Me-Made-May

May 25th - Self-drafted skirt

Me-Made-May is over, thank you Zoe, it was a lot of fun. If you don't mind, I'd like to share a few quick thoughts with you.

May 29th - T-shirt refashion

• You should go see the Flickr Pool for inspiration. The stylishness, creativity and craftmanship is amazing.
• I haven't made many comments for lack of time, but I really loved everything.
• I need to go on a World Tour to trace back all the wonderful fabric I saw.
• I should take another look at Burda Patterns, some of the girls have made wonderful garments with them.
• I don't plan on planning, SWAP is not for me, but I should plan on making a few tops other than cut up t-shirts.
• My pant making skills need a lot of work.
• I have to take better pictures, iPhone pictures are a bare minimum.
• I need to do something with my hair!

May 28th - Another Nicole Miller with boats

Thank you so much for your kind comments, it was really nice to rumage through my sewing history. Now on to some new stuff.

May 30th - BWOF pants

May 27th : Letting Go

Letting go is what you can live with.

That treshold is different for every seamstress. Mine is pretty high. I like a good finish inside and out. I take great care of finishing every seam, binding everywhere, matching motifs, stripes, plaids, attaching linings. I find that the garment last longer, is more washable and I love to bias bind hems, it's pretty when you sit down.

I am thinking about this because I read Very Purple Person 's blog post this morning about her recent green dress which she calls a fail. The dress is not a fail, I think it's totally wearable, nobody will ever notice the mistake and people are more likely to say, where did you find those green shoes!  But I do understand her, I fuss over my sewing so much.

Case in point, this Ellen Tracy Butterick pattern I made in 2001. Now being wiser, I would notice it doesn't fit the model and stay away from it! Look at those gaping neckline and arms! (And No! I will never ever make plaid pants cut on the bias, this is such a receipe for disaster!)

Of course, I ended up with the same problems, you can see the gaping neckline still, I didn't know how to fix this one back then but I couldn't live with the armholes so I fixed them thus, which is not the way to do it, I know, but the dress was finished, I didn't have a dress form, I still don't have a full length mirror blah blah blah! It works, I could live with that.

But catasrophy, I totally ruined that dress when trimming the waist seam. One should never ever trim anything when tired : I cut a hole in my dress! Could I live with this? 

Well, I did. I glued a tiny bit of fusible interfacing under it, it's partly hidden by the belt and since I made it 9 years ago, only one person remarked the 'hummongous' gash. The general comments are "pretty dress, where did you buy it?". I can live with that.

May 26th : Geoffrey Beene

This Geoffrey Beene dress is another beauty I don't wear often. I don't find it especially flattering on me. But I loved making it, it's expertly cut and the puzzle was difficult to put together, which I like, it made me think. My fabric was stiff enough so I didn't underline, and didn't use the hem facing pieces either, it's tent like enough for me. 

Take a look at the inside zipper hidden in the front pleat, it's so clever! The bust dart were in the cut like the Mondrian, which must have been all new technique back then. If I was to make it again, I'd go for a softer fabric. The pattern is an 8 and I am a 12 and the grading I did on it was empirical at best so I would certainly change that as well.

The Me-Made-May challenge is almost over and one of the thing it has highlighted for me is that I have a propensity to make the pattern exactly like the enveloppe, as seen here, here and here, which raises the question : Why? Don't I have enough imagination?

May 22nd and 24th : Skirts

These are just a couple of skirts, May 22nd is the Nicole Miller I told you about, a tried and true pattern.

And this one is a 15 year old! It's a Modes et Travaux pattern, which I cannot find. If I find it again, I'll post it because it's a 12 piece skirt with godets and it's perfect to go dancing.