Sewing With Purpose and Repurpose

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 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...

The idea for this skirt came about when I realized I have an astonishing lack of me-made basics and neutrals. It seems like every time I set out to make something, I go out looking to get grey/blue/solid coloured fabric and come back with the most ridiculously patterned thing I could find in the store. This made putting together outfits for Me-Made-May really difficult! So when I saw this denim remnant for a reduced price I snapped it up! It has a 60% stretch which is impressive for denim, but there was only 60cm left in the store. For that reason I had planned to make a simple pencil skirt, basically stretching the material around my body. BUT then, Annie from Sew This Pattern / Nine Stitches put the Pin Pegs skirt on saallleee and as I already alluded, I have a really hard time passing up sales.   The pattern calls for 115 cm and I had 60 cm (it was 45 inches wide to boot). This presented a bit of a problem. I  ended up not including the facings, and I only had fa...

Last weekend a few friends and I got together to sew pencil skirts! My friends are interesting in getting into sewing, so I promised I'd help them out and we'd pick an easy pattern to go through together. Two of these friends have a pretty extreme waist to hip ratio (we try to balance things on one friend's butt, Kim Kardashian style), and a common complaint I get is that its really hard to find pencil skirts and dresses to fit their bodies. So when I saw the free (!!!) Lekala pattern #5088 three seamed pencil skirt, I knew it was the perfect pattern. With Lekala patterns, you input your measurements and a pattern is custom drafted for you and a pdf pattern is emailed to you 10 minutes later. The sewing party was very successful, one friend was having machine troubles so fell behind, but the rest of us all had some fit issues to work out so we finished at the same time! As wonderful as the personalized measurements seemed, something as form fitting as a pencil skirt is ...

My mom has long been a fan of the tights and long shirt look, providing maximum comfort while still looking presentable and stylish. She does not have a pair of Lululemon tights though! My sister and I (as well as millions of 20-something girls on university campuses) all agree that this is a serious crime, but my mom has always insisted she couldn't bring herself to spend that much money on yoga pants. So we had decided to get her a pair for Christmas... ...Until we actually went to buy them. I SWEAR the price keeps going up and up, they're over a hundred dollars now! We quickly found a plan b, and that was workout wear patterns. We ended up getting her the Papercut Patterns Oh La Leggings and Pneuma Tank , and since they are conveniently PDF patterns, I get to use it too! I have seen many versions of these pants floating around the blogosphere and it has always been highly praised, namely Melissa from Fehr Trade has made SIX pairs! Around this time I had also made my f...