Tie-Dye Skirt

Every year the college I work for has a tie-dye shirt day. Where you get to go make your own shirt and then sport it during a pre-selected date. The day is in line with our Spring celebration. I have made 4 shirts now. I’m a tie-dye pro! This year the only size shirts they had left, by the time I got there, were large. I knew I was never going to be able to wear it without sizing it down. Instead of doing that, I thought I would make a skirt. Simple enough. Elastic band on top and stitch down the sides. Done and easy peasy. Yup, not happy with that boring idea.

I decided I would cut up all my shirts in 9″ squares and stitch them together into a rainbow maxi skirt. The thought is kind of a quilted look but the tie-dye keeps it from feeling granny style.

I started by laying out a maxi skirt that I have that I like the fit of. I randomly started sewing the squares together. I would lay the sewn together squares on the maxi and figure out where I needed to add more.

I used the sleeves for the bottom of the skirt. It gave it a nice clean hem that I didn’t have to make! Bonus! The skirt has an enclosed elastic waist which helped to use more remnants of the shirts. There was hardly any waste at the end.

I’m so happy with the way the skirt turned out. It’s bright, fun and funky. Plus, look how majestic I look in this picture, like a rainbow colored unicorn!

Floral Secretary

This shirt was supposed to be made during the summer (oops!). It is made out of the same type of material as this shirt. I wanted a secretary style shirt and I thought with the floral fabric it would look great and be ultra feminine. Of course now it’s winter but that’s okay because that’s what cardigans are for.

This fabric was bought at the same Joann’s Red Line sale that I bought the other. It’s some sort of see through poly. (I don’t know fabrics all that well. For all I know it’s a cheap version of chiffon.) What I have failed to mention is that the previous button up shirt has a hole in it. This stuff is not the nicest thing to sew with. I have a serger and used it on both shirts. Not really sure how I can keep the fabric from fraying out on the edges even after being sewed together.

On the secretary shirt I cheated, I had two very small spots that needed attention on the ruffles because they frayed out. I used some fray stop and very carefully put it in the seam. I’m hoping that will help and last through the washings it’s going to go through.

The shirt is made out of four pieces. The front, back and two lengths for the tie. Did I mention this was “Jamie Drafted”? It’s a pretty boxy shape but the fabric is super drapey so it falls in all the right places. I did use a small piece of black interfacing on the collar so it stands up. Did you know they make black interfacing!?! I didn’t but this opens new possibilities.

Really, this shirt took way longer than it should have. Actually all my sewing projects take longer than they should because I don’t have a designated sewing space. I have to haul out the sewing machine or serger and plop them on the coffee table.

The things I would have changed about this shirt is probably a different fabric, made the neck bigger (fitting my head through is a bit snug) and possibly sewing the ties down a bit further along the collar. I’m still really happy with it… As long as it holds together. 😜

Roman Shade Disaster

Within the first week of having the twins in the household, they decided to rip my curtains in the bathroom. Honestly, they are old and came with the house so they needed to be changed anyways. I guess I could look at it as the twins doing me a favor. 😒

I’ve been ogling roman shades online for awhile now. Per usual, I read 50 tutorials before settling on how I was going to make mine. I wanted to make them sit outside the window like a normal curtain. I also wanted them to be completely washable so the dowel rods that give it rigidity need to come out.

I chose a green apple color broadcloth as my fabric. I wanted a white fabric with visual texture but I’m working with what Joann’s has to offer. I picked up all my supplies there. Fabric, blackout backing, roman shade tape, dowel rods, nylon cord and even a new curtain rod. I’m very thankful for coupons! Don’t forget they take a Hobby Lobby coupons too.

Construction began. It was going so well. One large rectangle of blackout fabric, sew on the roman shade tape in intervals. Then put broadcloth and blackout fabric together and sew along the tape again. I hemmed three of my edges leaving the top for last to see how much I needed to wrap around the new curtain rod.

The shade just touches the ledge. The edges of the left and right side of the curtain sit 1″ outside the window.

This is where it started to go wrong. I needed to put up the new curtain rod and I completely forgot. Sometimes I question my own intelligence. With the new one up, I wrapped the shade around and pinned it to the proper length. So with the that sorted I went to stringing the back.

Yet again I checked out a bunch of tutorials. The most popular seems to go up one side then move diagonal up to the other corner. Let’s get to the point, don’t do that! I don’t have a picture of what it does but it makes it flair out on one side into a fan shape. Thus continuing the train of wrong. I ended up restringing three times all different ways. The best way is two strings fed from the bottom up then take one across to the side you want the pulley to be.

What to do at the top to hold the string? Good question. It took me three different items around the house (all that I sewed on and eventually removed) because I didn’t want to go buy a billion plastic rings that I’m never going to use again. The best and final item I used was the eye part of a hook and eye assembly. It has two points to sew on and the loop is just big enough for the thread.

Hopefully from this you can see the string and the eyes at the top. It might be hard to see with all the white on white.

The only thing that I’m missing is the cleat that goes on the window frame to wrap the string around. Currently it’s looped on a hook that is near.

I hated this project. I was so excited at the beginning and then it went south as soon as I started fussing with the length of the curtain. I made Hubby promise me that if I ever mention making one of these again to stop and remind me of all the trouble (and the mountain of cussing) that occurred.

Wibbly Wobbly Halloween Costume Part 3

Finally the last of post of my first series! I’m so excited to complete it. Not only did I finish my costume successfully but I also completed a Pinterest project. More to come on that tomorrow…

The bow-tie piece of the costume was by far the easiest. It took 20 minutes to make. You can find tons of patterns for free online. I do suggest making a trial one before creating the one. I made one out of extra fabric I had in my stash. I couldn’t get the thing to turn right side out. The collar piece was too small. I corrected this by making it a smidge wider. I also didn’t use interfacing on the bow-tie. I used a lightweight denim so the fabric already had nice structure to it.

The toughest part of a bow-tie is tying it! I found the best tutorial on YouTube. Created by Offshoreorganbuilder, this video gives a precise, easy to understand tutorial. Dude, you are the best! I got this bad boy tied in one try.

For the non-Jamie made items, I turned up a pair of dress pants I had at the bottom. Very much like the pants Matt Smith wore for his tenure as the Doctor. I didn’t have lace up boots so I stuck with my “almost everyday” boots.

This is me feeling unsure about my awesomeness with my mini sonic.

I then realized ” Yes, yes I do look awesome with my sonic!” Imagine the epic cabinets I could assemble!

I leave you with the best selfie I took of the day. Btw… That is a Tardis in the corner of the full length shots. That’s a whole other post though!

Happy Halloween! Geronimo!!!

Wibbly Wobbly Halloween Costume Part 2

First and foremost I want to apologize. I meant to have this posted over the weekend and I got sick. I’m still not feeling great and it’s so evident in the pics below. For my first series, it’s not coming off as planned.

For the second piece of my costume, I made the waistcoat. I used Butterick 5359 version C. I had a few adjusts to this piece. I added more buttons then the pattern called for. It called for 4, I did 5. I wanted to add welt pockets to the front like the Doctor’s waistcoat but because of the princess seams I can’t fit them in. Unless I wanted to put one dead center of the seam and that’s just tacky.

Just noticed that the middle button isn’t fastened! Oops! This pattern made me mad. The back piece of the pattern fit fine. When I got to the front fitting, I would have had to have giant watermelon boobs for this to fit properly. I don’t know who they sized this pattern on, but geez!

It really didn’t come out too bad. It took me a while to select the fabric for this. I went to JoAnn’s which is really one of the only choices around where I live. Needless to say I couldn’t find anything I wanted unless I wanted to try to dye something. I bought this violet grey suiting at Fashion Fabrics Club. I had a hard time seeing the violet in it. Even when it arrived I couldn’t see it.

For the lining, I selected eggplant apparel lining that I did find at JoAnn’s. Not until I put the outer and inner fabric side by side did I see the touch of violet come out in the suiting. I found the buttons at JoAnn’s too. They don’t match the one in the pic from last week but they resemble the second waistcoat that Matt wears.

I can’t get over how squished my face gets when I laugh. Ack!

After dealing with the fit issue, the vest came together pretty well. There’s a weird line I would adjust on the front edge near the arm area if I make another waistcoat. I also would make sure I buy enough purple thread so I don’t run out before I make the buttonholes. 😦

I would have made the waistcoat a bit longer too. I didn’t realize it wouldn’t touch the top of my pants. I’m not too fond of the break in between waistcoat and pants.

Later this week, I’ll reveal the whole outfit. That’s if I can figure out how to tie the blasted bow-tie!