Me Made March

The Home Stretch

Days 24 to 28

Thursday, Day 24. Today was the purple dress and black jacket. I am trying to at least not have an exact combination of clothes this month. Although I don’t want to speak too soon, still a few days to go!

Day 25. It must be Friday as it’s the denim skirt again! This time paired with an H&M shirt.

Saturday, Day 26. I have been wanting to wear my Colette Crepe dress, but have not been anywhere that I felt it was suitable this month (and I don’t feel it is suitable for work). So I wore it to dinner at a friend’s house knowing that I would be way over dressed, but also wanted to show off the dress!!

Sunday, Day 27. In this picture I have just finished the 30km “Around the Bay Road Race” in Hamilton and had done a quick change in order to take my older son out for brunch before dropping him back at res. The sweater is hand knitted mohair and it is the second time I have worn it as part of this challenge. Yes, that is the race medal still around my neck!!

Monday, Day 28. The black skirt again, this time with the white blouse and red cardi (both Jacob) and black tights. You can't really see the necklace, but it is also self made, with turquoise, coral and stirling silver. 

Three more days to go!!

Me Made March

Days 19 to 23

For Saturday, Day 19, I had made a t-shirt to wear with jeans. I used the Butterick pattern (same as the purple dress). It’s a bit big for my liking. Not sure if I will wear again, or cut up into another tee (maybe a more casual Pendrell

Day 20. Complete blank for today. But realized as I went to walk the dog, that the scarf I had put on was the infinity scarf I made from a thrift store sweater. I had originally bought it to felt and make wine sleeves as hostess gifts at Christmas time. But I didn’t check the wool content and it didn’t felt. So I cut it into strips, sewed into a tube, twisted and joined and voila an infinity scarf.

Day 21. Monday. I had a breakfast meeting and was in a hurry to get out of the house so  although I had planned to start wearing some spring clothes, I ended up with a wardrobe staple, my  grey suit and the black and white Pendrell under the jacket.

Day 22, Tuesday. I was determined to wear something springy as the calendar says it is spring. I paired a self stitched A-Line skirt (first attempt at basic pattern drafting) that I made as part of the spring palette challenge, with a new top (H&M) and my faithful black jacket. The necklace is also self-made. This outfit was inspired by a picture I saw on the Anthroplogie website a month or so ago.

Day 23. Wednesday and mother nature decided that she would dump snow on us. Nice winter weather! So it was back to black pants, the beige top (which is the third wear as part of this challenge, not bad for something that has been languishing at the back of the closet for several years!) and the green H&M Jacket.

The shirt sew-along

Well at long last I have nearly finished Matt's shirt. I am so glad that I did the muslin step by step with the sew-along. Now that I am doing the real thing it is going very quickly. So many other things just got in the way of sewing the shirt.

But here are a few pics.

The Muslin (above) was actually a bed sheet until about 2 days before this picture was taken. I had just decided it was getting too worn to be used when it got put to a better use! On the right are the fabric choices. The blue check for the main part of the shirt and the green for the inside yoke, inside cuff, inside pocket flap and inside front facing (when I get to that!)

Below is the half complete shirt. I am pleased with it so far as is the recipient! I have drafted a pattern for  new collar and collar stand based on one of his favourite shirts.

My Jewelry Box

When I am not sewing, I like to do some beading. Over the years I have made a number of pieces of jewelry. Mainly necklaces and bracelets. But I didn't have anywhere to store them, they were stashed away in drawers or in my closet. so they were being forgotten about and not being worn.

Then I had an idea, a flash of inspiration you could say and my very resourceful hubby was able to make the idea a reality. Basically I had the idea of having a storage space behind a long mirror which would hang on the bedroom wall.

We found the perfect mirror at Ikea, it had a box type frame with the mirror right at the front. Hubby then attached a piece of wood to the wall the same size as the framed mirror, attached the mirror frame to the wood with hinges on one long side and a magnetic closure on the other side. I then took small and medium size cup hooks and screwed those into the wood.  So below is a picture of it closed. It looks just like any mirror on a wall.

But then when you press the mirror on the right hand side (where the magnetic closure is) it opens to display all my bead work!

And a closer view:

Me Made March

Days 9 to 13

How time flies when you are having fun. It is becoming more of a challenge and it has certainly shown me the gaps in my wardrobe. let's just hope I learn from the gaps and sew accordingly the rest of the year!!

Day 9 was the purple dress again, this time worn with a black cardigan.

Day 10 was my second Pendrell blouse. I don't like the frills on me. When I make another (and I am planning several) it won't be this version. i wore it with black pants and my favourite jacket from H&M

Day 11 was Friday and casual day, so it was the denim skirt again, this time with a white t-shirt and sweater.

Day 12. Saturday, came home from a long run and had no plans for anything other than slouching around the house all day (and doing exciting things like housework!!), so this hand knitted jacket was perfect. I knitted it about 15 years ago from a Kaffe Fasset book of patterns.

And then we had Sunday. Day 13. As mentioned several times, the gap in my wardrobe is casual wear, and not doing anything exciting meant I had no reason to dress up. But it did force me to finish an UFO. An apron from Vogue 8643 (an original 1952 design). Perfect for baking biscotti. I started the apron last year, and then ended up making two for friends, and after that I was sick of sewing aprons!! I do have some more cute material and plan to make another one as well.

Me Made March - The Halfway Point

Day 14.  Monday. I wore the Pendrell blouse with a grey suit, you can just see it under the jacket. I love my Pendrell blouse. I have already pre-ordered the New Sewaholic Pattern, the Crescent Skirt, I am looking forward to sewing that up.

Tuesday, Day 15. The Black and White Skirt. This time paired with black blouse (Jacob) and black jacket. I added a vintage brooch which belonged to one of my Grandmothers. As you will notice, my usual photographer was not around this morning. He had an early morning meeting!

Day 16. Okay, now we are halfway through. Yeah! And as next week will be Spring, I fully intend to wear items I have made for the Spring Palette Challenge. I don’t care that the weather forecast says it’s going to be colder than it has been this week. It will be Spring!! So anyway, day 16 was the beige top. Worn with brown trousers and a cosy brown cardigan.

Day 17 and it was time for my favourite dress, the black and white pinafore dress. Worn with a white blouse and my favourite red cardigan (both Jacob)

Day 18 (Friday). I wore a new item of clothing. Light brown cropped trousers, made for the Spring Palette Challenge. Worn with a black and white striped top (Old Navy) and black cardigan (Joe Fresh).

Spring Palette Challenge

At long last I managed to finish three pieces for the Spring Palette Challenge. I realized that I have a very bad habit of leaving the final hand sewing and then moving on the the next project. So yesterday I forced my self to sit and sew while watching a movie. Zombieland. My only excuse was that there are teenage boys in the house and one had control of the remote!!

Anyway, I finished a beige a-line skirt. Self drafted, my first attempt actually. Then I made a pair of cropped pants in a light brown from Simplicity pattern 5259 and also a skirt and top from vogue 2218. I had said I wanted to do a beige jumper dress, but I had this material in my stash and it looked very similar to the picture on the vogue pattern envelope, so made that instead!

Now I have a piece of black material ready to cut out more cropped pants. I also want to make a black a-line skirt as I have so much to wear with a black skirt for work (even though it wasn't on my initial list for the challenge).

I also have the black and white check dress ready except for button holes and a hem.

Me Made March

Days 5 - 8

Stop press! Great excitement! Gertie from Gerties New Blog For better Sewing, featured a picture of my crepe dress on her blog on the weekend.




http://www.blogforbettersewing.com/2011/03/gallery-of-delicious-crepes.html

Anyway, back to MMM. This weekend I discovered a major gap in my wardrobe of handmade clothes. I haven't made casual clothes. So at lunchtime today I nipped up the road to Fabricland and bought two pieces of knit fabric and will make two tops for weekend / casual wear.

So what did I wear this weekend? Well on Saturday I remembered a sweater I knitted a number of years ago. While on holiday in the Eastern Cape of South Africa (KleineMond for anyone who knows the area!), I bought some hand spun angora at a little farm. The earrings are also hand crafted, from beads from one of my Grandmother's necklaces. So quite suitable for a day at the Toronto Golf and Travel show.

Sunday was tough. After my long run, all I was planning to do was laze around the house. Tempting as it was to put on an evening dress and pretend that is how I spend my Sundays, all I could come up with was an apron. I ask you, an apron!! It has a winter theme so very fitting as we had a huge dump of snow on Saturday night.

Monday and today were good. Yesterday I wore a hand sewn top made a number of years ago from an old McCall's pattern 7444. I had made the jacket and skirt too, but they are long gone. I teamed this up with black trousers and jacket.

Today was a black skirt from Simplicity  5259. Worn with a plain white blouse and a grey  sweater.

Me Made March

The Early Days!

So far so good. I have had my clothes out ready the night before so that I know exactly what I am wearing.  That is most unusual for me; I normally open the closet door in the morning and see what takes my fancy! But often if I am running late, it is a matter of what is clean does not require any ironing!!

Day One, the purple dress. This is a fast and easy dress (Butterick B5247). I made it almost entirely with my serger. Very nice to wear. I have been meaning to use the pattern and make a top  as well. As I work in an office, dresses are perfect.

Day two, my jumper dress. Simplicity 2848 (inspired by Project Runway). Love it to bits, I either wear it with a black blouse like I did on day two, or with a white blouse. I like to wear it with black boots. The gemstone necklace is also self -made. I call it my yoga necklace as I got the idea from a yoga web site. The different gemstones have different healing and mood properties and work with your chakras apparently!

Day three, I wore my Sewaholic Pendrell blouse for the first time. I got so many compliments, so that made me very happy! I hauled my pearl necklace out as I wear it so rarely these days and I think it went vey nicely with the polka dots.

Day four and it’s Friday. That means casual in our office.  This denim skirt I made a couple of year ago from a 1990’s 5 hour jeans/ skirt pattern. (Do the 1990s count as vintage yet??! ) The scarf is self-made; I laid various threads onto water-soluble paper, put a layer of the same paper on top and then stitched in a big zigzag motion all over the scarf. Then soaked in water, and a very pretty scarf and so easy.

Evening Dress

One of the items on my to-do list was to make an evening dress. I saw a Vogue pattern V1208 and fell in love with it's simplicity. Cut on the bias with no darts, or zips, it was a cinch to make. I bought the light satin material from Fabricland on sale. The lining actually cost more than the material! Although it can't be seen in the photo, it is a beautiful teal colour. There is some spare and I am hoping to be able to make another  Pendrell blouse from it.

Luckily I didn't have to wait too long for a function to wear the dress to. Our son's annual high school dinner dance fund raiser.

The necklace is also self made. The boys bought me a book last time we were in Namibia, "Dare to Bead some More" by South African bead artist Heather Laithwaite. I had started the necklace a while ago, and then the night before the function, realized that it would be perfect with the dress!

The little evening bag is one I made from scraps last year. trying my hand at patchwork.