It's Spring, and things are in bloom(ers)

It's that time of year when I wear more skirts and less tights, so bloomers come in handy for windy days. They have that retro cute thing going on too. I made these two pairs as examples of ones I plan to sell, not to wear myself, but I already have a couple.

The first is a smaller, less poofy style:

Isn't this fabric cute? It has little animals on hearts.

The other pair is larger and more full:

(thanks to one of my friends for modeling)

I used a basic shorts pattern to get the curve for the crotch correct, and altered the rest. The waist has two rows of elastic, and the legs have one each. They're quite comfortable if you ask me.

Bubble skirts are the newest addition to my list of favorite projects

I've quite enjoyed making bubble skirts lately, though that streak of "nothing turning out the way I want" hit here as well.

I was making a skirt for myself, but, well, it turned out too big. I guess I can chalk that up to trying new waistbands. Last bubble skirt, I tried wide elastic on it's own, this time I used spandex without any elastic at all. One of my friends was nice enough to model it for me since it fits her pretty well.

I really like this fabric, it's a lovely color and texture - a synthetic chiffon with some more opaque stripes woven in.

 The color is more accurate in this photo

The inside of these skirts is starting to grow on me... I guess it's just a narrow skirt with a ruffle on the bottom, that's a bit "overstuffed" since there's so much extra fabric on the other layer.

I'll be selling this skirt at some point, since it doesn't fit me, and it's made pretty well.

Woops, I made a skirt.

It's no secret that I make lots of skirts. They're easy to fit, quick and satisfying to make (well usually... not in the past couple weeks).

My most recent skirt:

Pretty nice right? I love how the pattern changes direction. Except... I was trying to make a dress, one of those cool wrap dresses you can tie many different ways. I had it all done, put it on, and...

...gaping. Ugh. No matter how I tied it, it was unflattering and some part gaped terribly. Well fine, Skirt it is. It's not something I would wear because of the length, so I passed it on to my mother. Oh man, it fits her perfectly! Someday I'll get a photo of her in it, but until then, here's some more of just the skirt:

I used bias strips of the same fabric to bind the waistband and create the ties...

...and a rolled hem foot with zig zag stitching for the hem. It's not perfect, but because of how the skirt moves the imperfections aren't very noticeable.

Here it is laid out on the floor. It's half a circle with a 44 inch "waist" and a buttonhole in the center of the waistband. To wear, you wrap it around, pull one tie through the buttonhole, and tie it to the other.

This fabric is rayon, my favorite, so I'm a little disappointed that I don't have a sweet new dress, but I guess sometimes you have to let a project be.

PS. accidentally making a skirt reminded me of this comic:
http://www.lefthandedtoons.com/toons/drew_chopsticks.gif
Good stuff.

The PVC skirt from hell

Lately I hit a patch of poor sewing. Nothing was coming out quite as I wanted, but I'm trying to not let it deter me.

This skirt proved to be most difficult, with every problem more frustrating than the last.

Problem 1. sticky PVC and no tissue paper to layer it with while sewing (I was at my boyfriend's house). It took me a few minutes to figure out but the solution was pretty simple - cheap toilet paper! It keeps the PVC from sticking just as tissue paper would. Though it's a bit harder to peel away, you can rub the seams with a wet paper towel or regular towel and it dissolves away.

2. Ruffling PVC is not fun. Like problem 1, it sticks together when you try to slide it on the gathering threads... plus you can't pin haphazardly since the pins leave permanent holes.

3. Putting elastic into a PVC waistband is finger torture. I thought this would be fine, just toss an elastic waistband on there and I don't have to worry about zippers or buttons or anything like that (which sounds terrible to do in PVC). Nope. Wrong. I spent an hour or two trying to put in different types of elastic. I thought my fingers would break. Eventually I settled on a drawstring, which makes the waist look bulky, but I admit defeat on this one.

It sits a bit better with something over the waist. It's not terrible otherwise, just not quite what I wanted.

The one good thing? The pockets. This skirt has two velcro side pockets that are pretty close to invisible. At least those didn't cause any trouble.

Hellloooo Sailor!

I think this fabric is pretty cool - it has applique anchors and life preservers (except it's really too thin for applique so it bunches up a bit). I've always wanted a sailor themed skirt, so why not make one out of this.

Well, it didn't go all that great (okay, I know, I complain a lot). The proportions are off, though it's hard to tell in the photos. I'm probably the only one who will know.

The waistband is red because I had red fabric on hand, and there's no lining. I need to wear a slip because it's pretty sheer.

I made a second version of the skirt, with a white waistband, cotton lining, and somewhat different proportions. I'll be selling this one at some point.

Bubble bubble...

...toil and trouble, yada yada yada.

I started setting up an Etsy shop recently (hence the toiling and troubling). One of the things I've considered selling is bubble skirts. Since I don't have a reliable way to serge fabric edges, making a skirt where all the edges are enclosed seems quite appealing. I also wanted to try out just using elastic as a waistband, the way a lot of factory made skirts do now a days. I probably won't do an elastic waist like this for sale - it's not very neat on the inside.

When I started making this I was going to make a dress, but, eh... I tried it on as a skirt and it seemed more versatile so I stopped there.

The skirt looks kind of silly on the inside. The lining is much smaller than the outside layer to create the bubble poof, which coincidentally keeps the skirt from flying up when it's windy. Overall this is super easy to wear because of that, and because the fabric I used has a wrinkled texture. No accidental panty shots and no ironing? Score!

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.