Green-Blue-Black-Crazy-Print Dress for Mom's Birthday

It's, you guessed it, that dress pattern I make for my mom at least 4 times a year! I should really give it a better name. 

My mom visited Vancouver last year and brought this fabric back for me. She found it at a nice fabric store, and thought it would make an excellent version of these dresses she loves.  

The armholes were finished with bias tape:

💚💗 #sewing #fashiondesign

A photo posted by Taft Weber-Kilpack (@taftisseamstress) on Jun 14, 2016 at 12:43pm PDT

However, this is the updated version. When I made my Pi Dress, I altered the shoulder seams so the dress would fit better in the armholes. The top of the armhole seam now sits in the right spot, buutt...

I can definitely do a better job of fitting the top of the side seam the next time I make this. It took a sleeveless version of the dress for me to fully realize this. 

I will also admit to being lazy and just finishing the bottom hem with a straight-stitch. 

But I did serge the inside seams! I promise!

I got super lucky on the back and this one stripe mostly matched up. This print was just too crazy to try to make it match at the seams. I couldn't find any repeating anything, so I crossed my fingers, cut out the pattern pieces, and I guess that mostly paid off!

Back neckline was finished with a piece of grosgrain ribbon, as usual. I'm still using up my stash before I go out and purchase some petersham (still kind of broke, yo!). 

And here it is, ready for final delivery! I even got a little spotlight on my mom's Instagram page:

There is no love, only proofs of love. -Pierre Reverdy #proofoflove #27 #loveyou2 birthday gift from @taftisseamstress Xo

A photo posted by Shannon Weber (@loveyou2org) on Jun 18, 2016 at 9:02am PDT

This post was a few days late, but I swear I have a good excuse! I was traveling in South Africa, blogging for hiveonline.org about the 2016 International AIDS Conference. You can read my youth reporter articles here. 

See you next week!

Taft WK 

Christmas 2015: Black Dress with Gold Bias Binding for Mom

I'm back with more Christmas presents! This one is late to the blog because I originally made the sleeves too long, so the dress spent a lot of time next to my machine, waiting to be fixed. Oops :/

Anyway, this is a pattern that pops up every few months on the blog. Here's the original, which I made again. And again (all for my mom). Then I hacked it for a Mothers' Day present: long sleeves, scoop neck and t-shirt length. Then I figured I owed myself one, so I sewed another and hacked the sleeves again. 

Most of these makes have been fun, casual pieces, so I wanted to go a new direction with Mom's Christmas present and make a classier version. 

So I went shopping, because one can never have enough fabric. At Fabric Outlet, I found a nice, thick black knit and this beautiful gold knit. Love at first sight! The gold knit is so beautiful. 

I used the same silhouette, with the lower v-neck from this version and long sleeves from this version.

Buuut.....

I cut bias strips from the gold knit and used it to finish the edges and cover the back seam. 

It's all attached with two rows of handstitching. 

On the back, I folded the raw edges under. 

But I left the raw edges out on the hem, sleeves and neckline. 

Mom says she's looking forward to wearing it to work, maybe there are more dresses like this in our future! 

See you next week, there's a couple more Christmas presents left...

-Taft WK

Christmas 2015: Chapstick Holder for A

So I was searching around on the internet/Pinterest for DIY gifts when I found this awesome tutorial from a blog called Crazy Little Projects. It's a little chapstick holder for your keychain, and I knew I had some fun scraps left over from the quilt I could use. 

(Sorry the pictures didn't turn out well this time, I was in a rush while I was taking them.)

The tutorial was fantastic, and I followed it pretty much exactly. I added an embroidered letter to the front. 

You can see this same fabric in the quilt post too. 

-Taft WK

Christmas 2015: Personalized Pouches, Part 3

Readers! I have excellent news!! Nearly three years into this blog, I have finally figured out how to rotate photos. Notice how I went from this: 

To this: 

Ah! A huge accomplishment! Never again will we have to crane our necks at weird angles to see Taft's pictures. Blog officially more user-friendly. 

Anyway, my Winter Break was pretty much taken over by pouches, embroidery and zippers, as you may have already seen. 

My mom saw all the pouches I was making for my friends, and commissioned me to make some for her coworkers and friends. Yay! Getting paid to sew was one of my 2015 goals.  

So without further ado, here's pictures of what I made: 

My mom picked out little milagros (you can read more about milagros here) for each person. It was fun to figure out how to work them in around the embroidery. 

Love the shape of that zipper pull!

This pouch is for someone who has moved from San Francisco to Brooklyn.

A process photo that was up on Instagram...

I love the color combination of the zipper and lining fabric on this one!

I posted a little sneak peak of this pouch on Instagram a couple weeks ago.

This one had a little Instagram sneak peak too!

I loved doing the embroidery on this one. I twisted a couple different colored strands together because I couldn't decide which color to use!

This is the last of the pouches posts (until next Christmas!), so I figured I'd tell you what I learned: 

1. Never underestimate the power of a good finish, even if it's just the inside and "no one will ever see it" even though they totally will. 

2. Avoid chunky zippers. Never again. I'm sticking to thin, light zippers next time. 

3. Respect your sewing machine's limit. Not all decades-old home sewing machines are meant to sew through 4 layers of fabric. Sometimes they get angry and fling broken needles at your forehead. 

Anyway, there are about 4 more posts about Christmas, and then we can move onto what I've been up to now that school is back in session! There's a couple projects I made for college apps that I can't wait to write about. 

-Taft WK