A Double Dog Dare!

 Yes, I have been stalling on my September white shirt post.  I made my September shirt as part of our Threads Digital Ambassadors' Challenge this year.  Threads invited us to make an outfit/garment using a designer of our choice as the inspiration.  Now that the articles have been posted on the Threads website, I can share my shirt here.

We were asked to write three different posts about 1. the designer we chose, 2. the way we interpreted the designer in our design and 3. a technique that we used in making the garment.  I will send you to those posts on the Threads site rather than redo them here.  The four inspirations are very different, but very much reflective of their authors.  It is really fun to see them as a group.

I chose Isabel Marant for my designer and this was my inspiration image.

Marant's designs are often dripping in lace and layers...very different from the things I make and wear.  I am intrigued by her use of textures and mixing of different materials to create her garments.  It was definitely a challenge to use her as my inspiration.

I chose Isabel Marant because she seems to strike a balance between very feminine, and surprisingly masculine elements in her work.  Her garments are over-the-top lacy, yet they are anchored in strength with broad, exaggerated shoulder lines and wide leather belts.  I had a really tough time figuring out how to make a garment that was inspired by the very lacy Marant garments, without using lace!   I had a huge collection of lace but just couldn't get it to feel like me.  I ended up doing a faggot stitched vest worn over a layered tunic with raw edge details.  I wrote much more about the inspiration and the final design in the Threads posts, so please take a look over there for more of the gory details!

Here is my final design.  The folks over at Threads took some lovely pictures that they sent for me to show here.  (They always make my things look so good.) 

So this is my September white shirt.  I knew that it would take a bit more time than some of the other months and that is why I wanted to figure out a way to make a twofer.  Something that would be part of the Threads challenge and also part of my monthly white shirt challenge.  

I also made a little video of me dancing around on my new deck with my Isabel Marant outfit....kind of corny, but you can see that over at Threads as well.  HERE is a link to the Threads article.

So now I move on to October.  It has been quite warm this month so far, so I may not be moving into fall quite yet...we'll see.  

Not A White Shirt

 My September white shirt was planned way back in February when Threads presented the Digital Ambassadors with the 2021 Challenge Project.  Just a little hint...we were asked to pick a designer to use as inspiration for a garment/ensemble.  Stay tuned and once the challenge has been posted on the Threads website, I will share my September white shirt.  

For now, I did make an 'almost white shirt' at the end of August.  So maybe it can be the "late summer" white shirt.  I say 'almost' because it does have a few colorful accents that keeps it from being a totally white shirt.

I started with a square linen (I think, it could be a cotton linen blend) tablecloth with cute little yellow tulips embroidered in the corners.  I can't remember where it came from.  It could have been another piece from the things I got from my mother-in-law. Or I could have picked it up while trolling around in an antique shop at some point.  Regardless, it is probably 1950ish vintage and has a nice open stitched hem around the edges along with the tulips.  

I have played around with it forever.  I thought about a skirt, I tried several patterns using the tulips in strategic ways as pockets or collars, I even thought about pillow cases at some point.  I would pull it out at the beginning of the summer and put it back in the stash in September...until now.....

While I was packing up my sewing room at the end of May I came across several 1940/50ish cotton prints.  They were in those wonderful colors that I remember from my grandma's kitchen.  Just a bit off primary with pink added in for fun.  I was making piles for different quilting friends and I just couldn't figure out where they should go.   When I pulled out the tablecloth...again...this year those prints popped right to the front of my mind.  The yellows in the prints were perfect with the tulips so I started once again to play around with ideas.  It took the whole summer but I finally came up with something that I really like.  It ended up being really, really simple and kept the tablecloth mainly intact.  Maybe the simplicity is why I like so much.  Anyway, I used the prints and the tablecloth and made a "white-ish shirt."

I cut the tablecloth into thirds and used the pieces with the finished edges for the sides/sleeves of my shirt and the middle third for a vee shaped inset to hold them together.  I used the cotton quilting prints to bind the cut edges of the 'sleeve' pieces and that's it!  No hemming, no fitting, loose and flow-y, perfect for end of summer heat...I love it!

The binding on this shirt is just enough 'quilting' to remind me why I run for the hills when someone asks if I make quilts.  I love that there are people out there who do amazing, gorgeous quilts that I can admire and fawn over, but I am pretty much a one square and out gal.  Real quilters should not look too closely at my wobbly seams it will illicit scoffing and tutting!

Tablecloths from the middle of the last century are so lovely and drapey.  They seem to form around whatever you put them on...a table...shoulders!  I really enjoy reimagining them for my tablecloth-free life style.  It will get much more wear on me than it would on a table!

Scraps from the Past

 I actually made my August white shirt at the beginning of the month.  However, finishing the shirt did not auto-magically mean the blog post would be written.  So here I am cramming it into the last week...again! 

I was hoping that we would be closing up our house sometime during the month and might not have a lot of sewing room days.  My wish came true!  We have spent some long days moving the last of the furniture and "hoovering" (as my British son calls it) ...which is way easier when there is no furniture in the room!  I am very happy that  the house has sold, but there are so many emotions that have been swirling around as we have been moving and closing that chapter of our lives.  I guess it is to be expected, we have spent 25 years in this house and a lot of memories have been made.  It is a strange mix of happy-to-be-moving-into-the-new and sad-to-be-moving-out-of-the-old.  A bit of a roller coaster at times.  The one thing I know for sure is that when we do this again we are going to have 'people!'  I'm pretty confident that my back won't handle another 'self-move.'  Thank goodness for strong, young son and friends!

Anyhow...my August shirt!  I have been enjoying my linen scrap box this summer.  There was a time, in the not too distant past, when 100% linen fabrics were very difficult to come by.  Anytime I found some I hoarded it and when there were scraps, even the smallest little bits, I squirreled them away.  Now I have a significant pile-o-linen that is fun to play around with.  I started my August shirt by pulling all the white and off white scraps out of the box to see if there would be enough to squeeze out a top.

Along with the linen scraps, I encountered a piece I had gotten at an art fair awhile ago.  The artist paints mandalas using fruits and vegetables as the different rings.  I loved the work and couldn't resist the designs that she had printed onto squares of muslin.  The one done with pears seemed appropriate for late summer.

I arranged and rearranged my scraps several times and finally settled on a design that was centered on the front, but made up of asymmetric stripes on the back.  I cut all the pattern pieces on the bias so I wouldn't need to have a closing.  The v-neckline and the stretch of the bias made it possible to get in and out without any additional openings.  I also found some of the edging that I had saved from the giant tablecloth that I used for dresses last summer and used it to outline the mandala painting and the neckline.

As a mom I know it is not PC to pick "favorite children" but if I'm being a "bad mom" I would say my August shirt is now my favorite!  (of course we have a few more months this year, things may change!  How fickle!)  But as the temperatures have risen I have been pulling this top on quite often.  The bias makes it really comfortable and the linen is so cool.  It is going to be hard to top this one in September.

Color Blocking with White

 When I decided to challenge myself at the end of February to make a white shirt once a month I thought four weeks between shirts would be plenty....Wow....I can't believe how quickly the four weeks slipped by.  I'm going to have to pay attention and not waste any of my weeks.  It's easy to say, "I'll do it next week."  But when you only have four, you can't push it off too many times!

I did have to wait for my white fabrics to arrive, so I couldn't get too much of a jump on March.  I ordered several versions of white fabric from "Gorgeous Fabrics."  I had a hard time choosing, there were lots of lovely pieces, but in the end I restrained myself a bit and picked out four to get me started.  The fabric came right away, it was lovingly packed in tissue and plastic to keep it white, and Ann from the store sent me a very nice thank you email which I thought was extra special.  I felt a bit bad about unwrapping them and shoving them unceremoniously into the washing machine.

Here's what I got...

The bottom right hand corner is an ivory rayon twill.  It has lots of body and I already have an idea for how I want to use it.

Next to that is a soft cotton batiste.  It is very fine and sheer, almost a voile.  It is more lofty than the rayon and has a matte finish.

Next, a silk organza.  I really wasn't thinking about using it for the challenge, but I needed a new press cloth so I ordered it up to help get to the 'free shipping' level!  It might find its way into one of the shirts, we'll see.

The luscious stuff next to the organza is a silk georgette heavily embellished with tropical leaf embroidery.  I was afraid it might be stiff, but it is wonderfully soft and drapy...I'm going to have to think hard about what to do with this one.  Maybe just look at it!

And finally a great handkerchief linen.  It washed up beautifully, as did the batiste and the rayon, and has that telltale crumple that screams "I'm linen."

As I pondered what to do for my March project, I realized that it is the detail that distinguishes a white shirt.  It would be easy to end up with a whole closet of the same shirt.  With that thought in mind I, decided to use both the linen and the batiste.  If they were two different colors I would say that I was going to 'color block' them to add interest to my shirt, but I'm not sure what you call it when all the fabrics are the same color?  Anyway, that was the concept I was going for.

I chose my cut-on-sleeve, pull-over top as a starting point.  I made the yoke seam before cutting out the pattern which gave me nice clean edges to work with.  Because the batiste was so sheer, the seams became a focal point.  I spent a lot of time measuring and folding to get them relatively the same width.  I was planning to use a twin needle to do the top stitching, but the zigzag that is created with the bobbin thread actually showed through the sheer seams, so I ended up doing double rows of single needle stitching to finish the seams.  The neck is finished with a bias facing of the batiste and I added linen cuffs to finish the sleeves.

I am very happy with my "color-blocked" white shirt.  I think the two fabrics are great together and the seam detail gives it some interest.  I think I will enjoy wearing this one.  No rest for the wicked...on to April!

Gone Fishin'

 I am quite excited about my white shirt challenge, which is basically an excuse to order up a whole bunch of white fabrics.  I find a lot of inspiration from actually holding and draping the fabric, so until my box-o-yardage arrives I will have to find other projects to keep me entertained.  

When I was at my fabric store hunting up stuff for my first white shirt, I couldn't resist a cotton print that was perfect with a piece of batik that I had hauled with me from Michigan.  I also found a really soft dark chambray that had to go into the backpack as well.  I was on a roll after my shirt so I pulled them out.  I can't remember where or when the fish fabric came into my stash, but it seemed like a good one for KW.  When I saw the greenish one with "water drops" on it, I thought it was meant to be.

I only had a 1/2 yard of the batik and the same of the water drop print, so I needed to pick something that wouldn't need much fabric.  I have been wearing an Ethel Designer Top (Style Arc Patterns) a lot since we got to Key West and the design lines are perfect for mixing and matching.

It's a pretty straight forward project, figuring out which fabric to put where took longer than actually sewing it together!  I  used the selvedge of the water drop fabric to accent the triangle piece of linen at the neckline.  The batik is a really nice weight for this top, the cotton is a bit heavy but I think it will be OK.  Note to self, choose very soft, drapy stuff for the next one.

I didn't have much in the way of scraps when I was finished.  Pretty close to a zero waste project!

When I washed the chambray it turned out really soft, but felt more like shorts than a shirt.  I can't remember the last time I have had a pair of 'denim shorts' ....

I started with my PJ bottom pattern.  The softness of the fabric meant that an elastic waist wouldn't be too bulky, not the usual case with denim shorts.  I made some fun pockets, which are impossible to take photos of...trust me they are adorable!  Back pockets...

Front pockets...

Another pretty straight forward project, although I did struggle to get the length right.  My husband kept rejecting them as "too long."  (He's admittedly a leg man 😏)  I did want a pair of 'shorts' after all.

...And they look great with my fish shirt!  Score!

Now I just relax until my white fabric shows up!

A Fun Challenge in a Year of Challenges

 I have been waiting all summer to share this...with everything that has happened this year, I had almost forgotten that I had done it. 

Last February the Editors at Threads Magazine proposed a challenge to the 3 Digital Ambassadors.  Start with a men's suit and transform it into a new garment or ensemble.  With the gauntlet thrown, we got to work.  You can see the resulting transformations on theThreads website HERE.

I did a post describing the transformation that I did on the Threads site, so I won't rehash it here.  It was really fun once I finally got an idea that I liked.  It really was a challenge to come up with something a bit different.  At the end of the day, I was very pleased with my efforts.

Looking back with the perspective of the last several months makes it all the more challenging.  We returned from a visit with our son in London on March 10.  On March 11 we did a big shop with the idea that we should probably self isolate since we had been traveling through several airports.  Our plan was to do our 2 weeks and then back to normal!  Oh, how innocent that seems now.  

On the way home from the grocery store I remembered that I needed to get a suit for the Threads challenge.  We made a quick stop at a church thrift shop and bought the one suit that was on the rack, never thinking that it would be the last time I would be in an actual 'shop' for the rest of the year!  

Here are a few pics of the garments that I ended up making.  My idea came from my old gardening overalls. You can read all the gory details in the Threads article.  And they took some much nicer photos that you can also peruse.  They are having readers vote for their favorite transformation, so if you like my idea, give me a vote!  You will also be entered into a drawing for some pretty swell prizes.  

My idea was to make a pair of "business" overalls....

I started with a mock up of the bib part, from there I made a pattern and used different parts of the jacket to add the front, back and straps to my overalls....

The jacket got more and more tattered as I scavenged bits and pieces...

You can't have overalls without a hammer loop!

The lapels were the last bits I salvaged....rather than remake new pieces, I tried to use the suit details in tact but in new ways...

I added the lapels to a piece of fabric from my stash to make a cropped jacket to go with my overalls...

I think they are pretty classy...and kind of silly as well...

I do love that hammer loop!

It all seems like a lifetime ago.  2020 keeps challenging us over and over again...what I wouldn't give for an "easy" garment redo!  I hope our little exercise in recycling adds a bit of fun to your quarantine!  

Who knew?!

Win-win...but not Winter!

I love fall!  I love the cool, crisp air.  I love watching the colors move through their journey from green to yellow and gold, to crimson and rust.  I love the soups and spices that happen this time of year.  The only part that I don't love is knowing that for the next several months I will be battling icy sidewalks, snowdrifts, power outages and arctic windchills.  I know some people love the snow, but as my healing time has lengthened, I am much more worried about tumbling than I used to be.  Cold and snow are parts of the Michigan seasons that I will be glad to watch from a distance.  But for now, I am loving the weather!

Having lived with four seasons all my life, I can't quite wrap my little brain around 'no cold.'  I have been making a new summer wardrobe to have in my new place, but this time of year I am just itching to break out the wool!  To quell the urge I hauled out a cotton jersey that has a mock quilting pattern.  It's kind of a mateliasse kind of thing.  It looks warmer than it is.  I thought it would make a great sweatshirt for the few cool nights that might crop up.  But I didn't want a plain 'ol sweatshirt...I wanted a more 'designery' sweatshirt.  I did some trolling around on Pinterest (you can see some of my finds to the right ->) to see what kind of details might up the cache of my sweatshirt.

I settled on a cropped style with some kind of gathered hem.  As a starting point, I pulled out my tried and true Tabula Rasa pattern.  As I have said before, it seems to cover a huge range of styles and I know it will fit the way I like when I'm finished.  I cut out the main pieces and left them long while I pondered how to finish the hem.  This is just the kind of project I love.  No definite plan, just a sketchy idea and a few detail options to get me going.  I can always hear Diane Ericson in my head, "do the part you know!"

This is also the kind of project that I get caught up in and forget about taking photos of the process.  Ooops! 

I wanted those Kangaroo pouchy front pockets that you get on sweatshirts, but a bit more 'elegant.'  (If "elegant" is a word that you can use to describe a sweatshirt?!)  Tabula Rasa side seams are the perfect place to set in pockets and I decided to line the shirt with a very light weight bamboo knit which meant I could use it for the inside of my pockets by just stitching through from the front.  The seams of the pattern are forward from the actual side of the body so the pocket placement is really ideal for getting your hands in and out easily.

I used the side panel underarm seam as my guide and extended my topstitching to complete the pocket bag.  A little hard to see with all the quilting lines...

I cropped the front and let the back hem hang a bit longer and used the hem allowance to make a casing for a half drawstring across the front.  Again the side seam placement meant the detail was a bit forward which I like.

Serendipity prevailed again when I realized that I could leave the sleeve length and use the lining to make  cuffs.  I love extra long sleeves on cool morning walks to keep my fingers warm!  

One thought that I played with was putting a drawstring at the neck as well.  I made a casing by wrapping a strip of the lining fabric over the neck edge and leaving a 2" space at the center front.  When I got the drawstring in place it was just one thing too many, so I took it out.  When I showed my astute husband my new sweatshirt outfit his comment was, "the neck doesn't look finished."  Rats!  I thought I might be able to sneak it by, but he was right.  He also asked if I was channeling Coco Chanel...?  He thought the short quilted top and the short, straight skirt were very Chanel-esque.  Hmmm...That gave me a new idea for the neckline...thanks Honey!

I created a 1960's-ish collar using a strip of the quilted knit.  Much better.  (and the hubby thought so, too!)

The skirt was a bit of an after thought.  I had exactly a skirt length of fabric left...even the width was right.  I didn't even have to cut anything, just zip up a back seam and put in some elastic.  You can see the wide elastic top in this picture....I was trying to get a twig off the string of lights that hangs over the outside table.  Thanks again Honey!

I really wasn't thinking I was going to end up with a little Chanel Sweat-Suit, but there you go!  It may not make the Paris runways but it is very comfy, cozy and hopefully, a useful wardrobe addition.  AND, a really fun project!  Win-win!