Me-Made-May’14: Week 3

Can you believe that May is more than halfway over? For Me-Made-May Week #3, I made a conscious effort to branch out from my standard Wiksten Tank/sweater/jeans/Toms uniform. For Mother’s Day, I wore the dressiest handmade garment I have: my Crazy Cat Lady Dress. While I’m still disappointed with it, the fit issues were adequately covered up with a sweater, and I received a few compliments throughout the day. This week was the first time since I finished this dress that I seriously considered trying this pattern again, as it really is quite comfy.

Speaking of trying patterns again, I closed out the week with not one, but two Staple outfits: my Domino Staple Dress from last year and my recently finished Staple Tunic, which I adapted from the Staple Dress pattern. I’m really pleased with how the Staple Tunic turned out, and will write up a separate blog post later on. All in all, I’m happy with my Me-Made-May outfits so far. 

Sunday, May 11, 2014: Crazy Cat Lady Dress
Monday, May 12, 2014: Pearl Bracelet Wiksten Tank
Tuesday, May 13, 2014: Cattitude Wiksten Tank
Wednesday, May 14, 2014: Twinkle Twinkle Wiksten Tank
Thursday, May 15, 2014: Grey Eyelet Wiksten Tank
Friday, May 16, 2014: Domino Staple Dress
Saturday, May 17, 2014: Pastry Line Staple Tunic (not yet blogged)

Me-Made-May’14: Week 2

Week 2 of Me-Made-May has been successfully completed! Since this event is all about actually wearing what you sew, I pulled out a garment that I was so underwhelmed by when it was finished that I never blogged about it and never even consider wearing it. Last fall, I sewed up a black Staple Dress as part of a costume. Since I was under a deadline, I cut corners and I’m not pleased with the end result. Some of the French seams are messy. It’s fine for a casual day with family, but I wouldn’t wear it around anyone I’m trying to impress. I also left off the pockets, so when I wear it, I’m constantly trying to put my cell phone in nonexistent pockets, which is rather annoying. Lesson learned: haste makes waste. The rest of the week, I relied on my ubiquitous Wiksten tanks.

Sunday, May 4, 2014: Black Staple Dress (previously unblogged)
Monday, May 5, 2014: Gridlocked Wiksten Tank
Tuesday, May 6, 2014: Twinkle Twinkle Wiksten Tank
Wednesday, May 7, 2014: Pearl Bracelet Wiksten Tank
Thursday, May 8, 2014: Cattitude Wiksten Tank
Friday, May 9, 2014: Grey Eyelet Wiksten Tank
Saturday, May 10, 2014: Gridlocked Wiksten Tank

Me-Made-May’14: Week 1

Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that for the first week of Me-Made-May’14, I wore a different Wiksten tank every day. Hopefully I’ll branch out a little as the month goes on. Here’s a breakdown of the handmade items I wore each day last week.

Thursday, May 1, 2014: Cattitude Wiksten Tank
Friday, May 2, 2014: Pearl Bracelet Wiksten Tank

Saturday, May 3, 2014: Grey Eyelet Wiksten Tank

Cattitude Wiksten Tank

Surprise, surprise! I made another Wiksten Tank! (It’s my fifth one, if you must know.) This one is a little bit different. My crazy cat lady dress yielded some leftover yardage, so I decided to try out color blocking. There wasn’t quite enough of the Cattitude print for the front, so I just extended the coral Jewel print over the shoulders to compensate. The technique I used was made up on the spot: I connected a large strip of the coral Jewel print to the Cattitude print using a French seam, laid down the pattern piece on top of the joined fabric and moved it around until I liked how it looked. Then I proceeded to cut and sew the tank top as usual.

I knew I was on the right track when I tried on the half-finished garment and showed it to my three-year-old daughter. She jumped up and down, shrieked with glee and demanded her own kitty dress. I don’t know about you, but I call that success.

This shirt is one of my favorite handmade garments, because I made do with what I had on hand and ended up with something that I will actually wear and enjoy.

Pearl Bracelet Wiksten Tank

Recently, I made another Wiksten Tank. (This is my fourth one, if anyone’s counting.) This time I used one of my favorite prints: Pearl Bracelets by Lizzy House. This particular yardage is actually the leftovers of the backing for the Halloween quilt I’m currently working on. I don’t have anything new to say about this pattern, so here are some pictures.

 

 

Grey Eyelet Wiksten Tank

Garment sewing is still new and slightly scary to me, so I keep returning again and again to the same pattern that I know and love: the Wiksten Tank. This is my fifth time using this pattern and the third tank top I have made. I had planned to make Colette’s Taffy blouse next, but the muslin revealed that I need to grade the pattern in order for it to fit me, and I’m not having the best of luck with that.

 

 

One evening this week, I was trying to lift my grey mood by reading my bloglovin’ feed. Just as I was starting to get sucked down the rabbit hole that is the blogosphere, I was inspired to get off my bum and sew something instead of sitting there just thinking about it. My trusty Wiksten pattern was close at hand, so I grabbed it and some hoarded Flea Market Fancy Eyelet fabric from my stash and set to work. Three hours later, I had a new shirt to wear to work the next day, and my grey mood was nowhere to be found.

 

 

Seeing that my first Wiksten project took me three evenings to finish, I was pretty proud of how quickly I whipped up this tank. Practice is definitely worth it! Now I just need to find a new pattern that I can learn to love as much as I love the Wiksten tank.

Gridlocked Tank

 

You know what’s fun? Basting a quilt and finding out that you have enough backing fabric left over to make a shirt. Also fun is wearing that shirt to La Conner, where the closest thing to actual gridlock is the polite maneuvering of quilters in the narrow aisles of a stash building sale. (More on that later.)

 

Photos by Debbie Jeske

Fabric is Gridlock (Navy) by Dear Stella and pattern is Wiksten Tank by Wiksten.

Twinkle Twinkle Wiksten Tank

Ever since I fell in love with Lizzy House’s Pearl Bracelet fabric, I have anxiously awaited each of her new collections. I was especially excited about Constellations, since it features fabrics in several shades of blue, a color I can never get enough of. Then I started to see pictures of Twinkle Twinkle in Natural on the blogosphere. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be my favorite fabric out of all the awesome Constellations fabrics! While I look forward to using it in quilts eventually, I couldn’t wait to make a garment out of it. Since I already owned the Wiksten tank pattern, when I found myself in possession of a few free hours, I broke out the pattern, some freezer paper and a few yards of fabric, and set to work making a Twinkle Twinkle Tank.



Photo by Debbie Jeske

Last time, the instructions for finishing the armholes and neckhole left me baffled and I ended up winging it. This time, I read through the instructions several times and studied the accompanying photos intently. All at once, I realized my previous mistake. I had been trying to bind the garment like a quilt! Once I let go of that preconception, finishing this tank was a breeze. In fact, I was able to finish this shirt the same day that I started it! I’ve already set aside fabric to make another one. Sewing my own clothes is just too much fun.

My First Garment: Wiksten Tank Dress

 

Making my own clothes has been something that I have wanted to do for years and years. More than once, I bought a pattern and fabric only to abandon the project in frustration or despair. Time passed, and eventually examples of the Tova shirt and Wiksten tank began popping up all over the blogosphere. As I read over and over how easy the pattern was to make and how happy people were with the results, I began to think that I just might be able to make one myself, previous failures notwithstanding.

During the Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Guild Meet-Up, I received in-person encouragement from Kelli of Drygoods Design. That day, she wore a Wiksten tank that she had recently finished. Paired with a cardigan sweater, it was both cute and professional. Kelli kindly answered my questions about her experience sewing up the tank, and confirmed that quilting cotton was a perfectly acceptable fabric for the tank. Shortly thereafter, I bought the downloadable Wiksten tank pattern and several yards of fabric from a line called Andalucía. (I'm a sucker for fabric named after foreign locales, especially those I have visited.) I stalled after printing out the pattern though, as I had neither the time nor the inclination to tape together so many sheets of paper and then cut out the pattern. The project languished in a corner until, on a whim, I packed it in my suitcase for Sewing Summit. I wanted to take advantage of the open sewing times, but didn't want to take any of my existing WIPs or something that required a lot of fabric. Packing this project turned out to be an inspired choice.

The Wiksten tank is indeed quite simple, but it took three evenings for this novice to complete the tank dress. It would have taken even longer if not for the moral and practical support of my mom. Along the way, I made a few tweaks to the pattern. I omitted the decorative pocket, make the neckline trim out of contrasting fabric, and used double-fold binding for the armholes (the single-fold option was too fiddly for my tastes). Let me tell you, I am thrilled with the results! In fact, I am sorely tempted to make half a dozen more, and spend this fall and winter exclusively in tank dresses, scarves, sweaters and leggings. Stay tuned for more of this pattern, as I’m planning to go stash diving for another tank dress soon.

 Linking up to Finish It Up Friday at crazy mom quilts.