On The Agenda

So here we are in a brand new year, 2014, absolutely incredible!! January is always a good time to do a little looking back and a lot of looking forward. First, we'll look back and forward as well.

I'm sure you remember this crazy little skirt that I made. 

I've had a lot of fun wearing it,

 and even more fun telling people that it was an old sweatshirt. No one can believe it.

I received a request asking to see me in the skirt and asking if I would do a tutorial. The above pictures take care of the me in the skirt request. Now for the tutorial.
The project was all about taking something that was really meant for the trash and making it into something useful and fun. I initially thought that I would just go to the resale shop and find another old sweatshirt, but then I remembered a coat that I am embarrassed to say that I bought. Not that I need to make excuses, but...I was on vacation, it was rather cute and something that I could just throw on, so yes, I bought it. All was fine until I washed it. The lining shrunk and the coat turned into a mess. Now yes, I could take the lining out and save the coat, but it really isn't worth the effort. The coat does have some rather nice lines, so I decided to just put it in a bag I keep of pieces that I no longer want to wear, but are good for inspiration. Then a request came in for a tutorial. I remembered the coat, pulled it out and saw that it would translate to a fun skirt.
So, here's the coat in all its bunched up ugliness.

Please excuse the lint on the coat. Once I get rid of the horrible lining, I'll work on getting the coat cleaned up.  Here is what I do like about the piece. The back has a nice curved line which gives the back fullness. What I am planning to do is use the back and the straight front panels to create the skirt. Once I get the structure of the skirt worked out, then I'll work on embellishing it. I will do something similar to the flower and leaf decoration that I did on the sweatshirt skirt. So a fun project ahead.

The next project that I will be doing is from another request. A number of you follow the Sleeves On Saturdays posts. I received a request for a tutorial on drafting a basic sleeve. In order to draft a sleeve that will actually be useful, we need to have a bodice that the sleeve will fir into. The first project that I will work through is drafting a basic bodice and then the sleeve. If you've followed my blog for a while, you know that I love to draft, so this will be a wonderful project that I will have a lot of fun doing. Remember the Master Sewing and Design Program that I am working on? This is a project that I will need to do for a client in order to complete the program, so doing it now for you will be a good practice run. Sadly, I'm not doing this in a classroom setting so I can't share different body types, but I will show you how I fit the bodice on my body and hopefully this will help with some fitting issues that you may have. In order to not stretch this project out for too long a period of time, there will not be posts for Fabulous Free Pattern Fridays or Sleeves on Saturdays for at least a few weeks, but not forever!! We'll get started on the bodice drafting tomorrow, so get your pencils and tape measures ready. The nice thing about a blog is that you can just save the posts and then work on the project when it fits into your schedule.

I have a few projects that I started last year that need to be completed, so those will be mixed in along the way. All in all, I think January is off to a good start.