Me-Made-May 2013: Week 3, 4 and 5 Wrap-up

Sorry, I have not been keeping up with my weekly Me-Made-May postings, but things have been a little crazy.  I hosted 2 parties in May, my photographer has been busy and on vacation, so I have been taking pictures myself or not. However, I still have been cranking out projects.

I took a break from making new items the 4th week to recover from the madness that was week 3. So what did I wear?

Week 3:

May 13

I decided after making two Sorbetto tops that I wanted to make another easy peasy top. Enters Maria Denmark Kirsten Kimono Tee. I cut out the XL and made no adjustments. The fit is overall a good fit and the fabric is a dream. The most challenging part was getting the neckline flat. Any tips?

May 18

I did not wear the Shaner dress during the day but I wore it at my jobs Dinner Boat Cruise that I put together. I had plans to take pictures but that did not happen. It was a night of too much fun and not enough time.

Week 4:

May 23

Me made New Look 6510 pants. I made them a long time ago. Oddly they fit better with age.

I did not really wear any me made items the rest of the week except for a few hours I wore my first  McCall 6559 Maxi dress and the  first Colette Sorbetto top. Sorry no pictures

Week 5:

May 28

I finally finish this Sewaholic Renfrew top that I had started a while ago. The fabric was giving me such a hard time. Despite it being super comfy, it’s not really how I want it to be construction wise.

Using View C, and my Y-FBA sloper for the pattern, I lengthen the bodice a little, opted out of the waist and sleeve bands and did a serged roll up hem. I also took my hip ruler and create the baseball jersey hem, shorter on the side seams.

Despite me having so much problems with the shirt, I probably will still wear it a lot because it is comfy. However, I probably will no longer use the Y-FBA sloper I made for this shirt. I just would rather have a tighter fit and I just keep getting a relaxed to loose fit on these Renfrews.

May 30

I completed my birthday dress and thought it would be great to wear it to work. The dress was mostly finished on my birthday but there was some things that needed some fixing. Mainly the facing needed to not be popping out everywhere; neckline facing and armhole facing. It was not a cute look. Nope. So I hand stitch the facings down and tada, no more flapping facing. I also changed out the button and made the loop smaller. Then finally, I shorten the skirt hem about 3 inches.

May 31

 

I wore an extra Me-Made item on the last day of May since I only wore one during the 4th week of May. I wore one of my favorite Renfrew tops with diagonal strips.

As much fun as it is to wear clothing I made myself. I will not miss photographing myself or others taking photos of me. I much rather be on the other side of the lens. I usually want to Photoshop the crap out of my photo, due to my uneven skin. Yeah, I know

 

Here is the Re-cap:

 

I hope everyone had a good May and I look forward to the exciting things happening in June.

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MMM13: Week One Round-up & Sorbetto

This week marked the first week of Me-Made-May and if you read my last post, you would have saw my pledge to wear 2 garments a week. I actually wore 3 garments this week because I jumped the gun and wore something on Tuesday thinking it was May. I did not realize until the end of day that it was still April. D’oh. I really liked my outfit on Tuesday too, but I’ll just have to wear it again later in the month.

May 1: I rocked my just off the sewing machine Colette Sorbetto Blouse, with a pair of jeans from JcPenny and Kaydon Boots from Blowfish. I will give a little more detail about the blouse after the round up.

May 2: Today, I am wearing a skirt I made many moons ago, when I used to live back East. I have not worn this skirt in a very long time. I think I found it after last years MMM. I find it funny that it fits nicely, since I used to make clothes a couple inches too big when I started sewing. Actually, it is not funny, I blame Cali and Mexican food.

I absolutely fell in love with this fabric. light-weight and flowy. I believe it is a rayon, definitely has a rayon feel to it. I think I am the only one that loves rayon, but I do not like to sew with rayon. It is a bit of a bastard. Anyway, When I made this I just wanted to showcase the pots in the simplest way. The border print was printed on to the fabric and the gold areas were painted or screen printed on. It is very lovely and I probably should have hand-wash the skirt to make sure the gold did not flake off.

Isn’t that just cool?

Okay, now back to the Sorbetto blouse.

This is my first Sorbetto and first project I made by Colette Patterns. I have several patterns in my collection from them, so why has it taken me so long to make something. Your guess is as good as mines. For this blouse, I decided to just cut it straight with no alterations except adding sleeves. The fit is pretty good. I decided that I want to be lazy and just trace and cut the size close to my actual measurements. So yeah, not a bad fit for no fit alterations. However, the next version I do plan to make some changes to make a better fit.

• Shorten the bust dart (I think it is too long)
• Add overall length (I do not like having to tug it down.)
• Shorten the front armhole. I think it is screaming for a armhole dart.

Oddly, but not too surprising this shirt was not as easy as it should have been. It started out easy. I decided to be fancy and do a french seam. I am so proud of myself. I have only done samples of french seams, but near actually used them in a garment.

The trouble came when I tried to make the bias tape. I hate cutting, so making my own bias strips are capital EVIL. For cereal-o. I might have had a cosmo and tasty Italian food in my system when I was working on the bias strips, but never mind that. Evil. I tried to do the continuous bias strip method and I did something wrong and that did not work out. I tried it twice. Using the strips that I got from the fail attempt, I made them using the piecing method. Attaching the bias strips to the neckline would have a decent time, expect my bias strips were not the best, so I am not as happy with the neck edge. Which lead me to REALLY want to add in sleeves.

I ended up making two pairs of sleeves since the pattern that I downloaded from Sew Weekly was not the same as my arm sleeve. So, I want to warn you to check before you cut.

Oh and don’t you love the fabric? Yeah me too. I got it at Discount Fabric, which is around the corner from my house. *GRINS*  It feels like a linen, but i can’t actually recall what it really is. Very easy to sew. I might have to buy some more of this fabric.

The next Sorbetto, of course there will be a next, will be in a polka-a-dot with purchase bias tape. I love polk-a-dot.

Well, I am going to wrap this up. I hope you all have a great weekend.

How is your MMM13 going?

Fashionably Late to the Party: Me-Made-May ’13

I was really on the fence about joining Me-Made-May this year. I do not have a great collection of me-made items to fill up a month’s worth of wear and I did not want to do the same exact challenge that I did last year (1 item a week). However, I did want to join in on the fun and deadlines seems to be great motivation for me, so I am caving in. I have some project lined up, that should be quick

 I, Trice of Sewtell (sewtell.wordpress.com), sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’13. I endeavor to wear me-made garments twice a week  for the duration of May 2013.

I am planning to post here once a week on what I wore and probably will be posting on instagram, twitter and maybe flickr the day I wear my Me-Made garment.

Is there anyone else planning to do Me-Made-May?