Why sew?

I made a commitment this year to not buy any clothes. So far I have more or less stuck to my plan. All I have brought are things I can't make like tights or shoes or jeans. However I weakened recently at the price of a $5 viscose cardigan on sale at Cotton On. Fast-fashion is just so cheap that its hard for a girl to resist. I am mortal after all!  I can't make things for as cheap as the big chains can. But I can make things of better quality and with nicer materials. I can use linen and cotton and cool polka-dots and sew careful seams and lining. I can choose exactly what style, colour and fabric I use to suit myself. Even though I occasionally crave the thrill of purchase and the quick and ready-made, I'm glad I have tried to make my own clothes. I get so much more satisfaction from wearing things I made myself. My sewing is also getting better. Now my clothes don't look home-made in a bad way. It makes me very happy when people ask when I got my dress and I can say I made it and they are genuinely shocked!

 This dress pattern is from BurdaStyle. I sewed the dress in a linen/cotton blend so it falls nicely. I modified the sleeves a bit and gave them a little pleat so they sat nicer across my shoulders. I'm so happy with this dress. I love the indigo colour too.

 Rather than buy pajama pants I decided to make my own. I used fabric that I like but is a bit too shocking for my quiet personality to wear out! One pair is in linen/cotton (same print as the dress) and the other is cotton. I gave both a simple elastic waistband. 

The pattern is my own adaptation of a pair of pj shorts. I used the instructions in Cal Patch's book to lengthen the pants.

As a child I always wanted to wear a Tutu but I never go to. So I decided to make myself a Tutu skirt. This project I've dreamt about for about 2 years, but only got to making it this past week. The skirt is made up of 3 layers: 2 of Bridal Tulle and one of acetate lining. I sewed both to the elastic waistband. 

When I wear this skirt out, people are nicer to me. Random strangers smile at me in the street. I guess big swooshey tutu skirts make people happy. It sure makes me happy!

Because I lost a lot of weight I can't wear any of my trousers so I decided to make some. These pants are from a book called 'Simple Modern Sewing' and were quite easy to make...However after I had sewed up the blue linen I realised it was more translucent than I thought so I had to line them. After rummaging around in my fabric stash I found enough white cotton fabric to line the pants.

The pants are really comfy. There is a lot to be said for an elastic waist!

This dress is my adapation from  'Simple Modern Sewing'. The book designed this dress for linen but I wanted to use this pleated polyester. I also decided to modify the hemline to slope from front to back. The change of fabric meant I had to stabilise the top to prevent it stretching out and I added a half-lining of black cotton drill fabric to keep it nice-shaped.

This is the sloped hemline. It looks like a 1920s dress when worn.

The pattern had these nice fold-over shoulder details that I liked.

I had about 0.5m of grey jersey left from my Drape Drape dress and I wanted to make a shawl. I had seen a scarf at the Purl Bee with Pompom edging and thought it looked cool so I decided to make one. Mine is a circle scarf as I only had about 1.0m of length for the scarf - too short to wear as a regular scarf.

The pompom scarf has the same effect as the tutu skirt - it makes people smile. This is a good thing to happen when you walk about!

This dress is from a BurdaStyle pattern. I made this in light grey polka-dot polyester chiffon. This was the first time I had ever sewed chiffon and it was a little bit tricky. I had to zigzag stitch all the pieces before I sewed them as they were unraveling fast! Fortunately the zigzagging also helped to stabilise the seams and keep things from sliding away while sewing as I couldn't pin the pieces as pinning left holes. I definitely learnt a lot from this dress!

I am quite happy with my neat seams around the neck and sleeves. The asymmetrical neckline turned out nice too. It has a simple press-stud to fasten.

More sewing adventures await!