Sewing project review

I have been sewing up a small, colourful storm lately. It’s been great! Getting a spring wardrobe thing happening, as well as seriously digging into my fabric and salvaged garment stash, reworking and altering things to lighten the load somewhat in preparation for our move.

First up, a cool zippered sweatshirt that I made from some things saved from the last clothes-swap – a ratty and droopy hooded sweatshirt and a large baggy t-shirt.

I looove it. Check out the long cuffs and the gathered waistband. I was playing project runway with myself, trying new ways of giving structure to the jersey… it was really fun!

The zipper is a great long vintage turquoise one that came from that big bag of zips I posted about a few months ago. It was longer than I needed for the sweatshirt but I didn’t like the idea of cutting it off since the colour is so marvy, so I just ran it along the collar edge as decoration. Fun fun!

And did you see the nifty pants I’m wearing with the sweater? They’re Popsicle pants!

Popsicle coloured pants, that is. Cherry popsicle! Don’t you think? I reconstructed these capris out of a very high-waisted, very tapered pants that I salvaged from the trash. I shortened the rise and added a new lined waistband (they’re lined with a great turquoise batik print – sorry no pic of that) and a nice big silver button.

The buckles from the waistband of the original pant I moved to the cuff, so you can wear them either tightened to a tailored sort of clam-digger look, or loosened and more board-shorts style, as below.

haha, I’m catching a wave! Anyway, who doesn’t love red pants? I mean really.

This is a detail of the bias cut camisole you see in the pictures above. It’s made from a nice pale blue and white seersucker I got at the church bazaar a couple weeks ago (okay, you caught me, despite the impending move and my goal to be using up my stash sometimes i just can’t help myself from accumulating more materials. it’s just… 3m of seersucker?! for 1$?? i should know better than to go into the bazaar i guess…) It’s one of the only garments I have made in YEARS that is from a flat piece of new material rather than a reconstruction project. It was fun. But sort of boring, really. It posed no challenge. I do plan on making a whole bunch many more, however, because it turns out to be a fabulously comfortable garment in the hot sticky humid weather we’ve been having lately – the light weave of the seersucker floats over the skin rather than being clingy. Which is good when yer all sweaty like. (see that? I think we only had 1 post between me griping about the cold weather before I start griping about the hot weather. oh dear — i miss the west coast.) The lace trim is from the seemingly endless stash (not that i’m complaining) of vintage laces I’ve been hoarding. So pretty!

Next up, a slick denim jacket.

The denim comes from salvaged denim jeans, which I pieced together carefully to preserve the original look of the worn seams — that’s the best part of old jeans, there is just no way to replicate those faded seams. The sleeves and collar are from a discarded wool military-issue sweater.

This is my planning sketch for this garment. I always think it is interesting to see the original idea on paper next to the finished project. What do you think? The design evolved somewhat as I was working on it, as usual, the yoke changed shape, I ditched the denim cuffs to save time, but overall I achieved more or less what I was going for. I still need to put in the slash pockets (oh boy!), but C was eager to get to the more fun wearing part of the project, so I’ll have to finish that later.

And here is a quick little t-shirt from the clothes-swap that I just altered to fit and embellished a little.

The pinwheels are a sort of modified yo-yo, which are all over everywhere in the blog and craft world, (excellent tute on Heather Bailey’s blog, here) but are made from a rectangle of fabric rather than a circle, eliminating the wasted fabric on the back side of the yo-yo.

I get a real kick out of the fact that there is something about this shirt, I guess the colours and stripey-ness of it, that remind me joyfully and unequivocally of the shirts they’re wearing in this video, in spirit if not actually in physical resemblance…

All i need is a jaunty scarf and I’m set!