Archive for the 'sewing' Category

Page 2 of 4

sewing frenzy, episode honest ed!

Published on May 3, 2012 in sewing. 2 Comments

Before showing you the blouses and skirt I made, this is the place where I got the fabric.

Honest Ed’s! If you’re ever in Toronto, be sure to visit Honest Ed’s, it’s one of the most awesome places on my list! An old-fashioned discount store that sells pretty much everything. AND! All the signs in the store are still hand-painted! It also has the most bizarre decorations. This giant one-eyed zombie elk clock is located between houseware and menswear.

Anyhoo, I saw this tutorial for making a blouse with scarves, so I wandered into Honest Ed’s with the intention of finding scarves. They didn’t have a wide selection that fits what I’m looking for, but then I spotted the bandanas! Loved the pattern on them, and they were 50¢ a piece. I thought if I stitch two together I would have just enough fabric to make a square top! :D

I like that there are brown stripes down the sides and at the shoulder seams.

Also goes with my magenta cardigan! :D (And it looks much better when I ask someone else to take full-length pictures of me. Look, I can even hold a plant as a prop.)

I did get two scarves to make a blouse from the tutorial, but the scarves I bought were much wider than the ones in the tutorial, so the blouse is very fluttery :D

And then I bought more bandanas to make a skirt! Basically I sewed 3 bandanas together into a very wide tube. Then I made another fabric tube that was the same width but a bit shorter with some white light weight fabric leftover from an Ikea curtain for a lining. I sewed the two tubes together along the top edge, then folded down the top edge to make a casing for elastic. And that is all :D

The top I made last summer from a men’s shirt.

Over the weekend my mom gave me a bunch of fabric from her years of collection – some came from Hong Kong! :D I remember going to fabric shops (and yarn shops!) with her when I was a kid. There was always a musty but strangely comforting smell amongst the bolts of fabric. I can certainly keep making square tops but I think I’m going to try adding some small details or variations.

Have a great day! :D

sewing frenzy, episode one

Published on May 1, 2012 in sewing. 5 Comments

I spent much of last week sewing. My goal was to make several light square tops in preparation for the super hot Toronto summer (although it’s rather unseasonably cold at the moment. Also, there’s an awesome super easy square top tutorial by C&C if you’re interested :D).

Bought this fabric at a very friendly and affordable fabric shop downtown (will visit again!). I first made a square top, and then I thought it would look great if it were longer, so I added more fabric to the bottom. But then it looked really wide and a bit tent-like on me, so I added two buttons and crocheted button loops on the sides so I could fold the sides in to give it some shape.

So it ‘s more a rectangle than a square. And here’s how the buttons and button loops are placed.

More of a front view…

On a separate note, while taking these photos with a self-timer I attempted to take levitating photos like the awe-inspiring ones by Natsumi Hayashi (it’s fascinating! Check them out if you have a moment :D). Thought this would be a nice top to levitate in style :P But it really made me realize how very difficult it is to not only jump at the right time but also look naturally floating in mid jump! Plus the shutter speed of my point & shoot isn’t really fast enough to take good levitating photos. I gave up after 10 jumps or so (really out of shape!) and therefore don’t have any successful pictures to show… but maybe I’ll ask Mike to help me with his super camera some day…

More sewing projects to come! :D

Happy Wednesday!

sweet love

Published on February 16, 2012 in sewing. 2 Comments

So! I actually made the mushroom love pin from my last post! here’s a close-up picture of it…

Really enjoyed a morning of hand-sewing. There’s something very calming about that. Haven’t done it for a while and thinking it would be great to find more projects to sew.

I wore it out to Indian food with Mike for Valentines day :D

We were both unfamiliar with Indian food, so we just tried to order things that sounded interesting, like this fried cheese. I believe it’s called paneer.

And of course, butter chicken! :D

Awesome date and delicious food makes me a happy valentine :D

Have a sweet Friday, everyone!

silver lining

Published on January 19, 2012 in sewing. 2 Comments

A bookmark I made for my sister. It’s safely arrived in her mailbox now, so I can show it to you :D

But it’s a really good reminder for myself also. I’ve been living under a cloud of worries and anxiousness this week; it’s good to remind myself the many good things that are happening and all the awesome supportive people around me, rather than just focusing on the few negative things.

The book I used for this photo is actually called The Cloud of Unknowing. I brought it home when the church library was throwing it out but I haven’t read it yet.

Have a fabulous Friday, friends!

quick refashion

Published on September 14, 2011 in sewing. 0 Comments

A very quick t-shirt refashion, from this idea on Craftster, which I originally spotted on Pinterest.

I also cut off the cuff of the sleeves to create a bit of a fluttering effect.

I’ve had that necklace forever. It’s always sat in the bottom of my jewelry box since as long as I could remember. I completely forgot about it until my mom asked me to look into one of my drawers at home to see if there’s anything I want to take home or throw out. I didn’t even know that it had immigrated with us to Canada. And I don’t really know where I got it from…

The beads are made of glass, I think. It’s kind of heavy and I haven’t found an outfit to wear it with yet. Makes a good accessory for the photo-shoot though :D

Have a happy Wednesday!

plain old cardigan with bonus headband

Published on September 8, 2011 in patterns & tutorials and sewing. 4 Comments

Hello there. Meet my new cardigan. (It was made before the haircut, yes.)

It has crocheted buttonholes.

It was made from a turtleneck that was kind of ill-fitting.

Sitting in my closet collecting dust for years, it was either donate or remake. I’ve been looking for a plain, simple cardigan that I can pair with anything. So remake it is. Remake is always the more fun choice :D

There are certainly lots of shirt to cardigan refashion tutorial in the blogosphere, but I thought I’d share my process too…

I used:

A turtleneck (a regular long sleeve shirt would work too)

Sewing needle and thread

5 buttons

DK weight yarn

2.35mm crochet hook (2.5mm would work too, 2.35 just happens to be what I inherited from my mom)

First, I cut off the collar, which has a bit of ruffles and lace on it.

I then discovered that with some stretching the collar bit makes a pretty nice headband! :D

While happily wearing my new headband, I made a Y-shape cut (can’t help but think of CSI. *shudder*) in the shirt.

To determine the Y-cut:

1. I put on the shirt and mark where I want the lowest point of the neckline (i.e. where the three lines of the Y meet).

2. I then measured the width of the bottom front and divide measurement in half to determine mid-point.

3. With tailor’s chalk I drew a line from mid-point to the lowest point of neckline. Then from the lowest point of neckline I drew a line each to the right and left neckline at the shoulder.

Next, I folded and pinned the edge 1/4″ along the front and neck, and then hand-sewed it in place with running stitches. One could definitely sew it with the sewing machine, I just felt like hand-sewing that day. And I thought hand-sewn stitches add subtle character.

So, for the buttonholes, determine how many buttons you’d like to have and mark where you want them to be. We’ll be working from the bottom up.

1. Thread a needle with approx. 3 feet of DK yarn, double-knot the end.

2. Inserted the needle through the hemmed/folded edge of the left front. The needle has to come out on the fold, at the bottom point of the bottom-most buttonhole. Like so…

3. With yarn still threaded, temporarily set needle aside. Make a slip knot with the crochet hook as close to the point where the needle came through as possible. Make 4 chain stitches with the hook.

4. Take hook off loop. Pick up needle and insert needle through the loop.

5. Pull the needle and yarn almost all the way through, then tuck on the loop to close it, then continue to pull through the rest of the yarn.

6. Insert the needle 1/2″ up from the beginning of the crochet chain on the fold line of the front edge, and come out another 1/2″ up from where the needle was inserted. (I messed up the first stitch. There should have been more distance between the crochet chain and the next stitch on the fold line.) One buttonhole made.

Continue to make stitches 1/2″ apart until you reach the next buttonhole mark. Then repeat steps 1-6 for buttonhole.

Row of buttonholes complete.

I hope the instructions make sense. A close up of the buttonholes here might be helpful… (feel free to let me know if you have any questions though)

A very quick refashion that was done in an evening :D

Happy crafting!

today’s awesome finds!

Published on August 29, 2011 in other crafts, sewing and small things. 2 Comments

Buttons!

My mom gave me a box of craft supplies that someone else gave to her, and in the large box of supplies there was a small box of buttons. I just tucked the box of buttons into my craft drawer for the longest time and only today did I look through it. There were these delicious-looking green and pink buttons just begging to be made into something, but I didn’t know what… and then I went browsing on Pinterest and guess what I found? This post on Homemaker’s Journal about making buttoned bobby pins! It’s such a simple idea but it’s absolutely perfect.

I’m in the process of trying to grow out my bangs so I use bobby pins to keep my hair out of my face, and having a nice buttoned bobby pin rather than a plain old bobby pin really brightened my day. It’s the small things, you know? :D

Also in the box of buttons was this antique Hong Kong $5 coin, from 1976!

It’s a decagon! (new word I learned today thanks to Google :D) Nowadays $5 are round, I’ve never seen a 10-sided $5 coin! And here’s the queen on the flip side, of course.

That was in the morning. So then I thought, I must wear one of these pretty button bobby pins out somewhere. I planned to visit the thrift store sometimes this week for some back-to-school clothing. I was debating whether I should just take it easy at home or venture out. The bobby pin gave me the motivation to go out (it’s the small things, really).

And guess what?

The thrift store was having a one-day 50% off clothing sale!

So with under $20 I got 4 dress shirts and a cardigan. I was really happy with the dress shirts, which aren’t all that exciting but something I need for work-related occasions (I’ve learned that adding a cardigan doesn’t really make a graphic tee look more professional). But the cardigan needed some work, because it was too big. (I wish I had taken a “before” photo with me wearing it).

I wanted a neutral colour cardigan for a couple of upcoming weddings, and I do like this one because of its lace pattern and the delicate-looking collar. It was a size-large.

So I took in the sides and the sleeves…

… and cut 5.5″ off the hem, and then re-hemmed it…

… and TA-DA! A cropped cardigan! :D

I’m quite happy with it, though I didn’t know how it was going to turn out because I’ve never sewn sweaters with the sewing machine before. I was a bit concerned that it would all stretch out. But over all it didn’t stretch much. The cardigan was just kind of shaped funny… it was kind of twisting (you might be able to see that a bit in the picture) and wouldn’t lie flat when I tried to line up the seams. But I think it looks alright! :D

Oooh, and check this out…

The tag on the cardigan was all bunched up so I had to stretch it out and pin it like a butterfly specimen to take a photo (because the tag says “no ironing”, I think). But can you see that it says it’s made of 20% polyester and 80% acetate?

I did not know that one could make clothing out of acetate. By acetate does it mean acrylic? Hmm. I wonder how old this sweater is…

Other awesome find today that’s not pictured: tikka masala chips! Mmm curry.

Have a wonderful day, friends!

adventures in refashioning

Published on August 25, 2011 in sewing. 9 Comments

I’ve been seeing a lot of tutorials on refashioning men’s shirt lately. They look pretty simple so I thought I’d give it a try. Here’s one shirt that Mike doesn’t wear anymore and donated to me. I basically just cut off the collar and made two straight cuts down the sides…

Ta-da! Not too shabby, as Mike himself would say! I just hemmed the neckline by folding the edge over twice and stitching it. The sides and arm holes I sewed together like I did for the pillowcase dress, to make fray-free seams. And for the elastic waist, I measured and cut a piece of 1/4″ elastic by wrapping it around my waist without stretching it, then sewed it directly to the mid-section of the tunic by stretching it slightly as I sewed. There must be a better way of doing that though, because it was really hard to get it even all around… but it looked alright in the end.

And the back…

Here’s another refashion with Mike’s white dress shirt, inspired by this shirt refashion tutorial. Again, cutting off the collar and the sides…

I had to cut off so much of the bottom as well because for reasons I don’t remember I’ve cut of a rectangle of fabric from the hem of the shirt a while ago…

And I didn’t roll up the sleeve cuff like it is in the tutorial, because of my fray-free seams construction, but I think it looks alright :D

Oh yes and I swapped the white buttons for blue ones :D

Also looks alright with a wide belt.

And as you can see, I’m still very much in love with the wall of yarn, even though I haven’t yet worked on a better solution to contain the yarn – it makes a fun background for photos!

Speaking of solutions for containing the yarn – thank you so much for all your wonderful suggestions! I have a pretty good idea that I want to try and it really came out of reading all of the comments left on the wall of yarn post. Thank you so much for sharing your great ideas and knowledge with me!

Have a lovely evening, or morning, or afternoon – wherever you may be! :D

experiments in dressmaking and fray-free seams

Published on August 1, 2011 in patterns & tutorials and sewing. 6 Comments

I’ve been saying that I’ll write about my recent experiments in dressmaking, so here it is! :D I’ve been trying to replace some of my really old t-shirts (dating back to the early 2000′s!) with the flowy blouses that are so trendy right now. I just love the simple structure of those blouses – I love the aesthetic of it and how simple it is to make.

So the dress above is one I made to wear to a wedding. I didn’t have process photos for that one because I just kind of just pieced rectangular pieces of fabric together until it kind of fits. At the end I had to cinch the shoulder seams because I made the neckline too narrow. But it fit in the end. I wore it with the twisty belt and the dollar store fabric flower pin. There’s a closer look of the flora fabric in the twisty belt post. I think I bought the fabric at Walmart when I was a teenager. I also made the skinny tie Mike was wearing! :D Not from scratch though. I just modified an old regular tie, following this tutorial.

Up next is my square blouse. It looks like this when laid flat. And you can see that it’s just two squares sewn together, with a shallow neckline, and an opening on each side seam for arm holes. I found the fabric in my mom’s box of old fabric. It’s probably from Hong Kong. Mike thought the oval dots look like grains of rice :D

Here it is with a belt and again, the flower pin.

And then I made a pillowcase dress, inspired by this tutorial. Now that I’ve experimented with a plain square-shape structure I thought I’d make it a bit more fancy by adding some waist-shaping. Here’s a nifty diagram of what I did. (I cut off all the seams of the pillowcase, so I ended up with two rectangular pieces of fabric.)

The dress ended up being a little more snug than I like because I took off too much on the sides. Don’t you measure, you ask? Um… yeah. It really is my fault because I just eyeball everything. It’s like how I never check gauge when I knit and crochet… But hey, it fits. Just a bit difficult to put on but I’m sure the fabric stretches (?) over time…

Oooh and I made the red belt to go with it. I thought they looked alright together. I was picturing the dress with a shiny vinyl belt but didn’t want to buy one, so I crocheted one.

Anyway, with the pillowcase dress I wanted to share how I made the fray-free seams. I laid in bed awake one night trying to figure out how to deal with the issue of the fray edges. It’s probably something many people know how to do already, but in case you didn’t know and you’re interested, here’s what I did.

Here’s the neckline and the shoulder seam. Leaving a 1/2″ seam allowance, with right sides together, I sewed both shoulder seams from the sleeves edge toward the neckline, and end 1/2″ before the neckline.

I then pressed the seams open, and at the same time fold down the 1/2″ of seam allowance/hem along the neckline, all the way across from one sleeve edge to the other. (Note: the side seams haven’t been sewn together at this point. In fact it’s really hard to stitch along the shoulder seams and neck line, as you will see in the next steps, when the side seams are already sewn together. I learned the hard way :S)

I then tuck the raw edges of the seam allowance under, and pin, all the way across from one sleeve edge to the other.

Then I sewed along the pinned seam allowance, all the way across. (In the picture above only the top part is tucked under and pinned, but of course, tuck, pin and sew the bottom part too. So there will be two separate lines of stitching altogether.)

Finally, I sewed a few stitches back and forth in the two spots where the shoulder seams meet the neckline.

From the right side there will be lines of stitches along the shoulder seams but it’s not too visible from far away, and it doesn’t look too out of place anyway, I don’t think…

And then the same was done to the side seams and arm holes. First sew the sides together, leaving 1/2″ seam allowance, starting from the bottom hem, stopping at 1/2″ away from where the arm hole begins.

Then press seams open and at the same time fold back the 1/2″ seam allowance/hem around the arm hole…

… then tuck the raw edges of the seam allowance back and stitch along. The stitching would go in one big loop starting from the bottom hem, going up the side seam, around the arm hole, and then going back down the side seam and end at the bottom hem.

Hope that makes sense! Feel free to drop me a note if you have questions!

Happy Monday! :D

shirt dyeing – round two!

Published on July 6, 2011 in other crafts and sewing. 12 Comments Tags: Sharpie, shirt dyeing.

I won’t give up on you, cotton shirt, no I won’t!

After failing to dye this cotton shirt pink with beets last time, I thought of another dyeing method I’ve been dying to try (yes, pun intended).

Sharpies! :D

I first saw this Sharpie dyeing idea here, and then I came across another one here. I didn’t have coloured Sharpies though, nor do I have an eyedropper. But I figure I’ll just use my black Sharpies, and a paintbrush would do.

Aside from getting a slight headache from the alcohol fume afterward, I’m rather happy with the result :D

And the back…

And a close-up of the sharpie circles…

The white tunic was made from an extra large men’s t-shirt. I can’t tell you how I made it though, because it’s kind of free-formed :S I cut off too much from the sides initially and had to sew on strips of fabric to each side afterwards. It’s not symmetrical at all, but it fits!

To get rid of the Sharpie smell I put it in the wash with dark clothing (and socks. We – OK, I – figure they’re old socks so it wouldn’t matter too much, and it’s time Mike gets some new socks anyway), and it didn’t fade! :D Just stained the white areas in a few spots on the same shirt, but it didn’t stain the white socks that we had in the same load of laundry.

Dyeing with Sharpies is new to me but I later found out that it isn’t such a novelty, there are tons of tutorials and videos on it! Here’s a video on dyeing a scarf with a wavy-stripe pattern. Very watercolour-like, which I like. Might have to try that when I get some coloured Sharpies!

On a related note, beets didn’t quite work for me but my sister-in-law commented that red wine might work, though it would make a ridiculously expensive dye. But then I thought, isn’t wine just fermented grape juice? What about grape juice? Apparently it works well! I found this tutorial for t-shirts here, and for yarn here. Will have to try that too!

Thank you for visiting and stay tuned for more experiments! Happy Wednesday! :D

Archive for the 'sewing' Category

Page 2 of 4

sewing frenzy, episode honest ed!

sewing frenzy, episode one

sweet love

silver lining

quick refashion

plain old cardigan with bonus headband

today’s awesome finds!

adventures in refashioning

experiments in dressmaking and fray-free seams

shirt dyeing – round two!

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