Why I’m done buying clothes from stores

Well, I still might buy things like coats, jeans, or socks from stores, but in terms of shirts, trousers, skirts, sweaters, and so on, I am totally done. I sort of made the decision a few weeks ago when I needed a cardigan for the fall and I instantly felt the stress of having to go out and try stuff on and having nothing fit and crying in the dressing room, and I stopped, and I said, “You know what. SCREW THIS.”

I’m just totally done. Nothing fits, and if it does fit, I don’t like it. I’m tired of being limited by sleeve length and torso length and leg length and everything length. So I decided right then and there (though without fanfare) that I was just going to make my own clothes instead of struggling to buy it.

A few thoughts:

• It’s amazing at my clothing stress level now. No pressure, no feeling sorry for myself, no looming scariness of dressing rooms and snarky fake blonde sixteen year olds giving me dirty looks for wandering aimlessly around Forever 21 or H&M in combat boots that bring me up to an inch or two shy of six feet and a homemade skirt. Just feeling much better about my entire situation.
• I have to really consider what I really need instead of just “Oh, I kind of want this.” Since beginning sewing, my wardrobe, for the first time ever, is becoming stuff that I actually wear. Things fit me perfectly and are the perfect material and style. Occasionally I still make something and it either turns out badly or I don’t end up liking it much, but that’s so rare now that sewing for myself is just beyond worth it.
• Also cheap! I am able to make something fantastic that fits me for Walmart cheap. I’m working now on my fall cardigan and it’s a gorgeous cotton gray stretch corduroy-ish knit, and the pattern is such a beautifully simple cardigan, and I can lengthen the sleeves and the torso and the shoulders and put on some fun buttons and it will fit me perfectly and look fantastic and it will cost a grand total of $16. This is unbelievable to me.
• TMI time. It is really hard for me to find underwear. Since I’m tall and weirdly shaped, things never fit me right. Also since I am… erm… “not large in the chest area”, to put it as delicately as I can, I am baffled by the sizes they have in stores now. I understand and am glad that larger-endowed-ladies can find the sizes they need, but I am a bit saddened that it’s at the expense of the smaller sizes. In addition, what is up with the insane amounts of padding these days? It just looks bizarre on me.
• ANYWAY
• Obviously I will still be buying stuff that isn’t worth it to make. I can often find jeans okay, and winter coats are hard to find and Eddie Bauer and Lands End both make tall sizes, so that’s good. Plus both of those items last a long time so I don’t need to replace those anytime soon. I’m debating on the rain jacket front – I need a good rain jacket and Long Tall Sally occasionally stocks some (though they don’t have any right now). Sewing with laminated fabric kind of scares me a little bit.

Fall sewing

Now that it’s September 1, I’ve been thinking about what to sew for the fall for myself. I need another jacket and some long sleeved shirts, and I really want to sew myself a simple cardigan as well (anybody have a good pattern for a really basic cardigan?). Surfing around the pattern websites is HILARIOUS let me tell you. I can’t even begin to describe how funny it is. I might do a post on this later. Here is a sneak preview of how great it is.

I am currently working on the C view of this (Simplicity New Look 6909):

Other items I’ve been considering:

Just some basic tops. After surfing around, I realize I’m REALLY not in the pattern makers’ target demographic (also a lot of them seem to be stuck in the 90s or 80s or something). It’s also so hard to look past their chosen color/material combination to see the shape of what it is. I keep seeing ridiculous plaid and weird floral stuff and odd color combinations and wrinkle-free photoshopping and it throws me off. Need to find more pattern companies!

On sewing organization

I’ve gotten to the point now where I have quite a bit of sewing supplies and leftover patterns and such. I need some advice from all you sewers out there (and even if you do not sew, all of you I’m sure are great at organization so you can help too!). Where do I store this stuff? How? I’m mostly thinking about patterns, which are tissue paper thin and easily lost, crumbled, ripped, and otherwise hard to store easily, but I also need advice for things like buttons, spools of thread, and so on.

Here is a picture of the table that my sewing machine sits on – this is the old apartment right before we moved, but this gives you an idea of how tiny my sewing area is – just a tiny table. I also now have a sewing box that sits on the shelf, and I am keeping patterns and manuals UNDER the table,which is definitely not going to be an option as I acquire more patterns. (This is the only picture I could find of my sewing table – ignore the fluffy alien cat thing.)

Also, my apartment is TINY. Like 500 square feet tiny with no closets (okay, one closet but it’s full of clothes and vacuums and stuff). I have SOME wall space but not really much for hanging shelves or other stuff, but NO floor space whatsoever.

So, what is the most space efficient solution for storing patterns, buttons, spools of thread, and other stuff for sewing? I also have a box for spare fabric but it is getting extremely full. Aside from quilting (we just have too many blankets/quilts/afghans as it is, and also quilting terrifies me), how do I use up this spare fabric? Can I give it away? It’s just scraps, but I probably won’t be using a lot of it anytime soon. I also have a couple of pieces of full yards of fabric from random situations (like when the bolt is almost finished and they just give me the rest for a deep discount, etc).

HELP!

Some sewing

It’s been an embarrassing long time since I’ve done any real sewing (months – I think the last sewing project I had was in April or so). This weekend we finally made the trek to the fabric store and I went a little crazy.

I had the fabric for this skirt from Ikea, which I had purchased a few weeks ago. I love the geometric pattern and the blue-grey color. I don’t remember the name of this fabric but it’s a heavyweight cotton. The pattern is a “Learn to Sew” one from Simplicity (2286 if you’re interested). I’ve already made a fall coat and a really complicated collared shirt, so this was really fun to read the how-to-sew instructions while I made this.

It ended up being ridiculously simple so I made another from a cool silvery and black spider calico I got on sale. My favorite part about the black skirt is how it just looks like an elaborate pattern from far away, but up close it’s got spiders on it! Love Halloween fabric – it’s just so cool.

Just realized on this you can see where I was having tension issues. I should have ripped out the threads but I was so sick of fighting my tension that I just gave up.

Nothing like a weekend sewing to get my creativity back up.

As a random note, I bet you’re wondering how my game is going! Well, I have great news. It’s going splendidly (or at least as splendidly as it can go considering I have no artist and I’m doing everything myself). I’m probably going to do some serious recruiting – I need another writer and an artist (crossing my fingers on this!). The game engine is nearly finished being programmed – I have some in-game screenshots but they’re pretty boring. Maybe I’ll talk about this more later!

So, this is pretty embarrassing, but…

Let me back up a bit. So I started to sew a jacket. I really need a medium weight jacket. I have a fantastic super heavy jacket, an awesome heavy jacket, and a super cool light jacket, but nothing for those days when it’s like 50 out and you need something a bit thicker than a windbreaker. So, medium jacket.

I bought a new type of interfacing for the jacket, since I needed two yards of heavy interfacing. For those of you that don’t know, interfacing is what usually goes in collars, cuffs, and behind your buttons to make the fabric more durable. That’s why when you buy a collared shirt, your collar is somewhat stiffer than the rest of the shirt.

So, here I am, ironing on my interfacing, life is good. I start sewing. It’s hard. I have to rethread the machine five times. The interfacing is making it super stiff. Trying to hem it almost results in a broken needle. I’m super confused. Why is it so papery and crinkly, anyway? I don’t want to sound like a piece of paper when I put the jacket on. Finally, after I sew the entire front together, I realize the truth.

You’re supposed to remove the paper backing from heavy-weight interfacing. The paper isn’t supposed to be there. You peel it off.

I feel really stupid.

I made a shirt!

Seriously, all from scratch. This involved things such as messing with a buttonhole-making foot dealie, pulling out countless stitches, plotting how I could get away without hand sewing, and having my thread stolen by cats over and over again. Also sewing darts.

Voila! I knew I wanted a long-sleeved shirt that actually fit me. I bought this black and white striped calico from hobby lobby and a McCall’s pattern and went to town. I ended up altering the pattern several times – so basically it’s a size 14 in the bodice length, a size 6 in the bodice width, a size 6 in the sleeve width, and a size million in sleeve length (I actually had to manually lengthen the sleeve – size 14 for the sleeve length wasn’t long enough!). The sleeves ended up being really long, maybe too long by some people’s standards, but this is the first time since I was about 10 that I have a shirt with sleeves long enough, so I don’t care. I love it.

Next sewing project – a cream pencil skirt in a gorgeous satin with a vintage zipper I picked up at Uncommon Objects in Austin!

Sewing skirts

The skirt, hanging in my messy house

Since I got my sewing machine, I’ve been attempting skirts. My dear mother helped me with one, and it turned out great (I’m actually wearing it right now). I’ve fallen in love with circle skirts, but they’re hard to find in Real Life, and as it turns out making them is fairly easy. I had a few mishaps, like making it too big (thanks, stupid pattern, for lying to me about measurements), but all in all it went well. I decided to try another one.

I had this awesome vision in my head. I would make a plain black circle skirt and fabric-paint white card suits on the outside near the hem using freezer paper stencils. I have this really wide, beautiful black lace, so I was going to attach that at the hem. It would be full and modest with just a teensy bit of Alice – perfect to wear dancing last Saturday.

Well, that didn’t happen. It’s not even done as of now. My problem is I’m way too impatient. I get the idea and I want it done NOW. So I rushed through the piecing together, rushed through the zipper, rushed through attaching the twill tape, and then I realized I positioned the zipper way too high. I also realized it was, yet again, too big, despite removing an extra inch or so.

And the fabric paint. Don’t get me started. All they had was spray-on fabric paint, which of course got everywhere.

But making skirts is FUN. And I realized that there are tons of other things I can make. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, so I’m taking a short break from sewing while my mom and I figure out how to fix my mess of a skirt. But when I start up again, I might try something a little easier. We’ll see.