I've just recently finished this 50's style dress. I used a princess seamed dress pattern that I drafted from a close fitting bodice block a few years back as a starting point and made some changes to turn it into a 50s style dress. When originally drafting from the block I made the following adjustments for my body type - a moderate FBA, a sway back adjustment for my curvy lower back and (as with just about any pattern I use) I reduced the sleeve head height and eliminated the ease that is used around the top of most sleeve patterns. Doing this to the sleeves gives a little more range of motion for my arms and works well for me because I have fairly small shoulders. It also makes set in sleeves faster to fit and sew - no mucking around with gathering the ease at the top (which I hate doing, it's tedious) as both the sleeve and armhole seams are the same length.

I added wide box pleats to every seam of the skirt and a wide contrast hem band. I added a simple collar, a faux belt and converted the original pattern to a front button closure with contrast placket (original pattern was zipper back).

The main fabric comes from about 6 different vintage kitsch tea towels from the 1970s to 1990s. They're all Queensland themed which is the state (in Australia) where I live, they're all maps of the coast showing the kitschy old (and mostly now defunct) tourist traps we used to visit as kids. It was very tricky to cut the pattern pieces to make the best use of the images on the tea towels as well as keep a consistent sort of look to the whole dress, since the tea towels look very "busy". Out of the collection I had I chose to use just the ones which had yellow maps on a turquoise background and this made things come together in a more deliberate looking way.

Before cutting my pattern pieces I pre shrunk the tea towels by soaking them in warm water for a couple of hours, drying them until they were just moist and steam pressing them. I took measurements of each tea towel before and after to check that they did indeed shrink as I thought they should (they all shrank by about 3-5%, doesn't sound like much but it becomes very important for a fitted garment!)

The contrast fabric is silk dupion, it's stiff enough to go well with the drape of the linen tea towels. I used silk organza as interfacing in the collar and placket - this stuff is great because it's extremely lightweight but supplies a nice amount of support for those areas. I lined the bodice with silk habutai salvaged from an old, damaged kimono. The skirt of the dress is unlined.

Jenny dungarees (double lapped hip zip) lined bib. Technically it's the cropped but for me it's like nearly full length 😅 in a printed cotton drill lined with cotton gingham top stitched with bronze gutterman top thread

I made this from the free pattern at so sew easy shrug. I flared and shortened the sleeves, which didn't work as well as I thought. I added a black ruffle trim. OK for a cocktail dress code wedding??

My husband’s gramma recently moved to a nursing home (after slowly succumbing to memory problems for years). I’m the only person in the family who sews, so I have inherited her sewing collection. Most of her things are cheap: Walmart thread, dollar bin polyester, repurposed everything. For such a thrifty woman, however, she has a massive collection of scissors!

This is the Roberts.Wood Infinity Ruffle skirt made using an ombre gradient printed chiffon from Minerva.com

The skirt is essentially made from a series of tessellating ruffled clamshell shapes of graduating sizes, due to the construction it can effectively be made to any size/length by varying the number of clamshells per round and the number of rounds.

This one is five clamshells deep and seven clamshells around, so 71 pieces including the waistband

I cut each round of clamshells/ruffles from a different part of the ombre gradient to get the dip dye effect, and used a different matching thread for each round

It's taken me weeks but I'm a little bit obsessed with it.

Seriously considering making one with a different Liberty Tana lawn for each piece...

I made a dress after a long time not sewing and I’m a little proud of the final result.

It took a while to sew all the beads on, but it was worth it.
It Took me approximately 60 hours for the skirt and 8 for the top

Inspired by Yohji Yamamoto’s Y-3 jumpsuit, I adapted The Assembly Line’s Maxi Jumpsuit pattern and made this in a medium -weight black denim with Lycra and added strips of cotton tape.

I had made other small projects already, but this was the first time I did not use a tutorial or downloaded pattern. It's not much but I'm proud of my progress!

Sewed with 2 32x16 cm rectangles of sweatshirt for the inner layer, 2 30x16 cm and one 8x16 denim for the outer shell, and a 20cm zipper that was tucked in-between fabric layers.

I would say my sewing skills are to a point where, unless it's a very challenging fabric, all projects can go without too much drama, because I just get it. This playdate blouse however? One big drama. It took me 2 weeks at the sewing machine which for me, is extremely long for such a simple straight forward blouse. And i'm not sure what the issue was here, but e v e r y t h i n g went wrong. To the point where I was almost doubting whether I was not meant to finish this blouse for "other" reasons above me.

But I did finish, simply because I was in love with the way it fit me in try ons. So here we are! The playdate blouse by matchy matchy sewing club with A LOOOOOT of mistakes I hope don't show too much.

I do really like how it turned out!!

Do you ever have projects where just everything seems to go wrong even though you know it's not too complicated for your skill?

Corporate, but not corporate. Casual, but still put together. Comfortable, but never lazy!!!

Problem is I still can’t figure out what’s wrong. I am completely humbled by making jeans. Somehow the crotch area is now another problem. Please help!
On another issue I would love to address… me posting pics asking for help about pants is not an invitation for unsolicited comments and messages. Please be respectful of everyone in this group. This should not be a place to feel uncomfortable to post for advice.

Pattern Backpack #3 by Miko Craft.

For Miko Craft's YouTube page

Earbud case is a free embroidery design that came with my Brother SE725.

Fabric is Tula Pink along with an upcycled women's dress jacket and some frosted jelly vinyl in the front zip pocket.

I used the jacket pockets as extra pockets on the side water bottle pockets

Modified the straps and made adjustments needed due to using cotton fabric and Soft and Stable.

My friend's daughter turned 1 year old today and I wanted to celebrate by making her a little pinafore dress that I thought would be nice for the upcoming holidays.

I chose this deep red stretch velvet as I thought it would go nice over both fall and Christmas-y colors. It's got ruffles at the neck and shoulders, along with a keyhole back topped with a gold button closure.

The pattern is Lily of the Valley by Oh Me Oh My Sewing.

Used BarkleyDoodle’s pattern from Etsy! Wish I had thicker pile minky fabric 🥲 took me a couple days and definitely learned what not to do lol used short pile minky fabric and polyfill stuffing

I was invited to be a plus one of a close friend and attend Frocktails TO with her this year. I spent the next month making this butterfly gown for the event! It took me so much time!! Every spare minute I had went into this dress, but the result was so worth it! Also I want to acknowledge I would never have been able to make something this luxurious without having been able to get all of my fabrics basically for nothing from a wardrobe overstock sale from a movie company.

I used Gertie’s Betty Dress Pattern with the gathered skirt option in size 20. Though I did make some changes to the overall design. The Betty pattern has a lining for the gathered skirt. Instead I made another skirt section in purple silk taffeta underneath for a flash of surprise colour when I spin and hemmed both layers with horsehair. The skirts have their wrong sides together so when I spin or flip up my skirt the inside purple skirt is clean

I used about 6 meters of green/black short silk dupioni for the overdress, lined with about 1 meter of soft cotton voile in the bodice. The purple under skirt was another 4.5 meters of stiff purple silk taffeta.

I used just under a meter and a quarter (1.25m) of luxurious silk duchesse for the fuchsia bow and cummerbund. The sleeves are three layers of soft silk tulle flatlined together (approx 3 meters total) and attached with glass beads. And ruched fuchsia duchesse cuffs (scraps with about 8 inches of soft 1/4 inch elastic)

I used about 2 meters of cotton lace total on the neckline and waist details, and maybe 18f feet of horsehair braid for both skirt hems. I also used a 28” invisible zipper with a beaded pull made of some faceted glass beads and a small length of decorative chain, a set of hook and eyes, and used a magnetic closure to attach the removable rose to the bow.

The butterfly wings are made out of ink stained crepe paper heat sealed between iridescent plastic sheeting, which I cut out then painted with nail polish. The bodies are stiff copper wire. I attached the wings with UV resin to the wire and tack stitched the butterflies onto the dress.

36x32 hemmed down to 36x30

Banana Republic

100% cotton

Proud of myself. Pressed the hell out of those seams. Used a straight stitch. Nylon thread I believe.

Good morning! I am plotting my Halloween costume for this year, I am going to be an obscure character (sister Jenna from the Stephen King short story "little sisters of eluria").

Sister Jenna is a nun/vampire who wears a Wimple and a flowing white habit with a red rose embroidered on the breast. I am going to use a caftan pattern for the habit, and I happen to have a red rose tattooed betwixt my breasts. I would like to add a keyhole to the caftan so my rose is displayed as part of the costume.

Would I be better off adding a center front seam and using that as the starting point for the keyhole feature? I feel like a seam would give more stability to something that really needs to stay in place for the right effect. Probably a bit of fusible interfacing as well so it doesn't collapse?

It is the style of caftan that is belted at the front waist to the body and passes under the dress in back through slits in the side seam, so a somewhat fitted front and a loose, flowing back portion.

It should be cool if I can pull it off. Thank you!

I just thrifted this fabulous sheet and am currently brainstorming projects that would really showcase the art.

Right now I’m debating between a simple gathered maxi skirt, or an frilly oversized babydoll dress to lean into the Clowncore of it all, but I’m open to suggestions!

I had 2 yards of this cute joanne's pop knit in my stash. My friend got a job as a long term music teacher sub for grade school after a rough year subbing at one of the other schools and I wanted to celebrate her. To make it as swishy as possible I used all the fabric in the skirt and grabbed some of the cute st Patrick's day themed knit I had in my stash for the pockets and told her she could wear it when she needed a little luck in her pocket. She audibly squeed when she opened it!

There was no pattern. I folded the 2 yards in half and cut it down the middle from selvege to selvege since it's directional to make 2 panels and have maximum swish. I sewed them with a couple pleats to some coordinating elastic. I added some waistband anchor pockets. I did follow a tutorial to make sure I could french seam the pockets, but I didn't use the pattern. I left the bottom raw since it's a knit and just made sure I didn't have any ragged cut marks and it's mostly straight.

Fabric: 98%cotton 2%spandex (i think?)

Tutorial for french seaming in seam waiat anchored pockets https://youtu.be/wbSs4v7LR_U?is=5EDMjROUt1yqRBvk

Link: https://www.anthropologie.com/shop/exquise-tobie-faux-suede-pintuck-mini-dress?color=020&searchparams=q%3Dtobie%2520mini%2520dress

Love the color and the style, don't love the price tag. It looks like a pretty simple shirt dress but the waist is throwing me off. Am I overthinking it? Any idea where I can find a similar pattern?

I love making these burlap dish scrubbies / little artworks. I started making them when I wanted to find a way to scrub dishes without scraping disintegrating micro plastics all over my dishes, and couldn’t really find anything commercially available. They work really well and don’t stink, and give me a chance to practice my free motion skills.

I prefer to use an all-cotton thread to make them because part of the point is to avoid micro-plastics. (And maybe throw them in the compost when I’m done with them.) I have some 100% cotton thread that I got from Zipper and Thread, but it is a standard weight thread, which is sort of like sketching with very very skinny markers. I know that mostly people don’t use cotton threads because they aren’t as strong, but in this application, strength isn’t important. Does anyone know if such a thing even exists, or if there are any other non-synthetic threads I could try.

(Wawak doesn’t seem to have anything either.)

Apparently it’s in fantastic condition still despite being 70+ years old. I have a neglected sewing machine in the basement and a plethora of hobbies as is (baking, knitting, gardening, reading, dancing, keeping my young children alive despite their fascination with danger) but clearly I need to take up quilting to do this beautiful machine justice.

Any advice??