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.  

Apples and Bunny Soft Sweater Knit

 Fall has arrived in Michigan!  It is my absolute favorite season.  I love the cool, crisp air even when the late summer sunshine is still warming up the afternoons.  I have been to the apple orchard at least three times already and will no doubt be making a few more trips before the last fruit is picked.  I'm not exactly sure what it is about the fall...maybe the memories of new school shoes and the box of crayons with all the points still in tact.  It just gives me a boost of energy and gets my creative juices flowing.

I used my mandolin to slice up the apples for this galette...and I still have all my fingers!

Now that we are 'snowbirding' I don't really need 'real' winter clothes, but a few fall-ish pieces can't hurt.  I came across an absolutely scrumptious sweater knit this summer.  I found it at JoAnn's of all places.  I don't usually find the fabrics at JoAnn's to be all that inspiring, so I was pleasantly surprised to find such a gem.  I am also a bit skeptical of sweater knits as well.  They are often made from mysterious blends of synthetic fibers that lose their appeal and shape after only a few trips through the washing machine.  This piece, however, was really nice.  First of all it was rayon which meant that it had a bit of weight and great drape.  There was enough spandex to give it wonderful recovery.  And it was soft, soft, soft.....dreamy, baby bunny ears soft!!!!!  I wasn't sure what I was going to make so I got a whole bunch of it.  Adding to its list of attributes is totally washable and dryable!!!!  It went through the laundry like a champ!  As soon as I felt the first hint of fall I knew it was the fabric I wanted to start my fall sewing with.

Earlier this year I made a couple pair of joggers with the Closet Core Plateau pattern.  I am almost embarrassed by how often I pull them on.  They are so comfortable and I like the fit...a lot!  I also made a cropped cardigan that has been in heavy rotation.  I decided rather than experiment with unknown patterns and possibly "ruining"  my soft, soft, cozy sweater knit, I would pull out these tried and true patterns.

As I was laying them out I realized that if I was very stingy I might be able to get a tee shirt as well.  I am nothing if not 'stingy' when it comes to pattern layouts!  I ended up doing some fancy piecing with a grey jersey knit on the insides of the cardigan pockets, but it was worth it.  (I am not going to tell you how long I played around with pattern pieces and layout options😳)  

Not much left of my yardage...

I was fully prepared for a fierce battle.  Most sweater knits required a heavy dose of coercion to get them to behave, but this one was not only beautiful, but behaved beautifully as well.  Even the buttonholes turned out perfectly.

I am so glad that I went with patterns that I know and love.  I'm not sure I will wear them all at the same time.  I feel a little like an old guy in a track suit.  But I know I will be cozying up in each piece often this fall.  

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.

Is the Third Time Really a Charm?

This story starts a few years back....like, 5 years back....

I had a piece of decorator linen that was probably too big of a print to be a dress, but every now and then I get this urge to upholster myself and...well...there you go!  I made a dress!  It actually wasn't all that bad.  I cut it on the bias to give it a bit more shape and strategically placed the "too big" flowers so they didn't end up glaring out from inappropriate body parts...😲😳 

I added a tweedy linen hem to get it to maxi dress length and it was fine.  (can you hear the 'but' coming?)  BUT, I never wore it.  It was one of those garments that hung in the back of the closet and never found the right occasion.  I liked all the individual parts...the fabrics, the details, the colors, the design...but all together...meh.  

After it had hung in the closet, forlorn and forgotten for a few years, I thought maybe if it was a short dress I might actually wear it once in a while.  So I hauled it to the sewing room and whacked it off to knee length.  Obviously that was not the solution because it didn't even stay around long enough to get a picture!  I can't even remember where it ended up, but the short version didn't pass muster either.  

Fast forward to last week...

What do you suppose I found on an excursion into my linen scrap box?  Seriously?!  Yep, there was the chopped off hem!  OK, why not...I still liked the fabrics and colors and the ribbon detail I had done on the hem was quite nice. I hung it on my dress form, upside down...and doggone it if it didn't decide that it wanted to be a tank top!  Go figure.

Along with the hem I had enough scraps of the original fabric to make straps and just like that...a top!

Whether or not this third version ends up being THE ONE, it has been fun to keep reimagining it.  We'll see if the story continues....

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!