Wardrobe Refashion in Review: Made by Me

Since I'm approaching the end of my Wardrobe Refashion (t-minus 11 days and counting!) I thought I'd do some reflection on the whole experience. I've not been very good at marking everything Wardrobe Refashion related, but I'll try to collect everything in a few posts as I'm thinking it's going to take more than one. Today I wanted to walk through the pieces I've made and think about how much of a success they are.

1. Wearing History Smooth Sailing Blouse

I love this blouse! It's so cute! The sleeve cuffs are a bit tight but not too tight that I can't wear it. I'm planning on making another blouse from this pattern soon.

2. Dress to Skirt Refashion

I have not worn this yet. :( I think it's just not my style anymore. Plus I don't really have any tops to wear with it! (Thanks to all who responded to my Blouse Quest post. I think I'm going to go with the Pendrell Blouse and have some fun with it later this summer.)

3. Wearing History Smooth Sailing Pants

These were super easy to make! The main issue is they ended up a bit baggy in the hip/backside area so I had to take the zipper out and take them in. Voila! Pants that fit. Then I lost 10 lbs (woot!) and they are baggy again. So I'm thinking that I'm going to wait till I'm off my weight loss kick and then fit them. Summers coming soon anyways, right?

4. McCall 5438 (My first vintage pattern!)

I learned a ton from making this pattern-pattern tracing, adjusting a single size pattern to fit my body, and self-covered buttons! It's really cute, although I think it ended up being a bit short. I sort of feel like a vintage ice skater in it. I may try it again in a different fabric.

5. Sew Serendipity Coat

I love this coat and wear it all the time now that it's not 20 out. I always get tons of compliments on it. :) I'm toying with lining it since it looks a bit messy on the inside.

6. Sew Serendipity skirt

Love this skirt! Again, I need to get a top to wear with it. Too many of my tops don't look good with skirts. :/ I actually have fabric already to make another version. This may be my go to skirt pattern.

7. 1940's Swing Dress

*sigh* I still don't know how to fix this dress. I'm seriously considering taking the top off and making it a skirt. I don't think I'll be able to fix it. It's been hanging wit my other unfinished projects since I took it off after this photo shoot. Must do better muslins! Lesson learned.

8. Runway Show outfit

I liked this outfit a lot when I made it, but it too has a couple of issues that keep me from wearing it often. The skirt has a sheen that makes it a bit dressy for day. I did a zig zag finish on the blouse and it came out rather itchy. I plan on doing some bias binding on the seams now that I know how to do it properly.

9. *in progress* Peacock Dress

This project is going great! I've been trying to focus on doing things correctly rather than just doing things quickly. It's paying off really well here. Just need to finish the hem and make a belt.

10. *in progress* Bow Blouse

Don't think I've ever blogged about this one as I don't have any photos of it, but this was my first experience sewing with a knit and it's coming along ok. Some of the seams look a bit wonky, but not that bad. It needs buttons but I keep forgetting to pick some up.

11. *in progress* Butterfly Dress

No pictures of this either, but I'm making Simplicity 2549 for this week's Sew Weekly Challenge. I'd love to finish it tonight but I'll probably have to work on it some more tomorrow. I had to make significant changes to the top of this pattern and I didn't make a muslin so fingers crossed that it works! I have most of the bodice complete and so far so good.

13 pieces in 4 months! Woot! I definitely did a lot of sewing these last four months and learned tons! Hopefully the next four months will have even more successes!

Trying out the golden rule

No, not that one! Today, I got my nerd side out and decided to apply the golden ratio to my peacock ensemble:


Steph from 3 Hours Past the Edge of the World did this with one of her sewing projects and I thought I'd give it a whirl. So, here's how I figured this out.

I measured from the shoulder to the hem of the top giving me a=22 inches. Then I plugged into the formula a/b=1.618 and got b=13.6 inches. b is the measurement from the hem of the top to the hem of the skirt, not the measurement from the waist of the skirt to the hem of the skirt. We only care about the parts that are visible. Plugging a and b into the other equation a+b/a, I got 1.618 back. That means the math was done correctly.

If you're not sure what should be a and what should be b, try swapping the values. If you assign 22 inches to b, you get a=35.6 inches (which is almost 3 feet!). Since 22 inches is still the top measurement, that leaves a=35.6 inches for the visible length of the skirt. As I'm only 5'4", that's not going to work.

Then I pinned the skirt up to see how I liked the length. (Please ignore the wonky side.) The bottom arrow indicates about where the unhemmed skirt hits me. It's loooooong! And I'm short. While I'm not a huge fan of my knees, I do like the length.

I'm really excited about this outfit! I just have to add a hook and eye to the skirt and do the hem! I'm also considering making a self fabric belt (see the line on the labeled image). The top is a bit loose from the waist to the hip so a belt will help show off my waist. I love my waist and feel odd (fat...) when it's not highlighted.

Easter Bonnet

While most people choose to wear something extra special on Easter, I opted to stick with an old favorite-my brown and pink circle skirt. I've been wearing it a lot actually. Today I jazzed it up with my new beaded collar and hat.

My husband and I went to his parents' house after church today for dinner and an Easter egg hunt for the my niece and nephew. I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures in their backyard to take advantage of their lovely landscaping.

I tried out a new hairstyle from Lauren Rennells' book and it turned out quite well for a first go. I'm also sporting a new coral lipstick I picked up this weekend. I like it. :)

Check out my hat! It came out very nicely! I made it from this Wearing History pattern. It was actually pretty simple to make. I did have to get a bit creative when pressing the seams since I don't have a tailor's ham. (I've added that to my list of things to sew and already tracked down a tutorial.) I did add a strip to the front of the hat so I could attach different Belle Blossoms as the mood it me. The one I am wearing is January's Blossom of the Month.

I ended up wearing my beaded collar backwards as the overall impression was that it looked a bit odd the other way round. Eh. I'm not one for being super historically accurate anyways.

Blogging Mamas Who Rock

Happy Easter everyone! May is just around the corner and that means Mother's Day. I'm not a mom, but there are lots of great blogging gals out there who are. In honor of these ladies, I'm hosting a series of interviews with 'Blogging Mamas Who Rock' to learn what inspires them and how they manage to stay fabulous while being great moms. The first interview is set to air a week from today, so stick around! You won't want to miss these!

I love a good antique store!

There is an antique store in a small town out near my church and I've been wanting to go for a while, but it's always closed on Sunday when I'm up at church. Today, my husband and I were out there getting some work done and I snatched the opportunity to hit the antique store after we were finished. They had tons of cute tea cups. I'd love to start collecting vintage tea cups but, alas, there is no place to store them in my tiny apartment.

So here is what I did take home with me!

A little over 2 yds of this lovely landscape print on a knit. I think it may be Venice because of the gondolas but it's cute none the less.

I also found this piece of the same type of material but with a Chinese print. It's a bit larger than the other piece. And they were only $4 each!

I also found this lovely vintage beaded collar! The tag says it was handmade in Japan. It was missing the hook part of the hook and eye and the pearly coating has come off of most of the outer row of beads, but adding a hook was easy and it still looks lovely. Someone loved this very much. And now I do! I thought it was worth the $5. It will be making its debut tomorrow along with my new hat! Can't wait to share that with you!

Easter break equals time to get sewing

Life has been pretty crazy the last couple of days. I didn't have class Thursday or Friday and I only have one class on Wednesday so I've pretty much had the last three days off of school. Wednesday was a takin' care of business type day. I got a lot of administrative type things done (blah) and got a good portion of my homework done. I always like to get my homework done when I'm in school mode so I can enjoy the rest of my break! But Thursday was all sewing all day!

The top of my peacock outfit is finished! I also conquered the skirt zipper and cut and started to assemble the skirt lining. It'll definitely be finished in time. Woot! I also decided on the spur of the moment to make a hat for Easter. I knew I wasn't going to have enough time to make a dress but I'd just gotten two hat patterns from Wearing History so I was like why not? Most of the patterns called for some sort of special thing I didn't have in my stash, but I found one that had definite possibility. It got finished today and it is awesome! I can't believe I made a hat!

Today has been full of a lot of technical drama with our internet. It's all fixed now though. Our wireless router pooped out and we had to buy a new one. :( That's why there's no exciting pictures today. (And I needed to start an English paper. Second to last one ever!)

On the bright side, I still have the whole weekend to enjoy plus another day off of school on Monday! There will be lots more sewing. Next up on the project list is another Smooth Sailing Blouse and a cherry print circle skirt.

The Middy Haircut

Last week I got a Middy haircut and today a whipped up a video to show you how it looks unstyled. Enjoy!