Pattern Mash Up Experiment (with a Weird Cheater Quilt Print)

I didn't realize how odd the cheater quilt print was when I picked it out at the craft thrift store--I mostly noticed that it was in colors centering around purple, and that was enough to charm me into purchase.

It wasn't until I started working with it for this project that I realized that it was basically made up of diagonal stripes, and fairly high contrast, too

 

So I played with that, and also encountered a problem with it.  However!  The main point of this project was to try adding the collar, from a 1950s pattern, to the old stand-by 1980s extended sleeve bodice, and that seems to have worked out nicely.

Mixed Knits

 I had a little bit of flocked swiss dot fabric left from this, bits'n'pieces left over from this shirt and tights, the remnant of floral knit from the free bin at the craft thrift store, and more of the fabric than I'd need for the intended project, so I could use a bit of it here, from the same visit to the craft thrift store, and I put them all together to make a silly dress.

Experiment Shift

 So I took the bodice (modified with a rounded neckline) from Simplicity 9153 and merged an A-line skirt from New Look 6843 and swung it out to be as wide as possible and managed to cut it a bit short but there was enough fabric left for a ruffle and so I ended up with this

It has pockets!

Varsity Try

 When I made the Halloween Varsity Jacket, I combined New Look 6120 and Simplicity 8175 on the fly

 

because I wanted to keep the short length and Junior sizing of the New Look (albeit cut in the largest Junior size), while having the button closure of the Simplicity.

I liked the result so much I wanted to trace off properly-merged pattern pieces for the front and front facing.  And I did!  This project was to test the merger.

The merger was a success! I'm still not so sure about the actual garment.

Roll the Die: Varsity

Rolled a 6: Varsity

Which meant combining these patterns--the bomber jacket from New Look 6120 from 1999, and the "loose-fitting unlined baseball jacket" of Simplicity 8175 from 1987

and using up the fabrics left over from the two pairs of pants and the Carbuncle Gonk Split shirt I made for the kiddo.

It took a few improvised changes as I was cutting things out, but I made it work

Save the Cat

I thought I'd take a break from sewing buttoned shirts and sew a quick woven pullover shirt.  I cut the tissue for Simplicity 2211, the Lisette Market pattern

 The pattern cutting layout showed size 12 of the blouse folding the selvedges to the center and cutting the front and back on the fold that way.  Since I cut as much as I can on a large narrow piece of cardboard on top of my ironing board (yes, the narrow area can be irritating, but it's better than floundering around on the floor), I decided I'd fold the selvedges to the center and cut the pieces one at a time.

I cut the front first and transferred all the marks for the darts, then folded the other selvedge to the center and placed the back pattern piece and 

oh

it didn't fit?

After a few minutes of wondering if I had somehow folded things incorrectly, I thought to measure the fabric width.

It's a yard of very nice, surprisingly shirt weight Halloween print I got from JoAnn in 2017

so I was shocked to discover it was only 40" wide.

Did it shrink that much when I washed it? In only one direction?

Did it matter at that point?

So I considered my options.  The obvious was to add a contrast strip of fabric in the center back and proceed from there.  I can't explain why, but I absolutely did not want to do that.

I thought of cutting a new back from the already-cut front, and creating a button front with contrast areas, eventually remembering good ol' New Look 6217.  I made so many shirts from that pattern in the early 2000s--even though it was cut in a now-too-small size, I kept it when I purged patterns when I gained weight.  Now, I have lost weight, but not enough to put me in my early 2000s size, so I decided to combine the two-part front aspect of New Look 6217 with my current basic shirt pattern, the modified Burda 7831

I settled on adding a contrast asymmetrically, and making the collar and (hidden) front bands from the contrast print.  I poked through my stash and settled on a tiny floral stretch poplin, then started cutting quickly before I could second guess myself and here we are

Crossed Animals

 The reason I made that 'test' shirt was because I wanted to make sure I had the collar modifications right, because I had bought an Animal Crossing print from JoAnn with the intent of making a button up shirt, and I wanted to make sure I had the pattern right before cutting into the *gasp* $8/yard fabric (yes that's the discount price.)

Confident in the pattern mash up, I cut everything out

 And in doing so, I made a huge mistake that I would not discover until construction was under way.

 

A...Test?

 A few months ago, I made a button up shirt that I liked, but wasn't quite what I wanted it to be.  So, I called in some parts from another pattern and things looked promising, but weren't yet what I was hoping for, either.  I traced the further modifications from the collar donor pattern, then...made a bunch of other things.

I recently purchased some fabric from JoAnn--yes, I know, me? buying fabric that isn't random? and that costs more than $2 per yard?  And I want to make it into a button up shirt, but didn't want to jump in with the untested pattern modification on the good fabric (again, I know--me??)  I decided to use some of the "sorted out to give away early 2020, didn't, then sorted again in late 2021, kept some, gave the rest away" fabric and make a...test...version.  (I'm pedantic enough not to use the term 'wearable muslin,' sorry.)

I didn't have enough of the rayon blend to make the entire shirt, but I was able to complete it by using almost all of the rest of the lace left over from the quick Halloween shirt. 

 Using up fabric is always nice.

Halloween Shirt: Getting Closer

 Not getting closer to Halloween (although, I mean, yeah, it is) as much as getting closer to how I want this shirt pattern to be.

I started with Burda 7831 with New Look 6080 sleeves again, and this time called in McCall's 7575 for a proper collar with stand.  I even made the effort to trace things!

Including the body of 7831, because I have reached the stage where I am very very hesitant to cut a single size from multi-size patterns, and, yes, I know some people argue that you should always trace every pattern anyway.  I am now...considering that more than in the past.

Another thing about tracing the body is that I remembered how, in my old "I use this to make a whole stack of deep-front-dart shirts from novelty prints" pattern, it was set up so those deep front darts were cut out so that there was a seam allowance involved, meaning I only had to mark the tops of the darts, and anything that lets me mark fewer dart parts is fine with me.

This also meant I could manipulate the dart easier to make it a little less extreme, which I wanted to do because of how my abdomen is currently shaped, and, it turned out, I needed to do because of the single yard of fabric I was working with.

Fabric with a one-way print.

Halloween Swirl

 Looks like it's been about six years since I last sewed any bias swirl skirts (for humans--doll-size bias swirl skirts were three years ago.)  My introduction to the concept of a bias swirl skirt was from Simplicity 6261 (1973), which I adopted from Mom's pattern stash back in the 1990s

In the intervening years, I'd forgotten that the pattern piece I'd cobbled together had been altered from the 6261 pattern.  But it still worked

Upcycling #5

I made this shirt a few months ago.  I honestly didn't realize at the time, but it was way too big, even considering that it's supposed to be loose.  The main reason I hadn't realized is because I hadn't been wearing it, because I stopped wearing skirts and pants (because I am shaped like pregnant.)

I liked the print enough that I decided I'd make it over into a dress

and that's when I realized it was way too big

Hacking a New (to me) Pattern

...into my usual dress shape.

So, this time I started with New Look 6080 from 2011

Technically I used View C, because I included those ridiculously tiny sleeves (which I like very much), but I cut the whole thing off at waist level, then added the normal slightly A-line skirt + "oops, not quite enough cloth" shaped contrast band

Doing Everything Wrong

...but, like, doing it all wrong intentionally...

So.

Years ago, I found this copy McCall's 5675 (1977) in a thrift store

At the time it was the right size, and I made a few shirts, and even a dress, from View C, and all with short sleeves.  After the weight gain, I considered trying to grade it up, but I never got around to it.

Then, in 2018, McCall's released 7868

It's obviously a descendant of 5675.  A modern, loose, unshaped-hem, very very loose descendant.  With extra looseness.

And only later did I look at the fabric suggestions and see that it's entirely light, slinky or floaty stuff.  Not from my stash it's not.  And reviews mentioned how very deep the front slit is, and how prone to coming open the hooks on the collar band are.

I borrowed the neck facing and collar band with ties and fabric suggestions from 5675 and used the bodice from 7868 and tossed aside the concept of sleeves altogether and made this

 as, y'know...proof of concept.

Grayyyyyyyy

The return (somewhat) of cooler weather + PMS made me say "Heyyy, I wanna sew some mori kei layers to wear under the dresses I've been sewing."  The PMS also conspired to make me ignore the fact that I dislike sewing thin synthetic knits and so decide to purchase a 4-yard-for-$4 dark gray thin synthetic knit precut at Walmart.

The first thing I wanted to try sewing from that knit was a pair of leggings, using the leggings pattern I cobbled together years ago from an old copy of Simplicity 9721 that I haven't owned for years.  Considering how much disappointment came from the last time I tried a different leggings pattern, and also considering that there were four yards of 56" fabric to experiment with, I figured I should at least try it, since the last pair of leggings I had made with it are things I still wear. (And I seem to have made them before starting this blog.)  Now, though, those were made with a 4-way stretch, and extending the waistline up by 5" created enough room to comfortably encompass all of my diastasis recti bulge mom belly.  The dark gray thin synthetic is only a 2-way stretch,and the 5" extra made it enough to go aaaaabooouuut halfway up the bulge, and also not quite all the way to the ankles

Yes, that's a picture of them hanging awkwardly on a hanger, which doesn't exactly illustrate the fit issues.  I'm wearing them now and my ankles are a bit cold.  The waist band doesn't seem like it's going to be an issue, in terms of comfort.  The main thing will be to see how bad the knee and posterior fabric growth will be by the end of the day, since 2-way stretch just doesn't have the recover that 4-way has.

Still, I considered that pair of leggings enough of a success to go ahead and try to use up all the rest of the fabric in another project, the success of which is still TBD

Screaming Loud Jacket

So.  The shorts I posted yesterday.  The way I ended the write up by lamenting about the extremely obvious print repeat on each side of the center back seam?

Yeah.

However, since the same print elements even ended up on the sleeves, it tips over from unfortunate to funny...right?

This one wasn't curtains

The fabric (another piece from the amazing amount of fabric brought by a friend dealing with a craft hoarder relative's stash)  was not quite two yards long, 52" wide, and hemmed on each end in a very home-made way--so, whatever it had originally been, it wasn't a curtain.

And now it's a dress

 that I can't decide if it would have looked better as a piece of furniture

Flower Power

There were lots of nice-to-amazing prints in the cloth brought by the person who brought me their relative's cloth stash, so I know I'm going to be sewing a lot with that (in addition to all the doll clothes I've already made from it.)

I made the first larger project from that cloth last weekend, using two prints that seemed to coordinate and the mash up of patterns and improvisation that I've used to make a few other dresses this year, ending up with this

One Person's Curtains, Another Person's Dress

I think it came from one of the thrift store cloth grab bags--this green floral 35"-wide cotton that someone had crudely sewn into two curtains, complete with severe light fading near the top edge of one.

I initially thought I'd use the in a new patchwork bedspread, but then I started worrying that the old cloth might be prone to weakening and ripping--a not-unfounded worry, since the reason I want to replace the patchwork bedspread we have now is because it has a few pieces of an old cloth that has weakened and ripped.  So I found some other prints to mix with it and set the project aside for...uh..a while.

When I sorted and re-organized cloth a few weeks ago, I realized that, even though I worried it might wear out as a bedspread (which is used every night), it might last longer as a dress?  So I combined that with the desire to make a faux Burda 6401 and sewed this

 (embracing the idea of Granny Chic)

Swirl-a-Gray

I showed how I converted a regular sleeve pattern into a bell sleeve pattern in the last post, and now's the post for the first dress made with that modification...which, as I also mentioned, was not the first dress I had intended to make, or even had cut out, with that modification, but I decided it was less hassle to cut out an entirely different dress than to change the bobbin thread.

The original reason for hacking the sleeve pattern like that was so I could use Butterick 6470 to mimic Burda 6401, which also didn't really happen with this dress

I can do that

Burda patterns were recently on sale at JoAnn.  I don't pay much attention to Burda, because they don't  go on sale often, so I had a look and Burda 6401 caught my eye.  It's a lot like the dresses I've been making, only with a gathered bell sleeve, so yes I liked it.  I was plotting my trip to JoAnn when I had a second thought about how very much like the dresses I've been making it is, especially the dresses like this that I've made by adding a gathered slightly A-line skirt to the shirt pattern from Butterick 6740.

I found a few pattern reviews for the Burda, and they all mentioned how roomy it was.  Yeah, that sealed it--I didn't need the pattern, I only needed to hack a bell sleeve for the pattern I already had.

And bell sleeves are easy to hack!