154. Sustainable: Refashioning the Clothes I've Made

It's hard to believe I've been sewing long enough to refashion the clothes I've sewn for myself, and blogging long enough to refer to the original posts from these garments' debuts to the world! This time I don't mean dramatic transformation, and I don't even mean finishing a UFO. I'm talkin' about refashioning clothes I've made for myself that have languished in the closet because of a little something in their look or fit that is less than ideal.

First up is Simplicity BBW 3964. In Flickr, the pic of the original dress is my most popular picture, i.e. Favorited by more people than any of my other photos, which mystifies me because I hate the way the cap sleeves look. I never liked the angel flutter sleeves that come in the pattern, so I followed a tutorial to convert the existing longer sleeves into cap sleeves. Except, knowing almost nothing about sleeves, I followed the directions to a T and didn't shave off any of the excess fullness, so the resulting cap sleeves were almost as crazy as the original flutters.

I've worn it maybe 5 times since I made it. I love the shape and length of the bodice, but it's just not my favorite dress because of those sleeves. So I took them off. This process brought back a few memories of how I struggled to sew them on and finish them in a manner consistent with the finishing on the rest of the dress; I had to unpick five or six sets of stitches just to get those sleeves off!

The other dress is a summer dress from last year, sewn from New Look 6731. I didn't realize when I sewed it that the pattern is for a tunic with no dress option! I put it on and thought, "Wow, I didn't petite this dress but it's soooo short! How would a 5'4" woman wear this and feel comfortable?" Checked the pattern envelope and saw that a 5'4" woman would wear it as a tunic and feel very comfortable.

Didn't stop me from wearing it as a dress on hot days anyway! I was careful to not bend over when wearing it, so as not to increase likelihood of appearing on Daddy Likey's walk of shame, Don't Show-cha your Chocha. I even think in the original photo that my hands are in my pockets to help push the hem down to a more modest length. Mental note to self: when you use your toes to pick things up from the floor to keep from bending over and flashing the world, your dress is too short.

And it didn't stop people from liking the dress. This is probably one of my most popular dresses IRL. Friends and strangers would ask me about the dress every time I wore it, I guess because it was something that didn't look like you'd be able to get in a store but something they would want to wear. Now, with extra length, it's something I want to wear a lot, too. :)

Had some extra scraps in the scrap drawer so I pieced together an extra 4 inches to add to the bottom hem so it is now a comfortable knee length. And my toes can rest.

[Wondering why the "now" pics are so blurry? I'd tell you if I knew! They looked fine in the camera viewer, and fine when I downloaded them to my laptop, but when they got to Picasa they looked totally blurry. But you get the gist, right?]

153. More giveaway news, the Pollyanna Dress, etc.

There are so many short items to cover that I will number them:

1. What fun responses to the honesty meme from my last post! Keep 'em coming. If you're getting a kick out of it, too, please consider yourself tagged and let's read your honest truth. :)

2. Columbia Lily Designs is hosting a giveaway, too! Found out about it after my last post, but do visit her blog for giveaway info.

3. I still have one dress from my Las Vegas trip last month that I didn't blog about. I'd wanted to use the immaculately-fit bodice from New Look 6723/ Sid & Nancy dress and add a short circle skirt at the natural waist. I wore this to my niece's graduation, and apparently it was a good choice for visibility from the graduation floor (my niece said that as she searched the audience for us, her nearby friend said, "Your parents are near the lady in the yellow dress.").

The bodice is self-lined and I have finally settled into a preferred method for hemming circle skirts: Serge the bottom edge in a thread color close to the fabric, press a hem the width of the serging (in my case, 1/4"), and sew this very narrow hem. So easy. Yes, it requires a serger, and yes, it's worth it.

Clementine clearly ate too many Cheetos when I was in Vegas. There was a little struggle to get the back zipper zipped up. OK, just kidding. She can't eat; she's a dress form. The dress is actually comfy for me to wear -- it's got just enough ease -- and at times like this I'm reminded of what that one inch difference between our busts can really mean for fit.

And Carmen... she always has to do the rabbit ears when there's a shot she's not in. Such a camera hog. Photobomber.

4. I've been struggling a little with how to respond to comments on my blog. I've in the past only responded via email to those who leave their email addresses, or I've responded with my own comment if someone has asked a question but didn't leave their email address. Without an email address, at times I would seek out the commenter's blog and leave a message there but it felt awkward to answer a question they asked on my blog in the comments of their blog!

I'll respond with my own comment from now on -- just FYI in case you would like to start checking the box in the comment form saying you want to get follow-up comments emailed to you. I've been doing this on Facebook and it works aaaaaaalright.

5. I've been a sewing and patternmaking maniac. I haven't posted several of the most intensive projects because they are leading up to debuting that new independent clothing label I mentioned a few months back. I think I'll be ready to "open shop" in the next couple of weeks so I can reveal a few projects I've been working on and what I've been learning along the way.

6. Our Favorite Swedish Sewist (tm), Johanna Lu, just published a very considered (and because I totally agree with her, a very accurate) review of The Fashion Show. Coincidentally, about a week ago, I sounded off about it again via email to Kyle, who suggested another blog post about it. Rather than hijack Johanna Lu's comments, I figured I'd jot down a couple other thoughts about Our Favorite Substitute for Project Runway (tm):

• TFS needs to find its voice, which is ironically the same advice they have given to their contestants. They kind of rush through the show, like a few designers rush through making their garments, and by the end of the hour I'm trying to find the "point of view" of the show just as the judges are struggling to see their designers' points of view.
• There is very little focus on the creative process, which I'd like to see more of.
• TFS gives their contestants equal screen time, but democratic coverage simply isn't as interesting as getting to know a few of their folks better.
• They've moved away from showing judges' comments during the runway shows and saving them for the judging, which I prefer.
• When choosing to eliminate a designer who is not impressive nearly every week vs. a designer who's pretty strong but had a very bad week, they eliminate the weaker (overall) designer. This is much more crowd-pleasing but also much more predictable.

And again, having said all of that... I keep watching. :)

152. Blog awards and someone else's giveaway

Actually, let's do the giveaway announcement first: Novita at Sew I Do is hosting a giveaway of a really fun, bright bag to celebrate the opening of her Etsy shop. The deadline to enter is July 4 so head on over if you'd like to check it out.

I have four blog awards to share that have come in over the past month! The first came from Melissa at Moonshine and Piffle, about a month ago. I recall reading about the award mere days before our long trip and letting Melissa know it might take me a while to pass it along, but that I was grateful for her acknowledgement and I would. Well, I went to her blog yesterday to read the rules, etc. and, inexplicably, I kept getting referred to a domain placeholder web page. For those of you who have not been to Melissa's blog before, she is an amazing photographer. Her blog is just a thing of beauty. She herself is adorable and so is her writing style. And if that's not enough, she recently returned from a long-awaited, much-deserved trip to Paris, photos and all. If you can see her blog just fine, please let me know. Otherwise, my dear Melissa, if you are reading this, something's up with your fine blog. Please keep us fans and followers posted. xo

The One Lovely Blog Award from Lulu at Gus & Lulu:

A One Lovely Blog Award from Meg at Elsie Marley, though this award looks different:

The Honest Scrap Award from Catherine G:

The two Lovely Blog Awards have different rules but the same intent, which is to share lovely blogs which are new to me. I'm always in awe of the many, many beautiful blogs in the world that I just find out about, but it's never a secret because I add them to my blog list in the sidebar.

The Honest Scrap Award is one I'd not seen before and sounds fun, but involves a game of truth or dare but without the dare. Ten things. Let's see...

1. Austin is great but I am having escapist fantasies of moving to a cooler climate.
2. I eat really healthy meals and really awful, junky snacks and desserts. I like to think it all balances out in the end, but fear a two-inch layer of fat surrounds my heart.
3. I love black clothes.
4. My son's and my favorite TV show to watch together is So You Think You Can Dance.
5. I will easily drop $6 for a plastic toy to put on the shelf, but have a real problem paying $6 for parking. It's the principle...
6. I adore the whole Japanese street culture thing, even though I'm prob. way too old for it.
7. I work on aging gracefully, i.e. accepting that I am not meant to eat such spicy and acidic food anymore because of the acid reflux and heartburn.
8. Most of the time I think I'm 6 feet tall and a big bear of a woman, and I often act like it.
9. Sometimes I dream of eating meat again. The desire doesn't feel the same in real life.
10. I'm terrified of the teeth-falling-out phase of my son's childhood.

I'm to pass on the award to 7 other bloggers but I'll pass it on to anyone reading who wants to fess up! I'll read your blog confessional. Tell us the honest truth. I dare you.

151. Refashion 24: Boy's Shirt from Men's Dress Shirt

This refashion has been hanging out for a few weeks, from that time when I seemed to be sewing in my sleep.  I had picked up this men's shirt from the thrift store and it immediately was one of my favorites.  Doesn't seem like much at first glance (and that poppy pink mess of a dress underneath it in the photo doesn't help, but we'll talk about that in another post), but let me tell you what I liked so much about the shirt:

• The simple windowpane weave
  
• The color
  
• The weight and hand of the fabric -- lightweight, almost sheer, and nearly-sateenish but not quite
  
• The buttons... three holed, not two or four
  

The label on the shirt reads "Liberty broadcloth", and whether it means THE Liberty brand or not, it was a very well-constructed shirt.  After I showed my 6-year-old son the cool three-holed buttons, he asked me to make something for him from the shirt.  

Can I just say that the number of interesting sewing patterns out there for boys is minimal and completely uninspired?  No big surprise, as boys' clothes off the rack are boring and uninspired much of the time.  Combined with the fact that my son has a long track record of not appreciating what I sew for him, I limit my sewing for him to Halloween, mostly.  Luckily, I had this vintage pattern in my stash.  His chest, waist, and back length measurements matched up to those on the pattern envelope exactly.

After sewing women's clothes for so long, I couldn't believe how quickly this boy's shirt went together!  The pieces are so much smaller and thus faster to sew, and I only used 3 pattern pieces: front and back bodice, and the sleeve.  I re-sized and re-used the collar, which I am not sure I would do again.  This is a very high-quality shirt and the interfacing in the collar is very stiff and sturdy.  It's not really flexible enough to be resized for a 6-year-old boy and sort of move with the new shape and dimensions of the shirt.  Also, the collar now looks a little 70's Saturday Night Fever, which I don't actually mind but it's very exaggerated on the new shirt.

The bodice falls off the shoulder by a good inch and a half, which is not how shirts are made today, but this is exactly how the illustrations look on the pattern envelope.  The thing that got me was the extra ease in the sleeve.  I tried to sew in one sleeve using the tutorial on Mary Nanna's blog, which is credited to Palmer Pletsch, and I got sleeve poof!  Sleeve poof is not in the pattern envelope illustrations, so I assumed it was operator error in trying out the Mary Nanna --> Palmer Pletsch method.  I sewed in the other sleeve using the 2-lines-of-gathering-threads technique I'm used to, and that sleeve came out poofy, too!  So I'm thinking I will need to shave a bit off the sleeve cap to eliminate the poof.  I was going to try to fix it in this shirt, but Louis wore it all day yesterday and it didn't bother either of us.  We'll go with it.

BTW, this pattern is so OOP that I don't know if I should bother doing a PR.com review -- what do you think/ do?

I still have a dress I made during my Vegas trip I haven't shared with you.  Next time....  Hope you have a great weekend!  xo