Sewing With Purpose and Repurpose

I took an accidental hiatus from documenting my makes, so long I forgot the password to the account! I haven't stopped sewing though, and have been mostly making work appropriate shirts (read: soooo many Archers ) I ordered a bunch of linen from Miss Matatabi and got the last meter of a beautiful blue Nani Iro linen, which came in on the same day Style Arc announced an Easter sale, so I snatched up a pdf copy of the Blair shirt . I first saw Sophie from Ada Spagg's version of the shirt and loved the outfit she put it with, so decided I'd give it a whirl. One meter wasn't quiiittee enough to squeak out a full shirt, so I found a really similarly coloured linen to colour block the back upper piece. Worked out all right! I had to do away with the sleeve cuffs with such limited material, they're finished with white bias tape. I really love the colours of this fabric, so spring appropriate! The linen from Nani Iro is amazing and so nice to work with, and I ...

I recently did a pattern swap with a friend of mine! She has been on a collared shirt making kick recently and it inspired me to get moving on one for myself. She is a big fan of the Archer shirt , so I bought the pull-over pack and we did a swapsies Behold! My Archer: Lookin' stunned, almost like I didn't set the self timer myself.  I found the fabric recently, and it was a bit of an inspired moment. I was at Affordable Textiles Ltd in Toronto looking for something completely unrelated and stumbled upon it. After being told by the guy at the front that he himself had a dress shirt out of the same stuff, I knew it was fate. What do I do with my hands???  I immediately thought of a 1/2 meter of quilting cotton I had in my stash that would look great as an accent. This took a bit of finicking with the placket but I made it work  If you saw an attempt at dynamic modelling in my last post, you will see some very un-dynamic modelling in this post. Lets count ho...

I'd always really liked the Alder shirt dress from Grainline Studios , the idea of having something loose fitting and comfortable but still having a defined waistline appealed to me. When I saw this version, posted by Jen on the Grainline blog , it gave me a kick it the butt to buy the pattern. Those are my colours! I knew immediately it would become a staple in my wardrobe. As much as I am drawn to the outrageous prints in the store (and buy them because I'm impulsive), I tend to only wear black and grey in real life. I was really busy and didn't get around to making the dress until fairly recently. Part of this is because of how HUGE the pdf was. I loovvee Grainline's patterns, but their pdfs are often colossal from containing all the views in one file. I used a black polyester "linen" from the sale rack at Fabricland (evidently my favourite place) It's really light to wear in the heat (tip for wearing all black in the summer). My big gripe with the...

Last week was the Met Gala! One of my favourite things is looking at all the dresses post gala/award show even though the actual event never interests me. One thing that jumped out at my this year, was all the silver sequins!! Met Gala AKA Silver Sequin Party Which reminded me of the skirt I made for new years! Which reminded me, I'm super duper behind on blogging my makes :/ I have me-mades dating from August that I need to blog, OOPS. Part of that is because I've been really busy with school, partly because I have tried to focus more on the purpose aspect of my sewing, and being more thoughtful about what I spend my sewing time on.  So I pulled out my best Kardashian pout and took some snaps of my new years outfit, in May. With a grey t-shirt.  Don't got those Kardashian hips though :) Can you imagine the fit alterations those ladies would need?! I used Lekala 5088, three seamed skirt, this time knowing the nuances of the pattern. Although you put your measur...

Sensible Sun-wear When my two daughters Alex and Emma were young we lived for a short while in Australia and spent countless hours on the beach, where most children are fully clad in front zip sun suits to protect them from the relentless sunshine. In contrast to Canada where, when the sun does shine, and the weather is warm enough to sport swimwear, we all stripe down and expose as much skin to the sun as possible, with the exception of those who do not possess tan worthy completions. Myself and my youngest daughter Emma were gifted with skin that goes from white to red within minutes of sun exposure, for that reason the Australian sun attire was not abandon when we came back to Canada. The economics of supply and demand in the Canadian swimwear market does not lend itself to full coverage sun attire. The availability of full sun protection beach wear, known on the market as rash-guards, is limited to items plastered with brand names and more appropriate for an 18 year old surfer ...

When I first saw the Turia Dungarees from Pauline Alice pop up on my blog feed, I thought they were kinda silly. Overalls?? For adults? I haven't worn overalls since I was 10 around the farmhouse. But as I saw more and more of them, something in me changed. I needed a pair. The ones that changed my mind were the f loral ones by Lady Sewalo t, these chic ones with the slim leg from fruits flowers &clouds , and the SEVEN pairs Yosami made for a charity auction .   I didn't actually expect I'd get a lot of wear out of them (I figured I just needed to get the overall craze out of my system) so I headed to the bargain rack and picked up some grey-scale leopard denim (3 dollas a meter y'all) except I actually wear these all the time. I get so many compliments on them! And they are so comfy. I slimmed down the legs a bit and that's the only thing I changed. Next time I will lengthen the straps a bit, I have a long torso. Chic overalls, who would have...

I recently finished a second Morris blazer ! (My first one is blogged here ) My summer sewing fell by the wayside as I mentioned in an earlier post, so I planned a sewing-saturday with a friend so we could finish up some things on our list! It was just the motivation I needed to get my sewing mojo back (now I have 4 garments that I need to sew buttons on, i h8 sewing button holes) I fell in love with the idea of a "boyfriend" Morris from What Katie Sews and needed to try the same thing. I ended up adding 2.5 inches to the bottom of my pattern (I don't know how tall Katie is but she looks shorter than me at 5'8", she added 2 inches). Other than that I graded from a 6 at the shoulders to 8 at the hips. I ordered the fabric online , I think I would have preferred something a bit thicker but I am pleased with the slightly unstructured look of the blazer. I opted to leave the cuffs unlined so I could have the textured insides showing when my sleeves are rolled...

Jill: Alexandra and I made both made the bombshell bathing suit last summer but finally got around to posting the pictures. It was an easy and not so easy project to complete. As I was making it I kept thinking it was going to be way too small, the ruching is deceiving. It did fit a bit snug but was happy with the overall results. Alexandra: As my mom mentioned, we both made the bombshell! She has outdone me with her modelling by a long shot, but I have some photos of mine. I chose to make the halter version, I am more pear shaped than my mom with a flatter bust and I was concerned that the ruching on the sweetheart neckline would make me look as flat as a board. The halter top gave me some serious grief! Its the first time I had worked with swimwear lycra in this context and there was a steep learning curve, plus I didn't have a serger!   I am quite pleased with this pattern. As I was putting it together I was panicking, it looks so tiny because of the negati...

I seem to have a backlog of summer blogging! I keep sewing things, then getting excited and wearing them right away and totally forgetting to take photos. One such piece is the Grainline Maritime Shorts. I conned a friend into taking some photos this weekend at a girls cottage weekend (she understands my plight, I took her photo for the international anna party, its the popsicle dress on my instagram !)   I got back from working abroad last August and found I had an, uh... width-wise growth spurt and had no shorts for this summer. I got to work on this pattern with a discount denim from Fabricland (it's my first pair and I wanted to play it safe) The fabric is quite neat! One way the threads are pink and the other they are blue, it gives it a cool sheen. You can see it on the selvedge here: My original plan for the shorts was to finish them with a scallop. I couldn't get the edge super neat, and after the first wear I realized some of the scallops fold up when I sit on...