A progressive post, keep scrolling downwards for this week's me-mades.
So its week two and nary a problem with wearing self-made gear...and I've been quite surprised at how many of my clothes I do make myself. I just don't prioritise my self made gear & I am beginning to see that the clothes I make myself more accurately portray me as me & they are something to be proud of. They are often my more adventurous tops, pants and dresses, things I have to make because I cant find them out there or they just strike me as being a happy combination of fabric, design and purpose.
My-made t-shirt, my-made mouse with lacy ears.
Pattern, Grainline's Scout T.
Hey hey its week two and nary a problem with wearing self-made gear. This has been a surprise, actually. In fact I just wrote to a new 'friend', Jen on Jennifer Lauren Vintage that "This is my first year doing MMMay and I must say I'm absolutely loving it, its great fun & I have found SO many new blogs and patterns that I didn't know were out there...and I've been quite surprised at how many of my clothes I do make myself."
Way back in December 2013, I made these t-shirts (& the tutorial how-to), which I had completely forgotten about till rummaging around for a me made thing on May 8th, first day week two. Easy peasy.
Next, day nine: my Collage Dress.
Matchy matchy fabrics.
More tunic than dress, this is an elongated Scout T with some ker-ay-zee patchwork going on.
I was determined to make use of a circular batik tablecloth; wow, the pattern goes in circles and the grain goes at right angles...wow...So for the front of the shirt, I pieced together a scrap of Missoni knit between the batik and some plain black knit & then laid the pattern over this to cut. I have little confidence in my measuring the exact lengths of the different pieces, so in my head it was easier to join them together first & then cut. (I also fused a lightweight knit type interface on the back of the Missoni as its a bugger to work with, really.) The back is all black knit.
And whilst taking these pics, I came across an abandoned cork board with an abandoned Granny project attached. My one time desire for a cross-stich Missoni homage iPhone cover.
Its mad. Absolutely mad. I know that. But I like a bit of handworked stitching, its very occupying for my mad head. My mad need to make. And, as previously noted, one is a FREAK for chevrons. It all adds up, is perfectly reasonable.
So I got this mad thing from The Haby Goddess but looks like she no longer stocks them (perhaps there were no other similarly OCD takers), but they originate from....drumroll...Martha Stewart. I hate it when she does cool stuff. I want to be dismissive, almost to the point of contemptuous, of "hobby craft" but it seems as if I'sa one a them anyway. Beat 'em, join 'em. It can be confusing.
So yeah, I make stuff. Lots of it. But I'm so entranced by my sewing at the moment that little else is getting done. But whatevs. What on earth will I wear tomorrow, THATs what I need to think about...
Here goes:
Wow. That came together pretty easily.
May 10th and this is the Tessuti Fave Top, self drafted skirt. That wasnt hard to work out at all. I'm seroiusly amazed at how many clothes I've made! Dont know why this is news, I've been sewing my own gear since I was about 13. I'm still wearing some things made too many years ago.
See those things hanging in my cupboard, left? Me made. Golly.
But I havent had that Fave top out in a long while. Chocolate/ecru stripe, nice; it's still good, I still like it. This is a free pattern btw, download from Tessuti, here.
Roll on MMMay14, wheeeee...
Self drafted jaquard dress
Aaaaaand May 12th:
Anita Ponte Pant in Carob and re-fashioned Festival T from my friend Sally at Fringed and Studded.
Day 13. Today's dress, an elongated Style Arc Susan top, was a byproduct of this project.
See my mini-sculptures & backdrops here.
Unfortunately, the pattern's horizontal bands are really not very flattering; I've worn this dress exactly once before and after today's outing, it's going to be abbreviated to a simple miniskirt I think.
It's a lovely fabric to sew and wear, a medium-weight Ponte with a cool digital print which was just the thing for mini-sculpture backdrops but not for any kind of slimming effect. Maybe I could've placed the bands of colour more strategically, I don't know. We've been all mad about digital prints a la Mary Katrantzou for several seasons now but this particular print isn't entirely successful IMO.
Day 14 and it occurs to me that we're halfway through May, ferrchrissake. Golly. In June I can go back to wearing all black all the time, an occupational hazzard which one studiously tries to avoid by buying lots of shoes and collecting heaps of patterned fabric. Even through during this MMMay, I've pretty much worn the same black cardigan everyday; yes and me, a Creative. 'Creative' is not a job description, people; stop it, you LinkedIn fools. A pox upon creatives wearing black, me included, and no, wearing big accessories does not make you look 'interesting', just boring with extra annoying bits everwhar.
I joyfully note that my sister who is deeply grateful for my daily texts of photos chronicling my MMMay wardrobe ( I know this, because I am Really Interesting), has described my style as -and I quote - "tribal/funk/hip/cool" and lots of other complementary words which I know she would be keen to use, had she thought of them. She used (prior to May 1st 2014) to describe my style as "Black? Again?", so I'm liking her much more now. MMMay14 works for everyone, huzzah.
Having noted the above, today I wore a black & white re-fashioned tweed skirt, a white T and MY BLACK CARDIGAN. Tamest outfit all May. Heh. Fix my sister's little red wagon
Easiest re-fashion ever; cut it short & run it in at the sides, BOOM, a new skirt.
There'd be nary a thrift shop in the land who didn't offer a tweed something and one is very partial to a tweed. This tweed still on sale at Tessuti, must get, but otherwise, this remains my favorite style of re-fashioning; cost+effort to immediately wearable ratio thingy. Its been a good day.
