Helllooo sailor!

I haven't been sewing or blogging much at all lately. I finished the following dress back in January, and am just getting around to posting it now! To add to that, I had the fabric put aside for it for like eight years...

I got a bunch of navy polka dot fabric from my mom and wanted to use it for something special. I think it's just a plain woven cotton (no stretch). I decided to make a dress inspired by this one from Angelic Pretty:

(Not my photo - I found it online a long time ago)

Here's my version:

I didn't realize until after I took the photos that my scarf was ridiculously long. Oops.

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.

What's easy, girly, and spotted all over?

If this was a crude joke, it would be some sort of female celebrity probably.

The actual answer is this skirt!

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.

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!

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.

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.

Samurai! (or how I ended up cosplaying Hinamori Momo)

Back in March, I was contacted by the Worcester Art Museum about finding a cosplayer for the opening of the Samurai! exhibit, which combines real samurai goodies such as armor with current pop culture. Of course this seemed interesting since I used to intern at Higgins Armory (an excuse to look at armor again and make costumes? yes please!).

I spent a while trying to think of a costume that would be fairly recognizable, family friendly, and doable in a couple weeks. It suddenly hit me, Bleach! I used to both read the manga and watch the show so I'm relatively familiar with the early parts of the story (there's a crazy amount of chapters/episodes now). I asked my boyfriend to participate as well, and we agreed on dressing as Momo Hinamori and Renji Abarai. These characters are both lieutenant shinigami, who wear a black and white uniform based on traditional Japanese clothing.

I don't have finished photos yet, but here's a bit of a sneak peak and some construction notes: