Little Pieces of Me

What do you do when it is a cold and windy April day with an ice storm in the weather forecast and all you really want to do is get started on the gardening?  Sulking is high on my list, followed by getting started on something sunny and summery. I'd been mulling over an idea for a white cotton tunic or shirt with watercolour-like painting on it. Considering that my painting skills are even worse than my drawing skills, this seemed like an overly ambitious undertaking. But what the heck. I had a good length of a nicely textured crinkle cotton in the stash to use and drafting the pattern and sewing the shirt was easy. But I was unsure about how to get the painting effect while still leaving the fabric with a soft hand and natural texture. I tried out a number of things and I decided on 2 options - very thinned out Colour Vie or watercolour pencil crayons. Watercolour pencil crayon on wet cotton Yes, pencil crayons. I had no expectation that these would work, ...

Last week I made my first garment of the new year. I'm calling it my Ladder Tunic. The design and drafting of the pattern went well. The fabric was entirely appropriate. My sewing machine and serger behaved impeccably. I only had to rip out one short bit of sewing. I discovered a wonderful new sewing tool. And I think the final product has worked out very well. So what was so scary? Well, the design in my head required me to mostly finish this top and then cut it up! WTF? After doing some texture samples on jersey last month, I knew I wanted to try out some of those techniques on wearables. And the one I wanted to use first was slashing to create a distressed fabric. Pattern: I used a self drafted pattern. This is a long, loose tunic with dropped shoulders, an asymmetrical hem and a double neck treatment. This has a classic "lagenlook" unstructured shape that works with leggings, narrow pants or a long skirt. In case anyone is interested in sewing s...