Insufficient fabric can't stop me

 I thrifted a fabulous very 1980s/early 90s bit of pastel map print cotton knit a few years ago, not much more than a half yard.  I finally decided to see if I could convince it to work to make a shirt.

It needed assistance.

A Simple Project That Just Might Change Everything

 Well.  Maybe that's a bit dramatic.

But what it is is that I've sewn a pair of tights for the first time

And this could be a big thing for me, in terms of my decades long love of tights and in terms of an easy project to do with the variety of weird synthetic super stretchy knits offered by the Walmart mill end precut bins (of which this B&W stripe is one.)

Memento Mori, with a Seaside Vibe

 The fabric in the previous post was acquired in a 2 yard by 60" precut.  I used as much as needed to make that shirt, then decided to see if I could squeeze a shirt for me from what was left.

The fabric limitations meant it would more cropped than I usually go for, but once I decided to see if I had any appliqués I might use, I couldn't resist making it anyway

A Calm Shirt for the Kiddo

I found a few useful-looking pieces of cloth in the Walmart mill end precuts last weekend.  I did not need any more cloth.  But.  They were one piece of black and white stripe knit and two pieces of french terry, one black and one a sort of...sagey muted mint green color.  My tendency to go for loud prints on sturdy cottons plus the Walmart mill end precut section's tendency to present mostly pure polyester means I don't have a lot of plain knits, so I went ahead and got them. (yes, one is striped and not plain, this is not about that.)  

I had wanted to make another sweatshirt for the kiddo, just because.  So I got KwikSew 1650 again

 it goes up to kid size 14, but is a 1980s pattern, so it's a very generous kid size 14.  I didn't measure the kiddo to see what size he'd technically need, because things like t-shirts and sweatshirts have a wide range of "acceptable" in terms of fit.

I used the ribbing of view A and the larger shoulder inset of view B and ended up with this

Elven Moto Jacket

 So.  Vogue 1714.

It...actually wasn't that hard.

 

 even if I probably top stitched twice as much as the directions called for.

 

Jeans Alteration

A few years ago, Husband bought a pair of inexpensive jeans that ended up being a bit small.  Instead of returning them, he gave them to me.  At the time, they were a bit too small for me, too, so I put them away for The Future.

When I finally tried them on after losing weight, they...were too big.

I considered donating them, but the fact that they're relaxed fit and the waistline does sit at my waist means they're quite accidentally in fashion, so I decided to try altering them.

I consulted several websites that said all that needed to be done was pick out the stitching holding on the waist band (and any belt loops in the way), cut out some of the center back, then sew everything back together.  There may have been better and more detailed instructions than that, but that's what I took and ran with.

I tried on the jeans and pinched out the excess in the center back and safety pinned that in place. I then (well...a few weeks later) used ore safety pins to emulate a line of stitching, then tried the jeans on again.  Things felt like they where where they needed to be, so I used my index finger width (which is roughly 5/8") to draw a line with tailor chalk parallel to the pins, and that's where I cut off the excess fabric.

Due to the way I'm shaped, taking out the center back excess but leaving the front intact still leaves the side seams right where they're supposed to be.

I ended up opening the entire center back seam, and a bit of the inseam, which was easier than it should have been, because it was sewn entirely with safety stitches.  All I had to do was cut a bit, find the right thread end, and, zoop, the stitch pulled apart.

I loaded a yellow 'gold' medium weight thread into the top of the machine and left the yellow green in the bobbin in place since it was the same weight.   The color and stitching are far from perfect, but no-one's going to look very closely when I'm wearing these.

I also very quickly decided that I was absolutely not going to do a welt seam. I've never been good with welt seams, and I don't think my machine would have taken it well, either.  When I sewed the inseam back together, I just top stitched through everything.  My serger definitely wasn't happy with what I'd asked it to do.  But, again, no-one is going to be looking.

I haven't worn jeans for a very very long time.  This could get weird.

Repair Pair

 When the friend very generously brought the inherited sewing stuff a few years ago (thanks again!), it included a lot of clothing that had probably been purchased to be used for craft purposes.  A lot of it was still fine--I kept a few pieces, let my friends pick out things they liked, and donated the rest.  A lot if it, though, had also been cut into.  Again, I kept a few pieces to use as doll cloth and let the friends take any they wanted, then put the scraps aside for years before deciding what to do with them.

A lot ended up in the scrap-filled floor pillow, but I realized a few pieces actually could be repaired.

Skirt Into Fall

After I made the blue corduroy shorts, I still had a lot of that fabric left.  I felt like making a long skirt from it would be good.

Then my brain started complicating things: it demanded a center front button placket.

Well, I thought, that still wouldn't be too hard--might even be possible to make without a pattern, just gather the waist into--

"No," the brain said. "It should be an A-line skirt."

Well...OK...I do have an A-line skirt pattern with a center front seam that could be hacked...

Buuut I really didn't want to do that.  So, I checked the next JoAnn pattern sale and purchased two possibilities: McCall's 7981 and 7906.  7981 has some non-gathered views that are pretty much what I envisioned, but 7906's pleated (and top stitched!) waist shaping was also really appealing, so I decided to go with that one.

 

But.

I am still getting a feel for sewing things with waists, and my waist measurement, last time I measured (which was when I was still planning to make this) was somewhere between 16 and 18.  The finished waist measurements are printed on the pattern, so I decided to risk things and go with the 16.

At this point, however, I also decided not to jump right in with the corduroy, so I grabbed something from the stash that's not my usual color scheme, but was just the right length that there's not a whole lot of it left over.  After a few days of sporadic sewing, I ended up with this

Halloween Patchwork Jumper: The Video

 When I made the Halloween-print patchwork jumper just over a month ago, I also recorded bits of the process to make a video.  I may have gone too far in the "you don't have to record every single step" direction, and that long, tedious project ended up condensed to about 6½ minutes