Elements Of My Childhood

When I was young, my mom and my nana made a lot of my clothing. My mom sewed and my nana crocheted. A while back, my mom gave me a bag of what remained from my childhood. I carefully washed each piece, but that's as far as I got. Since then I've just been moving them from one area of the house to another, planning to eventually photograph all of them for posterity. Well, I finally got around to it. I went to Joann's and bought some white muslin fabric to use as a backdrop, laid it out on the living room floor, and carefully placed each dress, coat, skirt, and sweater in the middle of the fabric, one at a time, until I had photographed all of them. As I was styling each piece, I realized how much love and care went into making each of them. All of the dresses my mom made had pockets in them. One of them even had a little appliqué turtle sewn on the front, near the collar, like a Lacost alligator. Each button had been carefully selected. Each sweater edge had been expertly finished. Each lining lovingly sewn. Even the dirndls, a traditional German dress, which came from my aunt and uncle in Germany had been sewn with great care (albeit in a factory, but well made none-the-less). No detail was overlooked, from the appliqués to the buttons, to the matching aprons and decorative edging.

And now comes the slightly difficult part, letting them go. I know it's just clothing, but it's also a little piece of my past wrapped up in love and happy memories of feeling special and pretty, as every little girl should feel at some point. But it's time to pass them on. I'm giving them to two very dear college friends so their little girls can feel special and pretty.  Who knew a carefully selected button or a delicately stitched sweater edge could be so powerful. Thanks Mom...Thanks Nana...for making me feel special and pretty.

A Bird For a Skirt: It's Finished!

The skirt is finally finished! Doesn't Barbie look fantastic!?

Here's a quick recap...

Barbie painted me this lovely bird:

And in return, I made here this cute little skirt:

I'd say it worked out pretty well for both of us. You can read more about it here, here, and here.
Anyone else working on any fun projects? Anyone else trade skill for skill?

A Bird For a Skirt: Day 3

I made a TON of progress on the skirt over the weekend. If you missed the first two posts about the skirt, you can view them here and here.

When we last left off, I had just finished the pleats on the skirt front (step 3).

Steps 4 - 6: Pockets!
When you cut out a pattern, your fabric is typically folded in half so you're cutting through two layers of fabric and end up with two of each pattern piece. When I unpinned the pocket facing from the pattern piece, I noticed the fabric must not have been lined up properly because the bottom facing piece looked like this:

so I re-pinned the pattern to some of the leftover fabric...

...and cut out another pocket facing...

then I pinned the pocket facings to the skirt front.

Once the facings were attached, I stitched the pockets to the pocket facings.

You can really see the pockets starting to form here.

Steps 7 - 9: Skirt Back
I stitched the two back sections together, leaving the top section unstitched in preparation for adding the zipper.

You can see in the photo above that I also created the pleats for the back of the skirt.

Steps 10 - 18: Yoke and Zipper
Then I added the yoke, which is basically the waist band and its lining. It consists of one long strip for the front and two smaller pieces, which will be separated by the zipper, for the back. I cut two of each piece for a total of six pieces or two sets of three.

On one set I applied fusible interfacing to the wrong side of the fabric. If you look closely you can see it in the photo above. I cut it about a half an inch smaller than the fabric. 

Fusible interfacing gives fabric some heft, which is perfect for a waste band. It has two sides, a smooth side and a rougher side, which is the side with the "glue" that sticks to the fabric once you iron it. 

You cut out the shape you need, lay it (rough side down) on the wrong side of your fabric, place a damp cloth on top and set an iron over the cloth for about fifteen seconds.  Then move on to the next section until all interfacing is fused to the fabric.

Once the interfacing had been applied, I stitched the two yokes together (fused and unfused). 

Here's the waist band after I attached it to the skirt.

After that I added the zipper. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures. Got a bit distracted by sewing (go figure). After that, all I had to do was add the bottom brown fabric band to the main skirt body. 

Steps 19 - 22 Finishing (A.K.A. Add band of brown fabric)

Barbie had requested that I add some red rick rack between the skirt and the bottom band, so I stitched that onto the skirt first and then added the brown band.

Stay tuned for the big reveal tomorrow!

A Bird For a Skirt: Day 2

I've made some progress on the skirt over the past few days. I find pinning the pattern pieces and cutting them out to be the most arduous part of the process. Probably because it's the one thing standing between me and sewing the garment. It took me a couple hours, but I got it done.

Full disclosure: I actually accomplished this step last week, but haven't gotten off my lazy ass had time to work on the skirt since. But I've developed some momentum that I'm hoping I can keep going throughout the remainder of the project.

Okay, on to the next step, sewing! I attached the pocket band to the skirt front.

Then it was time to create the pleats on the front of the skirt. They were actually really easy to do. It's just a matter of lining up the markings (I used aqua thread) and pressing.

At this juncture, I'd like to point out the importance, as well as the subtle nuances, of pressing. First of all, and I can't stress this enough, your iron is your best friend! Use it throughout your entire project. When you press as you go, instead of waiting until you've finished your garment, the final product will look MUCH more professional and will save you from a world of hurt. Pressing tells the thread who's boss and helps flatten it out so your garment looks crisp and neat, like Audrey Hepburn. It also helps control the fabric, like when you're pinning a hem or making pleats. To press, you simply put the iron straight down on top of the fabric, leave it there for a few seconds and then lift it straight up. Don't move it back and forth, doing so can throw the stitches out of alignment slightly in some instances and can drag the fabric out of alignment too. There are times when you will need to apply your traditional ironing skills (moving the iron back and forth over the garment) but I think pressing works best when you're trying to control the fabric during construction. For a great tutorial on pressing as well as other basic sewing tips, check out this post by Splityarn. It's more geared to the quilter than the seamstress, but there's still lots of great tips.

So there you have it, steps 1 to 3 (out of 22!) of the sewing phase. Next up, adding pockets! Stay tuned.

A Bird For a Skirt

A while back I asked my cousin Barbie if she would paint a bird for me (a Purple Finch to be exact) in exchange for me making her a skirt. Barbie has a degree in Medical Illustration, so it's no surprise she's got some mad skills. Growing up, I remember having a framed watercolor of some ducks she had painted hanging in our dining room. I always marveled at the detail and photorealistic qualities of that painting. Recently, it occurred to me that I didn't have any of her work in my own home. Lucky for me, when I approached her about trading a painting for a skirt, she happily agreed. A couple weeks ago she delivered the painting. It's amazing! I'm over-the-moon excited about it.

And here's some detail shots. Amazing stuff.

Now that you're done swooning, I'll show you that skirt I mentioned above. Barbie selected this adorable Girl Scout fabric by Robert Kaufman, found online at ZeetZeet. She also selected a contrasting brown polka dot fabric for the base of the skirt (sorry I don't have a link for that one.).

For the pattern, she chose a McCall's pleated skirt (pattern #M5591).

She's chosen the skirt pictured on the left (view A). For the main skirt body I will be using the Girl Scout fabric and for the contrasting base of the skirt I will use the brown fabric. Plus I'm going to add some red rick rack trim where the two fabrics meet.

I'm really excited about this project and will be chronicling my progress here, so don't worry, you won't miss a thing! Anyone else working on a fun project?

Refashion: yellow kimono-style top

I found this top at Goodwill a few months ago. It reminds me of a kimono. I really love the vibrant yellow fabric and the cut of the neckline.

However, I didn't really like the ridiculously long tie that wrapped around the back, essentially creating a large "butt bow."

I had to repair the zipper on the top too, so I did that first while pondering what to do about the oversized tie. Eventually, it became clear to me that there was only one solution to this tie dilemma - remove it. So I got out my scissors and cut it off. Well, most of it. I left some in the front and then tacked it to the side seams. This is what I ended up with:

Stuff I love

There's so much cool stuff featured by really amazing people online. It's hard to keep up. But here's a small list of things I'm currently crushing on.

1. These adorable letterpressed notebooks by The Paper Studio.
2. Lars Contzen's Resofloor. Via Apartment Therapy. Via Web Urbanist.
3. Växbo linen bathmats from HUS & HEM.
4. Anything made by EmersonMade. I love that girl's style!