Ombre tips and more thrifting

All things ombre have caught my eye! Perhaps I'm a little behind on the ombre band wagon, but at least I'm on now. Tried doing some ombre to a few cheap-o shirts from target with my Sister on the 4th of July. Learned some good lessons, and I think I'm ready to try it again, but with some actual clothing that I would in fact wear. 

Tips for you:

1. Lots and lots of water in your bucket! If the dye bath doesn't have enough water to absorb all the dye powder your finished product will have lots of little tiny dark dots from the powder not completely saturated by the water. 

2. The tutorial I used required using rubber bands to mark the separate points where there was a significant fade. I wasn't a fan of the result with the rubber bands. It was a little more tie-dye looking than I wanted. I prefer just sticking it in there, and using your eye to judge the different levels of fading.

3. This tip is probably a combination of my impatience to complete any task, and the fact that I was being attack by ants; don't be afraid to let it soak for a realllllllly long time. The longer the soak, the deeper the color. I didn't let any part of my sit in the dye for more than 5 minutes, so overall my finished products were not super saturated with color. I recommend about 20-30 minutes to get really rich deep colors. 

Overall it was a fun little experiment to do. The products I used was the Rit dye, a giant tub for soaking, you also need some salt, rubber gloves (unless you want to be stained-in my case I would have been a smurf), and make sure your water is nice a warm! It didn't specify that on the dye packet, but a fair amount of online tutorials recommend using hot water. 

My second current obsession (um yes, thank you pintrest), is crop pants. Every time I get on pintrest I end up repinning a ton of nonsense with lovely pastel colored cropped pants, jean cropped pants, or polka dotted crop pants. I'm not even that big of a fan of wearing pants. I live in Texas, it's too hot for such things. I ended up stopping by a thrift store after the morning church service and found a nice pair of pants from Banana Republic for $7.00. I have to admit I was a little irked to be spending that much on a piece of clothing (needless to say, I've spoiled myself with half price days at Salvation Army). They are a size 4, so they are going to require some downsizing, as well as length adjustments to make them more of the style I'm going for. Can't wait to get cracking away at that project soon! Before and Afters, coming soon!

...Don't even get me started on peter pan collars. 

I've also been getting some requests from friends that check out my blog, to help with alterations. I'm definitely open to that, don't hesitate to ask! :)

Summer Sewing

There have been quite a number of summer projects I've been working on! I love staying busy with sewing. My first and probably favorite was when I helped make costumes for our Vacation Bible School play (Based off the story of Ruth). The whole thing staged, written and directed by a friend from my church. The play went great and the entire VBS was quite the success. 

The other was a 50's style pleated circle skirt. This is a photo of the progress...I love the finished skirt! 

A while ago I picked up some red polka dot fabric that was dirt cheap at Hancock Fabrics (blowout sales are a new favorite!) I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but due to some recent Anthropologie inspiration I think I know what I'm going to do... Inspiration dress: Can be bought at Anthropologie for $188.

 

A little pricey right? I love that store, but my bank account certainly doesn't. My dress: $17 for fabric...lace trim from a hand-me-down dress I'll never wear.

So yes there is still a lot of work to do on it...but I like how it's coming a long so far.

Lastly, I'm practicing tailoring on some goodwill/salvation army finds. So far so good...I picked up this awful 90's dress, completed with giant shoulder pads that completely swallowed me. I have a picture of the original dress, I need to get some of the altered one. I just wore it yesterday and it fits great. Plus I love the color!

Lots left to work on for the remainder of the summer. I already have a few projects planned for a few different people. And I desperately need to get photos of everything as I finish them. I'm terrible at proper documentation. 

New Inspirations

I am officially a terrible blogger...nearly a three month hiatus. I have been pretty busy though, a lot has been happening (all good things) lately. Work has certainly been keeping me busy, it has also been stifling my creativity, but I am now determined not to lose it. Don't get me wrong, I love my job! I find myself spending all my free time doing everything I can to read up on work..believe it or not I'll spend my free time at work...for fun. Clearly I love working at a museum. 

I recently found out I'm going to be moving soon! I could not be more thrilled about that. My future roommate is constantly talking of the excitement of watching me work on all my sewing projects and wants to have an entire area dedicated just to my sewing stuff. Needless to say I'm glad I have a roommate that supports my hobby :) 

A few weeks ago I did manage to whip out a dress from no where...It was late I couldn't sleep so I just decided to sew because I missed it so much. This was the result: I rather love this dress.

Back to moving out...in my cleaning and throwing out stage of the packing process I found some more of my  grandmothers old sewing patterns. I could not have been more thrilled! Admittedly I did steal quite a few of them (it seems as though the second I get rid of things I don't need to pack, I replace it with something else!). I found this pattern...well I guess I should say I found the package. Unfortunately there was no pattern inside, just the packaging...but I absolutely love this dress and decided tomorrow I'm making a trip to the fabric store and I'm going to try my best to recreate something similar (I would go now, but alas...they are closed).

Now, where is my wandering parakeet? 

(Can anyone guess that movie?)

Another Dress

Saturday Sewing

A new dress....

And a shirt in the making

Tip of the day

Quilting tip no. 1: Just because you're feeling productive at 1AM does not mean you should try to be.


....and the rebinding of my quilt begins.

"Squared" continued

Just finished tracing on my pattern. I decided since the quilt had smaller fabric cuts and was overall on a smaller scale, to do a larger quilt pattern. I just traced my 9x9 Omnigrid in a series of overlapping squares all over the quilt top. I started to think of how I could modern-ize it even more...since this quilt has a bunch of color I was thinking of doing each square in a different color. This could help differentiate between the squares themselves and I think it might be a cute twist. I rummaged through some thread notions that used to belong to my Grandmother and found some colors that happen to match perfectly. Not sure if I'm going to have enough of the purple, I might have to go scrounging around my JoAnns for a similar color. Hopefully I'll be able to find a match because it's a beautiful thread!

Doing some research on the next apparel item I'd like to make. I know I said I wanted to do a midi skirt next, but I'm feeling rather drawn to the idea of a dress. I saw one on Ruche that I really liked. I'm thinking I'd like to make it a bit longer, and maybe add a cap or short sleeve. And possibly pockets? I'm thinking those are a definite yes, who doesn't love pockets? I certainly have a lot to think about. I might be hitting a new fabric store later this week...still want to read up on it a little more before I make the trip.
Guess I better get back to my sewing!
Au Revoir!