Mod Mini Skirt Project: Green & White Arrow Pop Art Skirt (APPLIQUE)

Using my laptop to do digital design mockups
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Digital mockup of a potential design idea
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Okay, so here's the green corduroy, white arrow applique skirt. I made the design VERY simple this time. Now that I'm looking at it again, I'm still very happy with the proportions-- the smaller arrow looks good. On the other hand, now I'm wondering if I shouldn't add more arrows to the design, because it may be too simple. Ack! The madness of indecision.

Digital mockup of a potential design idea
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Whatever the case, I'd love to hear opinions about proportions and the issue of simplicity of design versus complexity.

The final completed design
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This time, I used a photo editing program to experiment with what design I wanted. My husband took a picture of me in the green skirt while it was plain. Then, I used clip art white arrows and other graphics to experiment with the design layout. This was a lot easier than pinning the templates to the skirt and having to constantly pin and unpin them.


All for now!


Happy sewing!
Astrid

Mod Mini Skirt Project: Black & White Arrow Pop Art Skirt (APPLIQUE)

One of my main inspiration pictures-- I love the pop art quality that the arrow applique brings to the skirt-- also like that "circle" applique skirt in the background.
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The modern day company E.C. Star Clothing produced this arrow skirt
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Making the black corduroy skirt
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I had never attempted applique, but I really wanted to try it. I kept encountering pictures of mod dresses and skirts in which applique made the fashions look like pop art. Pictures of such fashions are included to illustrate my point.

More than once, I encountered skirts and dresses that had "arrows" appliqued onto them. I fell in love with the concept and was anxious to try my hand at making a dress or skirt with arrows appliqued for pop art effect.

Using my paper templates to cut out felt arrows
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A pile of my felt arrows/paper templates
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Right away I recognized that if I was going to applique, I probably did not want a stretchy fabric. Something stable would be easier, because memories of trying to sew pockets on stretchy fabrics still haunt me. The shifting, my god, the shifting!

And right away, I realized that I wanted to start with something simple like a skirt. So, as much as I don't like the fabrics at Joann's, I picked up some black corduroy from them, because I knew that would be a good fabric for a skirt and stable due to its lack of stretchiness. I looked online initially, but I didn't see any vintage that caught my eye. Luckily, I do not regret my choice to buy from them. Their corduroy was not a problem. Apparently, they do some things right. On the other hand, I'm a total corduroy virgin, so I have nothing to compare it with.

Playing with my paper templates to determine positioning of the arrows
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I also wanted my first applique project to be relatively painless. Because I wasn't sure of the result, perfect wasn't my objective. So, to keep things easy, I read about "raw edge applique" and was happy to learn that if I bought felt and cut it out, I would not need to finish the edges. I could just sew the suckers on and not worry about fraying. So, at Joann's, I got some white felt too. I've always been a fan of black/white contrast in clothing. So mod!

More examples of playing around with positioning using the paper templates
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My first applique project was a little challenging, but thankfully, less challenging than I expected. What I thought would be hard ended up being pretty easy. What I thought would be easy ended up being a little harder than I expected.

Got my felt arrows pinned and ready to sew-- finally decided on where to put them!
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What was easy? Sewing the felt onto the corduroy. I thought that things would somehow end up shifting on me, but my pins kept everything in place.


What was difficult? Well, proportion was a lot harder than I expected. To get "templates" for the felt arrows, I found clip art of arrows online and then sized them on my screen. I printed them out, cut them out, and then pinned them to the felt. I then cut the felt around the template edges to get the shape I wanted. I experimented quite a bit with arrow size, but now that I'm through with the project, I recognize that the proportions could have been better. Smaller arrows would have looked better, because the larger arrows tend to be a bit overwhelming on the skirt.

The finished skirt
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My husband and I also played around with how many arrows to include and how to position them. I like the design we came up with but again I think the result would have been better with smaller arrows.



I'm happy to say, though, that I still like the result and that I did a follow-up project in green corduroy with white arrows that is better proportioned.

These last two pictures show the skirt with a black turtleneck shirt-- I personally prefer the white shirt look, because it balances the proportions. This one is interesting though because the black shirt and skirt combo makes it look like a dress.

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Not bad for a first try, though!

Happy sewing!
Astrid

Vintage Clothing Find! Mod applique dress with jacket...

As we hit the summer months, I'm having a more difficult time keeping up with blogging. It's the typical excuses-- good weather, traveling, etc. At the same time, I don't want to leave the blog hanging, because bad habits tend to form. Basically, if I don't make a habit of keeping up on blogging, I get in the habit of not blogging.


So, to avoid getting into a summer slump, I'm going to take a moment to post a quick blog about a vintage clothing find I had recently. In fact, I'm going to share vintage clothing finds now and then just because if you like vintage sewing, you'll probably like seeing vintage clothing finds as well.


So, here is a picture of a dress that I recently found at a store in Atlanta called Junkman's Daughter. The dress has a matching jacket. Love it! I rarely find anything vintage anywhere so it was a treat. I love the graphic detail on the front of the bodice. Would that be considered an applique?

Happy sewing,
Astrid

Mod Mini Skirt Project: Blue & Pink Plaid

Skirt projects that I was making in an assembly line fashion
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Sorry long time, no post. It's been a busy month, and I just got back from my first ever trip to New Orleans.

I'm pretty low energy at the moment. In fact, after walking around Bourbon Street, my priority one is getting my shoes tested for STDs! Ha ha : - )


Anyway, I did want to do a post, because I don't like to leave things for this long. I have some dress and applique projects that I would like to share, but I want to explain my process thoroughly, and I don't have the energy. So, I'll just stick with a simple skirt project posting.

This skirt was made with a polyester double knit. It's a vintage one that I bought on Etsy several months ago. It's an electric blue and pink plaid. Why did I pick it? I like unexpected pattern and color combos. Sure, I love a classic red plaid too, but I do enjoy the fun result achieved when a pattern is an unexpected color.

Cute green plaid skirt modeled by the beautiful Colleen Corby
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So, that's about all for now until I get my energy back.

Happy sewing!
Astrid

Mod Mini Skirt Project: Two Color Mini

Okay, I've got skirts coming out of my ears, but I'm okay with that. However, I did decide to shake things up and make a skirt that's a little more interesting... What inspired me? I saw this skirt pattern online, but of course, I could not find it in my size. And if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm WAY too lazy to do things like resizing patterns. I know there are directions online somewhere and they're probably super easy, but wood shop class ruined my GPA in high school. Let's just say I'm a little adverse to anything that even resembles drafting. I still have nightmares.


I ended up deciding to improvise. I've been adverse to improvising as I've learned to sew. I feel like I've finally gotten to the point, though, where I understand construction enough to get creative. Improvisation is my new friend. But I'm pretty sure we'll have a falling out eventually...

The pattern that inspired me
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I couldn't go for the design on the pattern I found-- it seemed too complicated. I decided to make a skirt that was half one color and half another color. It would have a colorblocking effect, and it would look totally kickass. And I'm happy to report that's *pretty much* the result.


How did I do it? Well, first I got some orange polyester out of my stash. All I needed was white. Much to my dismay, I had to resort to buying white polyester for the other half at...gasp...Joanns! I have been disappointed with the quality of the fabrics there, but I couldn't find vintage polyester fabric online in white. And I'm so old school that I didn't want anything modern. I'm afraid it would just be the same stuff they sell at Joanns. The white polyester I got there wasn't all that great. It was the highest quality stuff they sold, but still it was a lot chintzier than the vintage polyester, and much to my annoyance, it's kinda see through in the right lighting. In addition, the chintzy white polyester is somewhat drug down by the heavier vintage polyester on the orange side. It's not too noticeable. Still, I'm kinda annoyed.


To make this skirt, I adjusted the front pattern piece. Instead of placing it on the fold and getting one piece in one color, I placed it on fabric that wasn't folded and got a single thickness of just one side of the front. Then I took the piece, reversed it, and cut it on a single thickness of the other color. I also did something comparable with the back pieces to get an orange panel and a white panel. Everything else proceeded as normal except I had the additional step of sewing together the two front panels, whereas normally that's a continuous piece of fabric.


Regrets? Well, other than being annoyed with the fabric I got at Joanns, I do have one regret. I wish I had correlated the front and back side so that it would be every other color. Instead, I have front orange panel sewed to back orange panel and front white panel sewed at the side seams to back white panel. Oh well, not that big of a deal.

So, overall, I'm pleased with the result and learned something new: I can improvise! I've got to be careful with these new found superpowers, though. This could go bad. Very bad.

Happy sewing!
Astrid