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.

Make-over

 Made a coat dress at the beginning of January.  Didn't like it...like...intensely.  Even if I did address the fit issues, the big problem, for me, was that I did not like how the collar was constructed--unless it's a motorcycle jacket, I like my collar and lapels to be more connected than that.

I do have plans for a patchwork project that uses scraps of the fabric, but I didn't want to turn the whole thing into scraps, because I do like the fabric!  And I bought the buttons just for that project, which is something I almost never do (my stash is expansive, except, apparently, for ¾" black buttons.)  I let the coat dress hang on the closet door in here while I made the patchwork cat jacket, and considered my options.  "Skirt" was quickly considered and abandoned, because I realized I could make it into a jumper!

I'm not sure if I have properly conveyed just how much I like jumpers, because I know I haven't made very many of them over the years, but I do really like them, and have since the 1990s.  In fact, I had a copy of the pattern I used for this project--McCall's 7812--in the late '90s, and used it a few times.  I remembered it so fondly that I decided to re-acquire a copy a few years ago.

I finally cut the tissue for view A and here we are

It has a lot of issues, but, y'know what?  I'm wearing it right now, so it's definitely better than the coat dress incarnation.

Groovy

A friend thrifted a big bold piece of PeterMax-inspired fabric, and later surprised me with it.

The selvedge says Peter Pan Fabrics, but, given that Peter Pan Fabrics was around from the 1940s to the early 2000s and pretty much never changed the way they put their name in their (unlicensed print) selvedges, I am genuinely unsure if the fabric really is from the late 1960s/early 1970s, or if it's from the late 1990s revival of that groovy era aesthetic.

Either way, it's vintage, right?

After receiving the surprise package containing this fabric, I pretty quickly thought it would be a lot of fun to make it into a button up dress shirt.

I did not so quickly get around to making it, but, now I have.

 

It could never have been anything but ridiculous.

Shirt of Sweet Vintage (Print)

Ages ago, I thrifted a length of a very sweet vintage floral print.  I used some of it for doll clothes--honestly, I figured I'd only ever use it for doll clothes.

Until, of course, I decided I wanted to use it for another modified Burda 7831.  There was about a yard and a quarter, which would have been plenty of fabric if it had been 45".  However, I knew it was vintage because it was 36".

I am, of course, stubborn.  I got the shirt I wanted out of it.

With only a small amount of  improvisation necessary.

Coral Kettle Cloth

Years ago,  I thrifted several yards of an odd fabric in a steely blue gray, and then a bit later thrifted more of it in an equally odd maybe-coral color.  I used a lot of the blue a few years ago in a quilt (not just patchwork, but an actual quilt!), and then for a few other things, and during that time I found out the fabric was a cotton rayon blend called kettle cloth. 

I had seen kettle cloth listed in the suggested fabrics of some vintage patterns, but I hadn't known anything else about kettle cloth.  I don't even remember how I discovered that this particular fabric is kettle cloth.  And as soon as I identified it as kettle cloth, I also learned that it's no longer made, and hasn't been for a while.

Which is a little odd to think about!

But so much of my fabric is vintage, made ages ago and never again, that it's not out of place in my fabric stash.

So, I grabbed McCall's 7981 and the not-exactly-coral kettle cloth and cut out the longest A-line view.

Then I made some weird decisions and had to let it simmer for a few days before I convinced myself they were worth correcting.

Floral Knit Dress

I have actively decided to sew a few simple things for a while, and all the better if they're items I'll wear as the weather cools, like the tights in the previous post.

Next to that gray fabric in the fabric stash, and purchased on the same visit to the craft thrift store, was a probably early 1990s English chintz print cotton interlock knit.

I have Simplicity 8072, an easy knit dress pattern from 1998

which is a few years later than the era of the knit print, but I wasn't aiming for historical accuracy, so here we are

 

Cheater Skirt

 Have I ruminated on the blog about how the sewing of simple garments from random (or, at least, somewhat random) fabrics is acting as a replacement for finding randomly appealing garments at the thrift store?

Granted, it's a significantly higher-effort replacement for finding random clothes at thrift stores, but it's still serving to provide the randomness that I genuinely enjoy adding to my clothing options. (And the higher effort is a willing trade off for not only less spending--or, often, the using of things long since paid for--but also less interactions with people who don't, shall we say, share my opinions on mask wearing and social distancing.)

To that end, here's the latest float in the parade of homemade randomness

Thanks Jacket

 A friend recently gave me something for which I wanted to make an item of Thanks.

I poked through my stash, considered that friend's tastes, and ended up with this

I hope it makes the friend cackle gleefully at its horrible black-light-reactive brightness as much as it makes me cackle gleefully at its horrible black-light-reactive brightness.

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.

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

Duvet Retro

I am one of those people who likes a lot of blankets, while the other person in bed...not so much.  So, ages ago, I made a just-for-me comforter, two yards by 40"

I recently took a good look at it and realized that I had worn it threadbare in many places, as well as being reminded of the random holes and popped seams, and also the colors were very much not my thing these days.

But, it still worked perfectly well as a blanket, so I decided I'd make a new cover for it, and I decided to go ahead and make it a duvet cover.

Last Dress of 2019

There's a somewhat complicated project I've been trying to convince my self to start for...uh...years, and I thought about starting it yesterday, but I knew I wouldn't be able to work on it today, so I made my excuse be "that would break the flow" and so I sewed a quick dress instead

And while, yes, I did manage to get it made in one day (that day being yesterday, and I'm wearing it now), it still wasn't as quick as I expected.

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