craftgrrl | A year of clothes and bags

Oh craftgrrls, how I neglect you. I'm sure you're all just BROKENHEARTED about that. Anyway, I finally got my crap together and now I have a post! An epic post! About 500KB of pictures--even though there's a bunch of them, it should still be pretty dialup-friendly.

EDIT 11/16: As of early this afternoon, my host's server is down (or she skipped town or died or something--I haven't talked to her in awhile--but we're going to assume that it's just down). I'm going to leave the original picture links behind the cut in hopes that it comes back up again soon, but if you're looking and they're not working, I've uploaded everything in this post to A Photobucket album. Sorry!

WHAT'S BLACK AND WHITE AND RED ALL OVER?

I bought a ton of this thin black and white jersey awhile ago and I'm working my way through it. No zipper--it just slips over my head. Yay! I had to make a half-slip to go under it, though, because the fabric's really thin.

This little number happened over a weekend in March. I found the black plaid in a thrift store and I wish I had more of it--it's fabulous and woven instead of just printed! It's so sad that I only get nice fabric when I buy it secondhand! I did have to install a zipper for this one, and there is a reason why I'm not giving you a picture of the back of this thing, ladies.

One day last June, I decided that I was seriously overthinking the whole pants-making thing, so I threw a pair that fit me on the floor and traced them and went for it. My pattern is really simple--front, back, and a wide waistband that you can't see in any of these pictures because... because. But flies really aren't that hard, guys! Use your seamstressy intuition!

When I make mock-ups, I like to use fabric I'd actually wear instead of muslin--it seems like such a waste to buy a ton of that stuff when the world is full of cheap prints! So the plaid pants are kind of a joke--I just had this lavender dollar fabric in my closet and I decided to go for it. They turned out surprisingly nice and drapey, but they're very thin.

These I love, though--the denim is from JoAnn's and was purchased specifically for pantsosity. The fly on these is much nicer, but the first zipper I used broke and I had to replace it, and it wasn't as pretty when I did it the second time. Damn! Oh well. I might let the hem down on these a bit. I think I'm showing a touch too much heel there.

You guys remember Michael Knight from Project Runway? He kept doing all this adorable weaving and overlapping with his fabrics and I wanted to give it a shot. I was also charmed by the art for IAMX's Kiss + Swallow, so I decided to shoot for pink with a black X bodice.

It is very hard to drape jersey when you have no mannequin. I have got to get a dummy. Anyway, as you can see, not a lot of X up front--I didn't count on my boobs being so decidedly round.

The back is MUCH closer to what I was going for, but it's a little lopsided because jesus, do I need a dummy or what? I think I'll try something similar with woven fabric in the future. Oh well.

I needed a purse that could carry my camera and matched a lot of my clothes, and I decided I'd finally get a use out of all those little scraps of black and white fabrics. Hey, if it's made out of my clothes, it matches, right?

Success! The shape of the pieces was partially dictated by the shape of the scraps, but in my experience, it's a whole lot easier to work with strips than squares. The only problem is that some of the pieces are prone to pilling, so... sometimes I have to shave my purse.

The lining is white denim--nice and sturdy so the more-delicate outside doesn't have to carry the strain of my crap so much. There's a zipper pocket, and a little houndstooth pouch that I originally wanted to keep my cellphone in. "I'm so clever!" I thought. "I hate strapping my phone to the outside of my bag! Now it will be hidden but easily accessible!"

Then I put the lining in, and the top of the pouch was too close to the zipper for my cellphone to fit in it. It makes a really handy lipstick caddy, though.

What? Everyone is a flapper at least ONCE, just like how everyone is a witch or a cat or a pirate once. I'm not thrilled with this picture, because it was taken AFTER the IAMX show I went to on Halloween--the dress is looking kind of wrinkled and the waist needs a good tug so it doesn't look so lopsided, and my curls are fading (and the guitarist totally knocked my feathers askew--WAY TO GO, DEAN). But whatever. I am still happy with the dress itself!

I chose crepe-back satin because it drapes so beautifully and it's just so much prettier than costume satin. When I was considering it, one of my friends who just got engaged was all "YOU KNOW, MAYBE OUR WEDDING WILL HAVE A 20S THEME!" and I was like "Okay dammit fine, it's a sign, I will buy the more-expensive fabric and wear it at least twice."

I did a LOT of staring at old fashion drawings to get this thing right and I think it looks pretty authentic. Putting it together was pretty painless, since it slips right over my head even though it doesn't stretch, but at first I overestimated how big it should be and I had to do a lot of slicing. The Crazy on my head is the combination of a giant marabou clip from Jo Ann's and a little uh, sprig of peacock feathers from Michael's. The only feathered headdress I saw that night that outdid mine was on a drag queen.

And Chris Corner totally offered me his lower body for groping throughout the show, so I am considering the evening a success!

Aww, I feel kind of bad because that was really long and the writing isn't as entertaining as it could be. I blame my economics class. FAIL.

Oh hey, do you guys have any ideas on where I could find little metal cogs and clock gears and things for cheap? My inner steampunk wants them so.