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.

Deconstruction of a Skirt

In my last post, I was discussing my current sewing inspiration and a little about how I intend to get to the finished product.  If you missed it, just click here and have a read.

I made mention that I will be using a thrifted leather skirt for the black leather trim on the inspiration piece.  In order to keep this sewing hobby from breaking the bank, I scour the local thrift shops for pieces that can be refashioned or upcycled.  I am a real sucker for leather and suede skirts.  Did you know that the back side of leather is suede and vice versa.  Granted, most suede doesn't have very pretty leather on the back side.  It is usually blemished or it has a weird grain, but occasionally I get lucky and find a real gem that is gorgeous on either side.  I rarely pay more than $2 for any garment I buy at my favorite local thrift store.  If it is more than $2 I try to wait til it goes on 1/2 price color of the week.  I should also mention that I have found some amazing crafting buys at my local thrifts and I will do more postings on some of those finds at a later date.

Back to the leather at hand!  Here are front and back pictures of my skirt before deconstruction:

She really feels like butter!  The fact that she is is a patchwork skirt doesn't bother me, because they are decent size patches, and they are well constructed so I won't even separate them when I need pieces, I will just cut them as is.

My first step in deconstruction was to remove the waistband.  Sorry, I forgot to take a picture at that step.  Deconstruction of garments is something I think everyone who is learning to sew should delve into.  You learn so much about how garments come together when you are taking them apart, and often that experience will help you to understand pattern instructions a little better.

My next step after removing the waistband was to liberate the lining.  I will be holding on to the lining, because it is a decent lining piece, and a thrifty gal always holds on to the bits from a deconstruction.  

Removing the lining...see the suede on the back of the leather?

From the lining I moved on to removing the very heavy duty zipper.  Then I split the seam that ran from the skirt vent to the zipper insertion point.  Now here is what I am left with:

For $1.98 and 30 minutes of my time (I deconstructed while watching It's Sew Easy on PBS) I now have a 56x36 inch piece of leather, an 8 inch heavy duty zipper, and a lining piece the same size as the leather.  I should note that though the waistband is pictured it will be getting pitched.  It was made out of pleather, and that my friends is not a good thing.

Tomorrow I will post sketches and dimensions, and depending on if I have the time to get it done, maybe the final product.  Until then...