage pipe. The pump malfunctioned and the container overflowed into the basement. Bah.
...and now, my wrist/hand is hurting in a spectacular way. I'm quite thankful for washing machines because after wringing out just 16 pieces of whatever, I am in pain.

Anyways, here's a preview:

Sims 2 Cosplay

Like I mentioned at the end of my post about my first pair of jeans, I cosplayed a character from the Sims 2 game last year with my best friend Eddy. 
Getting right to the point, here's the character I was aiming for:

and my rendition (The shoes were the only part of this costume I already had and didn't need to make):

What to do with a mock-up that works?

There are a couple ways I handle mock-ups (sometimes I refer to these as "trial runs" so I'm not constantly saying "mock-up"):
- if the pattern had a lot of fitting issues and I made it work, I save the mock up to use as a future pattern
- if it didn't work at all, it goes back in the fabric pile to be cut again as something else
- this one might be a little different than what other people do: if I think the pattern will work with only minor adjustments, I cut it in my lining fabric so I can just use it to line whatever I'm making once it's fitted. I baste the lining together, fit it, rip it apart to use as a pattern for the outside fabric, and put it back together.
- or, if the piece doesn't need a lining, I turn the mock-up into a garment on it's own. This can work since I mostly use plain sheets for my mock-ups. They take dye well if they have some cotton content so once that's done, no one knows the garment was just a trial run or is made from a sheet.

In this case, I went with the last option. When I made the Sims jeans for Eddy, I did a trial run to work out any kinks in my pattern alterations and sizing for his tiny self.

 

 

Of course they have some seams that don't quite make sense when they're not made in two colors, but that's not something most people notice right away.

Pants to dance in

There once was a girl who liked pants called UFO's (really there's lots of girls like that). Unfortunately, these pants were not in the budget of an unemployed college student. So, what's a girl to do? Make her own of course, this is a sewing blog after all (and a project from 2010).

I had seen other people wearing UFO's and got a chance to look at my friend's a bit, but since I didn't own any to even measure I had to make everything up as I went along. I do have some capri pants in a somewhat similar style, and those were definitely helpful for figuring out some of the details like where to attach straps.

These had no pattern and no trial run because they really didn't need it - I just went for it measuring and drawing directly onto some plain white fabric (a sheet to be exact). I'm pretty sure I had traced the crotch curve from a shorts pattern, but that's all. I used my hip measurement plus a couple for the waist (divided by 4 for each half leg piece) and made the pant legs 40" on the bottom (20" per leg piece). 40 inch wide pant legs are amazing by the way. They have drawstring in the waist and legs, lots of pockets, straps, and star buttons (those weren't sewn on yet in the photo above). One of the more interesting details I noticed in pants of this style is the little tucks at the knees - two on each side, so 4 per knee, only in the front. You can see them in the above photo. I believe they give you more knee room so you don't rip your pants doing crazy dance moves.