Fall Sewing 2015 - Mood Dimensional Knit Fabric

Friends, every year about this time Fall sewing starts to pop in to my mind.  Long before we have passed the dog days of Summer, I start to get the itch to stitch all things Fall!

With that in mind I have been perusing the deep dark hole of fabrics available on the internet.  I came across these two fabrics on Mood this week and I wanted to squee with delight!

Moodfabric.com Oil Blue Dimensional Paisley Knit

Moodfabric.com Heather Black/Charcoal Dimensional Knit

If you have been reading the blog for very long, you may remember this raglan t-shirt I made last Fall.  It was one of my most viewed posts back then.

I used a dimensional (I called it quilted at the time) knit for the body and cuffs of this shirt.  Now, I am seeing that Oil Blue Paisley Knit used with a steel gray sleeve and cuff for this Fall!  You can check out the Heather Black/Charcoal Paisley Knit here.  I can honestly say that this shirt was one of my absolute most warn garments last Fall and Winter.  You may take pause when you see that the cost of this great fabric is $25 a yard.  With the pattern that I used from GreenStyleCreations I only needed a yard of 58 or 60 inch fabric to make the body pieces and cuffs.  When you add in another half yard of a different knit for the sleeves and collar, you could easily make this shirt for $30 with a really nice fabric.  This dimensional knit is 9% virgin wool!  It is going to be warm and cozy, like pajamas you can wear in public.

Friends, I am not associated with Mood Fabrics.  I don't get any special treatment or any kind of kickback for showing you this fabric.  I am only pointing it out, because I am buying it and so many people reached out last year to find out where I got the original fabric for the shirt above that I knew I had to share as soon as I saw it.

So, what would you make with these lovely knits?  I can see sew many possibilities!

Monday Morning Confession...My Big Fat Disaster Area

I know I have already mentioned this, but my creative space is a disaster area.  Want to see proof?  Here we go!

When you step in to my disaster area creative space, this is what you would see as you look to the right and the left.

Look Right

Look Left

Here is my fabric stash...or at least the part that is pseudo organized and on a shelf.  I guess that is my sewing library as well.  Ha.  I have a few more sewing books than that, but they are scattered around.

This is where I cut and sew.  The white sewing desk was a craigslist freebie.  It took many coats of white primer and paint to take her from the ugly greenish brown that she was to the white beauty that she is today.  My Singer H74 sits on her as well as a few lights and many of my tools.  The brownish desk that my Brother 1034d Serger sits on was a $5 yard sale buy.  It was originally a vanity, but we removed some bits and now it is a serger desk.  It is still waiting to be painted, but the six drawers it has house a plethora of serger thread and vintage notions.  The cutting table was picked up at the local Habitat Re-Store for $7.  It too is due for a good coat of paint, and a custom cutting mat.

This is my scrap pile.  It is a hot mess!  I know that there are usable pieces still in there, and I just can't let them go.

This would be my ironing area.  My less than six month old Rowenta that is leaking errrrgggg sits atop the ironing board, as well as a lovely double faced piece of shirting that I scorched the heck out of.  I may not make it to the Autumn of 1000 Shirt Dresses!  Wahhhhhh!  My clapper, sleeve board, and larger sleeve board are all garage sale and estate sale finds as well.  Are you seeing a pattern of thriftiness here?

This is my pile of current patterns, as well as the fabrics that are next on the cutting table...maybe.  This changes regularly, so who knows!

Here Friends, we find my collection of vintage patterns.  These were acquired cheaply and quickly through various outlets.  There are patterns from the 1930s through the 1970s in men's and women's styles.  There are even the elusive plus size vintage patterns here.  As mentioned previously, these will all be making their way in to the Friday Funday Giveaway, so be on the look out.

What you can't see here are two huge boxes of fabric from Mood and Fabric.com (actually, they are in the floor in the first picture).  I may have gone on a little bit of fabric binge day after Christmas.  All of the fabric from the estate sale a few weeks back is not pictured as well (again, actually in the first picture).  On a positive note, I got my first Made by Mood tag in that Mood order, and there is something very exciting about that, don't you think?

Friends, here is to hoping that in a week or two, I will be able to post some pictures of progress in this area.  Am I the only one who has a disaster area for a creative space?  Why is this room lacking in color and va va va voom?  I am down on my knees here hanging my head in shame!

Going Against Doctors Orders - Unselfish Sewing

This weekend brought in some really cool weather.  I love it!  Fall is absolutely my favorite season.  I love to hear the leaves rustle in the wind, and wake up with a cold nose.  Plenty of people here in Indy have already turned their furnaces on.  Truth be known I like the cold obviously I have forgotten the pain of last Winter much like the pain of child birth.

With this cold snap, I realized that I needed to do some unselfish sewing and I needed to do it quick.  Every year I make my son's Winter pajamas.  It starts in the Fall with flannel "comfy pants" as he likes to call them, and then as it gets colder I will sew matching fleece raglan tops to go with the pants. See, my little guy has about 2% body fat (maybe a slight exaggeration) which means that as soon as it gets cold out the poor little fella is freezing.

So this weekend there was sewing to be done...doctor be damned.  His pajama bottoms are a fairly easy sew from a self drafted pattern.  Two pieces of fabric are serged together at the legs and then through the crotch curve.  Next a waistband is turned down and sewn with a nice elastic through it to hold things up.  Finally the legs are hemmed, but this time I went fancy and made bands for the hem instead of turning them under because I could use the serger it was a nicer finish.  Each pair of pants requires a half yard of flannel which is always purchased in the Spring at it's cheapest.  I end up having about $2 in each pair of pants, and so far my son still thinks I am the coolest mom ever because I make things like this for him.  I make the pants assembly line style.  I usually average about 20 minutes per pair including ironing and everything.

Another bit of unselfish sewing that I will be doing for my son is his Halloween costume.  He decided that he wanted to be an old school gangster for Halloween this year.  I always make his costumes...you can see some past costumes here and here on my old blog.  The Elvis costume has been the most memorable by far.  Today I picked up a women's pinstriped suit to upcycle into the costume at Salvation Army.  It was $3.98, but because it was the color of the week, I only paid $1.99 plus tax.

Last but not least, my order from Mood came in for the cotton silk voile mentioned in this post.  Unfortunately, they sent the wrong fabric, so I am afraid that my tunic will have to wait.  But, I have some other great sews on the horizon including a few patterns from Green Style Creations.

So here is to hoping that my wrist holds out because I am bursting with the need to sew.

For the Love of a Tunic - A Sewing Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a haberdashery known by all in the land as Cold Water Creek.  Princess Pandora loved to peruse the apparel at Cold Water Creek.  It was a rare haberdashery where most of the garments fit Princess Pandora well, and the styles were timeless, so Princess Pandora didn't mind spending the Prince's gold for the lovely garments.

Then one day an Evil Sorcerer began casting spells on the Cold Water Creek haberdasheries.  First, he made the seamstresses hands less nimble so that the stitching was wonky.  Next, he made the cotton grow huge fibers so that the weavers could no longer weave it in to fine cloth.  Finally, he cast a spell of delirium on the fiber artists so that their prints were no longer timeless.

Alas, one day a purple grey mist fell over the land and when it cleared all of the Cold Water Creeks in the land had disappeared.  It was a sad day for Princess Pandora.

Shortly after the stores had closed she went to retrieve her favorite tunic from her wardrobe only to find that it was so thread bare from wear that it had rips that could not be repaired.

Princess Pandora was devastated and swore she would never be a slave to RTW fashion again.  She would learn to make her own garments.  Thus a new hobby and love of cloth was born, and Princess Pandora lived happily ever after!

This fairy tale is based on a true story.  The tunic in the story was made of a silk cotton voile.  It had a light tan background with a leaf like print in shades of rust, grey, and little pops of yellow.  There was a front placket with pearl snaps, the sleeves were gathered at very narrow cuffs that also used pearl snaps and could be turned up and held with D rings and a strap that was attached inside the sleeve.  It had a rounded hem and a smallish Mandarin style collar.

I am determined to remake this tunic.  I wish I had held on to it to make a pattern from, because it was perfectly proportioned for me.  Instead, I am going to use McCalls M6885 in view D with quite a few changes.

Photo from http://mccallpattern.mccall.com/

It will need to be shortened, I will lose the chest pockets, and I will change the collar and cuffs.  I will use d-rings instead of buttons to hold up the rolled cuffs.  Also, I think I am going to square up and shorten the placket.  This pattern was one of the last things that I sewed before the injury, and the placket just feels long on it even as a dress.  I sewed a lengthened view B in navy blue with small gray polka dots, and maybe I will get some photos of this up if I can get my camera man to take some pictures this week.

I intend to make the tunic in this great voile from Mood.  It has similar colors to the beloved tunic, and I like the print.

Photo from Moodfabrics.com

I think voile is a great fabric for Fall.  I know that a lot of people consider voile a Spring or Summer fabric, but I like that it is a great transition fabric.  You can layer it on chilly days, or wear it alone on warmer days and still get away with pairing it with cute boots.

Have any of you ever remade a beloved RTW item?