Never let it be said that I am a wasteful woman. From 1.5 yards of 60″ wide woolen jersey, I wrought:
1. 
One 3/4 sleeved pullover top.
2. 
One lace-trimmed tank-top/camisole.
3. 
A sports-bra.
More pink wool than you can shake a stick at..
Dec 3rd, 2011 by Meetzorp
Failure = always an option
Dec 1st, 2011 by Meetzorp
Yep, I pretty much bombed NaNoBloppo. After the big fancy post about sewing woolen knits, I pretty much hit the Writers Block Wall.
I had nothin’ I got nothin’.
I’ll maybe have something in a few days, but at the moment…
Yep. Not so much.
I’m also not done with the sports bra. I didn’t have enough elastic, so I have to acquire some. When I get that done, I will do the DIY Ibex follow-up post.
I beat Ibex!
Nov 28th, 2011 by Meetzorp
Man, there are times that being a seamstress kicks ass. Not so much when you put a sleeve in a jacket upside down or get finagled into doing a shit-ton of alterations for no money, but when you get about $200 worth of performance gear for about $40, it fucking rules.
So, there’s this fancy-schmancy wool-based sports clothes company called Ibex. Their stuff is pretty sweet, I must say – I have two of their long sleeved base layer tops & two short-sleeved ones which form constituent parts of my traditional foul weather wooly carapace.
These Ibex shirts I bought just before Joel and I went on our coast-to-coast trip. Joel had a couple of Ibex tops sometime before that. But when we bought our Ibex garments, Joel was working at a large bike shop where he could get an employee purchase discount, which brought these high-end goods into our range.
Three years on, he has moved to a smaller shop closer to home, and while the job is great, the discounts are no longer a perquisite he can rely upon.
And three years on, our old Ibex gear is starting to get awfully tatty. I darn, and he darns and so our stuff is well mended, but tatty, none the less.
So, one day it struck my dim bulb that I sew, that I have no aversion to knits, and that I could probably replicate Ibex goods at home, using commercially available sewing patterns and fabrics. First, I tracked down wool jersey knits courtesy of Denver Fabrics. Then, on to patterns. For Joel, Simplicity 9499 provided the raglan-sleeved top. For myself, it was Vogue 8760. Denver Fabrics supplied the jersey-knit woolens in prices ranging from $7.50 to $10/yd. For a shirt for either of us, it required 1 yard for myself (
I would come to find out) and 1.5 for Mr. Long-Limbs. The patterns, after sale and coupons, came to just over $5/ea. Therefore, adding in notions, one could reasonably replicate an Ibex base-layer top for around $15-$17/ea.
I have my first top finished, and am working on his second, along with some bonus gear from scrap fabric. I found that I was able to eke an extra camisole and a sports bra out of 1.5 yds of this terracotta woolen jersey.
I shall post photos of the lot of it when I am done. The 3/4 sleeve raglan top, the camisole, and yes, the sports bra.
The camisole was cut from the tank-top pattern which came with my favored New Look 6564 jacket pattern. Both the jacket and the camisole have been home-run hits. I cut the camisole last week out of scrap from a dress which is another project soon to be in progress, just for fittings sake, and was 100% pleased with the fit and proportion.
The sports bra is Green Pepper 407, which is not in the least glammy, but it was at the $5 price point and seems like it would be a difficult thing to fuck up. We shall see how it goes.
Green Pepper patterns seem to be pretty good, at least judging from the results I had making Joel a pair of #524, the Sunset Bay Cargo zip-offs. They’re to replace an ancient pair of zip-offs he bought at MajrThrift a squillion years ago. While I don’t love the inner leg gusset of this pattern (it seems to be an unnecessary complication), the rest of it went together beautifully. This is literally the best fly-front I have ever put together.
Photos will follow, probably Wednesday, after I’ve washed laundry, and therefore re-claimed my top, and finished up the camisole and the bra.
Anyway, the tally of my theoretical savings is as follows:
| TOP | Ibex: Â $75 | Pattern on sale $5 | Fabric: Â $15 (1.5 yds recommended) |
| CAMISOLE | Ibex: Â $55 | Pattern coupon $7 | Fabric: $0 – scrap from top |
| SPORTS BRA | Ibex: Â $55 | Pattern reg. price $5 | Fabric: $0 – scrap from top |
| TOTAL | Ibex: $185 | Patterns: $17 | Fabric: $15 |
| Sewing Total: Â $37 for fabric, patterns, & notions |
Very rarely does the balance of home sewing swing so heavily in my favor. I’m almost sort of impressed, actually.
Order has been restored
Nov 26th, 2011 by Meetzorp
It’s hard to be chic with an armpit on your shoulder
Nov 26th, 2011 by Meetzorp
I guess this is what you’d call a wardrobe malfunction.
I finished stitching down the facings on this bolero and went to go model it for Joel.
This is what happened:
Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve pulled a stunt like this. Unfortunately, it is the furthest I’ve gotten in the completion of a garment assembled in such a wrongheaded fashion.
To the seam ripper, anon!
Pending project – for the next Tweed Ride, maybe?
Nov 23rd, 2011 by Meetzorp
Two vintage patterns and vintage plaid flannel should combine to create a really cute outerwear set.
I’m not really a “cape girl,” but for a Tweed Ride, I’d make an exception. Especially if I made the cape with this 1967 Simplicity pattern and could eke a coordinating hat out of the scrap with this Vogue of the same era.
I got inspired by The Slapdash Sewist and her friend Cidell who both used a certain Burda pattern to make capes to wear for the DC Tweed ride.
Now I have a personal and abiding dislike of Burda patterns, which have the most obtuse instructions known to mortal man, but I looked at their capes and realized that, heck, I have something very, very like that in my own library!
Simplicity 7262 fron 1967. Moreover, I have a great old hat pattern from Vogue from the same era, and it could combine to make a charmingly Sherlock-Holmesey getup, if everything spaces out all right.
It’ll be a good 7-8 months until the next Tweed Ride here in KC, but that doesn’t necessarily deter me. I could and possibly will find excuses to wear this getup just because. It’ll be wool and plaid and green and vintagey and chic. “Why the hell not?” I ask.
How I currently feel about NaNoWhatever
Nov 22nd, 2011 by Meetzorp
It’s a beginning
Nov 21st, 2011 by Meetzorp
Just trying out a tank-top pattern on a bit of scrap from a dress I cut out recently (but haven’t assembled yet). Yes, I know the zig-zags aren’t well centered and all that, but I am just finding out if this pattern even fits me and works all right.
If it does, I have a medium-term goal to make some lightweight tanks for layering, as I am always too warm with a whole shirt under my jackets, but I do so love a smart, tailored jacket.
FINALLY finished…my new winter coat!
Nov 20th, 2011 by Meetzorp
I have no excuse other than lazy bastardry. I started this coat only just shy of two months ago. What should have taken maybe two or three saturdays took…well…longer. Mostly because I wasn’t working on it. I got bored of this project about halfway through, and it sat in a box in my sewing room with no lining for the entirety of October. Now, here it is in all its plaidly glory…my new, brown, 100% wool winter coat.
Why yes, I do believe that it is brown. I seriously doubt anyone who has read this blog much, seen my sewing posts, or knows me in person is even a tiny, little bit surprised.
Plaid matching carried ’round the back. This was a damn nuisance I do not mind telling you!
That’ll be why the lining looks like this. Because I honestly ceased to give even a hint of a shit by the time it came around to cutting it out. So long as it wasn’t off grain, that was good enough for me.
What have we here?
In seam pockets, of course!
This coat was made using Vogue’s V8346 pattern, View A, with modifications. I cut the sleeves a little fuller to accommodate the inevitable layers of sweaters that I will definitely wear as winter worsens. I also increased the number of buttons and made actual buttonholes, instead of stitching buttons on the outside and snaps on the inside. That seems like a really stupid way to fasten a coat and I was having no part in such shenanigans.
I built this coat to last. The seams are reinforced with tape, the seam allowances are zig-zagged, the buttonholes are stitched as closely as the old Singer will allow. The whole thing is made of dense and durable wool, and I expect to get just under a decade’s use out of it. When comes the time to replace it, I may use this pattern again, but cut View B next time, which comes to just above knee length.
Tomorrow is Cranksgiving
Nov 18th, 2011 by Meetzorp
So get your ass down to the Anita Gorman Discovery Center tomorrow at noon and buy some food for people who haven’t any this Thanksgiving:
Where: Anita Gorman Discovery Center,4750 Troost Ave, Kansas City, MO
When: November 19, 2011 12:30 pm
It’s loads of fun, and for a good cause.
I didn’t take any pictures last year (or the year before, or the year before that, or even the year before that one), but I did in 2007.
Joel took some last year, however.