Reflective piping

Another one on the theme of reflective piping! And pink dingle balls

A quick sew, I'm happy with it! And nice to have a day off

Jersey jammies

So I've finally gotten over my fear of jersey! It took me a long time, even after the encouragement of a great work colleague. So now that I'm finally sewing jersey knits, I see she was totally right!

Here's a pair of jammies I made yesterday afternoon. I want to wear them all day!

Knit skirt

When I was in San Francisco in April I bought some yarn (attending a conference, knitting is a great way to not get bored during lectures and on the plane). Anyway, finally got around to "blocking" it (never done that before!) and adding elastic to the waist. Let's hope it doesn't stretch over time!

Basic skirt

Here's another skirt that's of my usual pattern. I've made about a million like this

Whale skirt

I've always wanted a skirt with whales on it. Strange but true! Thanks to very easy home-made screen printing, now I have my whale skirt  :)

New skirt, with embroidery

Here's a skirt pattern I use all the time. Very basic. Takes about 1.25 yards of fabric, maybe less. I added a side seam pocket. 

Because I wear skirts in the winter with leggings, I find it worthwhile to line my skirts (so they stick less on the leggings.

I find the easiest way to line the skirt (I think) is to place the liner right on the skirt fabric, pin it in place, cut it out, then baste around the edges

All sewed up  :)

Next step is adding embroidery around the hem. Nice thing about embroidery is that it's portable and doesn't require electricity. So you can do it anywhere!

Haven't finished the hem just yet. I'll try to come back and post a photo when it's done 

Pants into an outfit

Hello!

I've been looking for a pair of wool shorts, but they are hard to find. I wanted a matching vest, but that's harder to find. So I finally decided to convert a pair of wool pants into shorts / vest. 

The trick is to find wide-legged pants. When I made the shorts, I cut off the pants hem and sewed it onto the bottom of the shorts. 2 benefits: 1. hem instantly done. 2. I love the look of the wider shorts with tighter hem, kind of puffs out the shorts (like bloomers). When trying on the wool pants at the thrift shop, put them on upside-down to see if the hem will fit on your thigh (my pants has to be very wide-legged!)

Paranoid tip: I put all my thrifted stuff into the freezer for a week. Kills off any possible bed bugs!

The rest of the pant legs gave just enough fabric for the vest. I didn't add darts to the vest, big mistake, no room for boobies. The next time I'll make a pattern with princess seams. The "pockets" are fake, just for show.

The liner of the pants work great for lining the vest!

I haven't quite finished this blog post. I still need to add buttons to the vest. And I'll add a couple "before" photos of the pants.

Now I just need slightly warmer weather!