Sewing Picspam

[izzady]

So, I was gonna do this in September, because apparently there was some sort of people posting pictures of stuff they sew thing. And now it's November. But whatever. Also apologies for the poor photo quality, my only camera at the time these were taken was my phone.

I have a bit of a passion for reusing clothes as fabric.

I've had my own sewing machine for a couple of years now (a present from both my grandmothers - a lovely new portable Singer, very plain but very light), but my style has mostly stuck to things made out of T-shirts. Excess T-shirts with cool things on them but that are all (at least) XL are a hazard of the student politics lifestyle and besides, t-shirting is comfortable, stretchy, forgiving and doesn't really fray.


Modded T-shirts

Team Banjo


My most recent T-shirt. It's a band T-shirt for The Fugitives, who are awesome. (Signed by the banjo player of course) Taken in at the sides, decoration added to the back.

Electoral Disfunction

Yeah... First past the post is a really archaic system. There was a referendum on mixed-member proportional in our province that year... didn't go so well, but yeah. This is from the pre-Singer days and is just laced tighter with strips of t-shirting up the sides.

Alt Frosh

My alternative frosh week t-shirt from one year, the paint on the front is just house paint, but it's held up fairly well. Seamed up the sides, added bits of fabric as decoration, the lumpy red one is the alt frosh week logo for that year.

Café


This is a t-shirt for the grad student cafe at my uni, which love to bits and which I spent way too much time at even before I started working for the grad students' union. This T-shirt was born one night when I slept at work 'cause I'd been at the café until past close and had to be back to work next door in the morning. I didn't want to be wearing the exact same thing as the day before, so I found this in a box (I believe it was XXXL)and made into this wrap around aprony thing by cutting up the sides and then cutting extra strips to tie with.

There's some things I really like that are missing from this section because they were packed away in boxes. Notably a lime green and black party skirt/top ensemble out of t-shirt that realy does look like a cocktail dress from a distance (not so much up close as this was also pre-sewing machine days, but it was really darn comfortable). Also one of those raggedy lace skirts that I made out of a tablecloth and some white t-shirts.


When I'm at home one of my grandmas (who is a retired professional seamstress who still does a fair amount of commission work) lets me use her equipment and space, which is fantastic. She's a brilliant seamstress and she's taught me a lot.


Stuff I have made with Grandma's help:
(Sometimes she has a hard time explaining and then watching someone else do it, when she could do it herself, so some of these were mostly designed by me and sewn by her)

Fleshtone

This was an XL T-shirt when it began it's life and it's the first one I ever modified. (Although, I think only the serging on the side-seams is actually my sewing)

Acadia Pride


I love this shirt to pieces. The purple around the neck is actually ribbon in this case, not just rolled t-shirting.

Dress

Okay, this dress is basically my grandma saying, 'Sure I'll sew you a summer dress, we can do whatever you want with it' after I was admiring some old cotton prints she found at the bottom of a box. It's lined with fabric from one of my great-grandmother's petticoats (which is so so so soft), the lace at the neck line (sewn over the brown) is from my other great-grandmother's wedding dress. The whole thing is machine washable, it is one of the most comfortable things I own and it has a pocket.

Also I learned how to do the scrunchy back thing. You just sew on several thin elastics a regular intervals with the elastic pulled taut while you're sewing it down. It will then bunch the fabric in like this when you let go.

Blanket


This one I am stupidly proud of. It's almost entirely my sewing, although I did kind of need rescuing when I brought it to my grandma's to work on. She provided lots of advice, use of her serger, and permission to take over her whole living room carpet. It's a quilt I made for my parents out of t-shirts from an archeological dig they worked on for a number of years. The batting in thin bamboo quilt batting which is brilliantly soft and cozy. (I kept a small extra piece as a scarf, 'cause I couldn't stop wanting to touch it)


And these last two are things I made all on my own with zero t-shirts, in my total absence of workspace with my adorable little Singer. The skirt in particular is my pride and joy.


Skirt


Yeah. I apparently have a habit of starting projects that are essentially simple quilts and not realizing it until half way through (see the actual quilt above) so this skirt took way longer than I thought it was going to and involved a lot more match than my sewing projects usually do. It was born when my favourite knee-length skirt got a big hole in it and I decided to make a new one out of it (the yellow stripe) and another skirt that didn't fit (the pink stripe) and a number of other pieces I had on hand. It also has a pocket, because my grandma never makes things without pockets.
Watch



I don't like things around my wrists, can't wear bracelets or watches usually, but I like wrist warmers, so this is an experiment made from the cuff of a shirt I love but had to scrap. I love how it looks, and it is comfortable enough most days, so success!



In conclusion, I take forever to sew things, am incapable of using patterns which means I end up scrapping a bunch of things when I realize part-way through that they won't work, but I've made some pretty cool stuff. And I have a pretty cool grandma.