I’ve made four new pairs of stretch velvet leggings in the last week. It started when I spotted this beautiful green stretch velvet on a clearance table. After making the first pair, I wandered back into the fabric store and found some eye-catching orange paisley. Then I picked up fabric with dainty pink roses. And found crushed red velvet in my stash. Needless to say, I’ve amassed a colorful collection…

Halloween is a new holiday in Germany, imported from the USA, and since moving here my Halloween celebration has consisted of buying a package of Snickers for possible trick-or-treaters, then eating them all because no one comes. But this year I was working as a bartender at a huge Halloween party, and employees were allowed to wear costumes instead of our regular uniforms! Of course we…

On a whim, I picked up this floral stretch fabric covered with gold paint dots last week. The print looks like a the illustrations in the picture book, “The Tale of Martha B. Rabbit”, a book I had when I was young. The fabric is very opaque, but otherwise it’s not really ideal for leggings. It’s 97% polyester, with just two-way stretch and it’s only mildly stretchy at that. So when I made the pattern…

Ahoy, me hearties! This buccaneer be modelin‘ a vest of corduroy plundered from a shop in Paris. It’s crafted by a landlubber who was listening to the shanties of the Pirates of the Caribbean as she stitched. The resultin‘ style was so tainted by the sea shanties that the craven landlubber abandoned it to the bottom of her wardrobe, but this pirate pillaged her clothing hoard and took this here vest as…

I just finished my last maxi dress for this sumer. The amazing border print jersey is from Berger Stoffe fabric store in Berlin and really makes the dress stand out. As usual, I didn’t have enough fabric for the project -only a yard and a half, so once I cut the skirt out there wasn’t much left. I ended up getting creative with piecing the bodice. I wasn’t able to match the print up as much as I would have liked…

At the end of a project, how often do you hem half a foot of fabric off the skirt? That extra hem length can make a big difference in how much fabric you need for a project – a real problem if you’re short or fabric or you just want to avoid waste. This easy tutorial shows you how to shorten a hem BEFORE you lay out your pattern. All you need to make this easy adjustment is a ruler and a pencil.

I was browsing through my stash when I spotted a UFO (sewing parlance for an UnFinished Object). I started this dress in 2009 from Burdastyle’s Mila #6023. I remember thinking it was an awkward design, but it was free, and who am I to ignore a freebie? Well, that didn’t work out – I gave up in the final stretch. When I pulled it out this year, it needed just a zip, hem, and few decorative buttons…

A french seam is a seam finish that sounds couture, but it is actually a simple technique that even an absolute beginner can master. It looks as nice from the wrong side as it does from the right side because the raw edge of the fabric is sandwiched inside the seam allowance. The seam is sewn in two steps – first, the pieces are sewn wrong sides together. Then the right sides are folded together…

I just wanted to show you my latest skirt, a simple A-line made of AMAZING fabric! I picked up 2 meters of it from the fabric store”Berger Stoffe” back when I lived in Berlin. I made this skirt from scraps, since I used the bulk of the fabric to make my youngest sister a maxi skirt for Christmas. The front is the absolute largest piece I had. I even had to add slanted pocket because there was…

Me Made May is now over and even though I haven’t posted about it, I have been wearing as many me made things as possible and taking pictures each day. Things have been really crazy this month between college classes and work, and I haven’t had much time for myself. Surprisingly, taking a couple minutes for myself each day to figure out a me-made outfit has been helping keep me sane…