Showing posts with label diy sewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diy sewing. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

DIY: Black, White and (Now) Red All Over

 Emkay, this may sound strange coming from the crazy art teacher who wears sparkly fishnets to school, but I actually have a vague idea of what is inappropriate work attire. In fact, according to excelle.monster.com's 25 Things a Professional Woman Should Never Wear, I'm 74% professional. Ahem. Their list was pretty lame though. For starters, they are obviously early 21st century haters. I mean, what did Paris Hilton ever do to get this list-creator to diss the following:
  • Juicy Couture track suits and uggs. Seriously? Nobody is still wearing that except Pam Anderson. Hey, Pam Anderson, Bay Watch called. Oh no, wait, no they didn't. Because 2001 is over.
  •  Crocs and fanny packs. Wear this and not only will you no longer have a job but suddenly birth control is no longer necessary. Two birds, one stone.
  •  Wallet chain, torn jeans and clothes worn yesterday. Oh, I see. Now we're pickin' on the grunge era. Next you'll tell me flannel is out.
  • Flannel. What?!
  •  Face Tats. Seriously? Who has a face tat that isn't Mike Tyson? Although I was asked just the other day if my cat eyeliner was tattooed on. It isn't. Right now.
One thing on the list that I do agree with was not showing too much skin. So when I slipped on this dress I purchased from Modcloth not too long ago, I knew it didn't pass the tasteful test. Hello, pale mid-thigh! And I was super bummed because did you see that fabric? It features cats! In the news! Doing human stuff!

Being tallish, I've dealt with this too-short-attire problem before (junior high flashback: "Hey, Stephens, where's the flood?!"). My solution with dresses is adding a band of fabric on the bottom. My wingin' it way of doing this is to measure the width of one side of the bottom of the skirt, cut two pieces of fabric that width, sew those two pieces together thus creating a circle. That circle of fabric is then pinned to the hem of the dress, right sides together and sewn. I then hem the skirt. You can see more examples of that with my Hot Air Balloon dress and my Eiffel Tower dress.
Me, circa 2011. Back when I was still watching Baywatch reruns.
After adding the tomato red fabric to the bottom of the dress, I decided I needed more red to balance it out. That's when I had a flashback of this thrifted Target dress redo from a couple years ago. Here's what it looked like in it's original thrifted state:


Kinda nice because of the sweet bird fabric but mostly boring. After taking up the hem on this dress. I decided to add the bow and the little coral detailing at the shoulders. Recalling this redo, I decided to put a bow on Modcloth cat dress as well. Wanna put bows on things? Here's how it's done:
You begin by creating...what looks like a pair of little boys briefs. Ew, scroll down.
Ah, that's better. So, begin by deciding how wide you'd like your bow to be. Then double that. And add an inch. Decide the height of your bow and add an inch for hemming. Fold under 1/4" top and bottom and hem. Then create a circle by sewing right sides together.
Using needle and thread, create a hand basted stitch. Don't know what that is? It's a very wide stitch as seen above. That kind of stitch is good for gathering. The wrinkles in my fabric show how I've been practicing my gathering skillz. Once fabric is gathered to your liking, knot thread.
As you can see above, once that was complete, I added a folded in band of fabric for the loop around the middle of the bow. This was hand stitched (ugh, I hate hand stitching. What is this, 2001? Pam, gimme a hand here, would ya?!) and attached to the belt.
Oh, shoot, the belt. I forgot to take photos  of how that was created. Sorry. Here's the beginning stage. After pressing these folds down, I added a fusible stabilizer to give the belt some beef, folded it in half and stitched all the way around. Once the bow was hand stitched into place, I added a snap button closer.
Me in all my belted glory. With cats! In the news! Doing human things! Yes, like a good episode of Bay Watch, it bears repeating. 
Pretty sure a crinoline wouldn't make the list of appropriate attire. Nor the sparkly fishnets. But I never claimed to be 100% pro.
The rest of the outfit details: black top and necklace: Target; sparkly fishnets: TJMaxx; shoes: Dolls by Nina
And just in case you were wondering what professional fashon faux paus I did make, that'd be the following:
Oh well. Can't win 'em all. 




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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

DIY: Bewitch Yourself

Remember the TBA dress I mentioned in the last post? Well, here it is: The Bewitched Dress. Which doesn't really have any connection to the old television show except that when I donned the little pointy hat, the batwing'ed shades and the witchy shoes, I suddenly felt very Samantha Stevens. And who doesn't wanna feel as though they could cast a coupla spells with the twitch of a nose?
I actually have a little Samantha Stevens story (btw, if you know me for like 5 minutes, you'll find I have a "story" for just about any occasion). This story begins way back when I was in 8th grade and an absolute Trifecta of Fugly: glasses the size of dinner plates, braces complete with headgear and a gangly 98 pounds. Smokin' Hot. 

Needless to say, the boys were not exactly fallin' at my feet, let alone talkin' to me. And when they did, I was just plain clueless. Case in point: my response to a transaction with a Junior With a Mustache: 

Junior with a Mustache: Hey, what's your name? 
8th Grade Me: Cassie Stephens.
JWM: Oh, like Samantha Stevens! 
8GM: [dopey confused look]
JWM: You know, from that old show Bewitched! Are you related?
8GM: [lacking any sense of humor] What? No. That's a TV show.
JWM: I bet you are related. I bet you can twitch your nose and make stuff happen.
8GM: What would I make happen? 
JWM: [shrugs and turns to talk to his other mustache'd friends]
Present Me: [face palm]
So I might not wear the headgear (still have it though, thanks Hoarder Mom!), the big ole glasses or have that stick-thin frame but I'm still a complete and total geek. Which is what drew me to this total geek-tastic owl fabric. The design was originally created by one of my favorite fabric designers Tammis Keefe. I've actually used her fabric designs in two other versions of this dress. Her designs have most recently been reproduced by fabric designer Michael Miller. I paired the owls with black linen for the midriff and vintage fabric from my stash.
Oh, Elizabeth Montgomery. How beautiful are you? I need that big tousled hair and those cat eyelashes pronto. Do some nose twitchin' and make that happen for me, won't ya?
Now this dress doesn't have the sleeve issue that my el Dia de los Muertos dress had...but I still managed to procrastinate long enough to add some bewitching decorations to the house. Like this giant web I thrifted with some phoney-baloney leaves and a die cut spider.


Okay, that whole nose twitching thing? Check out the difference between Elizabeth Montgomery's (aka Samatha Stevens) nose twitch and mine. Let's see if you can tell the difference...
Do you see the diff? She's actually not wiggling her nose but moving her mouth from side to side. Which is much cuter than my face. I look like I'm trying to silently squeak out a noisy fart. Again, Smokin' Hot.
You try it. Just wiggle your mouth from side to side. It gives the illusion you are wiggling your nose. Without that Squeaky Fart Face look.
Well, once I had my nose wiggly down pat, I was magically able to decorate my mantle. I sewed the garland using some images I had die cut at school. And I added hubs' deer antlers and turtle shells that he'd found on his walks in the woods.



Have you ever sewn paper on your sewing machine before? So super easy. For these, I just ran one of the die cuts through my sewing machine, let the machine continue to run while I gently pulled on the die cut piece and then inserted another piece. I did this for my mantle way back in February too.
So, to bring this whole post full circle, I'm gonna give Junior with a Mustache an answer to his thought about "making stuff happen." 

What would I make happen? 
Well, this October, I think I would just Bewitch Myself. And my house. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got headgear to go put in. 

P.S. Outfit details:   witchy shoe covers and mini doll hat: JoAnn's; Best Sunglasses Ever!: one of my super thoughtful students. You know who you are, thanks Little Buddy!


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