Tag: Stitching

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The One About the Overlap Slit Dress

It has been a long time since I last stitched, or wrote here for that matter. So one fine day when I got the urge to design and stitch, I was not gonna suppress it. Never mind it was at 11am on a Wednesday morning while I was at work. I took a half day leave and went home to bask in the glory of my creativity 😀

Lucky for me, there is always fabric in stock at home; thanks to my favourite supplier of plain and stretchy fabrics – Atlas, Valelevu. Since it had been some time since my last stitch and my machine has started to give me trouble, I choose a $2 metre fabric which I wont feel bad ruining.

I thought of a fairly simple design and give it a look of sophistication by adding an overlap piece to the front slit. It didn’t take too long to stitch but boy am I impressed with the results. Paired with a statement belt and cute sandals, I took this dress from the morning to the night! All in all, it was well worth using the half day from my vacation leave.

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The One About the Overlap Dresses

It was a beautiful Saturday morning when I found myself [yet again] in Atlas somehow. To tell you the truth, it isn’t at all coincidental that we park in MHCC for our Saturday trips to the Suva market; it makes for an easy detour to Atlas 🙂

What caught my eye on this particular Saturday were these rolls of jersey fabric going for $4 a metre. Now, if you have read about my previous projects you would know that I LOVE stretchy fabric. It has the advantage of a fitted piece without worrying too much about zippers. Anyways, I bought a grey and maroon piece to be transformed into overlap dresses.

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The end results were slightly different from what I had set out to do. Firstly, I wasn’t sure the hanging overlap would look as good as it does in the sketch and secondly, I decided I wanted to wear the maroon piece to work, so I added shoulders.

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The One About One Meter Dresses

It has been a while since my last project. Keeping a work-life balance is difficult sometimes. And sometimes, I am lazy.

Eventhough lazy, create I must. So I have been working on simple shift dresses. Over the last few months of 2016, I had been hoarding fabric. I had bought multiple prints in only one meter pieces. Initally I had though I would make blouses out of these (I am becoming a pant person) but assessing the amount of fabric that would be leftover and potentially unuseable, I decided against it. Went with shift dresses instead.

These dresses are simple to cut and stitch. I have previously made a few without sleeves, but the fabric width allowed sleeves so I went for it. Of the seven prints, 3 were of similar fabric, soft and flowy; and these are the ones which I transformed into summer shifts.

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The One About the Black Long Coat

While planning for our trip to Europe in August, I desperately searched for a long coat. One that wasn’t too thick but would still provide some cover on a chilly evening. Needless to say, I didn’t find anything to my liking anywhere in Suva.

Since I had already set my mind on a long coat, I couldn’t shake off the idea. So, I created one 🙂

Its a simple make, but took me a good 3 hours  to cut and stitch as I had never made a coat before. I have since then taken every opportunity to sport the SJmade piece around the world!

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The One With the Prints

Even though I love solid colours [black], my heart does from time to time skip a beat on sighting prints. So when I set my eyes upon this print fabric, I bought more than I needed and ended up making a dress and a shirt; and I rarely make shirts.

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The shirt was for my sweetheart. And for myself I made a sweetheart neckline, off-shoulder dress.

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The One With The Polka Dots – 1

Polka dots have been around for a very long time and all the generation of women in my family have proudly owned a polka dot piece as some point in their lives. I too have recently fallen in love with the array of circles.

I had wanted to make a summer swing dress dress [because tropical Fiji weather] and came across this really cheap fabric. So, why not?!?DSCF2560DSCF2558

And of course, I stitched a blouse with the left over fabric.

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The One About The LWD

I love colours; but more than that, I love the absence of them. I am in love with white, and black too. Its like an empty canvas and you can paint it whichever way you want.

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Sometimes, I see a fabric and I will know what it will turn into. Other times, I would have no idea and buy the fabric anyway. Its a similar case with this white one. I had had it for a long time before its fate was sealed; and this too, only because I needed a dress for a brunch we were hosting at home!

Its a very simple cut and make and I did not take any in-process photographs 🙁

But I do have lots of end product photographs!

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The One With Embroidered Borders

A while back I worked on some leftover fabric and made a high-low cut blouse from it. I couldn’t do baby fold on the fabric as it was a bit heavy so I made a decorative stitch with a contrasting colour. And then I made many more decorative stitches and I loved it!

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 More recently, I tried to do a remake of that design, and succeeded 🙂

I am beginning to love these easy breezy blouses a whole lot.

The black one, which is the latest of its kind took 2.5 hours to make as it is always a struggle to keep those stitches straight.

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In the end, it was all worth the effort as it is as comfortable as it looks.

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The One About The Altered Blazer

At times I have found myself in thrift or secondhand shops in Suva where I have often found treasures for very little price.

On my last such episode, I tumbled across a blazer which didnt fit me well but I bought it anyways since it was just a mere $6.00. Not to mention it was a wonderful colour and cotton lined!

I thought if I can fix it, fine; if not, it wont be a big loss.

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So you see, it was loose at the waist, the shoulder and sleeve length are big. Hence, I got to cutting out the stitches and taking the blazer apart.

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After running stitches through sides, shoulders and sleeves, I also cut off the length of the blazer. The final product isn’t my best piece of work, but its wearable 🙂

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The One About The Bonus Skirts

When out fabric shopping, I usually tend to buy a little bit of extra for those ‘just in case’ cases and love it when there is fabric left over from the initial project. Lately, I have been turning the leftover material into skirts. They are simple to make and can be mismatched with different coloured blouses. Although my personal favourite are vests. I haven’t photographed all the bonus skirts but here are the two latest ones.

Here is the left over from the mint green shift dress. It is a straight cut with gathers at the waist.

DSCF6516I had also made a wrap skirt as the fabric was cut out in the corners, so I just made a curve in the corners and added buttons to hold them in place. DSCF6536I still have a load of leftover material, just need to find the time to create something from it 🙂