The Minaj Skirt

Can you guess why I called it the Minaj skirt and what do you know my first name is Nicki too lol.

I need a beeper when I walk backwards 🙂

Does this skirt make my ass look fat?? For once it’s not actually my ass lol.

I decided to go ahead and use the last cotton fabric I had bought to make my 3rd skirt.

I designed a long pencil skirt with a slit in the back, it has double peplums only in the back. I wanted to mimic the old Victorian ruffle back type of skirts that have bustles.  I found the peplums fanned out too much:

VS

So I further manipulated the fabric by rouching the peplums with clear elastic to get more of a “fluffy butt” (faux bustle) look. This skirt is also fully lined and has a facing waist band, invisible side zip and small clasp for closing. Sort of Victorian Retro meets Steampunk minus the gadgetry don’t you think? 😉

Here are a few more pics just for fun:

Ok hopefully I am done with that “bee in my bonnet” and I can move on to making tops with my bodice sloper!!

Happy Sewing 🙂

 

The Abby A-Line Skirt

I use to love using contrasting colors and different fabrics to construct clothes for my daughter Abby and being like a kid myself I thought this design element would be a bit fun to bring into adult clothes.

Thus the Abby A-line skirt it is 🙂

I used a fun cotton for the pocket facings too because I’m such a kid:

The pocket backs are black as well as the band on the bottom of the skirt and unfilled piping along the waist band:

I lined this skirt with aqua to pick up the blue on the print of the skirt. Plus its my favorite color. My favorite thing to do is bring out the color I love about the fabric and use this in my serger as well!

Before committing to the side seams I baste first and try it on just in case it needs some tweaking:

I put in an invisible zip and I think I finally have this zipper thing down! I am going to make a tutorial on invisible zips soon.

There will be no raw edges showing, I will be hand sewing the waist band in place, as well as around the zip, and the bottom of the band. I usually hate hand sewing but when I did my pencil skirt with hand finishing touches it was kind of relaxing and enjoying. Wow did I just say that?

I love the lining in these skirts, it hangs better and feels fantastic!

And here is the skirt completed!! Yay, I spent 3 hours in total hand sewing and finishing touches AKA: button 🙂

and again I think a dark neutral top looks best with a busy print:

 

Pencil Skirt with Flounce (custom made by me)!!

I have oodles and oodles of pictures to share with you!! I am so excited about how this skirt turned out! Thank you CRAFTSY and your drafting courses!!

Ok so I drafted a high-waisted pencil skirt, with a flounce and facing. It was so nice to cut into REAL fabric for a change and not MUSLIN!

Here is the skirt shell: Check out my darts, no bubbles on the vanishing point of the darts! YAY! These courses will make you really good at darts and confident with your construction.

The invisible zip went in surprisingly well. I don’t know why but zippers always make me nervous and are usually a bitch to put in!  I interfaced this area with fusible interfacing.

I basted the side seams and tried it on, it was perfect so I went ahead and sewed it for real. I also serged the edges to get a clean look.

I prepared my flounces and facing:

I cut out my lining and pleated the dart areas. I serged it and pressed it ready for applying the facing:

The facing got sewed onto the skirt, everything matched up very well. I edged stitch along the facing so that it would stay put better. The lining is folded up a 1/4 inch twice for a clean finish:

Now comes the flounces:

I prepped these by stabilizing the inner circle by stitching both the material and the lining. I stitched them together along the outer edge with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. I took my time to clip the lining and fashion fabric, staggering the clips so that when they are turned they will fan out nicely with no “gaposis”

 

It’s a bitch to do but if you open up the seams first on a pressing hem before turning you will get a nice finished smooth look.  A clapper helps with that too 🙂

I attached the flounce to the skirt then clipped gently into the lining to help turn under to sew in place.

I was so excited to finish this skirt I hand sewed the lining around the zipper and the whole lining of the flounce in place all in one night doing the tiniest slip stitches. It took 3 hours! Ta da!!

Close up of flounce…..

Lining near the zip…

Inside out, upside down, sunny side up!!!!!! I know, I know, I have a ton of pictures.  Can you tell I am excited or what??!! ;)…..

and another close up for giggles…

Ok here are some pics of me wearing it so you can actually see the fit 🙂 I have a major hole in my wardrobe to find a top that will go with this high-waisted style but what I had wasn’t too horrible.

Vintage Blouse Complete

Finally my journey is done! I think it turned out pretty cute considering I am new at the whole pattern making process. I used some black chalk to mark my center front and I tried to take a damp cloth to wipe these lines away for the pictures but they are still there a bit. Into the wash she goes on delicate cycle after these pics!

I do like the white trim I think it pops against the grey and brings more interest to the design.

I must have redone the shoulders 4 times I keep getting “peaked shoulders”, “pointy shoulders” ???? WHY?? Does anyone know what I may be doing wrong? Please share!!

So now my next journey is skirts! Something I rarely wear or make but thought it might be nice to bring more of this into my wardrobe.  I am taking Suzy Furrer course on the skirt sloper right now and made my first mock-up muslin sloper. It is very close but you see I have the belly problem that causes drag lines in this area. I am awaiting a response from Suzy on what changes I should do next? I did a lot of reading in the comment section of the course and reviewing other people’s sloper with similar problems and it seems she says the same thing to this common problem.  I think I need to move my darts over by 1 inch to the side, maybe even reduce them a bit. If that does not smooth them out then I may need to get rid of the darts altogether or slash from base to waist and add a bit of fabric to the muslin to give more room for my spare tire 😉 I think the back is pretty good and I think the side seams are in the right place?

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Princess Seams Dress

When I first bought this pattern McCall’s M5890 I was very excited about it! If you make all pieces from this one envelope you have a complete wardrobe that would be fantastic for travel!!!

This is the story of how I became so frustrated with commercial patterns and the desire to sew was zapped out of me for about a month! So according to my measurements I would be size 16.  When I tried the dress as is it was absolutely huge! I was using the right fabric, right size, right needle, right thread, ……(you get the picture)

Turns out I had to re-baste this savage beast 3  times!!!! Arrghhh! I think this made the armscye all wonky because when I went to turn the raw edges under and make a baby hem the tips of the shoulders had a weird shape.  I calmly unpicked that  I threw it in the corner and lost ambition on fixing yet another problem!

So I picked this back up recently and unpicked the sleeve hem and cut off the wonky parts.  I re-hemmed them using my dissolving thread.  Turns out I liked the armscye and sewed them with permanent thread.

On some scraps I tried tweaking my serger to get a rolled hem just right. Turns out Sally Serger was being difficult. The edges were not laying flat and looked horrible. View exhibit A below. Scandalous I know!

So I resorted to cheating and used strips of dissolvable stabilizer but hey…..check out exhibit B below.

A word on rolled hems.  My lower looper thread keeps breaking when I fool with the tension too much. It doesn’t seem to be rolling under so I tried to tighten it and  SNAP!  I did buy some below quality thread that was on sale when I first bought a serger so that might be it. Anyone else have a hard time with this looper? I may get a good brand name thread for that problematic looper and see if that makes a difference.

Here is the finished product. I love the print on this knit and it has a beautiful soft hand to this fabric.