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!

There's some cool stuff at "clothes by the pound"

If you have a "clothes by the pound" store near you and want to practice sewing, go there! In about twenty minutes, I found these two great pieces that were in pretty rough shape, but didn't have any stains or holes in the body of the fabric (this is important - things with popped seams, ragged hems, ripped sleeves are all good candidates for fixing, things with big mystery stains and holes in the center of a panel are not). With a couple hours of work, I have some awesome new dresses that I would have struggled to put together from scratch. I wouldn't normally post about "fixing" clothes, but I also thought these dresses were really awesome designs.

Hello? Yes, this is the 80s.

I bought two very 80s/early 90s blouses a few years ago, intending to alter them into ones that actually fit. These were like 4 sizes too big, and with the over-sized fit of the time, they seemed even larger.

It's pretty difficult to tell the difference without good "before" photos, but I wasn't thinking about it back when I bought the blouses and started taking them apart.

The first blouse had long sleeves and this cool ruffle collar. I also really liked the classic flower pattern on this fabric.

I liked this second one because of the awesome cravat thing it has going on, and the sweet pointy cuffs.

Remember how I was looking for newsprint fabric?

I mean, you probably don't, and I still haven't found any... but! I did get a bunch of these t-shirts recently that have classic books printed on them!

I need to think of other projects to do with them since I have so many, but my first though was to make a dress with some of that shiny, leather-looking spandex as a skirt. I copied the bodice shape from the dress I always use for knit fabric sleeveless pieces, as seen here. The skirt is just a regular circle skirt, which isn't even hemmed because this spandex is awesome and doesn't fray or run.

I quite like how it looks with this wide belt. The skirt is a little heavy for the t-shirt knit top, so it keeps it up a bit better.

Here is what this looks like with a small petticoat:

The back of the shirts has a corresponding print. I had to take my bra off for this photo because it causes some obvious bunching in the back. This is a bit unfortunate because I need it in the front to keep the bodice from being see-through. I also cut my hair somewhere in between taking all these photos.

I made binding out of the spandex for the top, along with a bow (Whaaat? Yea I actually made a bow in a timely manner). There's some twisting in the binding but it's not as obvious when the dress is worn as it is when it's laying flat or hanging.

I don't think I even really want newsprint fabric anymore. After working with this, I realize I don't want more black and white. Perhaps I will switch my sights to comic strip fabric so I can use some more color.

PS. This is available in my Etsy shop

When in doubt, make a skirt.

I've picked up a couple contract jobs recently that are cutting into my sewing time. Knowing I only have a couple hours to sew makes it harder to start on a complicated project.

The other day, I wanted to work on a cool little dress with an open back (similar to Simplicity 2180), but while looking for mock-up/lining fabric I stumbled upon a pair of men's PJ's I bought a couple years ago. They didn't fit me, but I really liked the fabric, which is an Asian newspaper print (as you can see below). I would like to make a fancier newspaper or comic book print dress, but I haven't seen a fabric that is good enough for the effort. This newsprint was very limited and sat around in a box because I was too nervous to cut into it. I finally decided to do it, for something simple enough that I couldn't mess it up, though still useful... this is of course a skirt, because that's my default "yea, I can knock this out in an hour."

This was a pretty straight forward reconstruction. I cut the pants right above the crotch (and had to do some fiddling because the fly on them went down very far), then used the legs to cut strips for the ruffle. The pants had a drawstring, which I find kind of annoying so I supplemented that with elastic.

I like to top-stitch the ruffle seam because I think it helps them lay in the correct direction. You can kind of make this out in the above image.

The pants had some pretty large pockets, which is pretty great for a casual skirt. Overall, a nice quick project and I finally used these for something. Yay.

...so I made a bunch of shirts

I've been wanting to make some phat pants for the Etsy store ever since several people asked me why I didn't have any. This project requires drafting some patterns and figuring out design details that are a bit intimidating, and require a ton of motivation that doesn't come easily.

I did suddenly get some motivation the other day though, so I made some shirts!

This shirt wasn't my size but I liked the fabric so I bought it anyways, thinking I'd eventually figure out something to do with it.

I ended up using the sleeves for one shirt and the top half of the original shirt for a crop top. I still have some pieces left over for whenever I think of something else to make. The body of the first shirt and binding on the other is some plain knit I had laying around.

The first time I did the binding on the armholes it came out too tight, so I had to re-do it. I also found out this fabric runs, which is kind of annoying but there isn't much I can do about it.

I liked how this top came out so I made another out of a jersey Hello Kitty sheet I've had for a while (and also used for the dress in my previous post). The top uses the same dress as the previous post for a pattern as well.

 

I made this on New Year's Eve and wore it out that night (because I just make new outfits when I can't think of what to wear...) The utility belt is also new and you can read more about it here.

My New Year's Eve was pretty ridiculous (but some fun was definitely had, along with some not so fun), and I hope you all had a good time! Happy New Year!

What to do with a coat that's a wonderful color but unwearable?

Start tearing it up before I even leave the store apparently! (I don't recommend this... I was going to buy it, don't just rip things in stores please).

I found this super cheap wool coat at work (at a thrift store that is). It caught my eye because it was a lovely plum color. I had some ideas for things that needed wool felt, so I figured this might be a good opportunity to try them out without spending a ton of money on wool.

I got too into this project and started ripping before taking a photo, hence the missing sleeve.

Usually I feel super bad ripping apart vintage things because I know they'll never be produced again. Repair and wear comes before destroying/recycling/reconstructing even. I get so sad seeing things that were in good shape destroyed because someone wanted to reconstruct them.
Anyways, in this case, I thought no one would ever buy and wear this coat because of the significant damage it had. You can kind of see in the photo that there was salt stains along the bottom, visible wear along the cuffs/bottom/shoulders, fading, the lining was torn in multiple places, and so on.

The above became this pretty quickly:

This then went straight into the washing machine and through a tumble dry cycle. Don't do that with your good wool coat. I didn't care what happened to this fabric, but I did need it to be cleaned thoroughly. If this washing caused the fabric to felt/shrink, it was a benefit to me because I wanted a thick sturdy felt. I also tested the wash out first on that sleeve I ripped off before taking photos, just in case the fabric disintegrated on me.

At this point, I was left with clean, soft, plum colored felt. I used the reverse side to avoid any discoloration that I might run into, and made two items to start.

The first is a cuff bracelet. It closes with two buttons and has three mobius strips that wrap around your wrist. This was one of the first times I used a rotary cutter. I caved and bought one for small projects like this. Maybe I'll feel better about making bows if I can cut them evenly too... maybe...

The second item is a phone/IPod case. Personally I like a case that attaches to my IPod, but I liked this idea and wanted to try it.

I almost never use the decorative stitches on my machine, so I thought I'd give that a try as well. It finishes off the edges, strengthens the seams, and gives some subtle decoration.

Sometimes I reconstruct things.

Reconstructing isn't my favorite because I can't control every aspect of what I'm making, but at the same time, there's some benefit of not having to get a ton of details to work. I'm pretty unmotivated when it comes to adding fiddly details to things (bows for example).

I picked up these pants that were a bit too tight and a bit too short, but had so many of those details I would rather not sew.

I intended to just have some pants to wear because I don't have a lot of pants, but with the fit issues... well... hey, I made a skirt.

It came out pretty well, though there's some bulging by the zipper in the front. There isn't much I could do about that without taking the zipper out, which makes it not worth the effort. I wore this skirt the other day and already ripped it getting into a car! What a good time! It split on the center front seam. Clearly, I didn't make the vents large enough. I'll have to re-do the front (I don't really want the back to be more open).

The second skirt I recently reconstructed started out as a mid-calf high-waist skirt. The fabric is pretty cool - it has the printed pattern and then another pattern woven in making designs that are shinier than the background. It also has lacing in the front, shirring in the back, and a button-on back bow.

I'm not a fan of the mid-calf length, so I sewed elastic on all the seams, both lining and outside layer to make this:

It doesn't hang perfectly even since gathering with elastics is much less predictable than gathering with thread. It's more to my liking though. (The pink layer is just my newest petticoat).

Also, it's getting super cold outside. As you can see, this means I'm way less willing to stand around in the yard and take photos.