The shortage of me-made tops around these parts became glaringly obvious to me when I started trying to wear them. I decided to remedy this situation, and fast, by finally making the Colette Pattern’s Sencha blouse I’ve been thinking about for awhile now. I bought this awesome cotton voile a few months ago, and had in mind exactly this blouse for it when I bought it. So this week, I decided to try to whip it together in order to have it in time to wear it Friday.

This means I was sewing for a LONG time last night. But it looks great, right?

Nope.

This thing is HUGE. I pinned in the excess fabric in back so I could still get away with wearing it today (a cardigan hides a multitude of sins). But wowza. I need to take in at least 4 or 5 inches from this thing.

Dudes. I made a muslin and everything.

Does this look too big to you? I mean, I know Bessie and I aren’t EXACTLY the same size, but I didn’t think we were that far off from each other.

This is not what this top looks like on me.

Sigh. I never thought blouses would be so tricky to make. In ready to wear, tops are about the easiest things in the world for me to buy, because my up-top shaping is pretty standard. And yet…I have made four tops (five, if you count the one I threw away because it was so horrible), and most of them have some kind of strange fitting issue. I think I know what my mistake was here: I ended up grading out the pattern at the hips, because I knew that with its long-ish hem, it would need a little more space to fit my derriere. But I think I didn’t need as much space as I assumed I would. Maybe? There is also an insane amount of extra fabric around the waist, so I don’t know.

I think the part that baffles me the most is that it fits my dress form very differently than it fits me, and I honestly didn’t think my dress form was that hugely different to my actual body. I think I need to spend some serious time padding out and forcing in and generally re-shaping Ol’ Bessie.

Anyway. I’m still wearing it. Cardigans are my friend. I’ll fix it soon.

This is the skirt I meant to share with you all over a month ago. I like to call it The Desk Set skirt. It’s a lined wool pencil skirt made from the pencil skirt pattern in Gertie’s New Book for Better Sewing. I bought the wool in Seattle, where I fell in love with its soft hand and shape-shifting color at a cute little fabric store called Stitches. I spent a lot more on this fabric than I normally do (100% Italian wool!), so I took extra care to make this skirt well.

This is the first lined skirt I’ve ever made, and some parts of the lining process were a little baffling to me. Like, what do you do with the lining around the zipper opening? Hm. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do mine right, but at least it’s on the inside.

I sewing a blind hem on this bad boy by hand. Took forever, but was totally worth it.

The only visible goof on this skirt is on the back of the waistband. My first buttonhole was too far toward the end of the waistband, causing the skirt to gap. I made another buttonhole, and it fits better, but I haven’t quite figured out how to get rid of the original hole. However, the button I found for this skirt is SO BEAUTIFUL that I hope it distracts from the extra buttonhole (ok, not quite, but a girl can pretend).

My favorite thing about this skirt is that the color of the wool is kind of indeterminate. In these pictures it looks closer to black (and the button looks blue), but in some lights, the skirt is more of an olive, and in some, it’s more grey. The button also is somewhere between green, blue, and grey. Such a lovely color.

Here’s the skirt on Bessie (geez, she’s kinda frumpy looking).

And here’s another picture of the skirt on me, yesterday. Yes, this fabric wrinkles terribly; I did iron it before I put it on.

This has quickly become my favorite thing in my wardrobe. It makes me feel pulled together and professional and classy. It might be retired for the summer (wool in July just feels wrong), but I think it’ll be around for many years to come.

Rolling right along, and still wearing me-made clothes. Love it! This outfit even includes a me-made necklace, oen of my favorite pieces I’ve made so far. But the top is the garment of the day.

This is based on the Portrait Blouse from Gertie’s awesome New Book for Better Sewing. This top almost didn’t make it. It was stitched together last winter, but it just wasn’t right, and I’ve been futzing with it ever since. I ended up taking the tucks out of the back because it was way too tight, and I didn’t include the side zip, because the fabric doesn’t really need it. The hem of this top is really high, and until recently, I didn’t have any pants with a high enough waist to work with it. I tried a few different methods of extending the length, but nothing that quite worked.

However, my new jeans have a nice, high waist, and they are perfect with this style of top. I ended up just finishing the hem with narrow single-fold bias tape, but it’s still not perfect. There are a few little places where the fabric slipped out of the tape and missed being sewn in. That drives me CRAZY. I will probably end up taking the bias tape off and re-doing this with a wider tape, but for today, it’s just fine.

I am reaching the bottom of my me-made closet, so there will be a fair number of repeats in the coming weeks. Hopefully I can think of different ways to wear my separates so that I’m not just wearing the same outfit over and over again. Which I have a tendency to do, because it’s easy. I’m also feeling pretty inspired to create some new stuff FAST so that I have more to wear this month.

My loose-weave sweater is kinda dead in the water right now (wah wah), but I’m going to start working tonight on a Colette Sencha bouse, which will hopefully be finished in time for the weekend. We shall see.

Are you me-made-ing it this month?

This skirt is my most recent creation, and I love it. I did the bulk of the work on Sunday afternoon, and finished up some fitting and the hem last night, which makes this perhaps the fastest thing I’ve ever sewn. It is also the most well-made thing I’ve sewn to date: the seams are all nicely finished, I pressed everything, I didn’t take any shortcuts.

The pattern is from the Sew Everything Workshop book; it’s the Naughty Secretary pattern, with a waist band that I drafted from instructions in Threads magazines. The only bummer is that, despite the fact that I have made this before and didn’t remember these fitting issues, it is kinda big on me. I even changed the back darts to take a full two inches in at the waist and it is still too big. I think I can fix that, though, without having to take the whole darn skirt apart.

The fabric is a William Morris-inspired print I bought at Michael Levine in LA. I love William Morris designs, so I was pleased as punch to stumble across this very Morris-esque print. I think it might be quilting cotton, but I don’t know. It was a lovely fabric to sew with, though: It stayed right where I put it. That’s probably why I was able to do such a good job with it.

Once I get the waist fitting just right, I think this will become a staple of my summer wardrobe. It is just my style: interesting but subdued, totally classic, but a little unexpected. And it matches perfectly with my favorite grey suede heels.

PS – I have no idea why I’m standing with such a weird posture in that picture. I’m still not super comfortable with pictures of myself, but I’m getting better at it. I think.

I did manage to continue my Me-Made experiment through the weekend, although I’m coming to the end of the home-sewn garment collection. I got A LOT of sewing done this weekend, though, and I suspect that trying to wear my own garments every day this month is going to light a fire under my ass.

This skirt is the very first thing I ever sewed, back in, I think, 2006. It’s a very stretchy purple knit skirt with a fold-over waistband. I thought it would be so easy, but little did I know, knits are not easy. To be honest, it wasn’t that difficult, but I did manage to sew the wrong side of the fabric on the outside of the skirt. Ooops. Thankfully, it’s hardly noticeable. In fact, I didn’t notice it until after I’d worn the skirt a few times.

I love this skirt because it’s super comfortable, although it often feels a little too schlumpy to wear to work or anywhere nice.

On Sunday, I wore this little tunic that I made last fall out of an old sheet. This is definitely not a garment that goes out much. It’s strictly for days when I’m home doing chores and puttering around. I drafted the “pattern” from instructions in this random crafting book I have, and did all kinds of weird hacks to get it to fit alright and not look terrible. It’s probably the most ridiculous handmade garment I have, but the fabric is super soft and a great color, so it’s hard to let it go. Whatever. It is great for chore days, because I don’t really mind of it gets messy. It’s almost like an apron, itself. Maybe I should sew some big patch pockets on the front.

Yesterday I worked for awhile on the loose-weave sweater I mentioned a few days ago, and so far…I’m not really sure. It’s kind of huge. And I still don’t know how I’m going to sew those sleeves in. I set the sweater aside and started working on another pencil skirt, and so far, I’m in LOVE with it. I’m hoping to finish it tonight.

And today? The fun continues with my Kiss Me Deadly Pencil Skirt.

This skirt has become one of my wardrobe staples. It’s comfortable, easy to match with anything, easy to wash, and flattering. The waist is a smidge too big, but it still works. Fitting is by far the hardest part about sewing.

Stay tuned tomorrow (I hope) to see something new!

So far so good! Today I’m wearing my polka dot version of Colette’s Sorbetto. The Sorbetto is a free pattern download, so if you haven’t yet gotten your hands on it, I’d check it out immediately. It’s a pretty easy little top to sew, and very comfortable and versatile.

Like nearly all of my sewing projects, there are things I learned in the making of this top. The fabric I used is a very slippery, lightweight rayon, and yes, it was a bitch to work with. I love wearing slinky little fabrics, but I am not a fan of sewing with them. The neckline and sleeves of this shirt are finished with a bias binding, and I had originally intended to make bias tape out of the remaining fabric from the shirt. But it was way too hard to work with, and I ended up just using some basic grey bias tape I had on hand.

I also finished my seams the lazy lady way, with just pinking shears, but with this fabric that was not enough. After the first wash, the seams started fraying and I thought this shirt was doomed. But I had a late night brainstorm: I had some leftover interfacing that is similar in weight and drape to the fabric of this shirt, so I just cut some long strips of interfacing and fused them over the seams on the inside. Voila: no more fraying. Not a very professional finish, but it works for me. It did make me realize, once and for all, the importance of finishing seams.

It’s Friday, whoo hoo, and I’m hoping to spend the evening working on that sweater I mentioned a few days ago. Maybe I’ll be able to share it soon! My sewing projects have been taking me longer than anticipated lately, but I think that’s partly because I want to do things more neatly and professionally. I’m realizing that my laziness doesn’t always work with sewing, so I’m trying to conscientiously take more time, and do things the right way.

Are you participating in Me-Made May? I’m loving seeing everyone else’s creations on the blogs, especially when people are pulling out things they made when they first started sewing. It makes me realize that everyone starts where I am now: making mistakes and learning something new with every project.

Forgive the not-so-awesome cell phone picture. I managed to put another me-made garment on my body today: This drape neck tank top was the first thing I made when I dragged my sewing machine out of hibernation last year. I bought the knit fabric online years ago, when I first started getting into sewing. I think I originally intended it to be a knit skirt with a fold-over waistband, but the fabric didn’t have as much stretch as I thought.

I had been wanting a tank top with a draped neckline for a long time, and I scoured the internet for just the right pattern before finally landing on this one, McCall’s M6078. To be honest, it’s not the perfect pattern. The neckline is a little deeper than I wanted, but it works. And I like the way the body fits.

When I made this, I remember that the fabric was a real pain to work with. I actually took the fabric to work to cut, because I didn’t have a surface big enough (other than the floor) to cut it out at home.

The cutting layout had you fold the selvedge edges in toward the middle, and I recall that was a real struggle. I am impatient with fabrics that don’t fold easily. But I finally got it to work, and while I am not in love with this shirt, it has been growing on me over the last seven months since I made it.

And let me just talk about my jeans for a minute. I’m wearing a pair of NYDJ (Not Your Daughter’s Jeans) jeans. This is my second pair, and I LOVE these jeans. For most of my life I’ve avoided wearing jeans because they never fit right. I have wide hips, and a small waist, so it is inevitable with nearly every pair of pants that the waist is too big and I spend a dumb amount of time pulling my pants up. Jeans never work with belts for me because the thickness of the fabric means tons of bulkiness at the waist once they are cinched with a belt.

Both pairs of NYDJ jeans I own fit like a dream. They are the most comfortable pairs of jeans I’ve ever worn. The waist doesn’t start falling down midway through the day. They are comfortable to sit and move in, and I think they are pretty flattering, too. I never thought I would be a jeans-wearing girl, but I want to wear these every day. If you have a hard time finding jeans that fit, definitely check out this brand. The company name makes me feel old, but the jeans make me feel happy.