A White Shirt for a Chilly July

 Our move to our lake house has been full of ups and downs...there are 40 steps to the front door after all!!!!...But the most frustrating thing has been our lack of reliable internet connection.  I used to love the fact that we could not be 'connected' when we were using the house for a get away.  But now that we are here full time it has been more than frustrating.  I am sitting in the coffee shop trying to get the pictures that I want to share from my phone to my computer.  It completely baffles me why pictures I took this morning are already in my photos file, but the ones I took last week are still wandering around in the cloud somewhere.  😩 It will probably take a long phone call with one of my bright spark sons to get this figured out!  Whatever....

I have been sewing and loving my new machine and my new lofty studio, the blogging and sharing have not been as seamless (pun intended!)

Let me start with my July White Shirt.  I was thinking that it would be a very light, summery number, but we have been having an unusually cool season this year.  I put the linen and lawn aside and pulled out a sport fleece and made myself a hoodie!

I can't remember if I have ever drafted a hood before?????  I must have at some point, but my memory did not help me on this one.  I incorporated the neck opening with the hood and put a 'ribbing' of the same fabric around the edge to snug it up a bit.  I waited until it was almost done before deciding whether it needed a drawstring...it didn't!  Here is the pattern piece I drafted.  It looks like a puzzle, but it worked out well.  I hope I can remember it the next time I want a hood. 😏

I also made thumb holes.  You can see how I did it in this article that I did for Threads Insider.  It's my favorite way to make thumb openings. 

So that's July...done and dusted as my British son says!

The pants in the last picture are another pair of Closet Core joggers.  I am so smitten!  I made a little cropped cardigan to go with them and, with our cool summer, I have been wearing them both...a LOT!  I hacked my woven T-shirt pattern to make the cardigan.  I think I will be doing it again, it turned out to be a great layering piece.

And finally...I am forever the optimist and made myself a very summery, eyelet romper!  This may count as my "too cute for it's own good" outfit for 2021!  I mashed together the square vest that I used for my patchwork linen top and my Merchant and Mills Eve pants.  It worked out very smoothly.  Now I just need some warm days to try it out.  

The neck edge is a bias binding turned to the inside as a facing, but leaving about a quarter of an inch unturned.  I tucked it in every half inch to make the little scalloped edge.  I used a creamy colored pearl cotton and I like the little twinkle it gives.

I am hoping that we will soon be more connected to the rest of the world and I can do a bit better at sharing my new sewing space and projects.  With all of the moving and shaking that has been going on for the past several months, I am sooooo glad that I have had a place to sew.  It has always been my "get away from it all" place and I have sure appreciated being able to tune out for a few hours now and then.  

I am also hoping that I will be making a much lighter white shirt in August....jeez!

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?!

Jumping In!

Rhonda from Rhonda's Creative Life and I are exploring pants this August.  Last week we shared our favorite pants patterns.  It is always fun to see what inspires other sewists.  Rhonda made a wonderful pant/skirt creation that is so her.  She has a dramatic flare that often shows up in amazing sleeves and unique collars.  That same flare was on display in her full legged, border print pants with a clever skirt overlay.  Just lovely!  Even though we scratch our heads and whine about fitting, we sewing folks are so fortunate to be able to imagine something and then go right ahead and make it!  Yeah us!

This week Rhonda and I are going to be starting with the same fabric.  Not only do Rhonda and I have very different body types, we also have different color palettes.  Rhonda looks lovely in any shade of blue!  She also loves a great contrast!  My color choices, on the other hand, tend toward 'mud' colors and monochromatic.  Browns and greys, neutral linen shades....maybe you have noticed? So picking out a fabric that we would both enjoy working with and wearing was a bit of a challenge.

 Back in July I was trolling around in my local fabric haunt and I ran into the softest, yummiest, cotton Hawaiian fabric.  The quality of the cotton and the hand of the fabric remind me a lot of a Liberty of London cotton lawn. Finely woven with a bit of a sheen.  The print has both blues (for Rhonda) and greys (for me) with a touch of lavender thrown in for fun.  I thought Rhonda would love it as much as I do and snapped up 6 yards!  That was easier than I thought!  But then....what to do with it?!

Now that I am considered 'vintage'...or at least the clothes that I wore in high school are considered vintage...it is hard to get my head around wearing those styles AGAIN!  But I have been seeing jumpsuits everywhere!  Yeah, I know...can I really make a jumpsuit?!  Well, apparently I can.

I did start with a pattern but about the only thing left of the original design is the v-neckline!  The original pattern was basically two front pieces and two back pieces with a zipper up the back to get in and out of it.
OK, it's not likely that I would be able to get to a back zipper in an 'emergency' so that had to go right off.  No zipper meant that I would need to make the top neck opening big enough to wiggle my hips and shoulders through.  I thought I had it right but when I tried to get it on...Nope...That's how the little gathered up elastic piece in the back neckline came to be.  It reminds me of the back of the 'sunsuits' I used to wear as a kid!

The original also had in seam pockets.  I definitely wanted pockets.  I thought about the side seam pockets, but I never really like them.  They always seem to be too far back to get my hands into comfortably.  To get the pockets around to the front of my suit I cut the front pieces along the waistline and added slant pockets.

The original did not have elastic at the waist, it just suggested wearing a belt.  That I liked, but I knew that every time I wiggled in and out of my jumpsuit I would be adjusting the gathers at the waist.  Nah!  I added a casing and elastic to keep the gathers in the same place.

I looked for a belt but was not inspired by anything that I found so decided to make one.  I wanted a 70's type belt with the two rings.  I found some at a local quilt shop but they were $13!!!!  Seemed a bit steep so I wandered around in the hardware store and found some rings...I have no idea what they are actually designed for, but they were only $2.69 and made a really great belt buckle!

          

          

I also made a big long self-fabric tie that I think makes the jumpsuit feel a little dressier.

AND...I actually hemmed the thing 'too short!'  Yep,  I'm gonna see how that feels.  Meany, highwater pants teasers take that!!!! 😱 Sorry, a bit of a high school flashback!

I haven't seen what direction Rhonda's imagination took with the Hawaiian print, but knowing Rhonda, it will be fabulous!  Check it out HERE.

Next week we'll be "Getting to the Bottom Line" again with a new challenge in the month of pants.