The 80s Called, and They're Back

Every time I look back at my old elementary school photos, I swear I'll never wear 80s styles again. After all, if you were old enough the first time (I was, just barely), then you shouldn't the second time, right? And everyone is pretty unanimous about how awful 80s styles were. Those huge, oversized tunic tops with leggings, all the drop waists and linebacker shoulders, the crazy big hair...I'd find a picture of young me to show you, except that I'd really rather not.

I found Simplicity 7822 in my recently inherited seven box stash addition.
I swear I had a top that looked exactly like that purple one on the right when I was eight or so.

I was going through my closet, trying to put away all the clothes that don't fit anymore, and I came across this top from very early on in my sewing journey. I haven't worn it in at least two years; I didn't like how boxy it was in the torso, and since I made it from less than a yard of fabric, it was way too short to wear untucked. Even tucked in, it was always working itself loose. Of course, now that I'm in a family way, the loose fit is perfect! It was still too short, though, so I had to figure out how to lengthen it when I didn't have any of the fabric left. Well, it's a good thing the 80s are back, because looking through the Anthropologie website revealed a quick and easy fix: just add a ruffled peplum in a different fabric! Those last two were the most inspirational; I combined the idea of lace + gray + peplum to come up with this combination:

It took less than half an hour to gather a 10" strip of light grey rayon knit at a 1:1.5 ratio and attach it to the bottom of this shirt. 

I was so pleased with myself for saving an unwearable top and even making it maternity-appropriate. And then when I really looked at myself in the mirror, I realized that I had just put on the exact outfit from Simplicity 7822, complete with the leggings. I even wore it with ballet flats today. Oh well, at least my hair is a normal size?

Next thing you know, I'll be succumbing to overalls. (Actually, I really hope not. If I do, you have permission to stage an intervention.)

June Stashbusting: DIY Gold Clutch

June's stashbusting theme is containment, i.e. "sewing things to put other things in." While I could do something sensible, like make a reusable grocery bag, let's be honest -- Mr. Cation has gotten so many free bags from business school job fairs, we're probably set for life (and don't even talk to me about pens, notepads, and water bottles with random company names on them!). I'm a two-purse kind of girl (one nice professional one, and one casual messenger bag), so I don't need any more purses. I do, however, need a new clutch for dress-up events, when my giant teacher purse (the professional-looking one) doesn't cut it. My current clutch was a free gift from a Black Friday sale in college, so I think it's about time I replaced it!

While I was in Italy, I stopped by a Euro Village, which I guess is the equivalent of a dollar store. I picked up a bunch of sewing notions for a euro each, as well as this gold placemat for two euros. It was so nice and weighty, I figured it would make for a good clutch. "Oho, but that means you're not stashbusting!" you say accusingly...well, I used stash fabric for the lining! I got this home-dec sample in London on our first anniversary trip, and it was the perfect size and color scheme for this simple clutch.

Step 1: To make the lining, cut out a piece of sturdy fabric a little bigger than your placemat. Fold over and press the edges (and sew mitered corners if you want super neat corners!) to make a rectangle with finished edges. Pin or clip the lining to your placemat and sew all the way around the edge, leaving a little gap in the middle of one short side so that you can insert an elastic later. 

I used clips instead of pins because the punctures show on my vinyl placemat. I wasn't sewing too neatly and veered off at one point and had to unpick; fortunately, the shininess of the placemat distracts from the needle holes!

Step 2: Play around with how big of a pocket/flap you want on your clutch. Fold up the side that does NOT have the gap in stitching; this will be the size of your pocket. The flap with the gap will be the "cover" of the pocket. I settled for not-quite-thirds for my folds. Once you've decided, measure your placemat to determine the center, then make a tiny mark so that you know where to sew your button. Sew on the button. (If I had been making this clutch two years ago, it wouldn't have occurred to me to sew the button before sewing up the sides...and then I would've cursed my lack of foresight, since it's much easier to sew on the button at this point, while it's still flat!) 

Step 3: Find the gap that you left in the "top" flap, insert a hair elastic, and topstitch over it a few times with tiny stitches to secure. (I sewed most of the clutch with a stitch length of 4, to better match the existing topstitching on the placemat, but switched to a stitch length of 2 for the elastic part.)

Make sure that the inserted elastic is big enough to go over the button. 

Stitching done on both the button and elastic! I chose this black button with a gold rim to break up all of the gold. 

Step 4: Sew up the side seams, backstitching at the top of the pocket for extra security. 

Done!

Summary:

Fabric: 12"x18" gold vinyl placemat, similar size 100% cotton canvas. This project is perfect for showcasing a cool fabric that you only have a bit of! Of course, if you were going to make it from a non-placemat, you might need to add in some stiff interfacing to keep your clutch from being too floppy.

Notions: 1 hair elastic leftover from when my hair was still long enough to require such things, 1 shank button from the stash

Hours: 1.5...a nice quick project!

Will you make it again? Considering how few purses I use, probably not for myself, although I might make more for friends if I come across cool placemats.

Total cost: I don't remember how much the home dec fabric was, but the whole project was definitely less than $5. Not as good as free, but at least I didn't have to wake up at 5 AM and fight a bunch of other people at Express before the limited supply ran out! 

Final thoughts: It's funny, in high school and college, all my accessories were silver/stainless steel and cooler toned, but recently I realized that gold/brass and warmer tones suit my coloring better; this clutch reflects this discovery (and all the light in the room). Also, I like that this clutch is actually big enough to put things in! Which, as you know, was the whole point of June's theme.

Experimenting with how much I can fit: my iPhone, my even smaller clutch with my credit cards and ID and cash, and a little makeup thing that I use about twice a year. I bought it when I got engaged four years ago, and I still haven't used it up...

I decided that a picture of makeup in my clutch wasn't a fair representation of what I was likely to actually carry in it...so I replaced it with one of my favorite short story collections instead. Perfect for all of those times that Mr. Cation is groomsmanning/MCing at weddings (because he always gets asked! He's like a professional groomsman and MC at this point) and I'm bored. 

Proof that it still closes nicely even with a book inside!

February Stashbusting Challenge Link Party!

Stashbusters, it's time to show off how generous you are how much you've used your stash to show love to others. And don't forget, since this month was a CHALLENGE, one project will win some fun prizes and bragging rights!

If you have any questions about how the voting or linking work, let me know. And if you didn't make anything for others, hey, that's fine too! It won't be eligible for our little contest, but you can still add it to the Flickr pool.

You can also start thinking about what you want to do for March's theme: the impending seasonal change! This way, those of you in the Northern Hemisphere can make something light and springy, and those of you in the Southern Hemisphere can make something cozy and autumnal.  Those of you living at the equator where it's the same all year round, well, I guess you can't play then...just kidding!

Lastly, this isn't stashbusting, but it's still sewing for someone else, so I'm including it in this February post: I put one of Mr. Cation's ties on a diet! See, he's had this normal-width whale tie for ages, and even though he only wears skinny ties, he's never donated it because well, tiny green whales. Need I say more? So for Valentine's Day this year, I took a quick one hour break from my shieldmaiden dress and skinnified the tie for him. It was very easy to do; I followed this tutorial and was really pleased with how professional it looks...at least, as professional as tiny whales can ever be.

Why am I wearing this tie, Mom? 

No, seriously, why? It's ridiculously long on me. 

A closer look at the whales: look, they're even smiling!

Walnut's not smiling, though...he's just confused. 

I didn't think to take a before picture until after I'd already cut it open and started slicing off the extra width, but I'm sure you know what a wide tie looks like! Anyway, now I'm excited that I can bring home wide ties from the thrift store in outrageous prints, and then just redo them to be a more trendy size. I feel like the whole world is open to me now!!

Walnut is not thrilled with the prospect of having to model more ties. 

Christmas Cat Sweater Finale

And now, to close out Put A Cat on It! week, is there anything that screams winter holidays! more than a red sweater with black velvet accents?

I originally wanted to have each of my cat pieces this week utilize a different technique (I've used fusible web applique with machine stitching, fabric marker, and applique with hand-stitching), but I couldn't keep it up. In the end, machine-stitching an applique is just so much easier and faster, especially when a shape is this large and simple. Stitching the tiny cat applique was tricky because of all the tiny points of "fur" on the silhouette, but this cartoonish cat shape was a breeze to do.

I traced this shape onto 1/3 yard of black velour, then pinned it to the front and stitched around the edge with the machine. I didn't want to fuse the whole thing since I was afraid it would ruin the lovely soft drape of the sweater, so it's slightly saggy in the middle. If you want to make your own large cat sweater, download the file here!

This sweater is another one of my mom's cast-offs; it's a lovely soft cashmere that unfortunately had a large stain on the front and a couple of moth holes on the cuffs. I did my best to patch up the holes and covered up the stain with a black velour cat. I also found the original turtleneck to be chokingly tight, so I cut off that ribbed portion, folded over the edge, and stitched it down. I love it when sweaters show just a little bit of collarbone, even if it's impractical for winter weather. Also, to add just a little bit more Christmas feel (because black velvet bow = festive?), I added a back cutout and a ribbon.

Unfortunately, I fail at tying the ribbon such that the velvet side stays facing out.

Close-up of my dubious ribbon attachment. I cut a slit down the back after hemming the neckline. After I attached the ribbon, I cut out the rest of the keyhole and turned and stitched that down. My original inspiration for the back cutout and ribbon came from this pin. 

When I modeled the finished sweater for my brother, he looked dubious and pronounced that well, it wasn't actually that ugly. I think he thought that it was meant to be an Ugly Christmas Sweater that failed at being ugly, and not a Wearing It Seriously In Real Life Christmas Sweater. Ah well. Boys.

I actually considered sewing on a little gold bell onto the cat, but decided that would be overkill. 

Well, I hope you all enjoyed seeing so many cats on things! I've had tons of fun trying to think of different ways to put cats on my clothes; I've been limited not by ideas, but by how many plain tops that I could find for cattifying. Thanks for all the lovely comments you've left affirming your love of cat fashion and cats in general! Walnut appreciates the love. Kind of. I mean, as much as cats can really appreciate that kind of thing.

Walnut really, really, really did not appreciate being woken up from his nap to take pictures. I mean, look at his face!

Come on, Walnut, Christmas is the time for peace and goodwill! 

How about leaving me to nap in peace, you be-cat-sweatered freak?

Look at how much hair he left on my black cat. 

*shrugs* Life with cats...what can you say? 

3D Cat Eyes Sweater

This slightly creepy, but also all-kinds-of-cool cat sweater by Pretty Snake has been sitting in my Pinterest inspiration folder for ages, and I finally got around to making my own, slightly more subdued version of it. This sweater was in my mom's donation pile, and I'm pretty sure it's right out of the eighties; it's all oversized and shapeless and had the most awkward sleeve cap/armscye combination ever, but it's also wool and quite warm. I figured it was a pretty good blank slate for a refashion, as it pretty much involved no cost to me. I already had a scrap of black jersey, plus some nice green cat eyes from my shopping excursion with Debi, so I quickly sketched out and cut up a cat face and got to stitching. I used a hand applique stitch that made the edges of the jersey scrap all puckery, which actually helped to make it look more irregular and fur-like.

Before: large, nondescript, and shapeless with an odd, pulling shoulder/armscye/sleeve. After: fitted, unique sweater with an odd, staring cat face. I'm pretty sure that's miles better. 

You can see here how my stitches made the edges all puckery and irregular. And in case you wanted to see what it looked like on the wrong side, there you go -- I used wire cutters to cut off some of the peg on the back of the eyes, then sanded down the edges with a nail file. I had to arrange the cat so that the eye pegs would jut into the gap caused by my insignificant cleavage. Also, the label was in Russian, strangely enough. Elaine translated it for me and said it appears to be wool tricot. 

Should you want to make your own, you can download this drawing and stitching diagram here.

I'm pretty excited about this sweater, as it's just bizarre enough to suit me without being too over the top. Plus, that cat's wide eyes totally remind me of Walnut's. Unfortunately, he was in no mood for a photo shoot, so we had to settle for the other family cats.

I love how the cat on my sweater just looks like it's shocked to see Fenxi. Incidentally, for those of you who were wondering, Fenxi's not an outdoor cat, but he does love going outside whenever the door is open and he can sneak out. This has led to some panic attacks, but thankfully he's never wandered far, nor has he ever been unaccounted for for more than 24 hours. He's microchipped, too, so that's also helpful for our peace of mind.  

Gummy was camped out in his usual spot on top of the kitchen cabinets, so we tried to get him in the pictures too. Fenxi did not want to share the spotlight, even though my sister tried to force him into the picture. 

Speaking of family cats, did I mention that we're back in the city for the next couple of weeks? Any Bay Area sewasauruses want to hang out? Or is it too scary to meet up with somebody who will wear their crazy cat lady status on their sleeve? Errr, chest?

I promise I'm not an axe murderer!

Thrift Store Dress to Elven Gown

As refashions go, I'm pretty sure this is my favorite. Who knew an 80s-tastic, frumpy granny dress would make such a lovely elvish gown?

Before and after! 

Apparently, this year is the year where all my Tolkien-related dreams come true: first my birthday party, then the line party for The Hobbit, and now, it looks like Elaine and I are actually going to go to The One Expected Party on Oscar night in February! When TORn held its Oscar party for ROTK, I was still a college student on limited funds and my dad said we were not the kind of people who dropped that kind of money for celebrity parties, so Elaine went by herself and came back raving about what a great time it was. Well, now I am an independent woman, and gosh darn it, if I can't do this kind of thing now, when will I? Especially since after this year we are moving away from TCOCC and thinking about making small human beings and all. So even though it was still a significant splurge, I figure it's worth it for this once in a lifetime experience. 

Of course, this kind of thing practically requires a fancy costume. Elaine found this dark green velvet dress at a thrift store and thought that it would make a good elven gown, with some changes, of course. Since the front had buttons, I decided to have the final gown go backwards. While this made the lower armscye fit a little funny, Elaine said that it wasn't significant enough to warrant redoing the sleeves. I cut off the sleeves at the elbow and took out about two inches of ease at the underarm seam, then added bell-shaped chiffon lower sleeves from Simplicity 4940. The chiffon is slightly iridescent, which makes for a nice effect in person, if not in pictures. I also cut the neckline down significantly to get the wide, almost-falling-off-the-shoulder look that Arwen has going on in a lot of her gowns. I added a bunch of gold trim, roll-hemmed the sleeves in gold and tada! Instant elven princess!

Showing off her new sleeves.

Just because she's a princess doesn't mean she's not capable of giggling madly or stealing Gandalf's staff. 

Buttons and trim really do a lot for changing the look of the whole gown!

Enormous sleeves = enormous fun. 

Summary: 

Fabric: 2 yards of iridescent green poly-chiffon, but I have about half left because the funny shape of the sleeves required quite a bit of yardage, but left large scraps.

Notions: 2/3 yard of wide gold trim for the sleeves, 1 yard of narrow gold trim for the neckline, 4 new buttons to replace the hideous clear plastic buttons that came with the dress.

Hours: Two! Even my rolled hems didn't cause me grief, which was frankly quite shocking.

Will you make this again? I'll be perfectly honest, I'm tempted to raid all the local thrift stores for long velvet gowns that might make even remotely decent elven gowns. For such a quick project, this was remarkably satisfying. 

Total cost: About $25. The gown was $5, the trims were another $5, the buttons were $4, and I used about $10 worth of chiffon.  

Final thoughts: Both Elaine and I were extremely excited when I finished this gown, and we had entirely too much fun taking pictures of her swooshing her sleeves around. I love that such a simple refashion can have such grand results! 

I can't wait to get working on my own gown for the party...the trick is, I need to pull an epic gown out of thrifted bed sheets! Tempted as I may be to run out and buy a used velvet gown, I really want to make a Rohirric shieldmaiden gown, which eats up yardage like no other. I've managed to find three matching queen-size sheets, so here's hoping that that's enough!

Finally Finished: Toggle Jacket!

That's the smug smile of a real sewasaurus. 

I've always felt that one couldn't be a real sewasaurus, much like the Velveteen Rabbit, until one produced a credible piece of outerwear, preferably of wool. I know, I know, that's just an arbitrary standard that my brain came up with, and I know plenty of other sewing bloggers who've never made coats that I consider to be real. My brain just works in weird ways. Anyway, in my quest to sew a wardrobe appropriate for San Francisco weather, I decided that it was finally time to tackle an honest-to-goodness jacket/coat. (What is the difference, anyway? Is it length? thickness? material? personal label preference?)

ZOMG I love that the sleeves are actually long enough!

Although I've got a lovely piece of red wool coating laid away, I'm too much of a chicken to dare working with it just yet. I decided to make a more casual, more machine washable, wearable technique-muslin* of sorts out of navy blue anti-pill fleece instead. At $5/yd on sale at Jo-Ann's (plus my teacher discount of 15%!), it's definitely cheap enough that I feel free to make mistakes, while still (somewhat) getting the experience of working with such thick material and the types of techniques that requires.

Side view.

Back view.

This project actually works nicely for R&RtRTW, too. I used to have a charcoal gray fleece jacket that I bought for cheap at one of those little Forever21-level-of-quality stores at the Tanforan Mall several years ago. It was light since it was fleece, and warm enough, considering that it was unlined and cheap. I wore it everywhere and wasn't afraid of getting it dirty since it was just fleece and could be thrown into the washing machine. It pilled like crazy after a while, though, and I sadly retired it after the beating it took in a two-week Hong Kong trip. I've missed it in the intervening years, as my wool peacoats sometimes look too formal (or are too heavy) for just going out to run errands. So this fleece jacket steps into the gap between expensive long wool coat and waterproof ski jacket.

I made View C, but even shorter.

I chose Butterick 6775 for my pattern; I picked it up a year ago at a thrift store in a big bundle of patterns, but never thought I'd actually use it. The insets just looked kind of weird, and the "semi-fitted" description scared me since I thought everything should be extremely fitted back then (now that I'm an older and wiser seamstress, I realize that outerwear shouldn't be fitted within an inch of its life, because otherwise how will it fit over your actual clothes?). When I took the pattern pieces out, I realized that the sleeve and collar were both missing; thankfully, the previous owner of the pattern had thoughtfully replaced the one-piece sleeve pattern with a two-piece sleeve from another pattern, and the collar was pretty easy to make up.

Since I only purchased two yards of fleece, I was barely able to fit in all my pattern pieces, and even then I had to make the collar shorter than I wanted. Frustratingly, I ended up cutting about five inches off of the bottom of the coat because it looked awkward at the original length, which meant I could have made a taller collar if I'd, you know, planned ahead and tried holding the pattern pieces up to my body. Rookie mistake, I know.

You can really see the sleeve head dimpling here. 

Initially, I was afraid that the jacket would be too small, since it's meant for a 32.5" bust, but I needn't have worried. That whole semi-fitted description was serious; I ended up doing an SBA on the front inset (which incidentally is a very clever design feature -- it provides shaping like a modified princess seam, but doesn't look like one at all) and shaping the side seams more by taking it in at my waist and gradually tapering to almost a 1/4" seam allowance to accommodate my hips (hello pear shape!). The two-piece sleeve was quite easy to set in once I took out the excessive sleeve cap ease and took in the underarm seam by over an inch! I mean, I know my arms are spindly, but these sleeves were really quite ginormous. I'm pretty pleased with how they look now, although there's still some dimpling at the top. Maybe I need to go back and put in an actual sleeve head.

Figuring out the toggle placement was actually one of the most frustrating parts of sewing this. I kept sewing them on misaligned or crooked, and let me just tell you that ripping seams out of fleece is so. freaking. difficult. The seam ripping frustration might also have been compounded by the fact that *ahem* I didn't baste the toggles first and just went straight for sewing them in "permanently" every time, hoping against hope that the placement would be miraculously correct. I promise, one day I will learn.

Finally more or less lined up!

The pockets were also an ordeal, trying to get them the same size and fit them onto the little space I had on the sides of my coat. I opted to make them without the flap, and with an angled hand entry like kangaroo pockets. One of my biggest pet peeves with the RTW toggle coat I already own (but wool, and much heavier than this one, so not redundant in my wardrobe) is that trying to stick your hands into pockets vertically is really awkward and uncomfortable, so this was my attempt to remedy that bad design.

In hindsight, I probably should've added stay tape to the opening to keep it from getting stretched out. 

I lined the coat in this fuzzy plaid flannel; I actually cut it from a cheap RTW poncho that was gifted to me. I felt slightly bad cutting it up, since it was a gift, but I'm telling myself that I would never have worn it in its original form, and at least this way it's going to good use. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough yardage to line the sleeves, so I just finished the armscyes with seam binding and tacked it to the seam allowance at the shoulder and armpit. This makes the insides of the sleeves look really ugly, but hey, nobody's going to see it, right? I might go back and add sleeves at some point if I find a similar-looking flannel, but for now, it's fine.

Looks normal enough when the jacket flops open...

...but when the jacket's flipped inside out, you see what a lie it all is -- there's no sleeve lining! Oh, and that flannel was so loosely woven and unstable that I couldn't get the plaid to line up at the center back seam. Oh well. 

Closer look at the inside...I love how the the other side of the cording stitching looks on the facing, and the way the lining looks with the dark blue makes me so happy!

I'm thinking of adding some kind of closure to the bottom half,
like a large snap or a hook and eye, since it tends to flip open.
I'm not sure what exactly to put there, though, since I still want
to be able to wear the jacket open and a large snap might be
kind of distracting. Thoughts? 

Summary:
Fabric: 2 yards anti-pill fleece, one Korean poncho's worth of 80/20 wool-poly blend (it looked just like this, but in black and white)
Notions: 2.5 yards of cotton cord, 4 wooden toggle buttons, seam binding
Techniques: grading seams, topstitching, setting in sleeves
Hours used: Erg. A lot. I made it through a whole season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer working on this thing, and that's not even counting all the times I put it on pause to sew particularly tricky bits.
Will you make it again? I love the toggle look, and am totally intrigued by this inset feature, but I think more than one coat with this design is unnecessary. Also, as mentioned, I already have a RTW toggle coat. The two-piece sleeve, though -- I am totally using that on future coats now that I've adapted the pattern for my arms!
Total cost: $17. This is probably the ultra-discounted sale price of a similarly shapeless polyester coat at Forever21 or one of those generic Korean import women's fashion boutiques that are ubiquitous in SoCal, but I made this one so it's got extra value to it! Also, it kind of bothered me that the toggles and cording were more expensive than the actual fabric.
Final thoughts: Maybe it's one of those biased mom thoughts, you know, my-child-is-gorgeous-and-perfect-because-he's-mine sort of things, but I really really really like this coat. I am so thrilled with myself for making real functional outerwear -- it's actually quite warm (at least for California...it wouldn't begin to pass muster in a Canadian winter!) and navy blue goes with almost everything, it's casual but not sloppy, it has that vaguely military look I love because of the cording, and I get the satisfaction of saying I made it! I'll wager that it's better made than any other similarly priced fleece coat with no interfacing that you can get at the mall, and oh gosh I just can't get over that I made real outerwear! I'm totally psyched about making my red wool coat now, even though I know it will probably be next winter by the time I get around to it. And can I also congratulate myself for persevering through the 80+ degree days and trying this coat on countless times and sweating because of all the poly and wool, because now I am totally prepared for the fact that winter is coming. Seriously, I think this is the first time I've actually done season-appropriate sewing ahead of time!

Apparently winter is coming from behind me. 

*Although this isn't the pattern I intend to use for my red wool coat, it does give me practice with the techniques that I may need to use, so it's a technique muslin, get it?