analog me

A shirt for May

Although I have been sewing a long time, It's still a challenge for me to make clothes that I feel comfortable just throwing on in the morning. So I end up wearing the same quasi-uniform outfit almost every day: jeans and a t-shirt. This situation doesn't really align with the way I feel about clothes.  Idealistically, I like the idea of creating my own clothes to somehow reflect who I am, instead of relying on a brand to send a signal. But beyond some favorite sweaters, I haven't really created much that I wear on a day-to-day basis.

I grew up in the sticks in central Montana where there was very little choice in clothing shopping, but I remember both my parents dressing in a unique way. My mom, in particular, would spend weeks sewing designer suits from Vogue patterns to wear to church. Maybe that's why we drove 45 minutes each way for religion--she needed some reason to get off the farm and look elegant. And she did. Unlike most women, her clothes were made out of beautiful fabrics in the simple lines I remember from the late 1960's. Stuff like this with all the shaping contained in design lines.

  (Not how I look.) 

So when I came across the idea of of a the Me-Made-May project over at Jessica's, I was instantly excited and volunteered myself. Basically, the idea is that every day you try to wear clothes that you have made. Which means I need to: 1) start wearing clothes I have made that are not part of the "uniform," 2) find creative ways to wear what I have already made, and 3) spend some time making clothes for myself that I want to wear on a daily non-dress-up basis. 

First off, in preparation I finally finished a refashion that was pushed under the dining room table during the panty-making hullabaloo.

I started with a xxl Land's End shirt like this.    

And made this.

I designed it as I went, first sewing the tucks and darts on the front. Then I made a matching back inverting the existing pleat by using the wrong side out. Then, I sewed the shoulder seams, draped it on and drew a new neckline with chalk.  The neck tie is just a strip of fabric with no shaping so I sticks up, which I actually like. Lastly, sleeves which I basically cut free-hand, gathered a tiny bit and set in. 

I added darts under the outside tucks, which makes for nice shaping, but I ended up subtracting too much fabric at the shoulders and they are not wide enough. Still, it's a nice touch to have the vertical darts, better than at the side seam in this case, and I may try it again. You can see it better in this photo because it slightly distorts the plaid.

 

I realize this isn't as cool as a designer suit, but I think I'm on the right track.

How to embarrass your family

First, If you are a a mom and you have boys who are between the ages of 10 and 16, take your son's cast off T-shirts and sew some panties out of them. Use lace trim from some of your unwanted underwear to trim them. Next, recycle t-shirts of your own with tacky sayings on them that you have only ever worn as PJs. 

Use the word "panties" in conversation.

Next, post pictures of your unmentionables on your blog.

 

Repeat until they are desensitized.

 Become obsessed, and say thing like: " That T-shirt would make a great pair of panties!" or "I ordered some stretch lace that would look great with that logo!" 

Whenever you use the computer, don't close the window that shows how to make underwear. (I watched this after I made my first pair, but it was my favorite.) Or leave This one up. For great reading, I suggest this Japanese site as the best. (Note that site used to be called "snake charmer" and most of the undies are for guys.)

If you want to make your own underwear, remember that all you have to do is reverse engineer. Nowadays, this term is used to describe a means of stealing software design, but in the good old analog days it was the means of figuring out military secrets by stealing equipment and copying it. 

For sewing, this means that you will have to cut up a pair of well-fitting underwear, because you will disassemble them in the reverse order that they were made. This will provide you with both a template shape (which you can use to make a paper pattern),elastic length, and the order used to manufacture them. If you study them closely you can see where the last seam is because it's stitching will cover previous seams. Cut apart in reverse order. For me this was: side seam, waist elastic, other side seam, leg elastic, another leg elastic and lastly the back to gusset and front. Six steps that you then repeat in the opposite order--beginning with the back to front to gusset seam.

I had a purchased pattern but my reverse-engineered pairs ended up having a much different, and better-fitting, shape. Remember that in the quest for well-fitting underwear emblazoned with odd messages--you have to spy--and a sacrifice is necessary.

In the end, your family will become used to the idea. Then watch out. Yesterday a son said, "When are you going to make ME some underwear?" 

An Unnecessary Refashion

Sometimes my husband looks at me intensely working away and tentatively asks what I'm up to. The reason he is a bit afraid to ask is that he once asked me this while I was cooking and I testily made my now-infamous reply, "I'm not cooking something, I'm just cooking!" You see, at that moment I wasn't cooking something for someone (like him or his brothers) to eat, I was just experimenting with food. 

So don't ask why I decided to make an size 3T dress with a cute contrasting bib. All I can say, is that sometimes I have creative urges that have absolutely nothing to do with what I need. Sometimes I make stuff I like, but don't need.  

A lot of the time I really am not making something to be consumed or maybe even enjoyed by anyone, I am just making.

I didn't even start out to make this. I was trying to do some selfish refashioning. I bought this cute little dress for myself at a thrift store back in February. I guess I was in a hurry, attracted to the bright color, the style, the fact that it still had tags and I didn't even try it on. 

(Notice sepia-tone earth.) 

Well, the reason it was unworn was that the invisible zipper was broken. So I decided to replace it and carefully ripped out about four lines of stitching, found out it's really hard to replace an invisible zipper, and ended up with an ill-fitting dress with a huge lump on my hip where my zipper insertion failed. The bust was baggy and the hips too tight. The color didn't even look good with my skin. It was a wadder. 

But then I fished it out of the garbage, because I really do love the color and I decided to just sew something. If I could only get my creative urges more aligned with my wardrobe wishes, It would be so nice to have something new to wear. 

Sometimes I wonder if this is how production and consumption became separated. There was this barefoot woman sitting around making little girls dresses that she didn't need. And there was this guy who kept making more sandals then he knew what to do with. . . 

Dying yarn with egg dye

Long ago, when I had a different schedule--that is about a year ago--I used to hang out at a local Scandinavian shop and knit with a group of women one afternoon every week. It was often the high point of my week because the group had demographics (ages 7 to 90), that combined, created a society of interestingness I haven't found anywhere else. 

Plus, they swap unwanted yarn and patterns. 

Anyway, last year a friend of mine was working on a project with really beautiful colors and it turned out that she had transformed some ugly-colored swap yarn (that I had rejected) with Easter egg dye. As I had a lot of extra dye left over, and a fair bit of ugly yarn that I can't part with, this was extremely exciting news for me.

All you have to do is wash the WOOL or SILK yarn (it must be protein-based), submerge it in the diluted egg dye and a couple extra tablespoons of vinegar and then heat it up until it absorbs (or exhausts) the remaining pigment. You can then stop or you can over-dye it with a new color. 

This year I had some boring white yarn that I submerged in a mixture of blue and lavender dye plus enough water to cover.

 

After about 3 minutes in the microwave, and a couple of minutes soaking, the dye bath was almost clear. Then I poured some teal dye over the hot yarn.
 The end result (next to some orange egg-dye yarn).

 

I also took some neon red and orange yarn, and over-dyed them with green to get colors I can actually consider using in a project. 

Before:

 After:

It's hard to tell the difference from these photos, but there is a subtle but very significant change. Which is, in the end, all that is ever really needed. My schedule included.