Finally, a reason to finish and wear my disco jumpsuit.

I went to a roller disco themed party the other day. There wasn't really disco music, but that was the theme at least. I learned roller skating is way harder than it looks, but oh well, at least it gave me a reason to finish this jumpsuit that I had started working on a couple years ago. Really, all it needed was hemming... and it just sat in a drawer for years, unfinished, until now, ladies and gentlemen!

I suggest listening to some disco song while reading this post. Here is one to get you started.

Okay, here is my outfit in all its blue polyester glory! (alright, it's pretty plain, shh.)

The fabric is just blue, but the texture is oh so 70s. It's just like some of the vintage clothes I have. The discount fabric store in my area had a bunch of this stuff in lots of colors, and it's super comfortable!

I did use a pattern, but didn't want to do a zipper, so I put shirring in the back, as I usually do. I also added the two skinnier straps in back to keep it up a little better. The pattern was Simplicity 2401. I don't remember if I had any complaints about this pattern - It's been a while, but I think it was pretty straightforward.

Dot Dot Dot...

It's been established that I like polka dots. I also really like rayon. This is what happens when the two meet.

I'm not usually a fan of the 40's inspired style. It's just not fluffy enough! But sometimes, I don't want to deal with all those petticoats and underpinnings. This dress has bias cut side panels, bust gathers, and lightly puffed sleeves. It's quite comfortable to wear, though makes me look bigger than I am from some angles, unfortunately.

I followed the pattern (New Look 6093) pretty closely on this one, the only changes being some extra gathering across the bust because it was too big and a shorter hemline. When I first hemmed the dress, I went over to the mirror and one side was a good inch longer than the other. Ah, how did I miss that before I hemmed it? It took a couple tries trimming to get it to be close to the same length all the way around.

Those elastics in the center are what I did to take care of the bust being too big. It helps quite a bit, though isn't perfect. Ideally I would have made the bust panels more gathered to begin with.

What's red and blue on the border?

This dress!
Okay, so I'm not good at jokes. I'll make this post quick because it's not super interesting. This dress is my usual style, but I wanted one that's easier to wear - can be styled up or down and doesn't require a lot of ironing. The fabric I used also has some stretch, which makes this even more versatile.

I've sewn several dresses almost exactly like this... and every time I run into the same problems because patterns just don't fit me right. I keep trying different bodice patterns to see if I can find one that will fit me well. Still no success, even though I've tried with self drafted slopers too. I don't remember what one I used this time, but it was too wide across the back (as expected because I know my back is narrow) and also gaped in the chest. My solution was shirring (again, as usual) and (something different) a bit of elastic in the front to create a sweetheart neckline. The one problem I couldn't really fix is that waist is a bit too high because I was low on fabric. The amount of black between the border prints was barely enough to cut a bodice, and I didn't want to try matching another black fabric to this one. The dress also has a side zipper.

I've probably mentioned this before but I love border fabrics. They automatically make a skirt or dress more interesting. Mmmm look at this hand done hem. Delicious.

Oooo shiny!

I found this fabric a couple years ago at Walmart of all places... it's pretty stiff because it's thick with ink so I wasn't sure what I could make with it, but ah! How could I resist exploding disco dancers with glittery mirror balls?

Finally a few weeks ago, I turned it into a mini skirt with an exposed zipper. I had the idea to do this since last year at least, but never seemed to get the courage to cut into my limited amount of fabric. I hadn't bought a lot of it because a smaller piece is easier to justify when I don't know what I'll use it for, except it also makes it harder to use.

The balls just look gray in these photos, but they have a shimmer to them in real life.

After I made the skirt, I thought it looked too plain, so I added some reflective tape belt loops to go with these suspenders I'd put together a couple weeks earlier.

A post of many holes

Sewing fishnet is pretty much sewing a bunch of holes together. It catches on machine parts, stretches like crazy, and don't even think of trying to pin it. It's not the worst thing to sew though, don't get me wrong... I just like pointing out problems with the materials I use.

I never planned on making fishnet shirts, but these fabrics caught my eye at the store and I thought they would look cool made into some tops.

This is the first one I made - it's one shoulder, with a 3/4 sleeve. I used the top I'm wearing under it in this photo as a pattern. (More on the hat here.)

It's winter here, time for more hats.

Whenever I work with fur of any length I get frustrated by it's ability to get absolutely everywhere. I'll be cutting on the floor and end up with fur in the tea on my desk, fur in the bathroom, fur in my mouth... but, I guess it's worth it? It's become something I do; people ask me to make them things out of fur now.

These are pretty simple hats. I used the same tutorial/pattern as in my last hat post but with more edits.

The color of this short fur reminded me of Harmony Bear from the Care Bears (yes, I'm 5) so I decided to make a hat based on that. I think the ears are a bit too big and would probably make them smaller if I did this again. I added applique hearts to the pocket ends to mimic the foot pads of the Care Bears. There's some significant changes between the original pattern and this hat - mainly adding the long ends with pockets, and slits for the ears so I could insert them into a seam by machine instead of trying to sew them on once the hat was put together. 

The second hat was a Christmas present for my mom. I put the bear hat on her as a joke at one point and we noticed the color looked awesome with her skin tone. It's reversible since there's no ears. Making the pompoms was an interesting (frustrating) experience... They wouldn't form into balls, the thread I used to put them together broke a couple times, etc. I'm satisfied with them in the end though.

I'm still trying to work out a hat/hood pattern I really like. When I make this one in short fur especially, the hats seem kind of small; they don't have enough volume. I also have to readjust the center seam in the back every time I make a hat because it sticks out too much (on my head at least).

Jeans are boring, I'd rather wear a skirt.

At work we're allowed to wear denim, black, or khaki pants or skirts. I really dislike jeans (so uncomfortable!), but that's what I usually end up in because they have pockets and are easy to throw on. A couple weeks ago I set out to make black skirts for work with large enough pockets. Success! I can both follow the dress code, and still wear a style I feel comfortable in. The fabric is from a sheet that has these cool embossed polka-dots. It's a bit too rough/stiff - it clings to my tights and tends to ride up unless I wear a slip, though the stiffness also helps give the skirts some body.

The first one is a simple 3/4 circle skirt with an elastic waist and, of course, side pockets. (shown with a light petticoat).

The second skirt is a 3/4 circle wrap with a yoke waistband, belt loops, and again, pockets. At first I completely forgot about the pockets and didn't have side seams, but fortunately I realized my mistake before attaching the waistband. The whole point of making these skirts was to have some with pockets!

Maybe I like it when people pet me.

What did you do this weekend? I spent my Saturday night struggling to align animal ears and get fur out of my mouth. Sewing faux fur is both frustrating and easy... it gets everywhere, but it's very forgiving since mistakes are easily hidden by it.

It caught me off guard the first time someone wanted to pet me when I wore the outfit that matches this first hat (see below), but now I find it pretty entertaining to see people's reactions.

The ears still aren't perfect, but after redoing them multiple times I've accepted my fate. I think they're pretty close to being in the same spot, but one has become floppy from all the handling and re-stitching, so it looks lower (the photo makes this look even worse because this head tilts to one side). I don't know, I'm trying to convince myself the floppy ear is charming. Also, the short fur lining sticks out more than I expected at the edges, probably because it's stretchier than the outside fur. It's not really a problem. I had a very limited amount of fur to work with since it's just leftovers from the outfit I made a while ago, but I think it still worked out okay.

This other hat I made a while ago is more symmetrical and a little larger because I had enough fur to work with. There's no issues with it, I love the thing.

For both hats, I used this tutorial/pattern, trimming and changing some of the curves slightly until I was satisfied. There isn't much of a difference visually, but the changes make the hats fit my head a little better.

I made both of these hats to match outfit pieces I made within the past couple years. The first one includes a skirt with buttoned pockets (you can kind of see one in the photo), leg coverings (aka fluffies), plus a tail and wristcuffs (not pictured, sorry). The second set is fluffies and wristcuffs (again, sorry no photo of the cuffs).

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.