Birthday presents

I was going to make something to wear this week, but I fell ill and slept for most of my MLK day. So, in lieu of what I was originally planning, I decided to show you something else I made this weekend for my friends’ birthdays. It’s still fitting, though, as I used only what I had at hand: remnants and t-shirts.

So, what did I make? Clutch purses! I’ve never worked with zippers before and it was a great learning experience. The first one I made took a really long time as I made some errors [where I had to take it all apart!], but the second one was smooth sailing and I finished within an hour. Yay!

Here they are…

The second clutch had the same interior of one divider pocket. I made the divider black and the inside fabric is the same color as the front band.

Argh! I’m a pirate!

Today is a “reconstruct a super small tee” kind of day. This time, I made a skirt using one small tee and one XL tee based on this cool skirt I found when looking up reconstruction ideas: Lekkner Reconstruction.

I took out 3 shirts to begin with, but then decided to just use two.

Basically, I cut the red shirt at the sides and made a long rectangle from the front, printed side. I cut out two panels and the skirt waistband from the black tee. I sewed the three panels together [two black and one red] and then sewed that to the waistband. I ended up overcompensating so the skirt was a little loose. Since I used the bottom of the shirt as my waistband, I cut a couple slits and made that a casing for drawstring! I made my drawstring by cutting off the seams of the red shirt and sewing them together. Looping it through the casing, I finished my T-shirt skirt.

I wore this to class today and it was a bit chilly [next time I'll check the weather before I leave] and, as it was the first week of classes, there was an event to showcase some clubs and…FREE FOOD! Coincidentally, there were several pirates roaming around the area and they happily obliged to take a photo with me as my skirt matched them so well :]

Side Note: Even though you can’t see from the picture, I wanted to mention that I wore were these amazing hand-crafted gauge earrings from Etsy. Unfortunately, the seller no longer has an active account :/

Time to roll up the sleeves…

…and break out the bobbins! What’s a bobbin?? Well, I asked myself that too when I first saw a sewing machine. Actually, I was full of questions when I first tried my hand at sewing, but I finally figured out most of the features of my sewing machine through lots of trial and even more errors. And for the record, a bobbin is just a little cylinder wound with thread that you put inside the machine.

Anyways, I started sewing a while back, but never really got into the swing of it. However, once I decided upon this sewing thesis, I decided to have an official beginning project instead of starting out cold. The project of choice: an apron.

I bought a nautical themed remnant and matching remnants a long time ago intending to make my friend something incredibly awesome. As usual, that idea fell off the wayside. However, with her birthday looming closer and closer, I finally decided. She had been baking a lot recently and I remembered a few months prior, she was looking at cute aprons online. So, I set out to make the best apron I’ve ever made…not a big deal since it would be my first.

I used this apron as a template.

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