It’s the beginning of Me Made May 2014, a challenge put on each year by ‘So Zo… What do you know?‘ to wear more self-made garments. I’ve enjoyed seeing other bloggers posts in previous years and I’ve been determined to participate this year

Since I recently discovered The Monthly Stitch, a sewing collective that hosts monthly challenges, I wanted to try participating in one of their challenges. This month’s theme is “Sewing Double”, a challenge to revisit a pattern we’d sewn once before and make a second garment from it. I decided to make Vogue 2538, the pattern I used for the Mad Men Challenge dress, a second time. I used a men’s shirt to made…

I can finally show you my sister Madeline’s dress! We started it together when she spent a weekend with me in February, tag-teaming to get it made more quickly – she did most of the sewing, while I did the ironing and pinning. It’s made from an old housedress I inherited from my late great aunt. Getting the bodice and sleeves of the dress cut out of the top of the robe was quite a squeeze!

I’m a leftie, and I used right-handed shears for many years because I didn’t even know that leftie shears existed. However, having the right shears makes it much easier to cut accurately. As you can see, when I use the left-handed shears, the blade closest to me is under the fabric and I have a clear view of exactly where both blades meet as the cut the fabric. However, the blades on the right-handed shears are…

Julia Bobbin hosted her third Mad Men Challenge this year, and after seeing all the great projects the in the last two challenges, I just had to participate. I spotted this little shift dress in “Signal 30”, episode 5 of the fifth season. The fabric, buttons, and patterns I used came from my stash. I wanted to use a pattern from the 1960s to lend autheticity to the dress, but chose the modern Vogue 2538…

The sweater started out life much larger than it is now. I don’t know its fabric content or what size it was, as its last owner was a tag-hater who cut all the labels out. I also can’t show you before shots because I keep forgetting to get pictures before I dive into a project. I have to work on that! As with my last sweater, I took this one in by sewing from the wrist to the hip along the side seams.

I made this green tee in between studying for finals. It is my first shirt with a mullet hem. After only about two years of hating this trend, I woke up one day and decided I want it. I guess I’m not quite on the cutting edge of fashion. Just wait – maybe color-blocking will be my next big project. I had planned to have a bow on each shoulder, but after polling the girls in my math final prep course, I sewed two bows together…

This is just a quick post to show you a sweater and skirt that have become my favorite this winter. Both are thrifted and have been altered to fit.The sweater was a size large, so I took it in by sewing from the wrist to the armpit and then down to the hip. It now fits better than anything off the rack since I could accomodate my hips, which are several sizes larger than my bust in ready-to-wear…

I have a sugary-sweet new skirt for Valentine’s day. It’s made of Scottish wool in a traditional herringbone tweed pattern, but the feminine colours are what really make it stand out. And just like the rainbow skirt I made in January, this skirt is upcycled from secondhand clothing. But when my mom gave me the original skirt, a charity shop find, I couldn’t imagine wearing it as it was…

I have a new skirt made of colorul ikat-patterned cotton. This skirt is refashioned from a pair of pretty atrocious wide-legged capri pants that belonged to my great aunt. Rather than using a pattern for the skirt, I used the Simple Skirt Tutorial from the blog “Peneloping” to create it. What a great way idea for an easy skirt! It’s just three rectangles, and its pleats are very stylish right now.