Pi Dress (#nerdalert)

I have a confession to make: 

I bought 3.14 yards of this fabric. I know, I know, it's nerdy on a whole new level. 

I also used (some of) the yardage (cause 3.14 is a lot for me) to make this dress for Pi Day (March 14th):

Here's a sneak peak I posted on Instagram the day before: 

Finally putting my 3.14 yards of fabric to good use #nerdalert #sewing

A photo posted by Taft Weber-Kilpack (@taftisseamstress) on Mar 13, 2016 at 9:36pm PDT

You might be asking yourselves, "Taft, if you made this dress by mid-March, then how come it didn't make it onto your blog until late-April?"

Well, my friends, that's a question I would also love to know the answer to. 

You've all seen this pattern before (it's originally the tunic I made for my mom that I've hacked over and over again). As is standard, no two of these are the same, so on this dress...

There's a curved hem!

It's so cute and sporty, I absolutely love it. Unfortunately, I made it a *little* too short, but there is definitely a longer one of these in my future!

I also got hella lucky at Fabric Outlet and found burgundy fabric that matched the pi symbols perfectly. I used it for contrast sleeves. I originally wanted to do raglan sleeves because I thought it would look better, but I ran out of time before Pi Day :(. 

Sorry about the weird yellow-ish light in these pictures. I took them at a weird time of day when the natural light was not at its best in my dining room. 

I'll let y'all know what other nerdy things I make with this fabric. 

-Taft WK

Wooden Bowl with Triangles

This semester I'm taking a Joinery and Turning class in the Wood Shop. For my turning project, I decided to make a bowl that could sit on my shelf to hold my jewelry and other doodads. 

I didn't want to make a plain bowl, so I decided to experiment with some triangles and see what happened. I made a mock-up first (forgot to get pictures, whoops!), but here's some photos of the final process:

I started by cutting out triangular prisms and gluing them together. The woods I used were poplar and walnut. 

Then I sandwiched the triangles between more pieces of wood. After the glue dried, I cut the block into a cylinder on the bandsaw. 

Then it was to the lathe! I started by rounding the outside, then started hollowing out the inside. When I got down to the triangle layer, these really cool patterns started emerging on the inside.  

The triangles on the outside rounded out on the sides, there's more pictures of these later. 

Here's the inside as I worked through the triangle layer. 

Then I got to the last layer of poplar. 

After that, it was mostly touch-ups and then sanding. When I put the beeswax on the bowl, it got a beautiful shine. 

You also might have seen the video I posted on Instagram last week:

#woodworking

A video posted by Taft Weber-Kilpack (@taftisseamstress) on Apr 5, 2016 at 3:27pm PDT

And here's the super nice photos I took in the photo room: 

I burned my name and the year into the bottom of the bowl, too. 

Stay tuned for more posts about shop projects!

-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

Winter Formal Dress 2016

It's back! And, it's the least-procrastinated Winter Formal post to date! (You can also read about what I made in 2014 and 2015).

The theme this year was Black and White. Very classic, so I decided to go with a classic shape and find some nice fabric. I wanted this dress to be something I could definitely wear again. 

This is the fabric I found at Fabric Outlet. I got it during a (hang on, you're not going to see this coming)...sale! Yup, 40% off! I also posted a picture of it on Instagram:

Loving the texture of this fabric from @fabricoutlet that I'm using for my #winterformal dress! #sewing #fashiondesign (edited with #acolorstory)

A photo posted by Taft Weber-Kilpack (@taftisseamstress) on Feb 10, 2016 at 3:18pm PST

My overall design for this dress was a fitted bodice and full skirt. And, of course, a pocket only big enough for my phone so I could make all of my friends jealous. Priorities. 

It looks like a mess, but math ✏️ and sewing ✂️!! My two loves 💕 #sewing #math #patternmaking #burningmidnightoil

A photo posted by Taft Weber-Kilpack (@taftisseamstress) on Feb 4, 2016 at 7:57am PST

I started with a BurdaStyle bodice sloper and spent a lot of time altering it to achieve the exact fit I wanted. 

V-neck, waist darts, and a band at the waist. 

There's also waist dart and a v-neckline in the back, so the front and back mirror each other. 

The skirt (seen here with the mock-up bodice, sorry about bad lighting) is a double circle skirt. SO MUCH FABRIC. I love it! 

Here's the bodice made in the final fabric (and it's lying on top of my quilt!).

The fabric is a brocade, so it holds its shape very nicely. 

After that, I attached the lining, which I had interfaced and sewed the skirt to the bodice. I topstitched the lining down by hand, using little tiny stitches that are (hopefully) hardly visible around the neckline and armholes. I also blind-hemmed the skirt, which took forever. I accomplished a lot of Netflix while hand-stitching on this project. 

So...ta da!

(please ignore the dress form's bra straps...)

Invisible zipper on the side seam. 

A dress with a pocket! My favorite thing!

Here's my brother, helping to demonstrate the sheer volume of this skirt. I loved how it moved, the skirt was always lying differently and making different shapes. 

6 hours of hemming and 1 lecture about being fashionably late later... #winterformal #sewing

A photo posted by Taft Weber-Kilpack (@taftisseamstress) on Feb 21, 2016 at 1:13am PST

Here's a picture from the night of! My dress was comfortable and fun to dance in - a huge success!

On a side note, I will be switching back to a post every other Wednesday for the next couple months. Hopefully I can start posting more often after that. 

-Taft WK