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Thoughts on Buying Secondhand Patterns

12/5/2019

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Patterns are expensive... around $20, sometimes, for the Big Four ones.  I understand why they cost a lot: a ton of work goes into making a decent sewing pattern!  But I am glad of that work and want to support the people who do it. 

I also like to scrounge through the second- or third-hand patterns at a thrift store and find cool patterns to try!  I find patterns I might not spend $20 on (because I would save that amount for a truly unique or special pattern), but patterns that nonetheless are fun to sew and often become favorites.  My thrift store experience is broad: I grew up with the Salvation Army thrift store and local church and charity shops, and as an adult, I now frequent Goodwill thrift stores, which are plentiful in my area.  So if you want to buy second-hand patterns, here are a few tips.

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Feastwine and Penge!

11/3/2019

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In October 2017, my musician friend Tyler Burns asked me to make him a costume for the cover art of his album Penge, which he was working on.  I made him first a pair of pieced leather trousers, then a modified motorcycle jacket, then a stenciled cape.  He took the costume and continued working on the album with another friend, Alec Eagon.  Now, two years later, they've completed a music video and released the album! 

It is very gratifying to see my friends' hard work and creativity come to fruition.  Read on for links to their art! 
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Album Cover for Penge (2019)

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Yes Ma'am, I Made Sterps.

9/30/2019

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For the cost of two dollars and ten minutes, I have made a set of clip-on stirrups to keep my pant legs in my boots.  This will make my winter easier!  Here goes:
  1. I buy four little grippy clips designed to bite and hold whatever cloth you pinch them to.  They cost $0.49 each.
  2. I sew them to stash woven elastic: two elastic straps, each with a clip on each end. 
  3. I clip them to the bottoms of my pants legs and under my heel, like stirrups. 
  4. I put my boots on, and the pant legs stay tucked where they belong! 
Picture
stirrups in progress
Picture
stirrups in use
In the picture below, my left leg does not have the stirrup, and the pant leg is riding up, not staying in the boot.  Bad pant leg!  Down!  My right leg is in its stirrup, and the pant leg stays tucked. 
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60's Tabard Dress - FINISHED PICS!

9/20/2019

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Since my new silk dress is made of kimono fabric... I think a Japanese restaurant is a nice backdrop for showing the vintage Asian look of the dress!  Add bouffant Sixties hair, little white gloves, and Whiting & Davis* purse for the full retro look! 

Right off the bat, look how much nicer it looks with the waist cinched, as contrasted with the square silhouette it had mid-construction.  
* I just discovered that Whiting & Davis is still around!  Cool! 

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60's Tabard Dress - CONSTRUCTION

9/18/2019

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I have decided to call this pattern my 60's Tabard Dress.  (Ignore all the pictures of the pattern where I clearly wrote "50's Tabard Dress".... the pattern I'm replicating is from the 60's, so 60's Tabard Dress it is!)

​In its construction, I took over 86 photos, but I'll only be highlighting the especially interesting parts today!  
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Dyeing a Silk Scarf

9/15/2019

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My kitchen smells... interesting... right now!  The pot on the stove has tea, turmeric, and vinegar in it!  But I should back up and explain how I got here. 

I bought a white habutai silk scarf at the Goodwill thrift store for a few bucks.  It's 34" x 35", with a hand-rolled hem.  Because it's clearly made for dyeing, I decide to dye it and see how I like dyeing.  I use two methods of dyeing: tea-dyeing, and Sharpie-marker/alcohol dyeing. 
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Ikat Shirt

9/13/2019

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When I saw an indigo-dyed cotton at the Mill End Store, I liked it a lot.  This fabric is an ikat (say "EEE-kat"), which is a textile art I find fascinating.  The basic design is as follows: the warp threads are arranged in stripes of solid color (black or deep indigo) and stripes of resist-dyed yarns.  (Or maybe they're dip-dyed; I can't know for sure how they dyed them.)  The dyed threads are dark blue and pale gray, and the gray spots alternate.  The weft threads are both a solid color and a smaller diameter than the warp threads, so the warp-pattern really pops. 

So what'll I do with it?  I decide to make another shirt for my brother!  I mean, the one I just made him won't fill the box for shipping, so I might as well make another and fill the box!  I wouldn't want to waste my shipping money!  ;) 


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Blue Linen Shirt

9/4/2019

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The same linen sale that led me to make pillowcases also saw me going home with 2.333 yards of nice hankie-weight linen in blue (60" wide).  I knew right away what it would be: another camp shirt for my brother!  You may recall my previous work for him.  Well, I have the same pattern and it still fits, so I'm off to the races! 

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Patterning a Dress Based on a Picture!

9/1/2019

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August was a busy month for me, sewing-wise.  I made two shirts for my brother, a sloper for myself, and a silk dress for myself.  I'll be blogging about them all out of order, though.  I'll start, today, with the silk dress project, because I'm most excited about it.  Then, once my brother gets and models his new shirts (linen and cotton ikat), I'll post those project diaries!  Then I'll get into the nitty-gritty of drafting/draping sleeves for my sloper, because that was a bear of a job, and I need time to sort the pictures and write something coherent. 
Today is the first of three posts about the silk dress project.  It starts with a challenge: to look at a picture of a dress, pattern it, and make it. 
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Other posts: dress construction, finished pics.

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What is Ikat?

8/22/2019

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Picture
A Japanese weaver weaving a warp-dyed ikat, using indigo-dyed cotton. Jyo81 (ja: User) [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]
When I was in Japan many years ago, I visited an artisan village, where traditional Japanese crafts were preserved and demonstrated.  I was stunned by the beauty and intricacy of the Yuuki tsumugi 結城紬, a meticulously yarn-dyed silk from that region.  I tried on a multi-colored silk kimono that made me feel like a mermaid, so beautiful was it, in greens and blues and pinks.  It cost more than my parents' house!  My host-father said he thought the dyeing process was needlessly complicated, but I appreciated it very much!
Today, I want to talk about ikat fabric, because I find it fascinating.  Ikat (say "EEE-kat") is a yarn-dyed fabric where the yarns are selectively resist dyed before weaving, and the pattern emerges once woven.  Some pictures in this post are from Wikimedia Commons (click to see their sourcepages).  The ones that don't go to Wikimedia Commons are my own pictures. 

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    Karen Roy

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