Oct
2018

The Skirt That Should Have Been Pants! Simplicity 8655

categories: Behind The Seams, What I made

Hi Fashionistas!

So, here I am sharing with you a project that did not go as planned.. but I could hear Tim Gunn say the entire time “Make it work”.. so I did!

I was so excited to be making a pair of pants since I have not made one in a while. I had high hopes for the perfect pant. I had the most amazing fabric and such a cute pattern picked out. But alas.. it just did not go as planned.

So long story short, after I sewed up the pants, I did my first fitting before applying a facing.. and I knew right then and there that the pants would not work for me. I did not even want to attempt the numerous alterations I knew it would take.. so my sewing adventure took a plot twist. I turned the pants into a skirt.

Here is the back view:

We all have projects that don’t go as planned.
Sometimes I feel these projects are good because they challenge our creativity. I am happy with the skirt, the only thing I don’t like is the center front seam. If I were to draft this skirt from scratch, I would have only two front darts.

I styled this skirt with a black tee and snakeskin pumps and tassel earrings. My daughter picked these earrings out for me last weekend. Aren’t they so happy?

For the ruffle, I took wide strips of fabric cut on the cross grain. I did some freehand pleating along the selvage edge of the fabric because it would not fray. I then topstitched it to the skirt. I also cut the ruffle along the cross grain instead of the straight grain.

So now let’s talk about this project. I started out making a pair of pants. I was convinced these would be the cutest pair of pants and that the fit would be amazing? Why?!! Because the pattern envelope told me so. Maybe it was overconfidence or my optimism (that’s what I chose to believe – I’m just always thinking positive haha ). I seriously expected to sew up these pants, do one alteration and end up with a fabulous fit. Boy, was I wrong. If you have had the same experience with this pattern, do share.  The pants seemed extremely high waisted, and also very long. (I am 5 feet 4 inches) This was the longest crotch ever. I knew right away that this could end up being that projects that got very frustrating very quickly. I heard my inner critic say “You should have made a muslin”.  Anyways, the reality was, that I did not make a muslin. I was still so in love with the fabric, I wanted to salvage the project. The only thing that fit me on the pant was the waist, so I decided to turn the pants into a skirt. I had to take in the side seams, back seam, and front seam in order to get a better fit. I do love these pants so much.  I am going to attempt them again, but next time I am going to make a sloper. The fit is amazing on Mimi G.

Here are the Simplicity Pants I started out with.

 

 

Have you sewn this pattern? Or have you had to hack something up like I did? I would love to hear about it!

I am already info fall sewing as you might have noticed in my recent blog posts. What are you working on?

XOXO
-Vatsla


Oct
2018

DIY Ankara Skirts and Free BluPrint Learning All Week !!!

categories: Behind The Seams, Mommy and Me, What I made

HI Fashionistas!

I am SO excited to share a couple things with you! 1st, my DIY mommy and me skirts that I made on Saturday night and wore on Sunday morning! And 2nd… BluPrint is hosting a Get Started event where you can watch ALL classes and shows for FREE now through 10/12! No credit card needed, its Free 99! Yay. You know I will be watching all week.  You can learn anything from sewing, to pattern making, to drawing! To get access, click HERE

Here is my latest DIY- Sunday was so rushed,  I did not get a chance to take any pictures for the blog, but I wanted to share my skirt with you. A lot of folks asked me how I got a full circle skirt with a 45 inch fabric and I will be sharing the details on that soon!

 

I’ll be in touch with a step by step tutorial on the pattern making and cutting for this skirt. As soon as I get it photographed! Happy Friday you guys and have a lovely weekend. Don’t forget to binge watch BluPrint 🙂

Love,

Vatsla 🙂


Sep
2018

Red, Black and Rawwrrr :)

categories: Behind The Seams, Pattern Making, Sewing 101, What I made

Hi Beauties!

I hope that you are doing well and that you stayed dry in case you were in the path of hurricane Flo!

I am in Charlotte (North Carolina). We got a good amount of rain, although my neighborhood was not impacted very much. My rose bushes were destroyed but we were lucky to not get any serious damage! I spent the weekend sewing with a beautiful black ITY knit and made two black tops for fall.

The 1st one is my favorite as it has this gorgeous tie back detail on the neckline!

I made the top to be long sleeves, even though I will probably pull the sleeves up to a three-quarter length most of the time. The element that takes this top from basic to stylish is definitely the scoop neck on the back and the back tie. I paired the outfit with my favorite animal print pumps.


When I sewed up the top, the neckline on the front and back were the same because the front and back are both cut from the same paper pattern. Then I ended up free handing the back neck to be a deep scoop neck.

I added ties using my scrap fabric.

The top has a raglan sleeve and I created the pattern by copying a RTW top I had. I basically copied the pattern from a short sleeve tee and extended the sleeves, then changed up the neckline.

Here is the front and side:

Love the little details in the ensemble


I made another black top for fall, which is perfect for layering, but I will talk about that later in a separate blog post! That one is perfect for winter and fall, and for layering.



I am working on a gathered poofy skirt to go with top #1 next. So excited to pair the two and have a head to toe me made look!

I will see you soon and let me know if you have ever copied your favorite RTW tops? The pattern making was so quick and easy. I made both patterns in under 30 minutes!


XOXO-  Vatsla 🙂





Sep
2018

Black Summer Maxi Dress

categories: Behind The Seams, Pattern Making, Sewing 101, What I made

HI Fashionistas!

The kids are back in school and I am finally getting a chance to catch up on blogging.  I have a few things I made over the summer that I will be sharing with you over the next few weeks.  This is one of those summer maxi dresses I made in a lightweight knit.

I made the dress without a pattern. It was made in under two hours. To cut the bodice of the dress, I used a tank top as a guideline, and to make the skirt, I simply made very small pleats on my sewing machine (freehanded) to mimic the look of gathers. The bodice is self-lined, as the fabric is thin. The skirt is not lined. Its light and airy. I wore this dress to fathers day dinner. Matter of fact, I am wearing it now with a floral scarf for a pop of color.
 

What I love about this dress is that it’s so easy to wear.  You really don’t have to worry about styling a dress like this. It will go with whatever shoes you are wearing and whatever purse you are wearing!

 

I am pretty obsessed with these owl earrings lately. Since I don’t have a lot of time to spend on myself right now, these statement earrings so a long way.  Connor is four months now and this dress is also nursing friendly.
Here is a back and side view:

I left the bottom hem raw for two reasons: The hem on maxi dresses always gets so worn, so I can simply trim it by 1/2 inch when that happens and continue using the dress. I also plan on attaching a ruffle on the hem for a different look when I chop some of the hem off- to add back some length,  Then I would wear it with some shoes that have a slight heel. For now, I needed something that I can wear with flat shoes. The fabric does not fray, so skipping the hem worked for me.

I have already started sewing some fall pieces.. I will be sharing those with you starting next week!

 

Hope you all are dong well.

 

XOXO

-Vatsla 🙂


Jul
2018

DIY Lace Overlay Skirt in White

categories: Behind The Seams, Sewing Quick Tip, Tutorials, What I made

Hi Fashionistas!

I hope you had a lovely 4th of July Holiday and sewed and celebrated! My latest sewing project for the month of July is this beautiful white lace skirt that I made by combining a white cotton corduroy with a white lace fabric overlay.

 

I used this fabric as the base. And then on top, I overlayed the fabric with this beautiful stretch lace to create a brand new fabric!

It is always is fascinating to see how the personality of a fabric changes when you combine it with another.  To see what I mean, you have to see the final fabric up close. Here is a picture. By themselves, both fabrics are good, but together, they are exquisite!

To do this, I cut each pattern piece in the base fabric as well as the lace fabric. Example, if the pattern tells me to cut two of the skirt back, I cut two in lace and two in corduroy.

Then I use a 1/4 inch seam allowance and baste the lace on the base fabric all around the perimeter. Then I treat the two as one fabric and proceed with my construction.  I married the two fabric together.

This works well if both fabrics have no stretch,  but in my case, both fabrics had some stretch. The lace fabric was lighter and had a higher stretch percentage. I did a lot of pinning to prevent slipping. And my lace fabric did stretch a bit as you can see on the picture above. I chopped off the excess after basting them together.

 To style this skirt, I went with a chambray button down, nude pumps. and a bold clutch! This look was totally Pinterest inspired. I just happened to have everything in my closet.

Here is a view from the side. It is a bit high-waisted, but not by much.

Here is the back view. Confession… this is my 1st time sewing a slit the right way. When I self-draft, I usually just do a “faux” slit and press the seam allowance under, which you can see on this red dress I made a while back.

    

I used this Simplicity pattern, and I lengthened view D a bit to hit below the knee. By the way, view F is totally on my wishlist!

8

My darling Connor came out to take some pics too! Here he is, now 5 months old! Hard to believe he will be 6 months soon! He’s a chunkster munkster!

    

 I am still so obsessed with these owl earrings I previously wore here and here

I hope you all are having a lovely summer.  My next project consists of a beautiful pair of white high waisted pants using a simplicity pattern. I already have the fabric selected.  I cannot wait to share that with you soon.

Happy summer and happy sewing, friends! See you soon

XOXO-

Vatsla


Jun
2018

Birthday Skirt in Red!

categories: Behind The Seams, Pattern Making

HI Fashionistas!

The month of May is a month of celebration for me and my family. We celebrated my birthday and Mothers Day this past weekend, and my husband and I will be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary this week.

So for the month of May, I sewed up a voluminous pleated circle skirt in a beautiful red shirting fabric. Here it is:

Initially, I had planned on creating a high low dramatic hemline, and that is what I was planning on wearing until mid of last week. But after trying it on, it felt very heavy and was not too flattering on me, so I chopped it off to an even hemline about 19 inches from the bottom of the waistband to get this look.

The skirt is completely self-drafted and I will talk about that more in this post.  Here is the back view:

A bit obsessed with these owl earrings lately..

I drafted the waistband for the skirt 1first. It is basically a rectangle. For the length, I used my waist measurement, plus 1/2 inch ease, plus an extra 1 inch for seam allowance (since I stitch using 1/2 inch seam allowance to attach the zip on the back). For the hight of the waistband, I wanted a finished measurement of 2.5 inches so the pattern height is 6 inches (double of 2.5 plus 1-inch seam allowance total) 

The breeze brings out the best in this skirt lol 🙂

To get this type of volume, I measured from my side seam to side seam on my body (let’s call this measurement W) and then drafted a half circle skirt pattern on muslin using a waist measurement of W. I then cut 3 from that pattern and paneled them together. Once that was done, the waist of the 3 panel skirt was larger than my waist circumference. So then I added some pleats to the skirt to make the measurement of the skirt match the measurement of the waistband. Since the waistband was drafted to my waist, all I had to do was freehand some pleats to make the two fit. And Voila! Extra volume!

So you know I had to twirl in this skirt!

I wore it for my 39th Birthday last month!

I also wanted to share a picture of Connor. He is 3 months in this picture. He has started smiling a bit, although he is stingy with his smiles. He is such a serious lil’ dude! 

 

And I also ended up wearing it for Mothers Day with a DIY top. It’s a fun skirt to wear! (not the best lighting)

I hope you are having a lovely may. It is getting toasty here, we have had temps in the 90’s this past week. The summer is going to be super hot, and I plan on staying home a lot and hosting a lot of playdates to keep myself and my kiddo busy.

I’ll see you soon with my next make, a summer maxi dress!

XOXO-

Vatsla

 


Apr
2018

Statement Sleeves -Mcalls M6886 Modified!

categories: Behind The Seams, Pattern Making, Review, Sewing 101, What I made

Hi Fashionistas!

Long time no sew! I took a break from sewing for the month of March to adjust to a second child. It has been quite a transition, and I and my family are still getting used to the new routine, or lack of routine 🙂

Anyways, I am trying to get back into the swing of things. I am sewing, and here is my latest make!

I used this fabric.  It is currently sold out but I am hoping they will offer it again! It is a quilted double knit. Very soft, yet has good body and is thicker, about the thickness of a lightweight scuba knit. 

For the pattern, I ended up using this pattern, view C, but made the following alterations.

  1. Changed the neckline to a boat neck.
  2. Chopped off the pattern at the high hip (to include hem allowance)
  3. Shortened the sleeve
  4. Freehanded the lantern/ bell sleeve with pleats using some scrap fabric

The fabric is quilted and has some really gorgeous texture as you can see in this close up below. For the neck, I used a twin needle to do the hemming as I did not have enough matching spools of thread for my coverstitch machine.  I hemmed the sleeves by serging first, then turning under and using a straight stitch.

I so love the sleeves!  They are so poofy!

This is how I wore this top on Sunday, with skinny jeans … and a sock bun. Yes, there is a sock in my bun.. it belongs to my husband 🙂 I cut off the foot part and rolled all that hair up, the stuck in a ballpoint pen to hold it in place. It’s called mommy chic 🙂

For a more dressy look, I paired this with a skirt (which I will never wear anywhere since I have nowhere to go :), but it is so cute!

Here is the back view of the top. Typically I put a CB seam in this pattern, but I decided not to in this one, as the fabric has a moderate amount of stretch, as opposed to more stretchy fabrics I usually use.

Ok- before I made this top, I actually made a scoop neck peplum with a cap sleeve, but I was totally cutting corners and I made a bad garment. So that one is getting cut and I will use the fabric into a top for my daughter. I also have some fabric left over so I will definitely be using that to make another top for myself!

Well, that is it! I am working on a red circle skirt for May, for my birthday!!

I hope that you are doing well. I would love to hear about what you are working on these days and I hope you are enjoying the spring!

I’ll see you in May with my next project- the red skirt!

ps- did you know Crafsty is giving an all access pass for 2 weeks for $1 right now? You can access all classes for $1 by clicking HERE

XOXO

-Vatsla

 

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