Me-Made-May '13 Week 2

First off, thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway, and a big hello to all of my new followers! Welcome to my blog! The four winners have been notified, so thanks for playing everyone!

Ok, now onto the round-up of my second week of me-mades. I'm going to try to get around to blogging all of the various things I've made that I haven't blogged about at some point this month, especially now that South Pacific has closed and I have a lot more free time.

Day 6

Dress- Butterick 5846 and made from a $5 bedsheet for Sew for Victory. I think I have about $8 sunk into that dress total and I love it. Blogged here.

Cardigan- bought on clearance at Rue 21

Necklace- Forever 21

Hair flower- Claire's

Shoes (not pictured)- my white knock-off Keds from Wal-mart

Day 7

Horrid picture, but oh well.

Top- my unicorn print Pavlova wrap top (by Cake Patterns)

Skirt- some random black knit skirt that I've had for ages

Shoes (not pictured)- my black and white Keds

Day 8

Blouse- My Christine Hayne's Sassy Librarian Blouse, rendered in my favorite Tula Pink print (Storm Clouds in Evening Shade from her Nightshade collection). Blogged about here.

Cardigan- the one from Rue 21 that I wore the other day

Pants- Denim capris made from Butterick 5895 (one of Gertie's new patterns)

Shoes- my knock-off Keds from Target

Hair flower- from Kohl's

Day 9

If you couldn't tell by now, I'm not afraid of monochrome. And once again, I have a bent knee making my skirt hem look uneven. *sigh*

Skirt- Cake Pattern's Pavlova skirt, rendered in cotton twill with matching lace trim

Shirt- Wal-mart

Sweater- the same one from Rue 21 from the other day

Necklace- Forever 21

Hair flower- Claire's

Shoes (not pictured)- aqua Target knock-off Keds

Day 10

Today was Pirate Day at the elementary school that I work at. The boots and pirate costume are not me-made, but the pants are the denim Butterick capris that I wore the other day. Not pictured- the bandana that I had on my head all day. -_-U

Day 11

I did part of the costuming for the production of South Pacific that I'm in. I made the skirts for the nurses' uniforms, so here I am in my nurse uniform (as "Ensign Dinah Murphy"). The skirt is from Simplicity 3688 and the shirt was made by the head costumer (I have no idea what pattern it was made from, though). This weekend was the last of our ten show run, and we were sold out for every performance! Now that it's over, I suppose I have time to finish my trench coat...

Day 12

Shirt- Once again, I'm wearing my Sassy Librarian Blouse.

Shorts- A brand new make, from Grainline's Maritime Shorts pattern. This was my first fly zipper and it turned out beautifully. ^_^

Not pictured- those aqua knock-off Keds that i wear all the time -_-U

This whole outfit, now that I think about it, is really evidence of how how well I've learned to alter patterns. I had to do a FBA on the top and take like two inches out at the waist of the shorts (you don't see the back, but holy cheezeballs, these shorts fit me amazingly now). Hourglass problems, yo.

Giveaway Day!

Hey there! Do y'all recall the sewing machine necklace that I wear a lot? Well I have many more of those charms and for Giveaway Day (which is actually all week), I am giving away four sewing machine necklaces!

And btw, the charms are pewter, so you don't have to worry about the finish coming off like on a lot of cheap jewelry.

So how am I going about this? Simply follow my blog via Google Friend Connect in the sidebar and leave a comment letting me know that you've done so. I'll randomly select four people to win a necklace! ^_^

Rule thingies:

The giveaway closes on May 10th at 8 pm EST and I only can ship in the United States, alas.

Me-Made-May '13 Week 1 Recap

Hey-o, it's Monday night, but I'll recap last week's Me-Made-May stuff now anyway. Btw, if you want to follow my clothing shenanigans as they happen, you should check out my flickr. Fair warning, because I've been a bad girl who hasn't been blogging everything that she's made over the past couple of months, a lot of these are non-blogged makes that I swear will get their own posts with non-webcam pictures eventually.

Day 1

This is the 4th Colette Macaron that I've made and by far my favorite. The yoke and waistband are knits, and the body itself is my favorite Amy Butler print. Like I said, a full blog post on the garment with nice, non-webcam pictures will eventually surface.

The rest of the ensemble:

Sweater- from Target bought ages before I started sewing

Shoes- also Target, bought last month

Necklace- Forever 21

Hair flower- Kohl's

Buttons- won in Rochelle's Sew for Victory giveaway!

Day 2

Blogged about here with much better pictures.

Dress- Cake Patterns' Tiramisu made from cotton jersey from GirlCharlee.com

Cami- bought on clearance from Kohl's and worn to make the neckline of the dress "work appropriate" 

Necklace- same one from Forever 21 that I wore the day before 

Hair Flower- from Claire's 

Shoes (not pictured)- same aqua/mint Keds knockoffs from Target that I wore the day before 

Day 3

Skirt- denim Megan Nielsen patterns Kelly skirt (expect to see this skirt a lot on Fridays, because it + a fun t-shirt = my "casual friday" ensemble)

Shirt- my much-loved Robin t-shirt, bought at HeroesCon '12

Shoes (not pictured)- my worn-so-much-they-are-falling apart houndstooth Toms

Day 4

Dress- Hey lookie, another Tiramisu, this time with a circle skirt instead of the as-drafted half-circle. I swear the hem isn't uneven, though it looks like it in this picture for some reason. Blogged about here.

Bandana- I'm in a production of South Pacific, so in this picture my hair is actually in curlers for my 40s set. Whenever I don't feel like setting my hair overnight for the show, I just make a little turban to wear over my curlers with a cute star print bandana that I have.

Belt- random wide belt that I've had for ages and can't recall where it came from 

Sunglasses- prescription Ray-Bans bought half off :D 

Shoes (not pictured)- black Keds 

Sweater (not pictured)- an awesome black cardigan that I got at Goodwill and is like 70% silk/30% cotton 

Necklace- I have a sewing machine charm that I wear a lot. Close-up of the charm: 

Day 5

Skirt- I swear I make clothes that aren't Tiramisus or Kelly skirts. This one I made last week and I adore it. It's made from this awesome Anna Maria Horner cotton velveteen that I've lusted after for ages and snagged when it was on sale on fabric.com for like $7 a yard. Also, once again the hem looks uneven in the picture, though it isn't in person. Must be my posing.

Belt- from Target 

Shirt- from Wal-mart

Sweater- also from Target 

Necklace- a cameo that was given to me for Christmas several years ago from a friend. 

Shoes (not pictured)- white knock-off Keds from Wal-mart 

So that's it for week one! Stay tuned for a Giveaway Day special treat. ^_^

Me-Made-May

Sorry for the lack of bloggage lately- between working my first full-time job (yay, employment!) and performing in a play, I've had no free time for other stuff as of late. But wait! Tomorrow starts my very first Me-Made-May! Yay! I wasn't sure if I could manage it, but once I thought about it, I wear stuff that I've made almost every single day anyway, with the exception of a couple of dresses from my pre-sewing days. I'll probably have some repeats, but that's just fine for me, at least for this year. I've only been sewing since last July, after all. I'm just glad that I've been sewing more separates lately, which should in theory make this whole thing oodles easier.

One caveat, though- I'm not sure how well I'm going to manage the picture a day thing. We'll see. I'll probably just do one post at the end of each week with the rundown of what I wore during the week, with a few *special* posts for the stuff I've made but haven't blogged about yet. I also have a skirt, a trenchcoat, and possibly a dress in the pipeline to be made this month as well. My personal sewing has taken a backseat to the sewing that I did for South Pacific, so now that the show has started (with sold out showings and standing ovations!), it's wonderful to be able to do sewing for myself again. The skirt and probably the dress will get done this month, but I'm not sure about the trenchcoat. I've been taking my time with it (the fabric is cut out and I just recently received the goooorgeous voile that I ordered for the lining, but no actual sewing has been done yet), mostly because it's now past any kind of coat season here in North Carolina. Too hot.

Anyway, the pledgey thingy:

I, Merry/Mary of Young, Broke, And Fabulous, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavour to wear at least one me-made garment each day for the duration of May 2013.

Sew for Victory, Take 2

So I found this amazing fabric at Wal-mart for $1.50 a yard. I have no idea what it is exactly- some kind of cotton poly blend? (it presses well, but I dunno...)- but it turns out that this is an actual 40s print! It was featured in a Moda quilting cotton line a while back, but this is definitely not quilting cotton. It's very dress weight. Anyway, I made it into another version of Butterick 5846:

I'm like just getting this thing in under the deadline, and I'm kind of sad that I didn't finish it in time to take pictures outside- it was so pretty earlier today. Alas.

Anyway, this dress looks a lot better in real life than it does in pictures, probably because the gathering looks rumply in pictures but in real life it looks like the design element that it's supposed to be. I mentioned that this is Butterick 5846 like the last dress I posted about, with some alterations. First of all, I pleated the sleeve caps, rather than gathering them. Sooooo much easier and less time consuming to do. This was my first time using this technique but definitely won't be my last.

Also, if the neckline looks familiar, it 's because I omitted the collar and instead used the tab element from Christine Hayne's Sassy Librarian Blouse.

It was my goal with the gray ribbon to imitate the gray ribbons in the print. 

A few other minor things- I shortened the sleeve length and did a bling hem on them. I'm very pleased with how those turned out. I also added some lace trim I had laying around on hem. 

Because I omitted the collar, I tried to draft a facing for the back, but it was being troublesome so I just finished the neckline edge and folded it down and used fusible webbing to secure it in place. Here, have a look at it, along with the tag I made for this dress:

But then tragedy struck. It's a very close fit under my bust, and I had to do some tugging during the fitting process. Well this fabric is a little frail and this happened at the waist pleats:

The fabric started tearing! It's not super obvious in this picture because I reenforced the pleats with some interfacing to stop the problem from getting worse. 

Final thoughts: I like this fabric quite a bit and I might have enough left to make a blouse. We'll see. I have a bunch of sewing to do this week for South Pacific, but I'm hoping to make up this new Gertie pattern for Butterick this week as well:

I definitely want to make the capris and I have a few fabrics in mind for the shirt, including the rest of this retro print. If that pattern sews up well and looks good on me, I can definitely see several versions among my summer clothes this year.

Bedsheet Dress 2: Electric Boogaloo

Or Electric Coral, I should say. I don't know if that's a "real" color name, but it's a suitable description of this dress's color.

While this isn't my first submission to Lucky Lucille's Sew for Victory 40s sewalong (I've made a pair of pants that I will get to blogging about eventually), this is my first dress for it. Btw, my head's cropped out in this picture because it's the best picture of the dress I was able to coax out my dad photographer, my face is pretty derpy. 

Anyway, believe it or not, this was made out of a bedsheet I found on sale at Wal-mart for $5. I liked the feel of the fabric and loved the color and I was like, "hey, three yards of fabric for five bucks!", so this happened. 'Tis not the first time I've made clothing out of a bedsheet and I doubt that it will be the last. In my opinion, it's totally in spirit with the "Make Do and Mend" philosophy of WWII- I spent about $8 total on this dress (fabric, pattern, and notions), which is not bad at alllllllllll.

The pattern is Butterick 5846 and while it's not a repro pattern, it looks just like a lot of of 40s shirtdresses that I've seen, especially with the half-circle skirt and the style of sleeves. I really like this pattern, actually. It fits me really well and I plan on using it again (with some modifications) for my next Sew for Victory dress. I didn't have to alter the pattern at all- not even with the length, which I usually have to do- and the only alteration to the fit I plan on doing with my next version is to shorten the sleeves and hem them differently (I don't like the result of the pattern's instructions). I used hem lace for the first time when I hemmed it, and it certainly made hemming the curved hemline soooooo much easier. I'm definitely a convert to that hemming method.

I felt like the yokes begged for some sort of embellishment, so I used one of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine (aka the stitches that never get used) to put some prettiness along the yoke's topstitching.

Also, I used mint green buttons down the front, to match a hair flower, necklace, and purse that I have, as well as a jacket that I have in the works. What can I say- I really like mint green as a complement to the reds and purples that I usually wear as my main colors.

Here are some more pictures of this dress, featuring some somewhat derpy faces from yours truly:

I've found that release pleats aren't that flattering on me, but the release pleats on this dress- perhaps because there are three of them on each side- are quite becoming, I think. You can see a close-up on the front one in my picture with the buttons.

Here's a preview of my next dress for this sewalong- it features this awesome reproduction print that I found at Wal-Mart, of all places, for $1.50 a yard! I plan on using this pattern again and omitting the collar and instead using the cute tab bow thingy from Christine Hayne's Sassy Librarian Blouse.

And I have some news! This 40s sewalong is so timely for me because I've been cast in a community production of the classic musical South Pacific! In addition to playing a minor character, I will be sewing a portion of the costumes! I'm so excited for the experience, since I would love to get into costuming professionally, and it also gives me the opportunity to make some good pieces for my admissions portfolio (if you recall, I'm in the process of getting accepted into art school) that I won't have to pay for the necessary materials.

I have some more clothes that I need to blog about, and I promise I'll do that eventually. I've just been such a busy bee lately.

So Many Sewalongs

I've been doing a lot of knitting lately, but some sewalongs that just started or will start in the near future seem to be custom made for the sewing I need/want to get done.

Rochelle, over at Lucky Lucille, started a 40s sewalong, and I definitely want some more 40s clothes in my closet. While I tend to gravitate to the 50s rockabilly look when I go swing dancing, the swing scene at large seems to prefer 40s clothes. And how convenient is it that I have a big swing event to go to next month? I have a couple of different ideas for what I want to do for this sewalong, though which idea I actually go through is contingent upon what I can afford to do.

In order of what I'd ideally like to do to what I can more feasibly do:

• Have you seen the tv show Bomb Girls? It's a fabulous Canadian show about women working in a munitions factory during WWII. It fulfills everything I could want in a tv show- awesome badass women, romance, progressive writing (it's not idealized! it deals with closet culture and racial issues!), drama, humor, gorgeous clothes, and swing dancing. My heart's aflutter. Anyway, one of the characters- Gladys- wears this one dress every now and then that I just love. Unfortunately the show has yet to give me a good shot of the dress in full, but I'm infatuated with what I've seen of it so far. I'm not sure what pattern I'd use/edit to make this dress happen, but if I do manage to find something, I think I'll do the dress in a different color scheme. Yellow does not become me.
• Plan B is making Colette's Ceylon dress. I've loved it since I first saw it and I've always thought that it looks adorably WWII fabulous. 

• Plan C, and the one that's most feasible for me to do, is to make this Simplicity pattern that I already have. I'm sure I could find a 40s appropriate fabric that I could afford or close enough. Rayon jersey perhaps? I think that's appropriate, but I could be wrong. 

Oh, and so you know, the main reason I'm so concerned about affordability right now for this stuff is because I came across a glorious antique Singer sewing machine at a local consignment shop. My lust for it is enormous, even though I need to do more research on that particular machine before I raise and cough up the $150 for it.

So where was I... Oh yes, sewalongs. The other one is Julia Bobbin's Mad Men challenge. The new season of Mad Men comes out next month (and I am PUMPED), so the challenge is to celebrate. i actually recently finished a Joan-inspired dress that I think I will submit for this, and my Pseudo-Background Dress is certainly Mad Men inspired at well. 

I would also like to make something that's a direct knockoff copy of one of the dresses from the show that I love, and while I'm inclined to do that with one of Joan's dresses, they aren't very practical for my actual life. Betty's dresses, however... In addition being swing dancing appropriate, I totally can rock her hair too. I might see if I can pull that off before QCLX as well. 

And there's yet another sewalong-type thing to prepare for! I recently won Steph's Cake Patterns fabric giveaway over at 3 Hours Past! Like she did with her Tiramisu sewalong, she's planning on doing another sewalong with her new Pavlova pattern that ships this month. I plan on using the fabric I won for the Pavlova and to make a fabulous outfit for QCLX. 

So yes, if all goes well, I'll have three new outfits for QCLX from all these sewalongs come March.