Well, here's my underwear.

The other day I spent a couple hours making undies. I wasn't sure why I was doing it because it's not cost effective (fabric + elastic trim + about an hour of time per pair), and I wasn't even really using any amazingly unique fabrics. This would be more worth it had I used some super cool fabric, but that would have required going out and getting more things, which would have made it even less worth it...

For the most part, I wanted to do this because I kept seeing cute elastic trim at my local fabric store. A couple months ago I bought a few yards in like four different colors, and so here we are.

I used a combination of two tutorials. Mostly this one, for the pattern and construction order, but also this one for the method of trim attachment.

So, as the first tutorial states, I used an old pair of panties to make a pattern. (I'd show you what the originals looked like, but they are super worn out and I'm not going to do that.) The longer, thinner piece is the front with an attached crotch and the other is the back. I'm not sure what the benefit is of cutting the crotch and front as two separate pieces the way a lot of commercially produced panties do it, so I didn't cut them separately.

Here's what the pieces look like cut out:

For the crotch lining, I just used the bottom of the front pattern piece.

These pink ones were the first pair I made and had to re-do like three times because I kept mixing up the right/wrong sides of the fabric. The tutorial is very clear about how to arrange them, but somehow my brain just wasn't doing it.

As you can see, I cut each of them a little differently, mostly changing the width of the sides.  On the tie-dyed pair, I accidentally flipped the pattern for the back so the wrong side was on the fold (turning the crotch into the side seam). This made the crotch narrower, but apparently the pieces are symmetrical enough for it to still fit. Yay. I was afraid I had ruined everything and wouldn't even be able to recut it because there wasn't enough tie-dyed fabric (a shirt actually) to cut the piece again.

So, even though it doesn't feel like making these was worth it, they were kind of fun to put together. It's a pretty instant gratification project, which is nice to have once in a while.

How many ears is too many?

My friend wanted one of these hats/hoods with the attached hanging pockets and I made him one a while back, but I kept forgetting to post about it. He likes weird things and isn't afraid of looking ridiculous, so he came up with a design that had two sets of ears, and eyebrows. Originally he also wanted teeth on the hands (not claws, definitely unacceptable) but I convinced him that would be very difficult to pull off without it looking like claws. I wouldn't have come up with this hat, and it's pretty awesome. Take a look:

We went shopping once (both wearing our ridiculous fur hats) and had a man walking by exclaim, "Jesus Christ, Halloween was over a month ago." I'm pretty sure he was just jealous because his head wasn't as toasty warm as ours and he didn't look nearly as amazing.

The hat is fully lined in red fleece, has pockets on the ends, fleece eyebrows, and two sets of ears - one smaller than the other. The ears could have been further back and more spaced out, but after I had sewn them on once I wasn't really willing to do it again. Sewing through that much fur is hard on the fingers. The pattern is my usual over-sized hat pattern, also used here, here, and here.

I probably did nothing properly but here it is! The jacket is done!

First of all,  here are all the progress posts and a link to the original pattern for the Galliano Pirate Jacket. I pretty much abandoned any instructions and a lot of pattern pieces while making this, mostly because if I tried to take it too seriously I knew I would have never finished. Winging it has resulted in a finished jacket with a ton of imperfections, but hopefully no one will notice because they'll be too confused by the whole thing anyways.

As you can see, I went with straps and D-rings for closures. Like I considered in my last post, I also took apart the square end on the bottom, recut it, and added binding to make it match the rest of the jacket.

Here you can see the bottom of the back fits me pretty well, unlike when it sticks out on my dressform. 

The original jacket suggests two ways of closing it (with snaps in two different orientations). I wasn't really paying attention to this part when making it, but stumbled upon it while taking the photos, so here are the two ways mine closes - either matching up both side straps (all above photos) or attaching the bottom strap to the top set of D-rings and letting the extra straps hang (two photos below).

It fits my dressform a lot differently than my body, but it's easier to see where the straps all go, so here's that:

Finally, for my/your amusement, here's what it looks like flat... some sort of strange unrecognizable creature.

This might be the most vampire appropriate thing I own.

At least, I feel like a vampire would wear this... not one of these terrible new vampires, one of the bad-ass ones, to be clear.

The vest is black twill, many yards of twill tape, and a couple buckles and D-rings (ok, 16 D-rings). I kind of had a pattern, meaning I used a scan from gosurori vol. 3 (the vest/jacket shown on the cover) and a blouse pattern. I don't actually have the magazine, so I adapted a commercial blouse pattern... no mockup, just drew the shapes right on the fabric.

It's pretty hard to see the details since it's all black on black, so I'll try to explain. The points on the front, armholes, and bottoms of the tails are all bound with twill tape. The buckles along the spine are also twill tape but it had the buckles already attached. I bought this trim at one point because I thought it was cool, without a specific project in mind, so I'm glad I remembered it and could use it.

Oh man, this collar. I drew it mostly free-hand onto some paper using the picture/measurements in the magazine scan. I'm a little surprised it didn't cause me much trouble. It was originally too long for the neck opening in the vest, but I just cut the opening slightly larger and it works.

There's several different ways the straps on the front can be tied off (or not). They kind of give the vest a bit of a straight jacket vibe, which I am definitely a fan of.

Above, you can see the side straps (undone here). These help keep the back of the vest close to the body since it's weight is pretty unbalanced.

In case you're curious, this is what the tails look like flat. The scan had them even wider but I could only get this much width out of my piece of fabric.

Since the vest is unlined, I covered every seam that's visible while it's worn with twill tape (seen in the images above and below).

I'm pretty happy with how this all came out, especially considering I didn't really have a pattern and had a limited amount of fabric that was less than suggested by the magazine scan. There's some places where things don't quite line up (that's what I get for not planning where I'll put straps before sewing all the fabric pieces together). Still, it's one of those projects where I finish and think "holy hell I actually made this... how did I make this?"

How do you carry your phone if your phone is actually an iPad mini?

With an iPad quiver! It's more like a pocket that hangs off your belt, but shhhh.

I had to go through several iterations of quiver before arriving at this one, and it's still not perfect, but my friend has been successfully using it for a couple months now.

It's a pocket with twill tape straps, snap closure, and a microfiber-like lining. The earlier versions had a single channel on top for the belt to slide through, but this placed the iPad in an awkward spot, so we (meaning the owner of the quiver and I) decided on three straps instead.

Hey! Another Galliano pirate jacket update already!

Here are the previous posts about this project if you're just seeing it for the first time:
Pattern cutting
First update
... and here's what I have done. It's looking pretty close to actual clothing at this point!
(I tend to sew at night and snapped these photos quickly, so please excuse the quality)

As you can see, the biggest difference from last time is that I added twill tape binding along most of the edges. This bottom square edge... I don't know... I wanted to skip the binding so it echos the neck/shoulder edge, but it's doing a silly wiggling thing that I'm not pleased with. I think I will rip out the top-stitching on it, re-cut slightly, and bind it instead. Speaking of the binding, I realized while cleaning up some chalk marks that it's probably not color fast. Well damn. Guess I'm never washing this.

I've added a shoulder strap out of twill tape instead of the gathered strap that came with the pattern and elastic in the neckline edge that was gaping last time. I might still make the original strap and have it attach onto the twill tape. I thought adding the elastic might cause some weird pulling but it actually worked out pretty well.

You can kind of see the tab in the neckline with a strap angling downward. I really wanted this strap to go across my chest under the arm but angled it too much. I don't have the patience to re-do it, especially considering this white striped fabric is just shredding on the edges and there was already barely enough seam allowance there. I'll have to think of something to do with that strap.

I'm a little stuck on a closure for this thing. The original pattern uses snaps, but I am definitely not setting that many snaps by hand or getting a snap setter anytime soon, so that's out. I do have a large supply of D-rings and there's already twill tape straps on this thing, so I'm leaning towards that. The problem is where do I put them? The jacket doesn't fit on my body the same as a dress form, and holding it on while trying to figure out and mark where the straps/rings should go is not fun. I'll probably have to do it though, unless I come up with a better solution.

Wait, I actually worked on the Galliano jacket? Really?

Yea, I'm not sure what came over me here. Last night I was looking for some project, something I wouldn't have to think too much about because I wasn't feeling too well, and somehow I ended up working on the Galliano pirate jacket (pattern available here).

In case you're not familiar with this pattern, it's super crazy and has way too many pieces, and no instructions (not that I often follow instructions). I think I would have been less likely to work on it had it included instructions actually, mainly because at this point I'm not doing anything properly and just winging it. It's not going to really be the Galliano pirate jacket at the end, but hopefully it'll be some free-form wearable thing that I put a bunch of strange effort into.

My first post about this project is here. It's pretty much a quick blurb about cutting out the pattern. I did start the jacket back during the summer (May or June, something like that), and I thought I had posted about it but apparently not. Here's a photo from then for reference:

I'm using a solid red and a fine red/white stripe. The solid has stretch, which is not helpful at all in this case, and the stripe likes to shred where cut... also a fun time!

Back to the present: I pretty much stopped paying attention to how this jacket is supposed to work and am just making it work. Last night I cut out and pieced together a lining using white denim (yay no interfacing) and some of the red (yay interfacing). I've also attached the lining strategically and left other edges open (pinned in the photos). These will be bound with black twill tape. There will also be lots of twill tape straps and corresponding hardware probably... hopefully... someday...

Above is the lining side. Below you can see what it now looks like from the outside.

The most annoying part of this is the gaping at the upper back. This doesn't really go away no matter how I fiddle with the pieces. I'm thinking I'll add some elastic on that edge (to match the as-of-now non-existent gathered shoulder strap) but I don't know if that will look silly. Then again, this already looks ridiculous enough that it might not matter. Looking at the photos it's also gaping at the lower back, but I don't recall that being a big problem when I try the jacket on myself, so maybe it's just a dress-form issue.

Well there it is, relatively together! It'll probably sit around in a pile for a couple months again until a sudden bout of "what am I going to do tonight," but we'll see.

I wanted to make a dress the other day...

... so I made a skirt. Woops. This always happens. When I feel too intimidated for a serious project I just make a skirt. I have a pile of skirts that I haven't even worn out yet, and it keeps growing because of this.

Anyways, I've had this cupcake fabric for a while and haven't wanted to cut into it because it's super cute and I only have a limited quantity. I don't think I could buy it again if I wanted to (like I said, I got it maybe a year ago, and it was at a discount store). Well, maybe, if I was willing to spend a lot more than I originally paid.

I have made another cupcake skirt before (seen here), so this might be a little redundant, but I knew it was the most fool-proof use of the fabric (meaning, I probably wouldn't mess this up and cry). A dress would have been super cute, but my track record with bodices isn't the best and that's discouraging. Yes, yes, I would make a mockup, I always do, but there's still always some weird problem that pops up.

I didn't really use a pattern for this, but it is based on a skirt I own (store-bought). This original skirt is a bit short for wearing without tights/leggings so the biggest change I made to my version is the length. It also has a clever (read:cheap) solution to making multiple layers of ruffles. There's one layer with a short ruffle sewn to the hem, and one layer with curved edges over that one to give an illusion of having three layers. This saves fabric and is a bit easier than doing three separate ruffles.

Here's the original skirt:

and mine:

I didn't have an elastic as wide as the original one so I did two channels of a narrower elastic instead.
If you look at the inside you can see what I mean about the layers:

Worn without and with a small petticoat:

Everything worked pretty much as I expected, but there is something weird that happened with this project. I made the bow first. Usually I finish stuff and then it sits forever yearning for bows... not this time! Currently it's on a pin back. I may sew it on (ahaha, right) because that would make it more stable and less floppy but eh... Here it is in all it's glory!