Sewing Pleather and Denim

artist-post

While I was working on the cool recess raglan shirt, I also wanted to play with some pleather and denim. Again, practice on the kid so I can have some skillz for myself. That’s what they’re for, right?

Enter remnant bin, again. I bought 2 <1 yard remnants of denim and pleather to play with.

cheap-and-easy

I got out the old trusty Ottobre and traced a pair of jeans with an elastic waist – no sense in getting too fancy with a real fly.

ottobre

I ALWAYS add my seam allowance as I trace out the Ottobre patterns, except for this one time. I have no idea why. It worked out though – I just pinked the seams instead of serging and it worked out. Still – kicking myself. Since I made 2 pairs, that’s just more of a pain in the ass than I wanted. I measured and added the ‘knee patches’ and just picked the pockets to make into pleather.

trace-pattern

I made a green and tan pair. Getting the creases out of the pleather: not so easy.

green-and-tan-front

OMG – topstitched baby butt!!!! so cute!! I used my Teflon foot for the whole thing. worked GREAT. a 90 denim needle on the whole thing too. EASY. I had no issues at all. Go Viking! DO experiment with samples of your vinyl/pleather….this tan one liked to ‘pop’ and crack more…it had a tighter knit backing and was thinner overall. I really expected this one to hold up better, but surprisingly did not. It’s not super noticeable, but I’m not going to buy more of it.

green-and-tan-butt

Now, these jeans, I love. Again, call the early 80s, Becky is stuck.

super-artist
super-artist
smiley-artist
smiley-artist
pleather-butt
pleather-butt

This pleather took the stitching much better. It was thicker – almost like upholstery-foamy-knit on the back side – not really thick, but thicker than the tan version. I love it more – it’s Chanel-meets-Queen. I blew out the exposure on these so you can see the stitching on the black.

goofy-artist
goofy-artist

 

freddy-mercury-pants
freddy-mercury-pants

Ok, so I may have ventured a bit more into the Freddie Mercury category than the Coco Chanel, but I love it.

No outfit is complete without princess shoes.

knee-pads-in-pleather
knee-pads-in-pleather

Now, to teach her to sing Killer Queen.

000-freddie131

freddie ligtning

JSP0012-10A-FP

 

Papercut Ooh La Leggings x2

papercut

I bought this pattern FOREVER AGO with the best of intentions. Like almost a year ago. OMG.

Recently I got side-lined by the doctor. He said I don’t stretch enough (BORING) and that I needed to take 14 days off with icing my Achilles tendon 3x a day and take a buttload of Aleve and wear orthopedic inserts and OMG I don’t like getting old. I got this prognosis during the holiday glutton fest AND had to turn 40 during this! I get it, it beats the alternative. yeah, yeah. I’m not dead. BUT WAHHHH!

What to do but get out the yards and yards of Joann’s dri-fit crap I bought almost a year ago, my Papercut Ooh La Leggings and make myself new clothes for when I can move again – lemons, lemonade and all that. I was going to also make a Vogue pair of leggings, but, uh, that pattern was donated to the dumpster. Very cathartic, BTW, chucking that Vogue mess.

okokok – here’s me in pants tighter than you ever needed to know about! woohoo!

elastic

Belly shot to show I used a 1.25 inch “sport elastic” with the channels you can sew in – it’s called “Stretchrite” and I think I got this 25 yard roll on either Amazon or Dove Trims. I wrapped the top of the waist band by a 1/4 inch, stitched in first channel, wrapped it again, and stitched down….no rolling, no shifting.

side

Side shot. I sewed a medium. I probably could have gone up a size but I’d rather stress the spandex/lycra than have baggy leggings butt. EW.

butt

This gray Joann’s isn’t as see-through as the green (below) but you can still see the tag of my underwear through my pants. They’re not lewd, but they’re not forgiving either. In fact, the pattern really helps, I think. I’m going to look for some better quality now that I know I love the pattern.

Ankle shot – I left the full length of the original pattern. I like the extra fabric to go over my ankles or to tuck in my socks.

ankles

In fact, I’m wearing these green ones right now. I love them.

 

it is easy to be green

These green ones are fun….but I can NOT wear black undies with them. Just that little bit of lighter shade is a little bit see-through.

hellacopters ftw

One must have motivational music to go with motivational pants. I got me and my man Hellacopters t-shirts for Christmas. I’m so romantic.

Cheap and Easy Nightgowns

HEARTS-ON

My mom picks up crafty stuff for the kids and me on a regular basis – this crafty, sewing thing…we all enable each other, don’t we?

Recently, she found a Cricut on sale and some t-shirts at Michael’s. Pretty cool, huh? I have the best mom.

I played around with the Cricut and I’m really digging the iron-on vinyl. I made a bunch of t-shirts for the tweens, but a few of the shirts were too small for the tweens, and too big for the toddler. These were Youth Small.

SIZE-SMALL

Enter: Pinterest.

First, I ironed on some cute designs….I don’t suppose it matters what order this is done in….if at all.

HEARTS-ON

Then, I cut 2 inch slits around the collar.

CUT-

I found plenty of photo tutorials on Pinterest on how to ‘braid’ these together but just looping them through like crochet.

I pinned it at the shoulders to hold it:

LOOPYLOOP

Then tacked it down with the machine – it does have to survive a toddler after all.

TACK-DOWN

TACKED-AT-SHOULDERS

Then, to shorten the sleeve size and give it shape, I clipped the sleeves at the shoulders to make gathers, thus shrinking the arm-holes, and sliced little dress-shaped-curves into the sides:

CLIP-SLEEVE-CAP

TRIM-SIDES

This was done without measuring or fussing of any kind. EASY is the name of the game here people. When you have kids, job, house….making couture nightshirts is NOT on the list, amirite? We are doing easy, crafty, ego boosting things and saving the labor intensive stuff for where it matters. Like for mom. 😀

anywhoo, I put pins in for the photo – or I normally wouldn’t have even put in that much effort.

PIN-SEW

A couple quick passes through the sewing machine and DONE.

NIGHTGOWN

Also works for Play-Doh:

ZOE-FASHION

Sometimes, Cheap and Easy is the way to go.

Speaking of cheap and easy, I’d like to thank the people of Pinterest and all those gawd-awful-but-still-wonderful t-shirt hacks by those who missed beaded fringe t-shirts on California piers in the 80s…they came in handy. Huntington Beach, I love you and long live Diamond Dave!

9bfb588dd37883334d7b33f9e5b33466

Recess Raglans For Evah!

SMILEY

When I want to try out some new fabrics, hacks or techniques, there’s nothing better than trying it out on a kid size. It’s cheaper, a smaller loss if it’s horrible/lame/wonky, and oh-so-faster.

I saw this amazing black and white knit along with some basic black jersey both in the remnant bin at Joann’s and have been wanting to hack a hoodie onto the awesome seekatesew Recess Raglan pattern, so it was a natural buy.

I LOVE it. The recess raglan takes maybe 20 minutes to sew up, another 10 or so with the added hood…

HOODIE-BACK

I used this Shwin and Shwin hoodie hack, and doubled it so that the hood is lined. It worked like a DREAM. I want it in my size.

HOODIE-2

Zoë is more princess or action figure inclined, so she did not love putting on my über fashion forward hoodie, but after I got it on her, she was all for it. She’s worn it a few times since and even likes it…even though it’s not princess pink. Win!

ARTISTIC-HOODIE

 It’s a bit snug on her, the raglan is a slim fit and she’s out growing this size 3T I have been using for awhile now, which works in my favor, see…if I make one for me, we won’t be all matchy-matchy. bwahahaha.

action-hoodie

 

Worst Pattern Ever: Donna Karan Collection, Vogue Patterns V1378

no-mirror
Donna-Karen-Vogue-V1378
Donna-Karen-Vogue-V1378

I’m making you suffer with my photo of my pattern envelope because I don’t want to risk having this image disappear….I want this to live forever. Here’s the link to the Vogue Patterns for as long as they have it listed…

I bought this pattern mostly for the pants pattern, like so many, but I was in need of a basic wrap shirt pattern as well. The pants pattern does look really cool, and if you look for reviews on this pattern, you will find plenty of people happy with the pants.

This isn’t about the pants. I haven’t made the pants yet. I’m not sure I will at this point….that is how messed up the shirt is.

First off – they sort of warn you…the photo on the pattern envelope of the shirt shows the back is kinda wonky. That’s cool…I can deal with a bit of wonky. I HAD NO IDEA.

back-warning
back-warning

Let’s go through the pattern first, shall we?

The pattern pieces were clearly printed backwards.

wrong-direction
wrong-direction

If you put your pattern pieces on your fabric like a NORMAL SANE person, these pieces are going the opposite direction. I did see AFTER cutting my fabric, that they do have a layout for the right side of fabric – who the fuck does that??? Oh, someone who screws up, then mickey-mouses it afterwards instead of REALLY fixing it, THAT’S WHO.

right-side-fabric
right-side-fabric

Ok, then let’s look at the 3 DIFFERENT edge finishing directions. 3. that don’t match up. I was still following the directions at this point, thinking this has GOT TO come together at some point, right? RIGHT??

finished-edge-1
finished-edge-1
finished-edge-2
finished-edge-2

WRONG. Even in their diagrams, this CLEARLY does not match up. At all.

finished-edge-3
finished-edge-3
finished-edge-4
finished-edge-4

Whatever, right? I mean, who’s going to know but me, and next time around, I can just do it the way I want to, right? HAHAHAHAHA ha ha    ha. Hm.

Oh, let’s move on to the magical hem, shall we? We have in step 14, it is not hemmed….we have in step 15, it is hemmed….wait…this basting instruction was for…the sides, right? Says nothing about the hem…but…uh…

This is where I through the directions out the window and just figured out the rest myself…and never hemmed the damn thing anyway.

Hem-magic
Hem-magic

Here at step 19, the last step before it just goes to the pants, there’s something about topstitching…wait, no, it’s capped, TOPSTITCH the basting….but WTF…are you talking about the sleeves? This is the section on the sleeves…or the hem…or…WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY TO ME, VOGUE?? Oh, just forget it….

But wait….lol. there’s MORE.

I used a nice cotton hatchi sweater knit with really great stretch and recovery. Really, it has NO sag. I wish I remember where I got it, because I feel I threw it away on this POS pattern.

It looks kinda normal, if I’ve adjusted it with a mirror and carefully only face forward.

looking-normal-1
looking-normal-1

I mean, it’s not doing my figure any favors, but it’s comfy…enough….and I attribute that to the fabric ONLY.

The back weirdness could be blamed on the user, right? I mean, conceivable I could suck enough to make something ugly back there on my own…and that would be believable except generally I don’t suck that bad, and the rest of the evidence.

 

twister
twister
crazy-sweater-back-1
crazy-sweater-back-1

Here…just…look. Somehow, Vogue has made me into a marsupial. I feel like this would be great if I was breastfeeding….with one breast only…yeah.

the-reveal
the-reveal
marsupial
marsupial
baby-wrap
baby-wrap
kanga-sweater
kanga-sweater
floppy
floppy

Can you believe that mess? See how the inside piece is nice and flat…it would be so much better with two of those pieces….but no, I’ve got some kind of shoplifting, baby smuggling sweater. WTF?

Now, the fun part…trying to put it back together all smooth-like without a mirror….

no-mirror
no-mirror

LOL. Not really doing my 40-year-old, mommy body any favors, is it?

I broke down and just bought the Papercut Patterns Coppélia pattern anyway, like I should have in the beginning. Sure, I could try and futz with the Vogue Pattern and make it work, but the Indies out there are doing such higher quality work, I’m just going to file it ‘maybe someday’ and let it go. I will chop that kangaroo pouch off, however, and resew that, and hem it or tack it together. It’s a bitch trying to figure out how to put it on the way it is…

So, yeah. This is the WORST pattern I’ve ever come across…and I’ve put together some weird Burda and Ottobre stuff, and even pattern tested with partial instructions. If you’re buying it for the wrap sweater, just pass. In fact, there are a billion other places to get wrap shirt and legging patterns, I’d just skip this one all together.

Joining The Rigel Bomber Jacket January!

rigel-jacket-january

For fall, I bought my tween daughter this freakin’ adorable bouclé jacket at Nordstrom. It was on sale and I’ve been kicking myself for not buying one in my size as well. (excuse the bad shots – winter AM sun in the PNW is not helping me right now and this is too short a post to set up the big camera; just going with the trusty Nokia.)

boucle jacket

It has these cute quilted pleather shoulder inserts, a great metal zip…it’s really soft and cute.

So, I’m going to join the Rigel Bomber sewalong put on by Ginger Makes and make my own. ha. so there. (isn’t she beyond adorable, this gingermakes gal? I love some of those mood sewing networks ladies. ADORBS!)

I’ve got this flocked Italian wool from Mood, with some silk lining (also from Mood)

Mood Fabrics

I’ve got the Papercut Rigel pattern, and I’m on Mood right now for the ribbed binding….I haven’t decided on the zipper yet…I’m thinking I’ll try to use a Joann’s coupon for that?? OH, I will go and check Josephine’s! I have some quilted pleather that I may or may not use as well…I’m undecided. Is that too Madonna c. 1984? Or just the RIGHT amount of Madonna?!?!

80sfashionmadonna

Woohoo….my first coat. Here we go….