On Shoes and Ships and Sealing-Wax

Friday, October 30, 2020

On A Martian Saucer: A Photo Post

In honor of the anniversary of Orson Welles' infamous 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, here are some martians in their paper plate saucer!

🟊🟊🟊

Thursday, October 29, 2020

On a Wednesday Look for Tuesday

Posted on a Thursday!

I've been wanting to make a spiderweb collar for a few years, but never seemed to be able to get around to it. This year knowing I wouldn't have time to finish either the spiderweb dress or spiderweb skirt that have also been on my "to sew" list for awhile before the month was over (not that I ever feel spiders should be limited to October), I went for the collar.

I thought about a few ways of going about making this and ultimately, which is a little hard to see in the photo, decided on a white gauze base to give it a wrinkly look with a sheer layer for the top to give it a little sparkle. Then I machine stitched the web on top of both layers with metallic thread! To finish it off I opted for a snap and a round pearly button sewn on top.

Paired with a black shirt, a spider necklace, and a mirror in need of cleaning, this is my official Wednesday on a Tuesday posted on a Thursday look.

♥ ♥ ♥

Saturday, October 24, 2020

On a 60's Secretary Skirt

Or at least that's what I'm referring to it as.

Finding that over the past eight months that most of my clothes have become too big for me, one of the go to items in my closet has become one of the very first items I made from a vintage pattern in 2009 or 2010, a drawstring polk-a-dot skirt from the 1968's McCall's pattern 9398 (which while I've certainly thought about it, I'm now realizing has never made an appearance on this blog). Last month it occurred to me that given how often I was wearing this skirt, I might want to make a few more.

Given that I've hardly sewn anything with knit since I first started sewing clothes, I was excited to see what I'd find in the flat folds section of the outlet fabric store I frequent and ended up with what I deemed two very 1960's appropriate fabrics. This one is a synthetic, which I try to avoid, but the texture was so perfect I couldn't resist it!

There's nothing fancy about this pattern, it's just two basic rectangles sewn at the side seams with a folded over top to create a casing for a drawstring, two holes for the drawstring, and a hem. I decided to forgo the fabric drawstring and substituted a ribbon.

Because I have extra fabric, I'm thinking of eventually making the coat from this 1967 pattern and spent some time trying to figure out if I had enough fabric left to do so.

Since I'll need to grade down the pattern to a smaller size and will also need some fabric for lining and the collar (leaning towards white with large red polk-a-dots!), it probably won't be for awhile.

Meanwhile, I think it pairs perfectly with my black bolero, white t-shirt, and the sunglasses that were my grandma's to give a perfect 60's look!