Book Coach, Editor, Author
Remember these shorts?
Well, today I made another pair, out of…get this… a curtain that I got for $1 at the thrift store. Yup – a curtain.
No pockets this time. Actually, I did make pockets, but I screwed them up. So rather than unpick everything and re-position them, I simply cut them off and sewed the seam closed. Problem solved!
I swear to you, they are hemmed evenly! (I must be standing funny…)
Meanwhile, everything in my garden is blooming!
I do not own a single pair of shorts.
Okay. Not true. I actually own several pairs of shorts, that I bought several summers ago after I lost 65 pounds. (Yes I did! Read about it here and here). But I can’t fit into them anymore. š I’m working on it! I will get back to goal, you can count on it! Meantime, I don’t have any shorts and the weather is getting warm, my friends. It is now officially Shorts Season!
I have declared it shorts season in my sewing room, too.
I paid .25 cents for this (OMG Christie Brinkley!) pattern at the thrift store. I’ve actually been collecting quite a few patterns at the thrift store for .25 cents each. I’ll show you sometime š
This pattern was published in 1989, and when I googled it, I found it being sold on etsy and ebay as “vintage.” Vintage? Really? …sigh. In 1989 I had a 4 year old, so I guess he is vintage, too!
I also found a table cloth for $1.00. (Yup! ONE DOLLAR) that looked like it would be good to wear. (Really, Nita? A tablecloth?) shhhhhh…don’t tell my son! He would die if he knew his mother was shopping in the linen closet at the thrift store!
Here goes nothing!
I won these Frixion pens in a door prize at Quilt Guild yesterday. Cool! They made marking the Big Dots and MMMs so easy!
Add one long-distance phone call for moral support:
And 6 hours later – yes, I said six hours later … (NOW can you tell I’m a total neophyte seamstress?)
Totally missed matching the plaids up on the front.
But I did a marvelous job of matching the plaids on the side seams! (actually, it didn’t occur to me that I should match the plaids until after I got to the side seams. Doh!)
This table cloth fabric ravels really bad, so I used the over-lock stitch on my Janome to finish the seams. I’ve never used that stitch before. It’s really cool!
Here’s a shot from the back. And hey! I managed to hem both legs the same length!
I put a button on the front so I know which way to put them on for decoration.
The pockets are…well…okay, let me just say that when you discover that the waist band is going to tuck in under your arm pits, you should probably take the pockets out and move them down instead of whacking the top of the waistband off (pockets and all) and folding the whole lot over to make the casing. Just sayin’…
Things I learned:
Now…click your heels together three times and repeat after me: “sewing is not scarey.”Ā
Maybe I’ll feel brave enough to tackle a dress soon!
Whilst rummaging around in a box the other day, I found some shirts that I had purchased at the Sally Ann in Whitehorse a couple of years ago. I have a vague recollection of plans to cut them up and use them in a quilt. They were both men sizes 2XL.
“Hummmmm” I thought to myself, holding the shirt up to my hips. “I think I could make a skirt out of this!”
Here is what I did: I cut the shirt off under the arms. Then I turned the raw edge under about 1/4 inch, pressed and then hemmed it. Then I turned that same edge over again about 2 inches, sewed 3 channels, threaded 3 pieces of 1/4″ elastic through and voila! A waist band!
But when I tried it on, I wasn’t happy because of the shirt tail. It looked like a shirt tied around my waist. So I cut the bottom off so it was even all around, sewed a narrow hem and tried it on again. This time it was too short!
So I took myself to the fabric store and bought some black lace and some white lace and sewed it onto the bottom.
Voila! A skirt that I love!
On to Skirt number Two!
Riding high on my previous success, I decided to tackle the second shirt. However, having learned my lesson about the too-short skirt (and not having any more lace), I dug around in the box some more and unearthed a piece of lime green denim that just happened to match the green in the plaid.
Again, I cut the shirt off below the arms. Then I made a waistband by cutting the green denim to the right length, folded it over in half and sewed it onto the raw edge of the shirt.
I think a gathered waist makes me look thicker in the middle than I like, so I wanted this skirt to have a flat front instead of a gathered front.
To do that I sewed 4 channels only around the back (starting and stopping at the side seams). Then I threaded the channels with 1/4″ elastic.
The original shirt had a straight bottom instead of a shirt-tail bottom, so I didn’t even need to hem it! Bonus!
Two summer skirts on the cheap! Boo Yeah!
I made a skirt today!
This is the Flirting the Issue skirt by Anna Maria Horner. You can find the free pattern here!
You can wear it with a belt or by itself. I’ve made a sash with the left overs.
I’ve been wanting to sew some of my own clothing, and making a couple of skirts and dresses for the summer was on my Retirement To-Do list.
It isn’t the most flattering on me, having the gathered elastic waist band and all.Ā And it certainly doesn’t hide the 20 pounds I’ve gained (arrgh!) But it doesn’t look that bad, either. All in all it’s acceptable and I could be seen in public wearing it.
Samson agrees. He’s always happy to be seen out in public with me!
The skirt is cotton voile. I didn’t even know what voile was before I went into the fabric store. Let me tell you, cotton voile is the most wonderful light and buttery-soft fabric you could ever ask for. Perfect for a hot summer day!
It’s lined with a piece of blue shirting I found in my stash.
Pretty good for not having sewn anything clothing-wise in over 20 years!
That’s it for the fashion show! Phew!