I made this over the weekend by draping a yard of this coral t-shirt knit fabric over my dress form. It took a lot of experimenting but I'm pretty happy with the result!

I'm feeling a little adventurous this year. For my new year's resolution I decided to finally start my own sewing blog and kick it off with a challenge. I'm going to sew one new garment each week until March.

I finished my first garment on the very first day of 2012! It's the free Sorbetto top from Colette Patterns.







I'm really happy with how it turned out! I'm planning on doing up a few more versions of these later this year. I love how easy and versatile this pattern is.

I inherited a huge stash of vintage sewing patterns and fabrics a couple of years ago when a friend's grandmother passed away. She made all of her own clothes and obviously had excellent taste! My favorites are the 60's era McCall's, they look like something Joan would wear to the office on Mad Men. Especially this...



The problem is that all of these super fabulous patterns I'm dying to make are a much larger size than I am. Most of these fit a 39-41 inch bust and I am a scant 31 1/2. I've made a few dresses from simple modern patterns (with lots of mistakes and trial and error...but I'm getting there). Should I bother trying to grade this pattern down or will it just make me want to stab myself in the ear with dressmaker's shears? I've also thought about trying to find some sort of vintage pattern swap so any suggestions there would be great.

It is a little tricky to see the front of the vest, I was wondering if it was just plain black or does it have any details or decoration that hasnt shown up in the photo

Yeah...I tried to pick out something that would show off the whole outfit, but I do have lots of close ups of the top and vest. The vest is pretty plain, just black knit fabric cut in a V and hemmed (not too professionally, I might add *l*). The white tank top underneath is just something I picked up from Target with an odd screenprint (I think it's supposed to be Marie Antoinette on one side and a skeleton on the other).

Here is a better picture of the top:

This isn't really anything impressive, but I've been so lacking in motivation to sew lately that I felt like I should post it. I had a skirt that I bought from Target about a year ago that I loved so much I wanted to duplicate it (to keep myself from wearing that same skirt all the time!). So I basically just took some measurements of it and tried my best to make my own pattern. It didn't come out too bad, all things considered. I wound up adding the black trim at the bottom because I cut it too short at first (oops). It was definitely a learning experience...skirt number 2 will be much easier now!

The black top is something that I whipped up in about 30 minutes. Basically, I was going out of town to see some friends and figured out at about 2am the morning of the day I was leaving that I didn't have crap to wear. So...I made this tank top that works nice for layering. I'm really surprised at how well it turned out (usually things I throw together wind up in the scrap bin!) and it's quickly become one of my most-worn items.

Anyway, enough babbling...here are pictures!





These are from a photo session I had with a photographer friend of mine a few days ago, I had to sort of pick through them to find any that show the skirt and top well. I also posted the first image to lookbook.nu/shona, so give me a hype if you're on there as well

I've been oogling this Supayana dress (the one on the right) for a long, long time now and I finally feel like I'm up to making it and have an event to wear it to. The only problem is that the houndstooth fabric I have is not stretchy, it's a woven material...so I'm pretty certain that if I used it then I wouldn't be able to get the dress on in the end. I could put a zipper in...but where would I put it?



Any ideas on getting around this? I'm trying to avoid buying new fabric, because a) I have a ton of that houndstooth and I'm trying to use it up and b) I'm super broke and the nearest fabric store is an hour away. 

Jumping in here! I've been attempting the houndstooth pattern posted by neekie off and on for about a month now while I'm on the phone at work (I work in a call center, much boredom). Yes, it is extremely tedious...and not only am I relatively new to knitting (I've finished all of one scarf and a pair of armwarmers that wound up scrapped) but this is my first double knitting project. So...be kind. So far I haven't screwed anything up too majorly.

In progress picture:



Only about 3 more miles to go, it seems Maybe I should just turn this into a neckwarmer? Hmmm...

I got this shirt when I went to see Of Montreal almost a year ago and they didn't have my size. So I bought it anyway, planning to make it into something much better looking and just never got around to that (my sewing machine and I sort of...erm...had a fight and broke up around that time). Looking around these forums brought back my sadly long-lost urge to sew, and so with new confidence I tackled that machine and showed it who's boss! Yeah! Or something....

Anyway, I basically just combined the original band shirt with a 1/4 length sleeved yellow shirt I had laying around. Somehow in the process of turning the shirts inside out and basting them together I wound up sewing the front of the green shirt to the BACK of the yellow shirt so the collar was backwards....oops. It really didn't look bad, and I kind of liked the way it dipped down in the back. So since I had some neat vintage yellow fabric that I never used, I decided to make sort of a reverse v-neck and use the vintage stuff for the collar instead.

Aaaaand...pictures!

front:


back:


detail:



Hopefully, I'll be posting here more often now (and with better skills).   

I was going to just post a picture of my hair now, but it looks kind of bland compared to some of the silly crap I've subjected it to in the past. So here's a timeline!



1. Age: 18. Natural dirty-blonde hair. All full of innocence and squirrels.

2. Age: still 18. Faded out longer red hair.

3. Age: 20. Been married for a year, went crazy, chopped it all off and dyed it black (originally just for halloween...then figured out the shit's impossible to get rid of so had to make the best of it).

4. Age: 21. Shortly after the divorce. The rediculous red is in full effect! Still in my "I'm going to dress like a boy and not give a shit what I look like" phase. Also, eating a cookie and wearing one of Megan's famous tattoos.

5. Age: 22. Started looking like a girl again, put in MORE red...still black in the back.

6. Age: 22. Tried to dye my hair purple after the red faded out...it came out looking like a rainbow. I couldn't decide if it was awesome or hideous, but it was interesting either way.

7. Age: 22. Non-digital picture at the beach...my hair is actually a dark reddish-brown here, not black. It finally grew out, yay!

8. Age: 22. The red faded out to a natural looking brown, still black in the back. Longest it's been in years.

9. Age: 23. Haircut! Got bangs (bad idea? it looks so great on everyone else *pouts*) and brought the red back.

10. Age: 23. Add glasses and a headband and I look a lot goofier.

11. Age: 23. Long bangs, Kevin Barnes' hairy hand all up in my hair.

12. Age: 23. NOW. I like this. Keeping it for a while. I'll just have to tell my mind to shutthehellup every couple of days when I feel like experimenting again

Well, I fell in love too and made my own version last fall. I don't know why I never posted it...but I just moved and was digging through some clothes I just brought over to the new house thinking "Why the hell did I never wear this?"

check out addictedtoplushies original version here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=54414.0...which looks a LOT better than mine!

Same concept, except that I added a zipper and made it a full hoodie.

I laid some reletively sheer white fabric over an old hoodie that I didn't like and traced over it to make the pattern pieces. All fleece, except for the heart-patterned fabric which was some type of light flannel. I used it to line the hood and the pockets too.



horrible close-up...



the side



the back



I had to hand-sew the cuffs onto the sleeves, which didn't turn out so great and are now trying to come unraveled But they wouldn't fit around my sewing machine so it was the best I could come up with. No one ever taught me how to sew...I just kind of throw crap together. I'm sure there is some kind of trick to this that I just haven't figured out yet. Oh yeah, and I have a shitty, cheap sewing machine but it gets the job done. I'll save up for a new one eventually....if I can stop spending all my money 

So whaddaya think?