The Mojo Dress

2015 has not been very kind to me so far with sewing projects.  I had a string of sewing/shopping disasters, so I finally got fed up and took a break from anything costume-related for most of February.  But inspiration comes from the strangest places, and for me, it was seeing the horribly tacky 60's/70's clothes in the new Mad Men promo pics.  I know most people would run screaming from all that pastel, plaid, and big hair, but I love it like crazy!  It's hideous and glorious and it made me want to sew something RIGHT NOW, so yesterday I whipped up my own pastel plaid monstrosity to wear to a retro-themed bowling event today.  It felt great work on a no-stress dress for a change, and hopefully it will help me get my sewing mojo back on track again.

To make my dress, I used a very simple mail order jumper pattern from the late 60's or early 70's.  The fabric is vintage wool plaid that I found at an estate sale many years ago.  This is actually my second garment that uses this fabric - it also made an appearance in a pair of Victorian pants.  What can I say?  I LOVE crazy plaids!  The dress is finished off with a few vintage buttons that were given to me by my mother-in-law, but unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention and make the dress button on the wrong side.  Whoops!

I also used today's outing as an excuse to wear my Vintage Coat of Awesomeness.  That was another amazing estate sale discovery.  God, I love that coat!

So that's about it.  It was fun to make, fun to get dressed up, fun to do something different, and fun to indulge in my Mad Men obsession.  A perfect palate-cleanser project.

Tokyo Pop Cultural Salon

This past weekend, the DFWCG hosted a little tea party with the theme of Tokyo Pop.  This could mean anything from traditional kimonos, to anime, to Harajuku street fashions.  Anime/cosplay is not really my thing, and I don't own a kimono, so I poked around some Harajuku websites and discovered mori girl fashions.  I think I've been a closet mori girl my entire life and didn't even know it!  Mori girls are supposed to look like they came from an enchanted forest.  This aesthetic has lots of loose layers, pale neutral colors, and details taken from nature.  As much as I love dressing up in well tailored dressy dresses, I'm more of a laid back hippie in real life, so this suited me quite perfectly.

I wish I had more time to work on a proper mori girl outfit because my head is bursting with ideas now, but I only had one day to whip something up, so I ended up making a quick sheath dress from one of my 70's patterns.  I lengthened the skirt to make it a maxidress, and I had to enlarge it a bit to fit my hips, so unfortunately now the top is falling off of me.  Not my finest attempt at sewing, but I didn't have time for alterations, so eh... whatever.  The dress is made out of a $2 curtain that I bought at Goodwill and lined with .25 cents worth of estate sale fabric that I dyed green.

My favorite part of this outfit is the shawl, which I bought on etsy.  I've already worn it a few times in my everyday wardrobe, and I love it to pieces.  The purse and belt came from estate sales, the bamboo bracelets were from a local antique shop.  I finished it by making a floral headband out of some cherry blossom silk flowers from World Market.

The event was a lot of fun, and I really enjoy these more laid-back gatherings where I can just sit and talk and enjoy hanging out with my friends while wearing silly clothes.  We also got to admire the hostess's amazing hothouse of orchids, we had a lady bring her ball-jointed dolls to play with (a little creepy, but beautiful at the same time), and I taught the group a bit of money origami as a fundraser for a Japanese earthquake relief fund.  It was a lovely afternoon, and I thank Dawni for organizing this event for us!  As usual, my photos are all on flickr, but here are a few of my favorites to give you a taste of the day. 

papel picado skirt

Once again, my favorite local fabric store, Fabrique, was hosting their remnant challenge where you can win up to $200 in store credit by making something from the fabrics in their remnant bin.  The selection of remnants was much more picked over this year, but I finally had a eureka moment when I found a piece of pink ultrasuede.  It's a funky color and the stiffness of the fabric limited my garment options quite a bit, but it is perfect for cutwork, and that seemed like a fun way to turn boring fabric into something really unusual.


Since I already have some experience with cutwork, I knew what I was getting into (sore fingers and many many hours on mindless cutting!), but I also knew that it usually goes faster than you'd think and the payoff is well worth the effort.  Although it is perfect for cutting, ultrasuede is not the most forgiving fabric for tailoring, so I picked a basic mock wrap skirt pattern from my stash that dates from 1977.  This pattern has minimal shaping and and no zipper, so I was hoping that it would be simple enough to work with the suede.

Next I drew out a border design based on Mexican papel picado (perforated paper) banners.  As an art teacher, I thought it would be fun to take a traditional art form that we study in class and translate it into fashion.  The hardest part was getting the design to curve to fit the shape of the hem, but luckily, Photoshop came to the rescue and helped me bend the borders without too much frustration.

Next, I printed out my patterns for the entire border design and stuck it to the back of the ultrasuede with spray basting adhesive.  I used an exacto knife and a leather punch to cut the pattern, and it took me 6 days to get the cutwork done... which is actually much faster than I expected.

The only part of this project that gave me problems was assembling the skirt, which I thought would be the easy part.  HA!  I underestimated the amount of time it would take to make the lining due to the scalloped hem, the ultrasuede liked to stretch when I sewed it, my experiment with spray fusing was a failure, the skirt was too big, and the waistband just refused to go on.  But I pushed on through and the skirt was finally beaten into submission.  I turned the skirt in to the fabulous ladies at Fabrique with 3 whole hours to spare before the deadline.  

When I was finished with the cutwork, I was left with a big bowl filled with little tiny scraps of the ultrasuede.  These little pieces reminded me of confetti, so to celebrate the end of a VERY long week, I decided to indulge in a little silliness.  I'll probably be sweeping ultrasuede bits off of my patio for the next year, but it was so worth it!  :)

This was a fun project, and I enjoy having a chance to step away from the authentic historical projects for a little while and flex my creative muscles.  Thanks to Fabrique for hosting this inspiring contest!

summery seventies top

I've made a vow to start using the vintage patterns in my collection to make things that I can wear in everyday life... and if I'm honest with myself, that means I should focus on simple separates vs. dressy dresses.  I usually wouldn't look twice at a pattern from the 70's, but this McCall's top from 1975 seemed so incredibly modern that I thought it would be fun to give it a try.  It also worked out great because I had less than a yard of this cheery vintage floral print, and this is about the only garment that I could find that would make use of such a small piece. 

This shirt was super easy to make and only took a few hours to complete.  I think it would especially be cute in the longer length as a dress, so I might have to try another one at some point in the future.  The only change that I made was raising the placement of the belt by an inch or two, which I kind of regret now because it looks like a maternity blouse!  But it is incredibly cool and comfortable, so I'm sure it will get lots of wear around the house this summer.