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Completed: Polka Dot Denim Hollyburn Skirt

Hey y’all! I just got back from a fabulous weekend in New York – in addition to teaching a very successful Weekend Pants-Making Intensive at WORKROOM SOCIAL (seriously, my students were total rockstars and sooo much fun to chat and hang out with!), I also managed to take in a pretty good fabric haul. It was a very fun, very delicious weekend in the city, but I gotta say – I’m so happy to be home, back in the lovely 75* weather. Oh, Tennessee, how I have missed you! Today, we celebrate with my new favorite skirt, which is perfect for wearing with bare legs. Yay, no tights!

I figured it was time to revisit the Sewaholic Hollyburn skirt, so here she is! I’ll confess that I actually finished this skirt a few weeks ago, but I haven’t actually worn it until the same day these photos were taken. It’s just been too dang cold here to wear skirts with bare legs, and I was bound and determined to wear the skirt without tights. Now that the season of bare legs is starting to creep in (watch, I bet I just jinxed it with that announcement), imma wear dis shit with PRIDE and JOY.

Also, you’ll notice in about half these pictures that the sun was sooo bright, I could barely hold my eyes open. Ain’t complaining.

Anyway, right, Hollyburn! I love this pattern so so much (see previous versions: one and two), so naturally I had to make a new version for 2015. This skirt pattern is probably my favorite, at least for right now – nice flared shape (without being so flared that it looks costumey), separate waistband with belt loops, back zip, and those wonderful pockets. I think it’s a great, solid wardrobe basic, so it made sense to add a couple more to my summer wardrobe.

For this version, I changed up just a couple minor things – just enough to warrant a whole blog post about it (JK I’d post about this anyway because IT’S MY BLOG AND I DO WHAT I WANT lolz). The fabric I used is a medium weight stretch denim that is printed with thousands of tiny polka dots – if it looks familiar, it’s because I made a pair of Jamie jeans with it. I LOVE putting my leftover yardages to good use, and I really really loved this fabric, so double win! Since the fabric is a stretch denim, I changed up the cutting layout just a little and cut the waistband so the stretch ran the entire long length (aka, around my body when I’m wearing it). The waistband needs to be interfaced, so I used a fusible tricot interfacing, which gave the waistband a little bit of structure but didn’t compromise the stretch.

Also, I wanted this spotted baby to be pretty short, so I cut a few inches off the length. Yeah buddy!

Good thing I don’t work in an office anymore, because I could not see this length (or lack thereof) being suitable for work! Ha! But isn’t it cute? The structure of the fabric really works well with the shape, which is extra exaggerated the shorter it gets.

There’s not much else to say about this skirt, so have some flat shots:

Construction was plain and straight forward – all seams were serged and pressed open, and there’s a bit of topstitching at the hem and waistband (not that you can really see it against this fabric, but, know it’s there). And, I gotta say, I’m super pleased with how nicely that invisible zipper went in. Look at that beautiful seam match and the sharp corners at the top!

I’ve been meaning to remake a new denim skirt for AGES (sadly, my Kelly and Hummingbird are both way too big at this point, and have thus been passed on to eager friends with grabby hands), as it’s a good wardrobe basic to have that goes with pretty much everything. Actually, prepare for me to sound like a broken record for the next few months because that’s where a lot of my sewing is headed – no, not more denim skirts, just more wearable basics to replace the pieces I had that don’t fit anymore and/or are due to retire. And maybe more denim skirts. I can’t make any promises here. I actually just bought a great yellow denim at Mood this past weekend, so you can at least expect a sunshine Hollyburn in the future 😉 yay for summer clothes and summer colors!

Oh, and in case you were wondering – my Merchant and Mills tshirt is from Uniqlo! You’ve no doubt already seen these aaaaall over Instagram, but I thought I’d point it out because we don’t have a store here and I didn’t even realize you could buy that shit online. You can see the entire collection of available goods here – and, ugh, now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t see those tote bags! Oh well! I bought 2 tshirts – which, considering that I don’t buy new clothes anymore (except for underwear, and a new pair of jeans in both 2013 & 2014), is a bit of a big step for me. I feel very strongly about fast fashion and knowing where my clothes come from and aaall that good stuff, however, I also tend to see things as very black and white with no grey area and I’m trying to get past that mental hurdle. Sometimes, you just gotta choose your battles and know when to compromise. Two little tshirts don’t make me a terrible consumer, especially since it’s not like I plan on dumping these when the season ends. For the most part, I try to shop locally and ethically, and be aware of where my food and goods come from. But every now and then, you just want to buy something mass produced from China. At the very least, at least it’s supporting (or advertising) Merchant and Mills, I guess, which makes me feel a bit better.

Anyway, that’s about it! I’ll be packing and moving for the rest of the week, and hopefully by this time next week I’ll be settling into my new house IN THE WOODS. Cannot wait! 😀

Tags: completed, denim, hollyburn, paris fabrics, polka dots, sewaholic, skirt

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Categories completed projects - new

Completed: Dotty Jamie Jeans

12 Jan

In case you couldn’t tell, I spent the first weekend of 2015 making pants. You already saw my Ginger Jeans – now let’s revisit an old favorite! My beloved Jamie Jeans, I knew we’d meet again! ♥

Ever since I made my first pair of Jamies in black stretch twill, I knew I wanted to make this pattern up again. I had a couple fitting changes that needed to be addressed – mostly reshaping the crotch (which I did on my original pair after they were sewn up, so it wasn’t reflected on the flat pattern) and pinching out some excess from the inseam. Knowing that the fabric I was using had considerably less stretch than the twill I used for the first pair, I decided not to remove any additional sizing/width, as that can be fairly easy to tweak during final fitting.

I love this dotty fabric! You can’t see it too well (wait for the close-ups), but it’s a dark navy denim with tiny white pindots all over. LOVE IT. Been looking for something similar to this for yeeears. I actually found this magical piece of beauty all the way in Paris – it’s one of the fabrics from my coupon haul. I can’t remember exactly how much I paid for it, but I think it was around 10€ for 3 meters, give or take. A few other fellow meet-up-ers were also lurking on this shit, but thankfully there were quite a few pieces to go around, so everyone who wanted some went home with one 🙂 Yay!

It’s kind of a peculiar fabric – a medium weight denim twill, and the dots are painted on (not printed). I can’t be 100% certain, but this may be the piece of fabric I accidentally dyed all of Landon’s undershirts with (sorry, Landon!). The back side does look like it bled a lot, but I also threw some black silk into that load – so who knows? Anyway. The fabric does have stretch, but not nearly as much as the twill – so I’m really glad I left off my additional sizing changes from the original pair (I believe I took out 1/2″ at the side seams, and even more at the center back and down the legs), because these are pretty snug as is! The denim is very stiff, but I’m hoping it relaxes a little more as I wear them. As of this posting, the only time I’ve worn them was during a really cold day, and I had on tights underneath to stay warm. Tights don’t make these pants super comfortable, but, then again – no pants are comfortable with tights underneath. So there’s that.

(Don’t look too closely, but I accidentally gave myself a weenie in one of those pictures lololol. Y’all are just lucky that I have no idea how to photoshpo that shit out haha)

I think they fit quite a bit better than the black pair I made, but there’s still definitely room for some improvement. Need to shorten the crotch length just a little more, and also remove some more width from the upper inseam. I also need to add some width to the calves – they are REALLY tight, like painted-on tight. It’s not uncomfortable, and I don’t think it looks bad – but I also can’t wear tall socks with these pants haha. Which I guess doesn’t matter for this particular pair, bc I think they look best with ballet flats, but, you know. Future Jamies. Fuck. I’ll get it eventually!

Having made these before and writing such a long post about the construction and fitting process, I don’t think there’s much else to add. I guess it bears noting that I didn’t bother with flat-felling the seams like I did on my jeans – I just serged and topstitched and called it a day.

Oh! I can talk a little about the waistband. Since the denim wasn’t as beefy as the denim for my Ginger Jeans, I did interface the waistband. I used lightweight knit fusible for the facing side. I love this interfacing because it gives a minor amount of support (enough to keep the waistband from collapsing on itself), but it doesn’t affect the stretch factor. Which means they’re still comfy, woohoo! Also, one fitting change I made for this pant – and possibly future pants, maybe – was to cut the one piece waistband into two pieces, so they can angle right at the center of my lower back (pretty much the same waistband as is on the Thurlows). This produces a much better fit than the single piece waistband does for me. There is a seam there now, but it’s covered by the back belt loop.

NOW you can see the dots! And isn’t the topstitching pretty? I used light blue denim topstitching thread (it ain’t anything fancy – just a spool of Gutterman that I picked up from Joann’s), which gives an interesting contrast to the dark blue fabric. The silver jeans button is also from some class of big box fabric/craft store (either Joann’s or Hobby Lobby, I don’t recall) – I bought a pack after the button on Landon’s Gap jeans wore a hole through the waistband and fell out. You know what, after typing that, I don’t feel bad about dyeing his tshirts now. Who do you think sewed a patch on those jeans and hammered in a new button? ME, that’s who. Just don’t tell him how much I secretly enjoyed it hahahahaha

More gut pictures for your perusal~

This is me trying to show you the cool pocket fabric haha. Leftover from one of these dress, by the way!

I think I’m about pants’d-out for the next couple of weeks (until I get my hands on some red twill, anyway, heh heh heh), but I feel pretty good about the two I’ve accomplished! Big ol’ snaps for ringing in 2015 with two successful projects! Hopefully that’ll be a recurring theme for the rest of this year 🙂

As a side note – WOOF, my hair color is faded. Can you believe the photos were taken maybe 2 days after I shot the Ginger photos? I didn’t do anything to my hair during that time (I only wash it once a week), other than style it – the only thing different is the lighting. Kind of crazy how much of a difference it makes!

Tags: completed, denim, dots, dotty, jamie jeans, jeans, named, pants, paris fabrics, polka dots, top stitching, trousers