Too Cold For Sewing

It's 10 degrees outside, so what am I doing? Taking pictures of myself in the sewing room.

The sewing room is really out of season lately... The joys of living in a super-old house. It's pretty cold up there yet not as cold as the room across the way, the "mod guest room". It must be about 40 degrees there.

I don't know what it is, but I feel infinitely more creative in an almost entirely blue room like this one. The whole upstairs, really. The sewing room might be moreso around 55 degrees up there and with the help of the space heater (if I don't blow a fuse with it) would probably make it tolerable but on a day like today... not gonna risk blowing a fuse which would knock out a bit of the rest of the house.

I've also almost gotten rid of this red and white printed shirt I can't tell you how many times. I've had it since college - pretty sure I bought it at a TJ Maxx - and only this morning did I realize how much it looks like a Marimekko print. However, I bought this long before I even knew about Marimekko!

Even crazier, just looking this up the print is called "Unikko". Those of you that have known me a while will note that I have been using "Uniko" for a long period of time (about 2000-ish?) because in 8th grade throughout middle school I decided my name was "Niko" not "Nicole". Uniko was a (slightly cheesy) combo of "unique" and "Niko". Wasn't I a special snowflake? Haha.

You can even see the "Uniko" faux logo I had been playing with about 5 years ago in the background of the first photo.

And only now do I see the giant thread on my dressform! Point: I miss the sewing room.

I might brave the cold upstairs later in the week, but for today it looks like I'll have to continue figuring out my next project downstairs. I need some more time to think about what I want to make with the psychedelic fabric aka the Judy Dress. The first one was my favorite, but I'm currently not sure about any of the designs.

One will come to me!

Sweater - H&M via thrifting

Jeans - BKI

Comments

Latch Hook Rug Update

A little under a month ago I received all of my supplies to take on one of the biggest long-term projects I have ever taken on - a self-designed latch hook rug. I don't know why, but I am clearly nuts. So beginning today I am posting photos each month, (preferably on the 1st of each month) progress of this gigantic shag rug. See how I started it here (scroll down past posting of my $10 dress). This is a photo of it today: Yes, I used the candelabra for scale. Haha. This rug is really soft and is fun to run your fingers through. It doesn't look like much was accomplished, but though the number of packages we have gone through of pre-cut latch hook rug yarn already I have calculated that we've used over 2500 strands for this ie.) 8 packages. I also just ordered 10 more packages of lime green since that's what I ran out of first and 6 more packages of straw yellow. There is still quite a bit to go, but you see the blue row squares? Each of th

DIY Trapeze Dress

I'm a pretty big fan of tent dresses (or trapeze dresses - call it what you want). They're simple, easy-to-make and you can have many variations of them. These are a fun style to wear for spring and summer! See this DIY from a Good Housekeeping Crafts book from 1971 - photos at the end of my own trapeze top from a while ago! (Bear with me on the photos here - this book is quite cumbersome and hard to scan.) Applique patterns, in case you wanted the dress to look EXACTLY like the photo. (But why?) How to cut the fabric efficiently. (This is actually pretty important cost-wise for you - especially with something this big.) Using pattern instructions from my patternmaking book from college, I created this swingy trapeze top a bit ago. I used sweater fabric from a thrift store find for the collar of this top. I also opened up the back on the pattern to have a diamond shape. It can easily be belted like in this photo fo

How Print on Demand Sites Helped Me! And Pros and Cons

I don't know about you, but I don't always have a ton of time. Well, ok -- maybe that was before the pandemic hit. But one of the things I have learned over time being a designer of sorts and loving fashion design was that it seemed I never had enough time to do/make everything I wanted to have available within a product line to sell. Especially not when I was working a full-time job either! Bags! Shoes! And yeah, duh -- clothing! It seemed most of my friends who are designers made all of their own items from scratch on their machines and I just didn't want to sit at my machine after working 40+ hours a week. Maybe for myself only but not as a side hustle. But I always had requests from people - "Can you make me something? I want something designed by you!" I really appreciated the sentiment, but often times it was just as confusing/hard for me as it was for them. I would sit there and go "How should I adjust this for them? Am I even gonna find that fabri

Manic Pop