Pinterest knock-off, for real this time

My latest creation is finally here!

[Please forgive the wrinkles, this survived several days of wear and a stint on the floor, oops.]

A while back, I was gushing about this pin:

When I was more committed to stash-busting, I'd made what I considered at the time to be a pretty okay knock-off. I like that dress and wear it a lot, but it still wasn't quite what I was looking for. Since then, I've been searching high and low for a better match to the fabric in the original dress (and one that would go with a jean jacket), and finally, gloriously, Hancock Fabrics saved the day! 

This is my tried-and-true fitted version of Simplicity 4070. I've finally got the fit close to perfect, but I can mix up the skirts enough to make it look different each time (I hope).

I didn't bother with pattern matching because I only bought 1.5 yards of this and there just wasn't enough left (which is also the reason for the A-line skirt rather than a gathered or pleated one). I got this for a decent sale price ($8/yard), but it's still more than I typically spend on fabric. Like I've said before, I'm still learning, and am way too scared to invest a bunch of money in something that might not work well. Luckily, I think this one does. :)

[Again, sorry for the wrinkles! That...does not look good, but the hem IS straight, I promise!]

The straps on the original version keep falling down (as do pretty much all straps ever), so I decided to cross them, which I think is a fun little detail. 

Other than the fact that this seems to need constant pressing, I really really like it! The pin is officially knocked off.

A win and a lose

First up, the win: another pair of Tania culottes, of course!

Honestly, though, these were almost not a win at all. This fabric (picked up at the Textile Discount Outlet for $3.50/yard) is suuuuuper slippery, and since I can't find a blind hem foot for my machine to save my life, I had to stitch that slippery sucker down twice and hope for the best. Thankfully, I think it worked out in the end.

Cute print, no? Unfortunately, it wrinkles more easily than I thought, but...eh. Good enough for who it's for.

Now for the fail: 

This is the bodice of Simplicity 4070, with some adjustments made after fitting it the last time, and a little self-drafted gathered peplum flounce added on in place of a skirt. It's not terrible or anything, but why oh why did I think that sewing a peplum top would be a good idea when I've hated literally every other peplum everything that I've ever tried on? Don't get me wrong, they look good on some people but I...am not one of those people.

I was inspired by ModCloth's Third Street Promenade top and couldn't resist giving it a go myself: 
 

 

I think the Simplicity bodice is a really great match for this, don't you? Too bad it's not my style.

I made this out of some quilting cotton stolen from my mom's stash, so yay for a semi-successful stash bust on this one at least, right?

I got really tired of the straps on the other one falling down, so I decided to make these crossover straps to avoid that (and also provide a little visual interest). 

I'm not ready to throw this completely into the fail pile - I'm still hoping to make it into something slightly more wearable, probably by removing all of the gathers and making the whole top a bit more streamlined. Time will tell if I can get around to that, though - I've got a crazy-busy month coming up!

What do you think of the peplum trend? Temporary fad, or here to stay? And would you/do you wear them?

Finally finished - Simplicity 2250

Aaaages in the making, but it's finally done!

[Yay for another cool backdrop!]

It's a crazy-bright, ridiculously floral border print quilting cotton, from God knows where. I feel like this somehow made its way into my stash from something my mom picked up, because it doesn't look like anything I'd choose, but who knows? I probably had just over a yard of this to start with, which is not a lot to try to squeeze a dress out of. I ended up juuuust squeaking by - at first I thought I'd have to do the back in plain white, but ended up being able to barely fit all of the pieces I needed.

[Check out my super 90s styling, guys!]

I made view "A," but let me tell you, this bodice is super fiddly, and by the time I finished the front there was no way I was going to do all of that nonsense with the elastic in the back. (It's a shame you can't even see all of the detailing in the front, really.) I also realized I kind of screwed up the straps, so I decided to just make it into a halter - at least that way the straps won't be constantly falling off of my oh-so-sloped shoulders.

I know I look really happy here, but honestly, this isn't my favorite dress. I just don't think it's super flattering, I guess. At least I got some practice, and it IS wearable, but...yeah, not going to attempt this pattern again.

In addition to the changes I made to the bodice, I obviously couldn't make the skirt as-instructed because of A) the border print and B) the limited amount of fabric I had. I went with my standard lazy-girl pleats in the front and back, but they were sitting so weirdly in the back that I ended up just taking them out.

Yes, that zipper is embarrassing. I was having so many issues with it - I think this was my third attempt, and I didn't realize it was too low until it was way too late for me to want to fix it again. I'll have to go back and add a hook and eye or something to keep it a bit more closed at the top.

Like I said, not too flattering to my tummy or butt, but...oh well! Live and learn (and practice, practice, practice!). Woohoo for some great stashbusting on this one, though!

Me-made May, Week 4

We're nearing the end, guys! As much as I've enjoyed this month, I'm also getting a LITTLE tired of my me-mades and am ready to break out some other wardrobe favorites for June. We'll see what happens this week/weekend, but I just might have one or two more me-mades to add to the rotation for the final week (if I can figure out that silly Cynthia Rowley 2250)!

Day 19: My New Summer Dress
Day 20: Tania culottes part 2, altered RTW shirt, RTW denim jacket
Day 21: More denim jacket love, self-drafted maxi (I cannot get enough of this dress, despite a couple of issues I've realized that I need to fix after so many wears)

Day 22: Tania culottes part 1, RTW jacket and cardigan
Day 23: Self-drafted dress (which I'm still wearing despite the issues because I LOVE it with that mint cardigan). Switched up the belt for a better look, I think.

Day 24: Repeat of day 21, but I forgot to take pictures because I was visiting friends out of town. :)

Day 25: Tania culottes part 2, but shortened! After seeing the pictures from Monday, and realizing that the back wasn't even at all, I decided to chop off quite a bit of this skirt. I just felt that it was looking far too dowdy, and who wants that? Had a moment of panic that I'd cut it too short in some places, but I think I finally got it right, and I like it a lot more now!

Day 26: Did not leave the house nor bother to get dressed, oops. Still way ahead of my 5 days out of 7, though!

What about you guys - if you've been participating this month, are you ready for it to be over?

New Summer Dress

I did it - I made one of the dresses I talked about in my last post!

In that post, I said that I was DYING over this outfit and wanted to try to knock it off: 

Well, my look obviously looks NOTHING like this, but I still love it! (That being said, if I find some blue floral fabric like that, I am snapping it up RIGHT away to make another one of these.) Part of my love for this dress is due to the fact that this is my first completed make from a commercial (big 4) pattern! I did try it on with my jean jacket, but it didn't really work, so I switched it up with this new ivory cardigan instead.

[I swear I'm not pissed in these photos. I still haven't perfected posing and smiling for these photo shoots. But isn't the mural awesome?!]

I used Simplicity 4070, view A for the bodice, along with some small-print floral quilting cotton. The skirt is self-drafted with soft box pleats some heavy knit fabric from my stash  (with probably enough left over for a skirt on another dress!). 

I obviously added some straps, which are still a bit too long, and used some heavy cotton lining I recently bought. Despite the heavy knit skirt and lining, I think this will be a very light, wearable dress for summer. 

I used a double needle for the hem, but didn't get it quite right since I couldn't figure out how to keep the threads from twisting. I do think it makes for an interesting detail, though. I used white thread because I didn't have a blue that matched closely enough - I thought complete contrast was better than not-quite-matching, though I might go back and redo that at some point.

I don't have a good close-up of the detailing, but I am SUPER proud of the topstitching on this make. (And though they look like polka dots in this picture, they're actually little flowers.)

Other than that, I cut a straight size 18, and it fit pretty well right from the pattern. The only issue I had was with some underarm gaping, which I think you can tell from these pictures that I fixed pretty well. :) This happens to me with a LOT of store-bought tops I buy, and it bugs the heck out of me. Luckily, I can fix it pretty well myself these days. For this dress, rather than ripping the whole thing apart, I just added some underarm dart-type things, which smoothed out very nicely. 

I definitely think this will be a go-to pattern in the future, especially once I modify the pattern pieces a little to match where I took this dress in.

(There are no pretty pictures of the inside, because it's really not all that pretty. The one picture I had of the back was also really blurry. I think my zip insertion is still a bit wonky, but the friend who took these pictures assured me that it looks fine, so yay for that!)

I know a lot of people have some very strong opinions on using quilting cotton for garments, but I figure it's good for me to get some practice with whatever's lying around. Once I make my way through my stash and allow myself to really start buying again, maybe I'll sing a different tune. What are your thoughts on the debate?

Me-made May, Week 3

This week was a bit hit-or-miss, honestly, mostly due to the CRAZY weather:

Day 12: Floral Tania culottes

I tried to mix up the styling with these so I wouldn't look like I was wearing the same outfit every week (mayyybe twice/week) - I thought the green tee might give it a more casual vibe, but looking back on this, I definitely can't say I love the outfit. I might just have to stick with my original styling.

Day 13: Self-drafted dress

Wayyyy back in the day when I posted about my maxi skirt refashion, I said that I'd done something else with the top of that dress and that I'd post about it "soon" Well, consider 2 years later "soon" for the purposes of this post, okay? The top is what was left over from the original racerback dress, and the bottom is a 25 cent Goodwill skirt that I took the zipper out of and stitched to the top. I wore this dress a handful of times right after I made it, but for some reason it fell out of rotation. I think I felt that there were some fit issues around the butt, but I didn't notice them this time. This is definitely not the best-made dress in the world, and can certainly not be worn without a cardigan and a belt, but I have to say that I really loved this styling. I felt chic and comfortable all day long (and the girls looked great, which was an instant ego boost!). I think the mint cardigan really helps make this fresher and more spring-appropriate.

Day 14: Refashioned dress from a maxi skirt

After ages of purgatory in my "refashion" pile, this dress finally makes it back into the rotation. When I first refashioned it from a maxi dress a couple summers ago, I liked it and wore it pretty often....and then I lost 20 pounds and it kept falling off of me. I FINALLY got around to taking out some of the extra width the other day, so was happy to put this on. Again, this is not the best-made garment in the world - there's a lot of extra poofiness in the back, and it still falls down a little. Thankfully, one of the many wonderful qualities of jean jackets is that they can be thrown on over almost anything and cover up quite a variety of sins. I love the floatiness and the subtle mullet hem on this (I really never thought those last few words would escape my mouth (or fingers, as the case may be)). I think I'll definitely be wearing this a lot before the weather gets too hot for jean jackets.

Day 15: The weather was cruelly cold, and I had an event to go to in the evening for which none of my me-mades would have been appropriate. I hate to admit that I didn't even bother to wear handmade jewelry that day, but I did only pledge to do 5 days/week, right?

Day 16: Self-drafted striped tank

Another cold, rainy day, so this was the most I could be bothered with, both outfit-wise and picture-taking wise (it's REALLY a horrible picture, sorry about that).

Day 17: Self-drafted maxi

It was my friend's graduation (congrats, Alisha!), so I needed something a bit more formal, but still comfy and warm. I love that I have a million purple things that go with this - I decided to switch up the cardigan a bit, and also wore a darker purple scarf with it while we were outside. Also, I feel like this is the 14th time I've worn this dress since I made it - maxis for the win!

Day 18: I did not get dressed and therefore have nothing to show, but I DID spend the day in my PJs making the dress I'm wearing today (and one of the things I mentioned in my last post was on my to-do list), so...kudos to me? 

We're now more than halfway done with Me-Made May! How are you doing with your pledges?

Stripey Tank

You may have noticed my reference to (and picture of) an unblogged self-drafted tank top in last week's Me-Made May roundup. Well, I'm here to show it off some more, and document some firsts for me!

First and most importantly, this top was made entirely from stash fabrics. I know that's the whole point of this blog, and the point of the Stash Diet challenge, but I've been a bit less-than-dedicated to that goal lately.

The red and white stripes were a remnant bought a couple of summers ago, with who-knows-what in mind. It was pretty see-through, so I added another stashed remnant underneath.

There was only about 1/2 yard of this fabric, and it wasn't very wide (I didn't measure, but I'd have a hard time believing it was even 45" wide). I decided I wanted to make a racerback tank, and rather than buy a new pattern, I thought I'd try my hand at:

First #1: Self-drafting!

I used an existing racerback tank that was a bit flowy, but whose fit I liked (aside from the low armscyes that always exposed my bra). I upped the armscyes a bit but kept everything else the same, including the curved front hem and the straight back hem.

However, the fabric wasn't wide enough to get my whole block onto it and keep the horizontal stripes (I thought that vertical stripes on this would look terrible), so I squeezed out the straps (front and racerback) from the remnants. For a bit of visual interest, I decided to make these horizontal, and not underline them like the rest of the tank.

[Wow, my mom was right, the stripes DO make my butt look big!]

First #2: Binding! 

I bound the neckline with help from Sleek Silhouette's easy tutorial, but there wasn't enough striped fabric left to bind the armholes, too, so I used ANOTHER remnant from the stash. 

Honestly, I'm not in love with any of these bindings for a lot of reasons, but for a first try, they're passable. I might try to go back and fix a few things at some point, but I think it's pretty wearable in the meantime.

First #3: French seams!

Still not quite convinced I did these right, so I won't show you any pictures, but it was an interesting technique to try. All of this seaming did mean that the shirt fits a bit tighter than originally intended, but I think it works - a super baggy knit top probably wouldn't have been a good look for me.

First #4: Stripe matching!

Look at that perfection! Seriously, so proud of myself on this one. 

All in all, this is a pretty wearable top, and I know that my pattern will have a good fit as-is - I definitely foresee more of these in my future, especially once I work out a few of the finishing touches.

In the meantime, do you have any binding tips to share?