Mirroring Suzy Bee Sews - Life So Strange It Should Be Fiction

I have been a little obsessed with cutouts lately, I'm not sure why.  I put together a Pinterest board and the one that really struck my fancy was this (at right).  And of *course* it had to be just a hosted image, with no link, information, back view, or front view without her hair covering the shoulders.  But I got the gist. I decided to make my birthday dress out of some gorgeous green silk I picked up at Paron in New York in August.  The color is that of the famous Atonement dress, but having neither Keira Knightley's willowy body type nor the Gatsby existence calling for full-length green silk gowns (nor enough fabric either--I just barely eked this out with nothing to spare once I made my self bias tape), this dress it was. The first step was drafting the bodice.  I drew up what the pattern should look like (sadly, I do not have a future career in fashion illustration!) and went from there. I considered starting with McCall 5880, which has...

A couple of months ago I got the idea in my head that I wanted some jeggings.  I am really not sure why this idea took hold of me so strongly, but I couldn't shake it.  I finally bit the bullet and ordered some fabric from Tissu in the UK on Melissa's recommendation.  I refuse to convert the shipping, which was bad enough in pounds, to dollars to figure out how much I paid, but I got the fabric in 3 days so I got my money's worth in shipping, at any rate.  The total cost came out to about $15/yd, which is a fair price for the fabric--it is as opaque as one can hope from a knit and has reasonably good recovery. I have had a pair of RTW yoga pants for probably 10 years that are really perfect for me.  When they started to wear out, I tried to buy a new pair but the company, Marika, had changed the fabric content in the meantime to a cotton blend.  I have just not found cotton knits to have adequate recovery or to be good for actual, you know, yoga, ...

If you know me, you know that when the weather gets cold I start to whine because I don't have any cold weather tops.  This year, as always, I was determined to deal with that situation. I looooove silk, but I can't wear it when it's the least bit warm because I sweat like crazy in it.  So Fall/Winter is when I get to indulge my fiber love, at considerably less than retail--like this GIULIETTA Silk-satin top, $475 from net-a-porter. For my winter silk tops project I am loving my pullover woven tee pattern, perfected from a base of Burda 12-2007-123 as described here .  The pattern still isn't perfect--I changed the dart to an angled one after this project but I don't have the length exactly right--but it is SO NICE to just cut it off the pattern as is and sew it up, knowing it will fit and is the right length.  I marked the pattern with "skirt" and "jeans" hem lengths (the jeans length is about 1 1/2 inches longer, as skirts are worn at the wais...

BCBG Max Azria Pre-Fall 2013 Clio  pinned the Max Azria on the left sometime last year and I immediately loved it.  She has shown  her awesome raglan tee  so I figured I should get around to showing mine (which I made several months ago--hence the three different sets of photos!). Michael Kors, $1695 I dig the bare front cutout in the Max Azria, but for my real life sheer sleeves like the Michael Kors on the right are more doable.  I would not wear this dress to work, but it is the perfect LBD for winter parties. The body fabric is a heavy poly/lycra knit I got on eBay several years ago from a seller that has, unfortunately, stopped selling (Uptown Fabrics High End Fabrics ).  I bought it for yoga pants, and it is a really nice heavy weight for skimming over lumps and bumps.  I made a pair of yoga pants and a pair of hiking capris with it, and with mixed emotions used up the last of it for this dress.  I got the sleeve fabric, a rayon burnout in a...

This was *supposed* to be my project for our gulf coast trip.  Something nice and simple that I could easily make in the weeknights leading up to our departure with no stress and no last-minute-itis.  It got done in plenty of time and I would have had a nice leisurely night of packing were it not for that darn muffin top compelling me to make a new swimsuit . Many years ago I made a beach cover up that I really like.  It's just a square of poly chiffon with a long, diagonal slit cut out of it.  It can be worn as a poncho, but I generally wear it as one shoulder; because the slit is on the diagonal the points of the square hang interestingly asymmetrically.  However, it doesn't really cover the booty, and for a family trip I figured I should go for a little more coverage. I don't buy poly chiffons.  Chiffon is such a bear to sew that if I'm going to work with chiffon it damn well better be silk.  I didn't think I had any left in stash, having purged it ...