This Post Is About Sewing. Really.

If you want to know why I'm doing this...

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Cool Green for Summer

A sweet little pairing of skirt and shirt in cool greens.

I love the flounce in the back.

Also looks good with a garage sale jacket!

For more about the inspiration and the challenge this week at the Sew Weekly, click through here.

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A Dress to Love Life In

So, I pretty much love this dress (see it here with more info about construction, casinos, and the dangers of floaty sheer fabrics on windy days). Pics are from our walk in downtown Lansing after lunch on Sunday before the dark clouds rolled in (the day before my little boy turned four).

My hair is getting more gray in it and my eyes are home to some wrinkles that didn't used to be there. My upper arms may never be toned, my stomach may never be flat. But my life is good. My family is precious. My husband adores me. My son is still so sweet. My God is so generous with His grace.

I love my life.

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Simple Striped Shirtdress

A late fulfillment of a Sew Weekly challenge (this is becoming all too common). For the great picture of the woman who inspired it, click through here.

The next challenge I'm working on is something Vegas inspired. My first choice for fabric didn't work out as the secondhand red fabric I chose was badly faded from the sun along the folds. So I'll save it and possibly dye it red again and use for something else (would I need to bleach the whole thing first, I wonder?) and in its place I'm using a sheer print that's perfect for the desert. But I will have to finally break my no-fabric-purchases streak to buy a lining fabric. (I did allow for that in my ban, though, so I'm not cheating.)

Looking forward to seeing this one come together

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Feminizing the Necktie

The 1957 pattern tells me to make a bow, but I'm all thumbs when it comes to bows and I don't want to feel like a present or a five-year-old. So I make it into a necktie.

This is (finally) my fulfillment of the January 23 "Make This Look" challenge on The Sew Weekly. Check out my inspiration and my construction triumph here.

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A Little School Spirit Dress

A friend commissioned me earlier this spring to make a special dress for her daughter on the occasion of her daddy's graduation from Central Michigan University. I think it turned out pretty cute. It doesn't hurt that the little girl wearing it is adorable.

Congratulations, Bryan! We will miss you all so much as you start your new job in Florida!

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Pink

Finished this week, a simple and sweet button-up cotton shirt for summer.

The only pink fabric in the stash, now used up to fulfill this Sew Weekly challenge. I'm skipping the challenge for next week because this week I was sewing a little dress for a friend's toddler (pics to come, hopefully) and my calendar is full of commitments, including work, meetings, two rather long zoo docent gigs (both the same day, the morning at the juvenile home and the evening at a posh fundraiser), a graduation party out of town, and the Miguel Cotto vs. Floyd Mayweather fight on pay per view at a friend's house Saturday night.

It's too bad I'll be missing this next challenge, because it's one where we get inspiration from a family photo and tie it to Mother's Day. I was thinking this picture of my mother in the early 1970s (I think) would be some seriously fun inspiration:

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Sunny Wrap Skirt

This week's Sew Weekly challenge is circle skirts. I started with a thrifted round tablecloth with a pale yellow ground (the only yellow in my color book) and darker yellow, orange, brown, and gray flowers. Through a short series of unfortunate measuring and cutting incidents, I ended up with something that could not be used as a true circle skirt unless my waist was about 50 inches around. So I made my circle skirt into a wrap skirt. And I'm okay with that. Actually, I think it's pretty darn cute.

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Pretty Polka Dots

I finally finished and got photos of my "childhood inspiration" sewing project for The Sew Weekly. Here are the inspiration photos:

Polka dots and the navy/white combination are basically the only elements from most of my childhood wardrobe I would care to repeat. Not the splatter paint sweatshirt. Not the unicorn sweatshirt. Not the tragic hot pink plaid pleated shorts with tucked-in pink mock turtleneck tank (and if you think I'm sharing that picture, you've got another thing coming).

But navy and white polka dots? I can do that. So I did.

It's a 1940s pattern, but it looks like it would be right at home on a secretary in the late 1970s and early 1980s, doesn't it? And it perfectly matches a great vintage 1970s wool plaid coat I found this winter at a vintage shop in Easttown in Grand Rapids, Michigan, called Found.

And it's a good thing because the fabric is pretty thin and the day these photos were taken was pretty cold and windy.

But we had fun at the playground flying kites and playing on the jungle gym despite the chill.

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Buried in Fabric

Remember my vow not to buy any new fabric in 2012? Well, the year is 1/4 over (how can that be?) and, I'm proud to say, I have stuck to that vow. I did allow, when I made the vow, that I would accept free fabric. And I'm really glad I did. Because the mother lode of free fabric arrived at my doorstep with my mother last Thursday.

Remember this batch of super cheap fabric I got from the daughter of an elderly lady entering a nursing home (pics near the end of the post)? Well, she had to get the rest of the fabric out of the house. So I am now the proud owner of about 500 lbs of wool, suiting, polyester blends, silk rayon, and scads more unidentifiable (to me) fabrics. All free. Seriously, it has to be hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of fabric. Forty-seven pieces, all 2 yards or more, most 3 or 4 yards.

Forty-seven.

I passed a bunch more (beyond what is pictured here) on to a friend (luckily our coloring is different enough that it was easy to pick out what would look good on each of us and there wasn't much crossover), but I am still left with six big boxes stuffed full and more that didn't fit in the boxes. It boggles the mind. I will now have to vow not to buy fabric for the next five years!

But I'm not complaining. Oh, no. I am very, very happy about my predicament.

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Summery Pink and White

Until this morning when it was 30 degrees (that's more like it, March!) I had been wearing a number of springy and even summery dresses, including this new creation.

Yes, those are white shoes before Memorial Day. What of it?

This was supposed to be used to make a jacket to go with a top and skirt I made last year, but the drape and colors suggested a life as a dress would suit it better.

Find out more about the pattern, construction, and color over at The Sew Weekly.

Now I think I'll put on some long pants and a light coat and head out into the chill afternoon.

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Mad Men Dress

No, I don't smoke. But you can't model a Mad Men inspired dress without a cigarette, can you?

Mine is borrowed, as is the office (needed those mini blinds and file drawers).

I put together two patterns to make this dress.

And I have to say, I'm quite pleased with the result.

Now, if only we got AMC so we could watch the new season starting March 25th.

More on this dress here.

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A Green(ish) Cowl Neck Tank

I made this top for the Going Green challenge for The Sew Weekly (here) from some fabric I inherited from my very stylish Grandma Foote. I don't know what she paid for it, when she bought it, or what she planned to do with it, but I'm happy to have given it a life beyond being merely a folded piece of very beautiful wool blend voile. (Aside: Have I mentioned how much I am falling in love with solid colors in my sewing? They just can't be beat, despite the lovely and tempting patterns out there.)

The pattern is modified (quite a bit, I realize now) from this pattern from Rhonda's Creative Life. Rhonda has shared scads of free patterns on her blog, most simply made from rectangles, triangles, and circles. She's very creative and I encourage you to spend some time on her blog.

As this St. Patrick's Day is likely to be unbelievably warm, I just may wear this new shirt that day and see if I can't get a bit of sun on my white arms.

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The Andrew Wyeth Shirt

I love this shirt, folks. This is my art-inspired sewing project, which, given that it is a plain gray shirt, may seem strange. Doesn't seem terribly...artsy. But I had this fabric in my stash and I happen to like artist Andrew Wyeth's somber paintings. And seriously, I made it in February and February is gray. Like this...

For more about Wyeth, some samples of his artwork, and my very own re-creation of one of his best-known portraits, click here!

In the meantime, I mean it. I love this shirt. And I can totally see myself painting whilst wearing it. So there. It's my art shirt.

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Sewing Do-Overs

Unfortunately, not everything I sew turns out to be something I actually wear. There are various reasons. Sometimes the fit just isn't flattering, or I used the wrong weight of fabric, or something just seems to look not quite like you expected it to. This week on the Sew Weekly we are refashioning those forgotten items and giving them new life. I ended up doing two. Here's the main one...

Remember this shirt from a couple years ago?

It just didn't work for me (explanation here). So I turned it into this.

I'm still not sure if it works for me. We'll see if I wear it more than once in the next two years.

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Amish Dresses

A while back I was commissioned by a colleague at work to make two each of Amish-style dresses, aprons, and caps for a photo shoot. Though I had little time (one week) and almost no pattern (I adjusted one for the dresses and made up the aprons and caps while looking at a couple very small photos) they turned out nicely. The girls who acted as models loved them. I got to see some of the photos a while back, but as they were copyrighted by the photographer and were going to be used for illustrations for an upcoming series of children's books, my company obviously did not want them floating around on the internet.

However, the illustrated book cover is now online because the Fall 2012 season of book releases has just been announced. And that means I can finally give you a glimpse!

This is the first in a series of four books for girls ages 8 to 12. There are line illustrations throughout (or there will be when the time comes) that will show more angles of the dresses, aprons, and caps, but for now a front view will have to be enough.

It was really fun to be able to use my hobby to support my real job. If you have or know girls who might like to read about life on an Amish farm, the first book comes out in October!

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The Chicago Dress

Friends, through comments here and on Facebook, you chose Chicago over Gosford Park for my Oscar-inspired dress for The Sew Weekly. Mentally, it was a challenging project but it came together fairly easily once I got my mind around how to get it all put together. In fact, I named it the "Dr. Frankenstein's Flapper" dress for my post on The Sew Weekly because at times I felt like a mad scientist piecing together a diabolical creation born from my demented mind.

It is made from three different fabrics, all of which are slippery and difficult to marry harmoniously together: a sheer, a knit, and a lining. The sheer and the knit stretch, but not in the same way, and the lining doesn't stretch even a millimeter. The instructions don't include a lining, but the thin fabrics definitely needed to be lined. The instructions also failed to say just how the collar should be properly attached (plus the pattern piece for the collar was missing) and what sort of closure the belt should have. Let's just say that if I had tried to sew this dress with these fabrics a couple years, I probably would have pursued a different hobby.

All of the deep thought and time that went into putting it together makes me like this dress even more than I might have if it had been a breeze. I love how comfortable this it is. The fabrics are flowy and soft and don't wrinkle. It has a good weight to it and is a great color for me. It also perfectly matches my blue corduroy coat I made last week and is even the exact same length. Talk about a happy coincidence.

I don't feel like I'm wearing a costume, but I do feel unique. Late 1920s and early 1930s clothing has such interesting details. Flutters, geometric skirt yokes, big collars, sleeves of all shapes...

I'm starting to seek out patterns with more of these details. More gathers. More pleats. More ruffles. More prettiness.

I'm starting to think about pairing contrasting fabrics for interesting effects. I've realized that small details show up far better when you use solid color fabrics and they tend to get lost when your fabric is patterned.

Altogether I feel like I'll be taking my sewing skills up a notch this year. I'm making more thoughtful choices in patterns and the restriction I've put on myself to only use stash has made me think a lot harder about which fabric to use for which project.

This was my first dress of the year. I'm making more separates, which my wardrobe needs, and I'm thinking a lot more about matching my already existing clothing so I can get more looks from fewer pieces. But I still have plans for several dresses this year. Some are patterns and fabrics I've had for some time now, just waiting for my vision for them to be fully realized.

And I find that the various Sew Weekly challenges are a good way to get me thinking outside the box about just how to put together a pattern with a fabric and come up with something I will actually wear a lot.

I must say as well that I am happy about the prospect of spring coming along sometime soon. I'm getting a bit weary of winter garb and am looking forward to getting into my more summery dresses.

Anyway, for full length pictures of this dress, click on through to my post on The Sew Weekly. And then take a look at some of the other awesome sewists and their creations. It's truly a fun way to share a passion and exchange ideas.

Coming soon to The Sew Weekly are some refashioning projects (I turn a shirt into a dress and make a sweater more wearable), an artist-inspired shirt, and, the project I'm currently working on, a dress inspired by Mad Men in which I combine two late 1950s/early 1960s patterns and try to channel Joan Holloway. That ought to be fun.

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Red Plaid Skirt and a Sneaky New Coat

I made this skirt back in January for this week's Sew Weekly Challenge: Red.

I really like it. It's easy to wear, comfortable, and goes with any black top.

It also goes with the amazing red raincoat my husband got me for my birthday.

So besides the awesome color, what's so amazing about it?

Pockets! Eighteen of them. Many hidden.

This coat is made for traveling and can easily replace a purse and carry-on. My mother-in-law bought one in classic tan for her upcoming European tour and when I saw it I immediately wanted one. But in red. Now I just need to plan a trip.

To check out the trench coat in different colors and look at other awesome travel gear, click here.

To read more about why the plaid doesn't match up on my skirt, click here.

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UFO Featured on The Sew Weekly

Excited to see that my latest project for The Sew Weekly is featured today: The "Champagne" Dress. I won't go into all the details here (you can read about them there) but I will leave you with a photo I didn't post over there.

The photos for this project were taken the same place the last ones were, the capitol building. To see the color ones, please jump over to the post on The Sew Weekly.

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Building a Wardrobe, Piece by Piece

So, what did I do with this lovely $5 fabric?

I turned it into this.

Which can be worn like this . . .

That cream skirt and mulberry shirt are things I made last year but didn't include in my year-end post because I haven't yet made the coat that goes with them, which really makes the ensemble. I promise I will do it this spring. For real.

And many other ways as well. I see more separates in my future.

For more on these pieces, and the beautiful building in which they were taken, click here.

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