“Don’t care how, I want it NOW!”

I like treating Halloween as a time to pay homage to people, characters or icons I admire. Here are some of the costumes I’ve made over the last four years:

From left to right: Courtney Love, Virgin Guadalupe, Feminist Uncle Sam, Hello Kitty

I think my favorite costume to date is still Courtney Love. She was the most fun to “be,” and it was fun to attend parties “in character”… until I had a little accident involving those awful pointy stilettos, a step I didn’t see, and a really bloody knee; I was a hot mess. BUT, I was in character, so it worked. (Damn you, weak ankle!)

Anyway, this year, I went with Veruca Salt. She, too, is a bad ass chick. When she wants something, she gets it… or, at least until she’s sent to the furnace… but up until that point, she’s pretty fierce. This costume was fairly easy to make. I picked up a sweater dress from the Juniors section of Ross for $10, and found lace and velvet ribbon at Cliff’s Variety – the buttons and thread I already had on hand. This costume cost around $18, and took around 2 hours to make. Not too shabby!

“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”

It’s probably the most well made costume I’ve constructed yet. You could literally rock this lolita-style dress and no one would know that it was a Halloween costume. Or maybe they would. A few people thought I was Olive Oil, and a few thought I was Mrs. Santa Claus. The latter REALLY confused me. Anyway, cheers to another fun Halloween and handmade costume!

Upcycle Sundays: The 9 to 5 Ascot Blouse Revival with Babushka Designs

Hi guys! I hope everyone’s getting in gear for Halloween! I know I am. Anyway, a few weeks ago I guest posted a vintage blouse DIY that you should check out if you haven’t done so already! It might come in handy if you’re altering thrifted tops for those upcycled costumes. Have a happy and safe Halloween!

Also, if you aren’t already, follow me on Pinterest!

Hope you’re all having a lovely 4th of July. I must say I’m a little jealous of everyone I’m seeing on the blogosphere hanging out in pools. I may not be the best swimmer, but I loves me a pool!

While you’re all soaking up the sun, I decided to take a break from el sol by finally taking the time to learn how to use this bad boy that I purchased about a month ago after asking some fellow sewers on the interweb for recommendations (and went with this lady’s suggestion):

Brother 1034D Serger

It’s a pretty intimidating machine, especially the first time you thread it, but thankfully it came with these (somewhat humorously dated) instructional videos. Yay 90′s business skirt suits and weird gradients. Anyway, once you get past the horrible hair and graphics, these videos (with the booklet handy as well) are really helpful.

I decided to work on this pattern that I picked up a few weeks ago when I was visiting my family in Victorville:

Luckily I was able to swing by my new favorite fabric store in San Francisco before hanging out with some friends who were visiting on Saturday. What is this fabulous fabric store? Why, Fabric Outlet in the Mission of course. No, I still haven’t been to Britex, but I have a feeling their price-point and my budget would not go well together.

The pretty olive fabric in the middle is for this project. The other fabric is for a dress I’ll be making, hopefully sooner than later! The fabric I used for this project is a cotton lycra jersey. Thin, stretchy and delicate, but hangs really pretty, and isn’t shiny. Lord knows I hate shiny fabric.

I still used my regular ol’ Singer to baste the pieces together and made sure everything fit correctly. Once everything was in place, I switched back over to my trusty serger and finished it up. I realllllly love this machine.

A bit blurry, but you get the point. Wayyyy more professional and polished than any other seam in any garment I’ve made to date. This machine makes me more excited to spend time (and money) to make my own clothing.

I’ve taken a mini break from crocheting to work on this dress that I’m planning on wearing to a work party. Yay! I haven’t sewn a dress from scratch in… er… well over a year. That is not good! This past weekend I went fabric shopping with a friend and found this fabulous mustard fabric that totally works for a vintage pattern that I bought at a vintage expo a few years ago. It’s a super cute 1960′s buttoned dress. I’ll post more photos when it’s complete! For now, you get this teaser photo.

As much as I love crocheting in front of the TV, I really do love sewing and listening to The Cure station on Pandora. Serious ear candy… Depeche Mode, Smashing Pumpkins, and my beloved New Order. Music is so inspiring, but I probably didn’t need to tell you that.

What I love about her blog is that she not only makes new dresses out of old ones… she makes tops, necklaces, vests… (sigh) amazing. Incredibly creative and my new hero.

This girl’s creations put my dropped-off-the-map Upcycle Sundays to shame! BUT, she has definitely inspired me to start upcycling again. You should see the pile in my room. It has been growing, while my sewing machine cover has not been removed since I altered Mar’s bridesmaid dress for Chandra’s wedding. Sad times. Anyway, enjoy her blog! I know I am. Must… stop… reading!

(Photo Credits: weheartit)

I’ve been living in my apartment for about 9 months now, and I’ve been decorating it at a snail’s pace. Today, I decided it’s time to take a big(ger) leap towards making it a place that is visually stimulating and inspiring by making some pillows.

I did a little visual research this morning to get some ideas. I know that I really love typographical pillows and fabrics, so that will definitely be on my to-buy list. But here are a few other ideas I thought were kind of fun.

We’ll see what I come up with! Happy Saturday, everyone!

Happy Tuesday! It’s been a while since I’ve updated my Etsy shop, so here are some new goodies. Keep warm and dry out there!

Happy Sunday, guys and dolls, lads and ladies, blokes and betties. I hope your Valentine’s Day, or Lunar New Year, or whatever today means to you, is going well. Here in San Francisco the sun was shining through my window and the weather was nice enough to not have to wear a sweater indoors. Perfect for a day of sewing and blasting iTunes while simultaneously having a solo dance party or kareoke fest every hour or so. I have way too much fun by myself.

Moving along! One of the ongoing projects is vamping up or apartment. Within the next month or so I volunteered to take on the intimidating task of making a slip cover for our couch… so in efforts of preparing for that monster project, today I’ve decided to do a smaller scaled slip cover of sorts, for my sewing machine.

So, I don’t know about you guys, but my old plastic Singer sewing machine cover has been through a lot. It’s been stepped on, torn on accident, and squished and forgotten about in random boxes in the abyss that is my closet. My machine has been getting really dusty, so I decided to be proactive and do something about it. No more dust!

Cut your old sewing machine cover along the two outside seams. As I mentioned, my old cover was REALLY wrinkled. So, in efforts of making this tutorial more camera-friendly I needed to iron the old cover. Also, it helps with accuracy. Anyway, because of the whole plastic/heat issue, I placed a pillow case over it while ironing to prevent a minor catastrophe.

Lay the old cover over the fabric of your choice. I’m using leftover fabric from an apron project. Pin and leave 5/8″ for seam allowance.

Fold in half and pin up the sides, sew, and then trim seam allowance with pinking shears (or scissors).

Additionally, if you’re a narcissist like me, you can add your label to the cover when sewing up the sides to make it look official, and may I add, badass.

Next, bring two top side openings together, pin and sew. Be sure to iron the seams.

After ironing, pin the bottom hem 1/4″, sew, press. Fold up 1/4″ again. Pin, sew, press.

Lastly, I’m gonna keep it real and let you know that beneath this crocheted bouquet lies an iron-on applique mess. I’m not sure what happened, but I decided that the perfect remedy for this problem would be my fave: yellow and green flowers. And, voila! New, pretty cover for my beloved sewing machine. Have a great week everyone!

I made this laptop bag today for my good friend Katrina’s birthday! It’s so cute, I cut enough fabric to make two, so the second one should be up in the etsy shop sometime this week. Of course, it won’t be exactly the same as this one.

My lovely friend/coworker’s favorite artist is Renoir, and her favorite writer  is Walt Whitman, so as you can see I wanted to incorporate them into the bag. I used left over iron on paper from another project.

I lined the inside of the bag with leftover fabric from a diaper bag project from a while back (that I actually still haven’t finished). It’s a “Fun with Dick and Jane” print. I’m currently doing this thing where I’m not allowing myself to buy new fabric until I use as much as possible from what I already have. We’ll see how long I can go without making a trip to M&L Fabrics. Sorry this wasn’t the usual Upcycle project for today! This little bag took up a bit of my time. Now off to be techy and work on web stuff. Toodles and Happy Father’s Day!

That was the theme of this weekend. Four friends and I decided to be adventurous and live life on the wild side this weekend and went camping at Park Moabi. And by living life on the wildside, I mean pitching our tent at midnight, sleeping on and around rocks that we forgot to move before we pitched our tent, and encountering spiders the size of my hand in the bathroom. Ok, well, the first two things were true.

It was a great weekend though, and boy, does my friend’s aunt know how to make some excellent Korean BBQ. Excellent food in general. YUM.

Alas! Since it is summer time (even though it may still be gloomy out), today’s Upcycle Sunday is appropriately themed for hot, sunny, beachy times. Today I turned a Dodgers shirt I’ve had for a few years into a bathing suit cover up of sorts. I was inspired by a cute shirt that one of my friends wore to the river. So here we go!

This project was a quick one. Took a little less than half an hour. I started using an adult small shirt. Although, I think the shirt is actually a medium… but who knows.

The first step is to remove the sleeves at about a half inch inside of the seam. Throughout this project, make sure you make your cuts very clean, otherwise you’ll have to go back and fix it later… unless you like that raggedy look.

Next, cut the top of the shirt. We will be reattaching this later.

Next, try on the shirt and mark how low you would like your neckline to dip. Fold in half to cut evenly and trim any excess. You want to remember that for this project, the less fabric you’re left with, the better. (But don’t get all hoochie on me.)

Here, I started getting a little experimental. I should have prefaced this tutorial with: I have never made a bathing suit cover-up out of a t-shirt before. So just as you are learning, so am I. I just cut the shirt in a way I thought would work.

After that slicing and dicing, I took the two pieces and twisted it up. I then pinned the back straps to the front straps and secured it with a straight stitch using my sewing machine. I think it would work to just tie the straps as well.

And there we have it! As I am sitting here staring at it on my dress form, I think I might go back and make the neck line dip about an inch lower. Live and learn, right? Well, this once-a-year outdoorswoman needs her beauty sleep. Have a lovely week and don’t forget that you can almost always turn something old into something fab. True story.