Making My Clothing...

Well, the city is blanketed with snow and I'm taking the moment to post about making my own clothing.

In doing my wardrobe overhaul I discovered that I need more vests, dress shirts, and jackets/blazers. So I decided to be both frugal and picky about my clothing by buying some sewing patterns. Some very intimidating sewing patterns. Some sewing patterns which are currently sitting in a pile next to my sewing machine looking menacing. Hopefully soon I will get the courage to attempt to make these patterns. This is them:

Vest pattern.

Dress shirt.

Western style dress shirt.

Jacket.

I feel like making the bulk of my wardrobe is a doable endeavor.  It may take quite a while, but it's something that's within my reach. I poked around a bit online in search of inspiration and found a bunch of blogs by people who make their own clothes. Behold:

Handmade Jane
Male Pattern Boldness
So, Zo... What Do You Know?
The Sew Convert
LLadyBird
Diary of a Sewing Fanatic
Sew Fit

And there are way more than these out there… An interesting side note: a commenter on one of the blogs said that they think people new to sewing have a progression where they do fun and colorful things their first year, narrowing down their style the second year, and concentrating their skills the third year. I wonder if this is accurate?

I'm not sure where to place myself in terms of "years" but I think I'm closest to year one. I'm short and fat so I've been altering my clothing forever, but I haven't actually sewn anything for myself. Once I acquired a sewing machine (free from a friend who was getting rid of it), I launched into making baby blankets because everyone around me was reproducing. Then I got divorced and redecorated my apartment by making a bunch of pillows, curtains, tablecloths, and napkins. Since moving to the coop I have made several baby blankets, a skirt for Secondo, some costumes, and a pile of baby clothes that are sitting in a box in my room to be mailed to Wolfie (whoops!).

I think in 2016 I'll be following the commenter's pattern and sewing a bunch of fun and colorful wardrobe pieces. Floral dress shirts with interesting designs, jackets with funky liners, reversible vests, etc.

And just since you made it through this post, here are pictures of some of the other sewing projects I mentioned:

Mayim on my friends'  son's baby blanket.

Baby blanket for my friends' son.

Esh on my niece's baby blanket.

Repainted and made curtains.

Made the lacy lamp shade, chalkboard coffee table,
and throw pillows; took the photographs.

Made curtains and the button lampshade.

Made curtains, repurposed a spice rack. 

Secondo's Twirly Skirt.

My Ursula Halloween costume.