Greetings!

Hello everyone,

I'm taking the plunge for the first time, and I've been a bit daring and gone straight for four months after lurking around for almost a year.  I'm very excited to be here!  I've been teaching myself to sew for over a year now and have worked my way up from tote bags to very simple tops and skirts, so it seemed like a good way to push myself along.  I'm also keen to start really remodeling clothes this summer, not just trying to make them from scratch.  I don't know about you, but the thrift stores here in Northern California are like department stores--huge and always overflowing.  There are so many garments out there!

Unfortunately I won't be posting for the next couple of weeks, as we're going away.  But I did do some vacation sewing:

This backpack is based on Lisa's tutorial at U-Handbag, but you can read about how difficult I made it for myself on my blog.  Still, I'm very pleased with it overall, it's the right size and sturdy and it should see me through some long walks over the next few weeks!  The corduroy I picked up at Thrift Town for 2.99 and I still have a ton of it left.

I also am trying out knits for the first time.  I bought a gross shirt at the thrift store and learned how not to align stripes, but for 99 cents it was good practice and I'm sure I'll use it for, er, something.  I then found myself some knit jersey on sale, it's a sort of heavy, fleece-y jersey (I don't really know how to identify fabrics all that well.) There's a jacket that will have to be finished when I come back, but with the excess I managed this skirt:

The pictures aren't brilliant but I wanted to show the Frankenstein ruffle.  I'm really proud of this skirt because it used up almost every bit of the leftover fleece; I was down to shreds at the end.  The base pattern was Titus' Perfect Skirt, which is a simple bias skirt pattern, McCall's also has one.  But there wasn't enough to do more than a very mini mini; thus, enter the Frankenruffle.  It has a side zip and is just waiting for a hook and eye, and then it's into the suitcase and off on vacation with me!

Cheers,

Jennifer

Comments

[Ruth]

Congrats!Love the bag - looks like it came out really well. good thifting!!